~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (47)

He is one of the greatest of living American historians, here is from Wikipedia: Alan Shaw Taylor (born June 17, 1955) is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial […] The post What should I ask Alan Taylor?...

Sociology and Classical Liberalism in Dialogue: Freedom is Something We Do Together https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666961331/Sociology-and-Classical-Liberalism-in-Dialogue-Freedom-is-Something-We-Do-Together  Direct link to pdf: https://rowman.com/WebDocs/SociologyLiberalism.pdf The post Charlotta Stern and Fabio Rojas appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         CommentsIn reply to dearieme. “Looking after neighbours” seems ... by MIn reply to Anti-Gnostic. To take it a short, happy step ... by Anti-GnosticIn reply to Evolutionist. “Reminiscent of a certain British ......

Our primary concern in this chapter will be Iran, though toward the end we will shift the focus to Central Asia.  We can best begin with a first-order approximation of the pattern of Iranian history across the whole period.  It has four major features.  The first is the survival of something called Iran, as both […] The post Michael Cook on Iran appeared first...

The author is Alex Fernandes, and the subtitle is The Day Portugal’s Dictatorship Fell.  A very good and well-written book, here is one short excerpt: The First Republic is sixteen years of unrelenting chaos, one that sets the scene for the fascist state that follows it. Between 1910 and 1926 Portugal goes through eight presidents […] The post *The Carnation Revolution* appeared first on...

An excellent piece, here is one excerpt I enjoyed in particular: Cowen reads the John Maynard Keynes of The General Theory “as writing about an economy where uncertainty was much higher than usual, investment was highly unstable, fiscal policy was unable to fill in the gap, there was a risk or even reality of a downward spiral […] The post Robert Whaples reviews *GOAT* appeared first...

3 Body Problem (Netflix): Great! A captivating mix of big ideas, a compelling mystery, and spectacular set-pieces like the Cultural Revolution, strange worlds, the ship cutting and more. Of course, there are some weaknesses. 3 Body Problem falters in its portrayal of genius, rendering the British scientists as too normal, overlooking the obsessiveness, ambition, and […] The post What to Watch appeared first on...

1. Roger Lewis, Erotic Vagrancy: Everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.  An amazing book, full of life and energy on every page, and yes there are 605 of them.  Imagine if Camille Paglia had stuck with it and produced case studies.  The main problem is simply that most people don’t know or care about […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

Yes, I will be doing another Conversation with him.  Here is the first one, in Norway with a live audience.  I am very much enjoying his new book Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist.  Slavoj is one of the very few CWT guests (can you guess the others?) who can handle pretty much any […] The post What should I ask Slavoj Žižek?...

Here is the transcript, audio, and video.  Here is the episode summary: But might technological advances and good old human resilience allow kids to adapt more easily than he thinks? Jonathan joined Tyler to discuss this question and more, including whether left-wingers or right-wingers make for better parents, the wisest person Jonathan has interacted with, […] The post My contentious Conversation with Jonathan Haidt...

The author is Karthik Muralidharan, and the subtitle is A State-Led Roapmap for Effective Governance.  If you imagine a 600 pp. “state capacity libertarian” take on Indian development this is what you get, admittedly with the libertarian side of the equation downplayed a bit.  Excerpt: A common misconception is that the inefficiencies of the Indian […] The post *Accelerating India’s Development* appeared first on...

Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him.  Here is his bio: Brian Winter is the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and a seasoned analyst of Latin American politics, with more than 20 years following the region’s ups and downs. He lived in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico as a correspondent for Reuters before taking on his current role […] The post What should I ask Brian Winter?...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  You can tell he knows what an interview is!  At the same time, he understands this differs from many of his other venues and he responds with flying colors.  Here is the episode summary: Tyler sat down with Fareed to discuss what he learned from Khushwant Singh as […] The post My Conversation with Fareed Zakaria appeared...

By Annie Jacobsen, a very good book.  What would happen if a nuclear weapon actually were launched at the United States?  On the ground?  In the chain of command?  Organizationally and otherwise?  A good book, sadly still of relevance.  Full of drama throughout, and tactically astute.  Excerpt: Ted Postol is blunt.  “Russian early-warning satellites don’t […] The post *Nuclear War: A Scenario* appeared first...

That is the title of the new Judith Butler book, focusing mostly on trans issues.  To be clear, on most practical issues concerning trans, I side with the social conservatives.  For instance, I don’t think trans women have a right to compete in women’s weightlifting contests.  And I have not been happy with how many […] The post *Who’s Afraid of Gender?* appeared first...

Nnow though it was generally assumed in intellectual circles that the best was yet to be, Bvalltu and his friends were convinced that the crest of the wave had already occurred many centuries ago.  To most men, if course, the decade before the war had seemed better and more civilized than any earlier age.  In […] The post *Star Maker*, by Olaf Stapledon appeared...

The subtitle is Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World, and the author is David van Reybrouck.  An excellent book, and I found two points of particular interest in it.  First, just how weak and incomplete was the Dutch colonization of Indonesia for centuries.  Second, just how complicated and rapidly changing was the postwar […] The post *Revolusi* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION....

Google plagiarism and you will find definitions like “stealing someone else’s ideas” or “literary theft.” Here the emphasis is on the stealing–it’s the original author who is being harmed. I prefer the definition of plagiarism given by Wikipedia, plagiarism is the *fraudulent* use of other people’s words or ideas. Fraudulent emphasizes that it’s the reader […] The post In Defense of Plagiarism appeared first...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary: Marilynne Robinson is one of America’s best and best-known novelists and essayists, whose award-winning works like Housekeeping and Gilead explore themes of faith, grace, and the intricacies of human nature. Beyond her writing, Robinson’s 25-year tenure at the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop allowed her to shape and […] The post My excellent Conversation with Marilynne Robinson...

Here is my blurb for the book: “Bryan Caplan is a pioneer in the use of graphic novels to expound economic concepts. His new book Build, Baby, Build is thus a landmark in economic education, how to present economic ideas, and the integration of economic analysis and graphic visuals. If you want to learn the economics, ethics, […] The post *Build, Baby, Build*, by Bryan Caplan...

1. Abigail Shrier, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.  I agree with many of the anti-therapy arguments in this book, but still I feel that “bad therapy” is a second-order phenomenon, not the initial cause of the growing mental health problems of America’s young people.  Furthermore, the analysis (much like Jon Haidt’s recent […] The post What I’ve been reading appeared first...

In a way, everyone’s been wondering, trying to analogize ChatGPT with the printing press, but in reality it’s almost the opposite. The entire thing is happening in the inverse of that, where the printing press was a technology to disseminate information through a book basically and convince people to do things, and the kind of […] The post Daniel Gross on the printing press...

The author is Philip Ball, and the subtitle is A User’s Guide to the New Biology.  I thought this book was wonderful, one of the best popular science books I’ve read in a long time.  I’m sure its contents are familiar to many MR readers, but for me it was a very good introduction to […] The post *How Life Works* appeared first on...

Here is Fareed’s home page, here is Wikipedia: Fareed Rafiq Zakaria…is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time. He was managing editor of Foreign Affairs at age 28, briefly […] The post What should I ask Fareed Zakaria?...

But in the case of Madrid, the last 25 years have been a clear move towards higher degree of tax competitiveness, smart regulation, and an overall liberal policy in the economic sense. And then our society is fairly open and tolerant and recognized to be what we would broadly described as a free society, an […] The post How did Madrid become the capital...