NOTEBOOK: Books &c...
Truman F. Bewley (2000): Why Wages Don't Fall during a Recession https://delong.typepad.com/files/bewley-wages.pdf...
Adam Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations https://delong.typepad.com/files/wealth-of-nations.pdf
Michael Chwe (2013): Jane Austen: Game Theorist https://delong.typepad.com/files/chwe-austen.pdf...
Robert Heilbroner: The Worldly Philosophers https://archive.org/details/worldlyphilosoph00heilrich
Karl Marx (1847): Wage Labor and Capital https://delong.typepad.com/files/wage-labour.pdf...
Karl Marx (1853-6): The Eastern Question https://delong.typepad.com/files/marx-eastern.pdf...
Charles Petzold: Code https://delong.typepad.com/files/code.pdf
Charles Petzold: Turing https://delong.typepad.com/files/petzold-turing.pdf
https://data.berkeley.edu/academics/resources/textbooks
Cosma Shalizi: Advanced Data Analysis from an Elementary Ooint of View https://www.stat.cmu.edu/~cshalizi/ADAfaEPoV/ADAfaEPoV.pdf
https://archive.org/stream/apologiestothucy00sahl#mode/2up
Chalmers Johnson: MITI and the Japanese Miracle_ https://archive.org/details/mitijapanesemira00chal
Historia Augusta: Aurelian http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Aurelian/1*.html
Joe Studwell: How Asia Works https://delong.typepad.com/files/studwell.pdf
Josiah Ober (2009): Epistemic democracy in Classical Athens: Sophistication, Diversity, and Innovation https://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/ober/080901.pdf: "Analysis of democracy in Athens as an 'epistemic' (knowledge-based) form of political and social organization. Adapted from Ober, Democracy and Knowledge, chapters 1-4...
Franz de Waal: Primates and Philosophers : How Morality Evolved https://archive.org/details/primatesphilosop00waal
Jim Butcher: Storm Front https://books.google.com/?isbn=0356500276...
Walter Jon Williams: Quillifer the Knight https://books.google.com/books?id=Dd20DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_book_other_versions#v=onepage&q&f=false...
Walter Jon Williams: Reviews Too Late: Money Heist https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/10/walter-jon-williams-_reviews-too-late-money-heist_-while-recovering-from-surgery-i-binged-mainly-continuing-my-expl.html: 'http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2019/10/reviews-too-late-money-heist/: While recovering from surgery I binged, mainly continuing my exploration of Spanish TV with Money Heist (Casa de Papel, “House of Paper”) I do like an intricate caper, as my Maijstral books demonstrate, and this is probably the longest caper ever filmed, something like sixteen hours of television originally split into two seasons...
Henry Fielding: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6593/6593-h/6593-h.htm
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (2012): Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty https://books.google.com/?id=2dlnBoX4licC
Megasthenes: Ancient India https://delong.typepad.com/files/megasthenes.pdf
Joel E. Cohen (1995): How Many People Can The Earth Support? https://archive.org/details/howmanypeoplecan00cohe...
#booksworthreading
This File: https://www.bradford-delong.com/books-worth-reading.html & nvAlt
Edit This File:https://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00e551f08003883400e551f080068834/page/6a00e551f08003883401b7c7e82b86970b/edit
+ + + +
To Read:
Jeff Wheeler: The Wretched of Muirwood https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B008EYUJDW/ref=pe_170810_444583560_KDD...
Karen Charlton: The Heiress of Linn Hagh https://books.google.com/books/?id=AqLDrQEACAAJ...
Karin Fossum: Eva's Eye: An Inspector Sejer Mystery
Dee Garretson: Oasis Station (Torch World) (unlimited)
Seanan McGuire: The Unkindest Tide (October Daye Book 13)
Dee Garretson: The Gargoyle in the Seine (unlimited)
Kent Holsinger: Lecture Notes in Population Genetics
M.A. Hernán and J.M. Robins: Causal Inference
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1524762938
Bill Hiatt: The Serpent Waits
Lisa Gray: Thin Air
Jessie Mihalik: The Queen's Gambit
Stoney Compton: Incident in Alaska Prefecture
+ + + +
Recently Read
Adam Smith (1776): An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations https://delong.typepad.com/files/wealth-of-nations.pdf...
Karl Marx (1867): Capital: A Critique of Political Economy https://delong.typepad.com/files/capital-i.pdf...
Voltaire (1733): Philosophical Letters https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/voltaire-the-works-of-voltaire-vol-xix-philosophical-letters
Gábor Ágoston (2005): Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire https://www.google.com/books/edition/Guns_for_the_Sultan/dNqzjfWABSAC...
Kenneth Chase (2003): Firearms: A Global History to 1700 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Firearms/esnWJkYRCJ4C...
Philip Hoffman (2015): Why Did Europe Conquer the World? https://www.google.com/books/edition/Why_Did_Europe_Conquer_the_World/jZD1oQEACAAJ...
Douglas E. Streusand (2011): Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals https://www.google.com/books/edition/Islamic_Gunpowder_Empires/ux-yDwAAQBAJ...
Josiah Ober: The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason http://www.classics.berkeley.edu/people/sather/josiah-ober https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jiqa9d9x3brvogu/AACQs2icHAN5_qMbS7cCvw8xa?dl=0:
- Josiah Ober: Gyges’ Choice: Rationality and Visibility https://delong.typepad.com/ober-gyges.pdf
- Josiah Ober: Glaucon’s Dilemma: The Origins of Social Order https://delong.typepad.com/ober-glaukon.pdf
- Josiah Ober: Deioces’ Ultimatum: How to Choose a King https://delong.typepad.com/ober-deioces-1.pdf
- Josiah Ober: Solon's Web: Constitutional Bargains https://delong.typepad.com/files/ober-solon.pdf
- Josiah Ober: Cleisthenes's Wager: Democratic Rationality https://delong.typepad.com/files/ober-cleisthenes.pdf
- Melos’ Prospects: Rational Domination
- Agamemnon’s Cluelessness: Reason and Eudaimonia
Wayne E. Lee (2016): Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History https://books.google.com/?id=hbyYCgAAQBAJ: https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/10/wayne-e-lee-2016-_waging-war-conflict-culture-and-innovation-in-world-history_-excerpts-when-in-1996-lawrence.html
Susan M. Sherwin-White and Amélie Kuhrt (1993): From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire https://delong.typepad.com/files/samarkhand.pdf
Pierre Briant (2002): From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire https://delong.typepad.com/files/briant-cyrus.pdf
Lord Dunsany: The Gods of Pegana http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8395/pg8395-images.html...
Abbé Prévost: Manon Lescaut http://www.gutenberg.org/files/468/468-h/468-h.htm...
Joe Studwell: How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region
Adam Rutherford: A Brief History of Everyone Who Has Ever Lived
Vera Tobin: Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot
Andy Kessler: Running Money
David Anthony: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
Ganesh Sitaraman: The Public Option
Julian Jackson: DeGaulle
Tobin Straumann: 1931: Debt, Crisis, and the Rise of Hitler
James Grant: Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian
Partha Dasgupta: Economics: A Very Short Introduction
Philip Auerswald: The Code Economy: a 40,000-Year History
Julian Jackson: The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940
Tacitus: The Histories
Tacitus: The Annals
Olivier Blanchard: Macroeconomics
Charles Sykes: Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education
Benjamin Carter Hett: The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
Charles Sykes: How the Right Lost Its Mind
Sean Carroll: Spacetime and Geometry
Erik Tarloff: Face-Time
Myke Cole: Legion vs. Phalanx
DS100: Principles and Techniques of Data Science #book
Nicholas Lardy: The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?
Donald Sassoon: The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914
Gary Forsythe: A Critical History of Early Rome
Alexander Hamilton: Report on the Subject of Manufactures
Hernan Galperin and Andrea Alarcon: The Future of Work in the Global South
James H. Oliver: The Ruling Power: A Study of the Roman Empire in the Second Century after Christ through the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides
+ + + +
List
Robert C. Allen (2011): Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0199596654
Aelius Aristides: The Roman Oration
Richard Baldwin: The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work
Richard Baldwin: The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization 067466048X http://amzn.to/2oNLoUN
John Bell: Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
Danny Blanchflower: _Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?
Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum: After Piketty 0674504771 http://amzn.to/2oB68DT
Anya Von Bremzen: Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0307886832
John Carreyrou: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1524731668
Sean Carroll: The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself 0525954821 http://amzn.to/2qk3BdO
Kimberly Clausing: Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0674919335
Myke Cole: Legion versus Phalanx: The Eic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy
Michael Cook and Patricia Crone: Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World
Patricia Crone: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam
Patricia Crone: Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1780748043
Patricia Crone: Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity
Gareth Dale: Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0231541481
Partha Dasgupta: Economics: A Very Short Introduction https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0191578282
Melissa Dell: Ancient Economy Slides https://www.dropbox.com/s/s9p1ujixhli65fr/lecture3_4.pdfhttps://delong.typepad.com/melissa_dell_ancient_economy_slides.pdf
DS100: Principles and Techniques of Data Science #book
Arthur Eckstein: Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome
Moses Finley: The Ancient Economy https://delong.typepad.com/files/ancient-economy.pdf
Gary Forsythe: A Critical History of Early Rome
Hernan Galperin and Andrea Alarcon: The Future of Work in the Global South
Annette Gordon-Reed: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0813933560
Benjamin Graham and David Dodd: Security Analysis 0071592539 http://amzn.to/2oBxAlc
E.M. Halliday: Understanding Thomas Jefferson https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0060957611
M.A. Hernán and J.M. Robins: Causal Inference
Alexander Hamilton: Report on the Subject of Manufactures
W. V. Harris: Roman Power: A Thousand Years of Empire https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1107152712
Ann Harrison et al: The Factory-Free Economy: Outsourcing, Servitization, and the Future of Industry 019877916X http://amzn.to/2oBbJKq
Willem Jongman: Gibbon Was Right https://delong.typepad.com/jongman-gibbon-was-right.pdf | Jongman, Jacobs, and Goldewijk: Health and Wealth in the Roman Empire https://delong.typepad.com/rome.pdf
Guy Gavriel Kay: A Song for Arbonne https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1101667435
John Maynard Keynes: Essays in Persuasion https://books.google.com/books?isbn=134959072X
Ibn Khaldun: Muquaddimah
Ellen Kushner et al.: Tremontaine: https://www.serialbox.com/episodes/arrivals-94a25974-53a3-414d-9dfd-a01f3a2a1dba
Nicholas Lardy: The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1524762938
Arkady Martine: A Memory Called Empire
Anastas Mikoyan: Book of Tasty and Healthy Food https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0615691358
James Oakes: Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South
James Oakes: The Ruling Race
James H. Oliver: The Ruling Power: A Study of the Roman Empire in the Second Century after Christ through the Roman Oration of Aelius Aristides
Martha L. Olney: Macroeconomics as a Second Language 0470505389 http://amzn.to/2qbJv6i
Charles Petzold: The Annotated Turing
Gary Provost: Beyond Style
Greg Sargent: Uncivil War
Donald Sassoon: The Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914
Kathryn Schulz (2010): Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0061997935
William L. Shirer: Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1557094934
Peter Temin: The Roman Market Economy https://delong.typepad.com/temin2013.pdf
Bryan Ward-Perkins: The Fall of Rome; and the End of Civilization https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0191622362
Kevin Wignall: To Die in Vienna
Patricia Wrede: Dealing with Dragons
+ + + +
Great Books in Economic History and Related Disciplines
Robert C. Allen: The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective http://amzn.to/29kOUhz
Robert C. Allen: From Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrialization Experience http://amzn.to/29lo36h
Robert C. Allen: Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29ibXts
T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin, eds.: The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe http://amzn.to/29nIWzY
Walter Bagehot: Lombard Street: A Survey of the Money Market
Richard Baldwin The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization http://amzn.to/2icGZHV
Sven Beckert: Empire of Cotton: A Global History
- Supplementary: Seth Rockman, “What Makes the History of Capitalism Newsworthy?” Journal of the Early Republic 34:3 (2014), pp.439-466 https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_the_early_republic/v034/34.3.rockman.pdf
Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein (2014): The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 http://amzn.to/2aKTV3X
Charles Calomiris and Stephen Haber: Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit
- Supplementary: Paul De Grauwe, “The Banking Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Remedies,” Centre for European Policy Studies Policy Brief (November 2008)http://aei.pitt.edu/11706/1/1758.pdf
Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World http://amzn.to/29jxxz9
Gregory Clark: The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility
- Supplementary: Joseph Ferrie, “History Lessons: The End of American Exceptionalism? Mobility in the U.S. Since 1850,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19:3 (2005), pp.119-215 http://www.jstor.org/stable/4134980
- Supplementary: Jason Long, “The Surprising Social Mobility of Victorian Britain,” European Review of Economic History 17:1 (2013), pp.1-23 http://ereh.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/1/1.abstract
Partha Dasgupta: Economics: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29Pc9Cg
Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies http://amzn.to/29PgJ3t
Avinash Dixit:* Microeconomics: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29PeX2h
Mauricio Drelichman and Joachim Voth: Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt, Taxes and Default in the Age of Philip II.
- Supplementary: Sebastian Edwards, “Sovereign Default, Debt Restructuring, and Recovery Rates: Was the Argentinean ‘Haircut’ Excessive?” NBER Working Paper no. 20964 (February 2015) http://www.nber.org/papers/w20964
Barry Eichengreen: Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History http://amzn.to/29pp429
- Supplementary: Per Hansen: "Review Essay: 'Hall of Mirrors'" http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBHR%2FBHR89_03%2FS000768051500077Xa.pdf&code=9f5034efaf1d99bf13924f0d065b8fde
- Supplementary: Barry Eichengreen: "Economic History and Economic Policy" http://eml.berkeley.edu/~eichengr/EHA_Pres_Add_9-9-11.pdf
- Supplementary: Paul Krugman: "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?_r=0
Barry Eichengreen: Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression
Barry Eichengreen: Globalizing Capital
Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff: Economic Development in the Americas since 1500: Endowments and Institutions. http://amzn.to/29pRxlx
Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke: Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium http://amzn.to/29nFy83
Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson, eds.: The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain http://amzn.to/29iiMeQ https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Economic-History-Modern-Britain/dp/0521527376/ https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Economic-History-Modern-Britain/dp/0521527384/
Robert Fogel: Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery http://amzn.to/29uXUVH
Milton and Rose Director Friedman: Free to Choose
Richard von Glahn: The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century http://amzn.to/29jBkwt
- Supplementary: Mark Elvin: The Pattern of the Chinese Past http://amzn.to/29kBrX8
- Supplementary: Bozhong Li and Jan Luiten van Zanden: "Before the Great Divergence? Comparing the Yangzi Delta and the Netherlands at the beginnings of the nineteenth century" http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8023
- Supplementary: Loren Brandt et al.: "From Divergence to Convergence: Re-evaluating the History Behind China’s Economic Boom" http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/workingPapers/2012/WP158.pdf
Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz: The Race Between Education and Technology http://amzn.to/29pxAy4
Robert Gordon: The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War http://amzn.to/29q7WX9
Stephen Haber, ed.: How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico* http://amzn.to/29oHEDC
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson: American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper
Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind http://amzn.to/29nLhLc
Joseph Henrich: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter http://amzn.to/29iHVeh
Albert Hirschmann: The Passions and the Interests
Philip Hoffman: Why Did Europe Conquer the World? http://amzn.to/29qmfd7
- Supplementary: Patrick O’Brien: “Ten Years of Debate on the Origins of the Great Divergence” http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1008
- Supplementary: Jack Goldstone: “The Rise of the West--or Not? A Revision to Socio-Economic History” http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/10/114.html
- Supplementary: G. John Ikenberry: "Review of 'Why Did Europe Conquer the World?'" https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/2015-08-13/why-did-europe-conquer-worldFive Orienting Questions:
John Maynard Keynes: Essays in Persuasion
John Maynard Keynes: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
John Maynard Keynes: A Tract on Monetary Reform
John Maynard Keynes: Economic Consequences of the Peace
Charles Kindleberger: Manias, Panics, and Crises
Charles Kindleberger: The World in Depression
Timur Kuran: The Long Divergenc: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East http://amzn.to/29ioIEo
David S. Landes: The Unbound Prometheus
David S. Landes: The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor http://amzn.to/29uVkPE
W. Arthur Lewis: Economic Survey: 1919-1939
W. Arthur Lewis: The Evolution of the International Economic Order http://amzn.to/29iFAzT
Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson: Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700 http://amzn.to/29xpaVm
Steven Lovell: The Soviet Union: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29mATpZ
Roger Lowenstein: America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve
Ian McLean: Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth http://amzn.to/29PoeYe
J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill: The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History http://amzn.to/29rhh1h
Angus Maddison: Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History
Branko Milanovic: Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization
Ian Morris: Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future http://amzn.to/29AVKTj
- Supplementary: Ian Morris: Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve http://amzn.to/29RxXNV
- Supplementary: Ken Pomeranz: "How Big Should Historians Think?" http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7xh7h07z
- Supplementary: Ken Pomeranz: "Beyond the East-West Binary: Restating Development Paths in the Eighteenth Century World"
- Supplementary: David Christian: Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History http://amzn.to/29kyCW5
Kevin H. O'Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson: Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy http://amzn.to/29iFgkt
Gerardo della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor, eds.: A New Economic History of Argentina http://amzn.to/29rggGH
Thomas Piketty: Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation
Steven Radelet: The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World http://amzn.to/29rguNR
Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch: One Kind of Freedom http://amzn.to/29ilBMH
Eric Rauchway: The Great Depression and New Deal: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29r65Sx
Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rotoff: This Time, It's Different: Ten Centuries of Financial Fragility
Dani Rodrik: The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy http://amzn.to/29nHFsH
Emma Rothschild: Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment http://amzn.to/29tODwF
Emma Rothschild: Paradise Lost: The Decline of the Auto-Industrial Age http://amzn.to/29liwvi
Tirthankar Roy: The Economic History of India 1857-1947 http://amzn.to/29iGsEJ
James Scott: Seeing Like a State
Paul Seabright: The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life http://amzn.to/29PgJ3t
Tom Slee: No One Makes You Shop at Walmart
Robert Skidelsky: Keynes: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29ieX9m
Robert Skidelsky: John Maynard Keynes: Hopes Betrayed, The Economist as Saviour, Fighting for Britain
S.A. Smith: The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/29iAinP Or perhaps this is the best way into the big issues of political economy and comparative systems...
Peter Temin (2012): The Roman Market Economy http://amzn.to/2b72BG6
Peter Temin and Joachim Voth: Prometheus Shackled: Goldsmith Bank and England’s Financial Revolution after 1700 http://amzn.to/29kqXMc
- Supplementary: Douglass North and Barry Weingast, “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth- Century England,” Journal of Economic History 49:4 (1989), pp.803- 832 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2122739
Adam Tooze: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy http://amzn.to/29Sg8hv
Adam Tooze: The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 http://amzn.to/29kFszE
Werner Troesken: Water, Race and Disease
- Supplementary: Stuart Galishoff, “Germs Know No Color Line: Black Health and Public Policy in Atlanta, 1900-1918,” Journal of the History of Medicine 40 (1985), pp.22-41 http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/1/22.full.pdf
Jeffrey Williamson: Trade and Poverty: When the Third World Fell Behind http://amzn.to/29jAPlZ
Gavin Wright: Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South http://amzn.to/29pmIQV
DRAFT: Course Syllabus: The Research Frontier in Economic History: A "Recent Great Books" Approach
Joachim Voth and J. Bradford DeLong
Current Version at:
- https://www.icloud.com/pages/0wu0NWQdgxh31yQT4_lIbHZUQ#2017-01-17_Econ_210b_S2017_Syllabus
- https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1456908
This Is an Older DRAFT Version:
Jan 17: Organization Meeting
Jan 24: Philip Hoffman: Why Did Europe Conquer the World? http://amzn.to/29qmfd7
Jan 31: Peter Temin and Joachim Voth: Prometheus Shackled: Goldsmith Bank and England’s Financial Revolution after 1700 http://amzn.to/29kqXMc
Feb 7: Robert Allen: From Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrialization Experience http://amzn.to/29lo36h
Feb 14: Robert Allen: The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective http://amzn.to/29kOUhz
Feb 21: Ian Morris: Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future http://amzn.to/29AVKTj
Feb 28: Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson: Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700 http://amzn.to/29xpaVm
Mar 7: Barry Eichengreen: Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History http://amzn.to/29pp429
Mar 14: Richard Baldwin The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization http://amzn.to/2icGZHV
Mar 21: Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff: Economic Development in the Americas since 1500: Endowments and Institutions. http://amzn.to/29pRxlx
Apr 4: Peter Temin (2012): The Roman Market Economy http://amzn.to/2b72BG6
Apr 11: Robert Gordon: The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War http://amzn.to/29q7WX9
Apr 18: Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind http://amzn.to/2j4tkHj
Apr 25: Sven Beckert: Empire of Cotton: A Global History http://amzn.to/2jrdin8
Feb 28: Steven Radelet: The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World http://amzn.to/29rguNR
Apr 11: Gavin Wright: Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South http://amzn.to/29pmIQV
Feb 28: Richard von Glahn: The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century http://amzn.to/29jBkwt
May 9: Joseph Henrich: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter http://amzn.to/29iHVeh
May 16: Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein (2014): The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 http://amzn.to/2aKTV3X
May 23:
May 30: Sven Beckert: Empire of Cotton: A Global History
June 6: William Goetzmann, Money Changes Everything
June 13: de Cecco on State Capacity
June 20: Stasavage, Taxing the Rich
June 27: Wrigley, Coal...
Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin: The Race Between Education and Technology
Maxine Berg (1980): The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy 1815-1848 #books
Dietrich Vollrath: Fully Grown: Why a Stagnant Economy Is a Sign of Success https://books.google.com/books?isbn=022666600X
Philip Auerswald: The Code Economy: A Forty-thousand-year History https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0190226765
Richard Baldwin: The Globotics Upheavel
Lindsay Buroker: Dragon Tear
John Carreyou: Bad Blood
Kiera Cass: The Selection
Barbara Chase-Ribaud: Sally Hemings; A Novel https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1569766797
Patricia Crone: Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1780748043
Gareth Dale: Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0231541481
Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-the-art-of-storytelling
Annette Gordon-Reed: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0813933560
E.M. Halliday: Understanding Thomas Jefferson https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0060957611
John Judis: The Nationalist Revival: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization https://books.google.com/books?isbn=099974540
Guy Gavriel Kay: A Song for Arbonne https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1101667435
Keri Leigh Merritt: Masterless Men https://books.google.com/books?isbn=110718424X
Kevin O'Rourke: A Short History of Brexit https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0241398339
The Saint http://www.shoutfactorytv.com/series/the-saint
William Savage: The Fabric of Murder: An Ashmole Foxe Georgian Mystery | An Unlamented Death (The Dr Adam Bascom Mysteries Book 1)
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1557094934
The Vela https://www.serialbox.com/serials/the-vela
Kevin Wignall: To Die in Vienna
Muir Rory: Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769-1814
Tobias Buckle: Trove
Robert Harris: Munich: A Novel
Kieran Healy: Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction
Edward Watts: Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny
Jean Stevenson: Tisiphone's Quest
Maia Szalavitz: Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
https://www.icloud.com/numbers/0dOfdwW8iQmdtMPVANxqXErNA
Dan Davies on financial fraud is certainly the most entertaining book on Economics I have read this year. Highly recommend itcold Chris Dillow: Review of Dan Davies: Lying for Money: "Squalid crude affairs committed mostly by inadequates. This is a message of Dan Davies’ history of fraud, Lying For Money.... Most frauds fall into a few simple types.... Setting up a fake company... pyramid schemes... control frauds, whereby someone abuses a position of trust... plain counterfeiters. My favourite was Alves dos Reis, who persuaded the printers of legitimate Portuguese banknotes to print even more of them.... All this is done with the wit and clarity of exposition for which we have long admired Dan. His footnotes are an especial delight, reminding me of William Donaldson. Dan has also a theory of fraud. 'The optimal level of fraud is unlikely to be zero' he says. If we were to take so many precautions to stop it, we would also strangle legitimate economic activity...
Kieran Healy: Data Visualization
Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future: William G. Gale: 9780190645410: Amazon.com: Books | Fiscal Therapy - Dropbox
Amazon.com: Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars Book 8) eBook: Jay Allan: Kindle Store
A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier
Amazon.com: The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War eBook: Walter Lord: Kindle Store
*Joseph Schumpeter(1953): History of Economic Analysis https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1134838700
Marshall Berman: All That's Solid Melts into Air http://delong.typepad.com/files/berman_marshall_all_that_is_solid_melts_into_air_the_experience_of_modernity.pdf
Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer: A Crisis of Beliefs: Investor Psychology and Financial Fragility https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0691184925
C. J. Sansom: Tombland https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0316412457 #books
Neal Ascherson: Observer Review: Anna of All The Russians by Elaine Feinstein
*Adrian Wooldridge and John Micklethwait(2004): The Right Nation: Why America is Different https://books.google.com/books?isbn=024195889X
Alan Grfeenspan and Adrian Wooldridge: American Capitalism: A History
William Poundstone: Prisoner's Dilemma https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0307763781
Marshall Berman: All That's Solid Melts into Air http://delong.typepad.com/files/berman_marshall_all_that_is_solid_melts_into_air_the_experience_of_modernity.pdf
Charles Stross(2018): The Labyrinth Index https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1250196078
Peter F. Hamilton(2018): Salvation
Diane Coyle: The long arc of UK productivity: "Nick Crafts has a compact book... about the trajectory of the British economy... Forging Aahead, Falling Behind and Fighting Back.... Nick’s somewhat idiosyncratic–but highly plausible–view that the seeds of the country’s post-world war 2 relative decline were sown in the institutions that enabled it to perform so well during the 19th century...
http://www.bradford-delong.com/readings-and-reviews.html
My view is that Jefferson believed in the French Revolution not because he wanted the Tree of Liberty to be watered by blood or because he wanted to see the U.S. Congress tamed by the New York or Philadelphia mob, but because he knew he was losing to Adams and Hamilton in the struggle over the future of America, knew that he desperately needed reinforcements, and hence the French Revolution had to succeed in order to provide them. The Long Affair, however, remains a great book—but not quite great history as much as a meditation on "revolutionary excesses" and motivated reasoning: *Conor Cruise O'Brien(1996): The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago: 0226616533) (https://books.google.com/books?id=ABKA2MDozAQC: "Genêt, although recalled at Washington's request, remained in America, under Washington's protection...
Washington, Jefferson, Genet https://books.google.com/books/?id=45IEAAAAYAAJ
The Incredibles II
Tom Jones; Tom Jones—BBC Miniseries; Tom Jones—Albert Finney
The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck: A Comedy of Limitations_
Annie Duke: Thinking in Bets: Marking Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
John Carreyou: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential
Titus Livius: The History of Rome
Edward Luce: The Retreat of Western Liberalism
Juan Nunz-Iglesias et al.: _Elegnt SciPy
Therese O'Neill: Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners
Yingyi Qian: How Reform Worked in China: The Transition from Plan to Market
IMHO, the best of the Jack Campbell/John Henry mock-WWII-PACFLEET operations in space: John G. Hemry: Burden of Proof A Just Determination Against All Enemies Rule of Evidence
Martha Wells: Artificial Condition
Gioia Diliberto: Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway's First Wife:
*Jonathan Gottschall(2012): The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 0547391404) https://play.google.com/?id=Bl43cU5rdVwC
Neither Adam Smith’s nor Henry Ford's picture of the economy is relevant for us today. What thumbnail picture is relevant? We do not know, but Bill Janeway thinks harder and more successfully about this question than anybody else I have seen... William H. Janeway: Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, 2nd Edition
To read/watch:
Philip Kitcher: Science, Truth, and Democracy https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=frrhdqnMNzsC
*Eduard Bernstein:(1895): Cromwell and Communism
A Judgment of Dragons by Phyllis Gotlieb, Hardcover | Barnes & Noble® Star Trek #21: Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble®
Steven K. Vogel: Marketcraft: How Governments Make Markets Work (019069985X): "Modern-day markets do not arise spontaneously or evolve naturally...
A Simple Plan (film): "..."
2018-04-30:
Allen Downey: Probably Overthinking It Think Stats Think Bayes Think Python Think Complexity http://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/04/2018-04-09-filed-allen-downey-probably-overthinking-it.html #webloggers #public_sphere #python #education
Friedrich Hayek: Prices and Production http://delong.typepad.com/files/prices-and-production.pdf
William Flesch: Amazon.com: Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction (9780674032286): : Books
2017-08-07: Today's Book Haul:
Blanchard: Macroeconomics Jones: Macroeconomics Robin: The Reactionary Mind
Martha Wells: All Systems Red | Artificial Condition http://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/05/martha-wells-is-a-galactic-treasure.html
*Walter Jon WilliamsQuillifer http://amzn.to/2Aed3p2
Stephen Kotkin: Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 http://amzn.to/2iXfM1V
Alasdair Macintyre: A Short History of Ethics http://amzn.to/2AbZ9DR
Stephen Kotkin: Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization http://amzn.to/2AdLTi7
Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained http://amzn.to/2zdM4vs
Enrico Moretti: The New Geography of Jobs http://amzn.to/2xksRXM
Charles Petzold: The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine http://amzn.to/2vYkkXk
Robert H. Bates: The Development Dilemma: Security, Prosperity, and a Return to History: "Reassessing the developing world through the lens of Europe's past... http://amzn.to/2xgSNUi
Geoff Mulgan: Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World: "A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies... http://amzn.to/2wBnMXx
Slavery and Capitalism Reading List http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/08/slavery-and-capitalism.html
2017-09-23
Should-Read: Time to start trying to think about what books to assign for Econ 210b next semester... Pseudoerasmus: THE 25 MOST STIMULATING ECONOMIC HISTORY BOOKS SINCE 2000: "Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/should-read-time-to-start-trying-to-think-about-what-books-to-assign-for-econ-210b-next-semester-pseudoerasmus.html Reading: The Curse of Sisyphus: Books Edition http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/the-curse-of-sisyphus-books-edition.html Book of the Month: Charles Petzold: THE ANNOTATED TURING: A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH ALAN TURING'S HISTORIC PAPER ON COMPUTABILITY AND THE TURING MACHINE http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/book-of-the-month-charles-petzold-the-annotated-turing-a-guided-tour-through-alan-turings-historic-paper-on-computabi.html Should-Read: Eve Fairbanks: CAN YOUR BEST FRIENDS BE BOOKS?: "Should-Read: "I, too, had book friends as a child, and at a time when making real friends could feel like too much to bear..." http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/should-read-eve-fairbanks-can-your-best-friends-be-books-i-too-had-book-friends-as-a-child-and-at-a-time-when-m.html Ten Good Recent Books... http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/ten-good-recent-books.html
Anton Howes: The World Economy and its History: "Introduces the main themes of Economic History, from the Neolithic to the mid-twentieth century. It is about asking the big questions... http://antonhowes.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/0/8/21082490/world_economic_history_2017_18_public_draft.pdf
...We will explore why some countries have become so rich, and ask why others remain poor. Among other things, we will uncover the origins of the modern state, and the institutions that make trade possible. And we will explore the evolution of the global economy – periods of globalisation, economic collapse, and rapid industrialisation....
PART I – Poverty and Riches: The Great Fact: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), Chapter 1; Stephen Broadberry et al., British Economic Growth, 1270-1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Prologue.... The Malthusian Trap – why were our ancestors so poor?: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), Chapters 2, 3, 4; 5 Dietrich Vollrath, “Who are you calling Malthusian?” (blogpost): https://growthecon.com/blog/Malthus/.... The Earliest Divergence: Why Eurasia?: Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 1997). Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapter 7....
The Mortality & Fertility Transitions: Ronald Lee, “The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 4 (December 2003): 167–90.... The Industrial Revolution: Sources of Growth: Gregory Clark, “The Industrial Revolution,” in Handbook of Economic Growth, ed. Philippe Aghion and Steven Durlauf, vol. 2 (Elsevier, 2014), 217–62; Jack A. Goldstone, “Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the Industrial Revolution,” Journal of World History 13, no. 2 (October 1, 2002): 323–89.... The Industrial Revolution: Sources of Innovation: Robert C. Allen, “Why the Industrial Revolution Was British: Commerce, Induced Invention, and the Scientific Revolution,” The Economic History Review 64, no. 2 (May 1, 2011): 357–84; Joel Mokyr, “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth,” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 2 (June 1, 2005): 285–351.... The Great Divergence: East Asia: Joel Mokyr, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (Princeton University Press, 2016), Chapters 16, 17; Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2000), Introduction and Chapter 1.... The Great Divergence: The Middle East: Jared Rubin, Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017), Chapters 5, 8; Timur Kuran, “The Islamic Commercial Crisis: Institutional Roots of Economic Underdevelopment in the Middle East,” The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 2 (2003): 414–46.
PART II – Institutions & Trade: Deep Roots of Development: Kenneth L. Sokoloff and Stanley L. Engerman, “History Lessons: Institutions, Factors Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 3 (July 1, 2000): 217–32; Understanding Institutions: Douglass C. North, “Institutions,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1 (March 1991): 97–112; Douglas Allen, Institutional Revolution: Measurement and the Economic Emergence of the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 2011) Chapters 1, 2, 3; Sheilagh Ogilvie, “‘Whatever Is, Is Right’? Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe,” The Economic History Review 60, no. 4 (2007): 649–684.... Trade, and How to Maintain It: Avner Greif, “Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders,” The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (1989): 857–82, and “History Lessons: The Birth of Impersonal Exchange: The Community Responsibility System and Impartial Justice,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 2 (June 2006): 221–36.... The Rise of the Modern State: Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Gifts of Mars: Warfare and Europe’s Early Rise to Riches,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 4 (November 2013): 165–86; Philip T. Hoffman, “Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered the World?,” Working Paper, (2012), http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/hoffman-120409.pdf; Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D.990-1990 (Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), Chapters 3, 4....
The Rise of Democracy: Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast, “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,” The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (December 1, 1989): 803–32; Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective,” +The Quarterly Journal of Economics_ 115, no. 4 (November 1, 2000): 1167–99; Inequality within Countries: Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), Introduction & Chapters 1, 2, 3....
Part III – The Modern Global Economy: Globalisation 1850-1914: Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 7; Kevin H. O′Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, New Ed edition (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2001), Chapters 1, 2, 7.... The Great Divergence: De-Industrialisation of the Periphery?: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapters 4, 5, 8; Alice H. Amsden, The Rise of “The Rest”: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies, New Ed edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Chapters 2, 3....
Protectionism vs. Free Trade: Douglas A. Irwin, “Tariffs and Growth in Late Nineteenth Century America,” World Economy 24, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 15–30; Laura Panza and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Did Muhammad Ali Foster Industrialization in Early Nineteenth-Century Egypt?” The Economic History Review 68, no. 1 (February 1, 2015): 79–100.... The Gold Standard: Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Second Edition, Second edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).... De-Globalisation and the Great Depression: Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992), Chapter 1; Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 8.... Post-War Re-Globalisation and Catch-up Growth: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapter 9; Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 9; Peter Temin, “The Golden Age of European Growth Reconsidered,” European Review of Economic History 6, no. 1 (2002): 3–22.
To Read:
*Ian Morris(2013): The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations (0691155682): "In the last thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful...
William V. Harris: Ancient Literacy https://books.google.com/books?id=-M_mu08ZiWoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=ancient+literacy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizov6c3bTYAhVLs1QKHXarA4gQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=ancient%20literacy&f=false
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die 9781524762933
To Reread:
William Flesch: Amazon.com: Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment, and Other Biological Components of Fiction (9780674032286): : Books
Scott Aaronson: Quantum Computing since Democritus
Jean Tirole: Economics for the Common Good
*Walter Jon WilliamsQuillifer http://amzn.to/2Aed3p2
Stephen Kotkin: Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 http://amzn.to/2iXfM1V
Alasdair Macintyre: A Short History of Ethics http://amzn.to/2AbZ9DR
Stephen Kotkin: Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization http://amzn.to/2AdLTi7
Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained http://amzn.to/2zdM4vs
Enrico Moretti: The New Geography of Jobs http://amzn.to/2xksRXM
Charles Petzold: The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine http://amzn.to/2vYkkXk
Robert H. Bates: The Development Dilemma: Security, Prosperity, and a Return to History: "Reassessing the developing world through the lens of Europe's past... http://amzn.to/2xgSNUi
Geoff Mulgan: Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World: "A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies... http://amzn.to/2wBnMXx----
To buy?
Lesley Blanche: The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus eBook: http://amzn.to/2hzG6uu Katharine Kerr: License to Ensorcell http://amzn.to/2y8nAnQ Richard Fox: Iron Dragoons http://amzn.to/2xFCAYJ Isaac Hooke: Alien War: The Complete Trilogy http://amzn.to/2xFQZEl
Ellen Ullman’s “Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology” (MCD, 306 pages, $27).
“Hit Refresh” (HarperBusiness, 272 pages, $29.99), a quasi-autobiography by Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella..."
Please use the sharing tools found via the email icon at the top of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/838ecc26-d62c-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9
artin Wolf selects his must-read titles
Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Email Save Save to myFT DECEMBER 1, 2017 Martin Wolf 0 comments
Unfinished Business: The Unexplored Causes of the Financial Crisis and the Lessons Yet to be Learned, by Tamim Bayoumi, Yale University Press, RRP£25/$35
Bayoumi, a senior staff member of the International Monetary Fund, has succeeded in saying something both new and true about the financial crises of 2007-12 in this important book. He demonstrates conclusively that incompetently regulated European financial institutions played a complementary role to inadequately regulated US shadow banking in bringing economic calamity to both sides of the Atlantic — and to the world.
The Limits of the Market, by Paul De Grauwe, Oxford University Press, RRP£25/$40
In this lucid little book, De Grauwe, a Belgian economist now at the London School of Economics, explains why neither a pure market economy nor a purely government-controlled one is desirable. Getting the balance between market and government is extremely difficult. In practice, we lurch too far in one direction and then the other.
Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Princeton University Press, RRP£24.95/$29.95
This is not just another book on the “new economy”. It is a lucid and rigorous analysis of an economic transformation in which, for the first time, advanced economies invest more in intangibles — design, branding, research and development, software — than in physical assets. This change, demonstrate Haskell of Imperial College and Westlake of Nesta, raises extraordinarily complex challenges for businesses and public policy.
India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity, by Vijay Joshi Oxford University Press, RRP£22.99/$34.95
India could (and should) do far better. That is the main conclusion of Joshi’s superb book. The performance of the economy is vastly improved since the reforms of the 1990s. But a great deal more needs to be done. Those who care about India’s future must hope that prime minister Narendra Modi will do what is required. Joshi provides good reasons for scepticism.
Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History, by Stephen D King, Yale University Press, RRP£20/$30
Globalisation is not inevitable. It is driven “not just by technological advance, but also by the development — and demise — of the ideas and institutions that form our politics, frame our economies and fashion our financial systems both locally and globally”. Globalisation, then, is a political choice, argues King in this well-argued and credibly pessimistic book.
Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality, by James Kwak, Pantheon, RRP$25.95
A little economics, argues Kwak of the University of Connecticut, is a dangerous thing. Politicians and pundits like to use simplistic models, long abandoned by professional economists, to bludgeon opponents of naive laissez-faire economics. One result has been unchecked increases in inequality. Yet, properly understood, economics justifies intervention more readily than it justifies unregulated markets.
Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought, by Andrew Lo, Princeton University Press, RRP£27.95/$35
Human beings are not desiccated calculating machines. They are products of a long evolutionary history and so, like other animals, driven by fear and greed. The financial markets we create similarly reflect “principles of evolution — competition, innovation, reproduction and adaptation”. In this important book, Lo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrates the radical implications of this insight. Above all, markets are not always efficient: they can and do ignore relevant information for lengthy periods.
Agricultural Development and Economic Transformation: Promoting Growth with Poverty Reduction, by John Mellor, Palgrave Macmillan, RRP£23.99
Mellor, emeritus professor at Cornell, is the doyen of the world’s experts on the role of agriculture in economic development. Here he argues convincingly that, in poor and even middle-income developing countries, the progress of small commercial farmers plays an essential role in generating growth and reducing poverty. Governments can and must contribute to this vital transformation.
Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth, Random House Business, RRP£20/Chelsea Green, RRP$28
The great mistake of economics, argues Raworth of Oxford university’s Environmental Change Institute, is thinking of the economy as separate from the society of which it is part and the environment in which it is embedded. She is right. One does not have to accept her metaphor of “the doughnut” as the way to think about the range within which the economy would be socially just and environmentally stable. But this is an admirable attempt to broaden the horizons of economic thinking.
Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy, by Dani Rodrik, Princeton University Press, RRP£24.95/$29.95
Harvard’s Rodrik was one of the first professional critics of the “hyperglobalised economy”. In this book, he argues that “the internationisation of markets for goods, services, and capital drives a wedge between the cosmopolitan, professional, skilled groups that are able to take advantage of it and the rest of society.” If populists of left and right are not to win, mainstream politicians must, he argues, respond far more effectively to the discontent on those who feel ignored and left behind.
Rethinking the Economics of Land, by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane, Zed Books, RRP£14.95
The removal of land (defined as location) from the canonical neoclassical model of the economy was, argues this thought-provoking book, an intellectual blunder. More important, this simplification has led to dreadful outcomes. The role of land as an asset destabilises the financial system. The under-taxation of land deprives governments of needed revenue. The result has been growing inequality and instability. It is time, argue the authors, to reconsider the role of land in today’s economies and societies.
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, by Walter Scheidel, Princeton University Press, RRP£27.95/$35
Complex societies naturally generate inequality. It has been so, argues Stanford professor Scheidel, ever since the discovery of agriculture. Might policy ameliorate, or even reverse, this tendency? No. In Scheidel’s account the lessons of history are clear: only war, revolution, state collapse or catastrophic plague destroy the wealth of the rich. I wish the argument were wrong, but suspect it is not.
Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, by Cass Sunstein, Princeton University Press, RRP£24.95/$29.95
We are citizens, not just consumers. If, as legal scholar Sunstein argues, each of us obtains only the information we want and talks only to those who think as we do, we will end up incapable of participating in the public sphere. We will be living in ghettos of the imagination. Our democratic societies will then be — indeed, arguably, already are — on the road to political and social disintegration.
The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin, MIT, RRP£21.95/$26.95
In this important and provocative book, Temin of MIT argues that the US is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with ever fewer households in the middle. But this is not inevitable. It is rather a political choice. The rich and powerful have, alas, persuaded downwardly mobile white people that their enemies are not those above them who refuse to pay the taxes needed for decent social services, but rather feared and despised ethnic minorities.
Economics for the Common Good, by Jean Tirole, translated by Steven Rendall, Princeton, RRP£24.95/$29.95
Should-Read: Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Thomas Piketty, Arthur Goldhammer: 9780674979857: Amazon.com: Books: "http://amzn.to/2DCIBGp..."
Should-Read: Amazon.com: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (9780717800568): Karl Marx: Books: "..."
http://amzn.to/2Fk3E0E
Should-Read: Amazon.com: The Roman Revolution (9780192803207): Ronald Syme: Books: "http://amzn.to/2BuQSKA..."
Should-Read: Amazon.com: Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States eBook: James C. Scott: Kindle Store: "..." http://amzn.to/2DfAxes
George Steiner: After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation http://amzn.to/2FMk1nL
#books #readings #reviews