[[{“value”:”1. Bécquer Seguín, The Op-Ed Novel: A Literary History of Post-Franco Spain. I liked this book very much, as it gave me extremely useful background on the Spanish fiction I enjoy. It may make less sense to read if you don’t already know the relevant fiction, but in any case a fine work. Imagine, by
The post What I’ve been reading appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
1. Bécquer Seguín, The Op-Ed Novel: A Literary History of Post-Franco Spain. I liked this book very much, as it gave me extremely useful background on the Spanish fiction I enjoy. It may make less sense to read if you don’t already know the relevant fiction, but in any case a fine work. Imagine, by the way, if America had an equally strong correlation between novelists and Op-Ed columnists.
2. Ken McNab, Shake It Up, Baby! The Rise of Beatlemania and the Mayhem of 1963. At the beginning of that year, John and Paul despaired of making it as a rock band, and expected to end up as songwriters for other people, much like Goffin-King at the time. By the end of the year however… This is the story of how that happened. Very well done.
3. Ian Frazier, Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough. An excellent, fun, and much-needed book. I liked the parts about the 20th century best. I am still longing for that cost-benefit analysis of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, though. We know the Interstate Highway system passes the cost-benefit test massively, but do all of its constituent parts?
4. Simon Morrison, Tchaikovsky’s Empire: A New Life of Russia’s Greatest Composer. My favorite book about Tchaikovsky, engaging but it also covers the music for the music’s sake as well. I liked this sentence from the book jacket: “His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan.” The book does go relatively light on Tchaikovsky’s um…personal life.
There is Matt Grossman and David A. Hopkins, and their suitably titled and subtitled Polarized Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics.
Pakistan is a drastically undercovered country, but now Lahore has some coverage, in Manan Ahmed Asif’s Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore.
Marieke Brandt, Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict had far more detailed than I was seeking. But I read about one fifth of it, and learned a great deal from that.
J.C.D. Clark, The Enlightenment: An Idea and its History, sounds smart but somehow stays too much at the meta-level of commentary on the commentary?
Victor Davis Hanson has a new book The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation.
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