What I’ve been reading
1. David M. Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrell, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever. This book doesn’t seem so well known, but it should be essential reading for those obsessed with life extension. It helps explain why the idea has not been historically popular for some time, and why it might stand in tension with certain liberal values.
2. Jonathan Cohn, The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage. This is the book by the person who should have written this book. Whether you will choose to read a book on this topic, at this point, is perhaps the question. But if you do…
3.Allan Chapman, England’s Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution. Of all the books on Hooke, this one seems to be best (most of what I’m reading I never cover on MR), most of all for showing the unity of his contributions and situating them within the 17th century English milieu. Microscopes and air pumps and chemistry and barometers and the motion of bodies and helping to rebuild London, and more!
4. Chinmay Tumbe, The Age of Pandemics: 1817-1920, How They Shaped India and the World. Across 1817-1920, India lost an estimated eight million lives to cholera. In 1907 alone, India lost an estimated one million lives to the plague. So there should be many more books on this topic. In the meantime,this is a good introduction to the basic outlines of what happened.
5. Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel, The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations. A good and clearly written look at that approach to growth and macroeconomics.
6. Emmanuel Kreike, Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature. Might this be the most important topic that most smart, very well educated people have never read a book on? And this treatment is excellent and engaging, covering the attacks on Dutch water systems in the 17th century, various Spanish attacks on indigenous American environments, the late 19th century conquest of Aceh, Indonesia, the colonial conquests of Angola and Namibia, and more. Recommended.
You will note that I have been watching YouTube videos to accompany the science books I have been reading.