Benjamin Moodie

Excellent prequel to the American Revolution

Revisado: 11-20-24

This is an excellent piece of historical writing that helps explain what Americans know as the "French and Indian War." We get good insights into the different logic of by which the North American French and British empires ran. We see the political intrigues and trans-Atlantic misunderstandings that beset the British empire even as it triumphed under William Pitt's brilliant leadership. And we see the social and economic dynamics that doomed indigenous Indian tribes once they were no longer able to play British and French overlords against one another, and once the way was cleared for the relentless expansion of English-speaking colonists into their historic lands beyond the Appalachian mountains. If you have learned to interpret the American Revolution as an affair of nascent ideas and ideologies, as I have, this book will provide a helpful corrective, illustrating the underlying dynamics that drove British imperial triumph, and, ultimately, loss of control, in North America.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Cracking good tale of an Atlantic convoy in WWII

Revisado: 11-28-22

I'm a big fan of C. S. Forster's Hornblower series about the British navy in the Napoleonic Era. This story from the more recent past does not disappoint. Don't be put off by a somewhat philosophical first chapter: when the narration turns to Kraus, the self-doubting, German Lutheran, Bay-Area born destroyer captain who must shepherd a convoy through troubled waters, you won't want to stop listening. The author expertly explores Kraus's individual psychology and the myriad complexities of the job he has to do. The narration is excellent, with national and regional accents well rendered: its only flaw comes in the final chapter, when it seems the narrator accidentally flips two of the voices. Great story and well worth a credit.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Excellent overview of advances in genetics

Revisado: 12-17-21

Harden, who was recently featured in The New Yorker, does a crystal-clear introduction for laypeople to recent advances in high-quality research linking genes with outcomes like school completion that matter deeply for the social hierarchy. These influences are the aggregate consequences of a huge number of minor genetic variations, but they match classic social science variables like parental income in effect size. Harden argues both against conservative genetic determinists who claim human worth is hard-wired and against liberals who want to pretend genes make no difference at all to social stratification. She argues for a Rawlsian framework based on the fact that no one really deserves their "draw" in the genetic lottery, whereas we all benefit from the intricate social cooperation on which our society is built and so owe it to one another to manage inequality in the service of all.

Harden's account is scrupulous about the complexities of genotype-phenotype correlations, pointing out the many ways they dependence on social context. Along the way, she delivers a sparkling description of causality that I have been hunting for, without success, for over a decade now. She also tells the brutal story of how, right from the start, Anglo-American scholars in particular seized on genetics as a way to ratify their racist and Social Darwinist instincts. (This work helped inspire Nazi racial ideology.)

Harden's work is an excellent complement to David Reich's Who We Are and How We Got Here. It's required reading for intellectuals who want to try to come to terms with this important emerging field of knowledge.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Good diagnosis; waffly prescriptions

Revisado: 12-17-21

This book is spun out of the authors' famous article describing the upsurge of "Deaths of Despair" among white working class Americans. Unfortunately, it doesn't add much. The best parts of the book are the authors' description of those deeply alarming demographic trends, their account of the opioid crisis, and their indictment of the health care system. Their prescriptions fall short, however, failing to match the scope of the problems they document. As a reader, your better bet is to listen to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman's description of the past history and current dysfunction of taxation in the United States in The Triumph of Inequality. They do a better job describing what worked at mid-century and recommending policy fixes that could update past (largely successful) prescriptions for current circumstances. The result is a book that describes a more plausible policy fix that would actually match the scale of the problem, i.e., taxing top incomes in a way that will make today's ubiquitous rent seeking less attractive to economic elites.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

An intellectual goldmine

Revisado: 08-12-21

This book is absolutely remarkable. Paired with *The Weirdest People in the World," an audio/book I also highly recommend, I believe this to be the most valuable contribution to the social scientific understanding of our world in my lifetime. (I'm a practicing social scientist and nearly 50.) Henrich uses a theory of cultural evolution, grounded in standard Darwinian evolution, to explain how humans and their societies work. I have long disliked socio-biological books that make assertions like "all men are horndogs who just want sex and don't care about taking care of kids," or what have you. Henrich's causal stories are rooted in a much more sophisticated application of Darwinian theory to human life. He is able to explain *variation* in outcomes using evolutionary theory, e.g., why some tribal societies are able to grow in size while others are not, or why men in monogamous societies experience a drop in testosterone after getting married and having kids, but men in polygamous societies don't.

Among Henrich's intellectual virtues: he's intellectually ambitious and gutsy as heck without being reckless, scrupulous and up-to-date in his techniques of causal explanation, very widely read, lucid and fun to read. He grapples with counterarguments without being ponderously academic, and he manages to make assertions that are both counterintuitive and viscerally plausible.

If you want to understand how our species and our societies have evolved, listen to this book. Then, once you're hooked, go listen to his next one, on the "WEIRDest People in the World," which uses the insights of this book to explain the origins of the modern world.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

My kids (8 and 6) loved the story!

Revisado: 10-25-20

This was a fun story that my kids soaked up and didn't want to turn off at bedtime.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Argh! Missing a fragment at the climax!

Revisado: 03-27-20

I have been listening to this autobiography with intense pleasure. (Let it be said that I am a huge admirer of John Stuart Mill and unusually historically knowledgeable, and so likely to be more inclined toward the book than most.) Like all of his mature work, this book is, without being in the least pretentious or vain, a virtuoso exhibition of intelligence and sympathy of the highest degree.

Here's the kicker, though. Right at the climax of the autobiography, where Mill is in a suicidal depression, and a chance encounter with a particular book breaks through his despair, the recording skips a chunk of text, and we hear nothing about the actual turnaround! WTAF!! I resorted to the free text at the wonderful (though, to me, ideologically quite uncongenial) online Library of Liberty to figure out what had happened. (It was worth it, because the accounts of this episode I had encountered elsewhere turn out to be wrong in their detail!) Anyway, I hope this inexcusable lacuna in the recording is amended in a revised edition published as soon as possible.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

A great work - read by Mrs. Malaprop

Revisado: 01-08-20

I purchased this version of J.S. Mill's Utilitarianism because of the modest price tag and the included extras. The latter are OK, if unremarkable. The narrator speaks clearly, but commits so many elementary errors that the listening experience turns into an anxious wait for the next malapropism. Unanimous, for example is pronounced "un-animus"; not excepted becomes "not expected"; "morality" becomes "mortality" and so on. It's a nightmare to listen to, and I don't think I can finish listening. I'll have to buy a different version with a more literate narrator.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Engaging, funny, analytical, instructive

Revisado: 05-11-16

Where does Frank rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top rank

Any additional comments?

If you are at all interested in politics--or, perhaps, especially if you are disgusted by the whole business--you should read this autobiography of Barney Frank, narrated by the former congressman himself. It's chock full of wisdom and analytical insights about legislating and governance that could have come only from first-hand experience digested by a first-rate mind.

Frank is rigorous in assessing politicians' (include first and foremost his own) and voters' motives, and defends the pragmatic ethics necessary to doing the hard work of legislating. As a participant in the Civil Rights Movement and as a foremost champion of LGBT rights, he has a keen and accurate sense of way social movements must navigate public opinion and law-making. His book also contains a very clear and succinct summary of the role of political action (and inaction) in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, including the financial reform bill he tried to author.

If, for the sake of our civic health, I could wave a wand and make all Americans read one book, it would be this one. Barney Frank never finished his dissertation in political science, but this book is better than the typical annual output of the entire profession taken together.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: Frank is funny, dropping his best one-liners into the narration at frequent intervals. I think it's partly his sense of humor that allows him to be so intellectually honest... er, frank.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña