Tag: books
-
Review: Levy’s Who Killed Daniel Pearl
Who Killed Daniel Pearl? Bernard Henri Levi Levy is an ass. Frankly, I have no idea why I thought reading this book was going to be a good idea. Perhaps it was worth the five hours or so it took to knock this one out, just so I know never to read anything by this…
-
Review: Wolf’s Peasant Wars of the 20th Century
Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century Eric Wolf Analysis of the revolutions in a bunch of peasant / developing countries seen through a pretty rigorous historical Marxist analysis. This is by one of the top dogs in Marxist anthropology and I really liked this book when I read it* It was the first sustained look…
-
Review: Sifry’s Spoiling for a Fight
Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America Micah Sifry This is, I am pretty sure, the only thing close to a complete history of third parties in U.S. electoral politics. I picked it up because of a paper I was writing on fusion voting and the Working Families Party, but it was so interesting,…
-
Review: Sebold’s The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold The plot of this one (young girl narrates her life and murder from heaven) put me off when I first heard it but, when many smart friends read, and loved it, I decided to give it a go. I am really glad I did. Seabold walks a fine line between…
-
Review: Perkin’s Confessions of an Economic Hitman
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man John Perkins This is garbage. Worse than that, it’s dangerous. First of all, I think Perkins is a total liar. I don’t doubt that there are people out there that make their living by betting against developing countries, and I don’t doubt that there are people who have an…
-
Review: Prins Other People’s Money
Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America Nomi Prins Often, left leaning books on finance are poorly informed. Not so with Prin’s awesome Other People’s Money. Prin is a former Goldman Sachs director turned think tank progressive and she knows her stuff. Her critique here of the excesses of finance capital is now a…
-
Review: Barnett’s Pentagon’s New Map
The Pentagon’s New Map Thomas P.M. Barnett I was dialing around cable at my parent’s house years ago and ran across the most incredible power point presentation being given by a dude from the Naval War College on CSPAN about how the U.S. should think about security threats in the future. Basically his point was…
-
Review: Mieville’s Perdido Street Station
Perdido Street Station China Mieville The first in Mieville’s acclaimed New Crobuzon series. A “weird fiction” novel set in a kinda of steam punky city featuring monsters, weird machines, solid character development and very good writing. If this is your kind of thing, you’ve probably alreayd read it. If not, you should. Recommended for the…
-
Review: Mieville’s The Scar
The Scar China Mieville I think this is my favorite of Mieville’s trilogy of novels set in the world in and surrounding New Crobuzon. I can’t say why I like this one best, I think because the monsters in Perdido Street Station were too… monstery, and the socialism in the Iron Council was too… socialist.…
-
Review: Lowenstein’s When Genius Failed
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management Roger Lowenstein The death of Longterm Capital Management (LTCM) is one of the biggest collapses in modern financial history. So big, the Fed stepped in and made a number of major banks pony up serious dough to cover LTCMs loses so that the world…
Milo and the Calf 