[[{“value”:”1. August Strindberg, The People of Hemsö. Hardly anyone (non-Swedish?) reads this classic novel any more, but it holds up as one of the more compelling creations of its time. Direct and compelling. Swedish people on an island, but will this marriage work? Why has it so faded from our attentions? I’ve long loved Strindberg,
The post What I’ve been reading, or not reading appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
1. August Strindberg, The People of Hemsö. Hardly anyone (non-Swedish?) reads this classic novel any more, but it holds up as one of the more compelling creations of its time. Direct and compelling. Swedish people on an island, but will this marriage work? Why has it so faded from our attentions? I’ve long loved Strindberg, so why did it take me until so late in life?
2. Michael McVicar, Christian Reconstruction: R.J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism. Another very good book no one told me about, somehow I stumbled on it browsing Amazon. You can make Rushdoony sound like a nut, but you also can make him sound like one of the most influential figures in the 20th century history of American conservatism and also libertarianism. Would the modern home schooling and Christian home schooling movements exist without him? This book also has plenty of meaty material on the Volker Fund, Gary North, FEE, and much more.
3. Dawn Ades and David F. Hermann, Hannah Höch. As part of my attempt to brush up on the Weimar period, I have been reading and browsing through this excellent picture book of works by one of Germany’s most famous dada artists. Here are some images.
4. Paul Collier, Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places. Spoiler: he does not say “tax them so people leave.” If I had a nickel every time he misrepresented the views of Milton Friedman and market economics… We are told that shock therapy failed in Russia, but not that it succeeded in Poland, which followed through with it consistently and ran less corrupt privatizations. Somehow each subsection in this book is too short. He ends up in a sensible state capacity view, but it would have been much simpler if he had started there.
5. Marina Münkler, Anbruch der Neuen Zeit: Das Dramatische 16. Jahrhundert. An excellent analytical overview of the 16th century, which of course is what set the stage for so much of what was to follow. Not surprisingly, has more of a Central European emphasis than many Anglo works on the same period.
Paul Cooper, Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline covers classic themes with intelligence.
Justene Hill Edwards, Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedmen’s Bank is a good contribution to economic history and also black history.
I have not yet been able to start Jeffrey Ding, Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition.
The post What I’ve been reading, or not reading appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Books, Uncategorized
Leave a Reply