What I’ve been reading
1. Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears). A fun look at the Free Town project as applied to Grafton, New Hampshire: “During a television interview, a Grafton resident accused the Free Towners of “trying to cram freedom down our throats.””
2. Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeulen, Law & Leviathan: Redeeming the Administrative State. Self-recommending from the pairing alone, there is a great deal of interesting content in the 145 pp. of text. It is furthermore an interesting feature of this book that it was written at all on the chosen topic. Perhaps the administrative state is under more fire than I realize. And might you consider this book a centrist version of…maybe call it “state capacity not quite libertarianism”?
3. Michael D. Gordin, The Pseudo-Science Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. A somewhat forgotten but still fascinating episode in the history of science, extra-interesting for those interested in Venus. I had not known that Velikovsky pushed a weird version of a eugenicist theory stating that Israel was too hot for its own long-term good, and that its inhabitants needed to find ways of cooling it down.
4. History, Metaphor, Fables: A Hans Blumenberg Reader, edited by Bajohr, Fuchs, and Kroll. I love Blumenberg, but the selection here didn’t quite sell me. Better to start with his The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, noting that book is a tough climb for just about anyone and it requires your full attention for some number of weeks. Might Blumenberg be the best 20th thinker who isn’t discussed much in the Anglo-American world? And yes it is Progress Studies too.
5. Laura Tunbridge, Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces. Smart books on Beethoven are like potato chips, plus you can listen to his music while reading (heard Op.33 Bagatelles lately?). In addition to some of the classics, this book covers some lesser known pieces such as the Septet, An die Ferne Geliebte, and the Choral Fantasy, and how they fit into Beethoven’s broader life and career. Intelligent throughout.
6. Sean Scully, The Shape of Ideas, edited and written by Timothy Rub and Amanda Sroka. Is Scully Ireland’s greatest living artist? He has been remarkably consistent over more than five decades of creation. This is likely the best Scully picture book available, and the text is useful too. Since it is abstract color and texture painting, he is harder than most to cancel — will we see the visual arts shift in that direction?
Jonathan E. Hillman, The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, is a good introduction to its chosen topic.
Robert Litan, Resolved: Debate Can Revolutionize Education and Help Save Our Democracy: “…incorporate debate or evidence-based argumentation in school as early as the late elementary grades, clearly in high school, and even in college.”
I am closer to the economics than the politics of Casey B. Mulligan, You’re Hired! Untold Successes and Failures of a Populist President, but nonetheless it is an interesting and contrarian book, again here is the excellent John Cochrane review.
There is also Harriet Pattison, Our Days are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn, a lovely romance with nice photos, sketches, and images as well, very nice integration of text and visuals.