Best non-fiction books of 2017
Here is my list, more or less in the order I read them, and the links typically bring you to my lengthier comments:
Neil M. Maher, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius.
Daniel W. Drezner, The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas.
John F. Pfaff, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform.
Mary Gaitskill, Somebody with a Little Hammer, Essays.
Rob Sheffield, Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World.
David Garrow, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.
James C. Scott, Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States.
David Der-Wei Wang, editor. A New Literary History of Modern China.
Richard O. Prum, The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — And Us.
David B. Roberts, Qatar: Securing the Global Ambitions of a City-State.
Ken Gormley, editor, The Presidents and the Constitution.
Peter H. Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire.
Brian Merchant, The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone.
Jean M. Twenge, iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.
Bruno Maçães, The Dawn of Eurasia. Technically this doesn’t come out until January, but I read it smack in the middle of 2017 to blurb it. It is my pick for “best of the year,” if I am allowed to count it. It is one book that has changed how I frame 2017 and beyond.
Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy.
Tim Harford, Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy.
Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought.
Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896.
William Taubmann, Gorbachev: His Life and Times.
Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development, and the Costs of Caste.
Sujatha Gidla, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India.
Victor Davis Hanson, The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict was Fought and Won.
Mike Wallace, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919.
Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy.
Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money.
Douglas Irwin, Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy.
Here is my shortened list for Bloomberg. Here is my fiction list.