Category: Books

Dynamism Dying from Bad Attitudes or Bad Policies?

I agree with Tyler that the U.S. is less dynamic than it once was. But I mainly blame our bad government policies, while he mainly blames our own bad attitudes.

(p. A15) Is the “land of opportunity,” with dynamic labor markets and fresh sources of renewal, a thing of the past?

That’s the fear of Tyler Cowen, who argues in “The Complacent Class” that America is increasingly defined by an aversion to risk as well as to anything that is unfamiliar or different. He sees a broad swath of the American population losing “the capacity to imagine or embrace a world where things do change rapidly for most if not all people.” This mind-set, he says, has “sapped us of the pioneer spirit that made America the world’s most productive and innovative economy.”
. . .
To make his case, Mr. Cowen draws a contrast between the changes that Americans experienced in the first half of the 20th century and the changes of the past 50 years. The earlier period saw dramatic improvements in health and education as well as a proliferation of automobiles, airplanes and telephones. By comparison, the changes since 1965 have been modest. “A lot of our technological world seems to have stood pretty much still,” he writes, “albeit with a variety of quality improvements along the way.” He even notes that, while popular narcotics in the past were mind-altering (LSD) or activity-inciting (cocaine), today’s drugs of choice, such as heroin and opioids, “induce a dreamlike stupor and passivity.”
. . .
Given Mr. Cowen’s own innovative thinking, it’s disappointing that he does not focus more on potential remedies to the torpor he describes.

For the full review, see:

Matthew Rees. “BOOKSHELF; How American Workers Got Lazy.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Feb. 28, 2017): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Feb. 27, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Cowen, Tyler. The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.

“Hubs of Genius Do Not Arise from Government Planning”

(p. 13) In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union tried to make a version of Silicon Valley from scratch. A city called Zelenograd came to life on the outskirts of Moscow and was populated with all manner of brainy Soviet engineers. The hope — naturally — was that a concentration of clever minds coupled with ample funding would result in a wellspring of innovation and help Russia keep pace with California’s electronics boom. The experiment worked as well as one might expect. Few people will read this on a Mayakovsky-branded tablet or ­smartphone.
Many similar attempts have been made in the subsequent dec­ades to replicate Silicon Valley and its abundance of creativity and ingenuity. Such efforts have largely failed. It seems near impossible to will an exceptional place into being or to manufacture the conditions that lead to an outpouring of genius.
. . .
As in the case of Zelenograd, hubs of genius do not arise from government planning or by acting on the observations of a traveler. They’re happy accidents. To attempt to clone such things or pinpoint their characteristics is futile.

For the full review, see:
ASHLEE VANCE. “Smart Sites.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., JAN. 10, 2016): 13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JAN. 8, 2016, and has the title “”The Geography of Genius,’ by Eric Weiner.”)

The book under review, is:
Weiner, Eric. The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

FDR’s Attorney General Warned Black Newspapers That He Would “Shut Them All Up”

(p. 12) . . . as the former Chicago Defender editor and reporter Ethan Michaeli shows in his extraordinary history, “The Defender,” the Negro press barons attacked military segregation with a zeal that set Roosevelt’s teeth on edge. The Negro press warned black men against Navy recruiters who would promise them training as radiomen, technicians or mechanics — then put them to work serving food to white men. It made its readers understand that black men and women in uniform were treated worse in Southern towns than German prisoners of war and sometimes went hungry on troop trains because segregationists declined to feed them. It focused unflinchingly on the fistfights and gun battles that erupted between blacks and whites on military bases. And it reiterated the truth that no doubt cut Roosevelt the most deeply: His government’s insistence on racial separation was of a piece with the “master race” theory put in play by Hitler in Europe.
This was not the first time The Defender and its sister papers had attacked institutional racism. That part of the story begins with Robert S. Abbott, the transplanted Southerner who created The Defender in 1905 and fashioned it into a potent weapon.
. . .
The black press was considerably more powerful and self-assured by 1940, when Abbott died and his nephew John H. Sengstacke succeeded him.
. . .
Things stood thus in 1942, when Sengstacke traveled to Washington to meet with Attorney General Francis Biddle. Sengstacke found Biddle in a conference room, sitting at a table across which was spread copies of black newspapers that included The Defender, The Courier and The Afro-American. Biddle said that the black papers were flirting with sedition and threatened to “shut them all up.”

For the full review, see:
BRENT STAPLES. “‘A ‘Most Dangerous’ Newspaper.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., JAN. 10, 2016): 12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JAN. 4, 2016, and has the title “”The Defender,’ by Ethan Michaeli.”)

The book under review, is:
Michaeli, Ethan. The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

“20 Years in a Labor Camp for ‘Practicing Capitalism'”

(p. 23) “Just talk to any Chinese who lived through that time,” a middle-aged man whose father spent nearly 20 years in a labor camp for “practicing capitalism” tells the radio reporter Rob Schmitz, in “Street of Eternal Happiness,” his new book about some of the ordinary people he encounters in his Shanghai neighborhood. “We all have the same stories.”

For the full review, see:
ADAM ROSE. “‘Shanghai Confidential.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., MAY 15, 2016): 23.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date MAY 13, 2016, and has the title “‘Street of Eternal Happiness,’ by Rob Schmitz’.”)

The book under review, is:
Schmitz, Rob. Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road. New York: Crown, 2016.

Banks Often Less Transparent and Less Flexible than Bank Alternatives

I saw a C-Span interview on their weekend Book TV today (3/16/17), with Professor Lisa Servon. She pointed out that many of the highly regulated, and much-criticized, alternative banking services, offer a more transparent, more flexible, and more friendly service environment than the incumbent banking industry. She even argues that for those with low-incomes, and low-education, the alternative services are often less expensive. This happens because those with low-incomes and low education are often those who by mistake or by difficult circumstance, incur high fees at banks.
She points out that many who are bankless, previously made use of bank services, but decided to go with the alternatives. She suggested that in a free market environment, some of the alternatives might creatively destroy the incumbent banks.
Servon is clearly no libertarian, but much of what she says is thought-provoking.

Servon’s book is:
Servon, Lisa. The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., 2017.

“Death Has Never Made Any Sense to Me”

(p. 10) . . . , Kinsley is intent on being wryly realistic about coping with illness and the terminal prospects ahead. He makes fun of a fellow boomer, Larry Ellison, the C.E.O. of Oracle, who has spent millions in a quest for eternal life, and who was quoted as saying, “Death has never made any sense to me.” Kinsley quips: “Actually the question is not whether death makes sense to Larry Ellison but whether Larry Ellison makes sense to death. And I’m afraid he does.”

For the full review, see:
PHILLIP LOPATE. “Senior Moments’.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., APRIL 24, 2016): 10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date APRIL 18, 2016, and has the title “Michael Kinsley’s ‘Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide’.”)

The book under review, is:
Kinsley, Michael. Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2016.

Under Communism Inventiveness Did Not Yield Economic Benefits

(p. A17) The Soviet Union may have pioneered in space with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, but today Russia has less than 1% of the world commercial market in space telecommunications, the most successful commercial product so far stemming from space exploration. Russians may have won Nobel Prizes for developing the laser, but Russia today is insignificant in the production of lasers for the world market. Russians may have developed the first digital computer in continental Europe, but who today buys a Russian computer? By missing out on the multi-billion-dollar markets for lasers, computers and space-based telecommunications, Russia has suffered a grievous economic loss.
Accompanying this technical and economic failure was a human tragedy. Russian achievements in science and technology occurred in an environment of political terror. The father of the Russian hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov, wrote in his memoirs that the research facility in which he worked was built by political prisoners, and each morning he looked out the window of his office to see them marching under armed guard to their construction sites. The “chief designer” of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev, was long a prisoner who worked in a special prison laboratory, or sharashka. The dean of Soviet airplane designers, A.N. Tupolev, also labored for years as a prisoner in a special laboratory. Three of the Soviet Union’s Nobel Prize-winning physicists were arrested for alleged political disloyalty. Probably half of the engineers in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s were eventually arrested. In 1928 alone 648 members of the staff of the Soviet Academy of Sciences were purged.
When one looks at these statistics and at the genuine achievements of Soviet science, one is forced to ask basic questions about the relation of freedom to scientific progress.
. . .
Mr. Ings admirable effort to reach nonspecialized readers sometimes leads him to make exaggerated statements. He claims that we have “good agricultural and climate data for Russia going back over a thousand years” when in fact the data is incomplete and unreliable.
. . .
The claim that the Soviet Union was a scientific state brings Mr. Ings close, in his conclusion, to condemning science itself. He sees science and technology as causing a coming global ecological collapse, and he thinks that in some ways the demise of the Soviet Union was a preview of what we will all soon face. In one of his final sentences he says: “We are all little Stalinists now, convinced of the efficacy of science to bail us out of any and every crisis.” “Stalin and the Scientists” deserves attention, but a very critical form of attention. It is based on an impressive amount of study, and most readers will learn a great deal. It is, however, incomplete and overdrawn.

For the full review, see:
LOREN GRAHAM. “BOOKSHELF; No Good Deed Went Unpunished.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Feb. 21, 2017): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Feb. 20, 2017, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; Science Under Stalin.”)

The book under review, is:
Ings, Simon. Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017.

“The Powers of a Man’s Mind Are Directly Proportioned to the Quantity of Coffee He Drinks”

(p. C9) . . . certain aspects of 18th-century Parisian life diluted the importance of sight. This was, after all, a time before widespread street lighting, and, as such, activities in markets (notably Les Halles) were guided as much by sound and touch as by eyes that struggled in the near dark conditions. Natural light governed the lives of working people, principally because candles were expensive. Night workers–such as baker boys known as “bats,” who worked in cheerless basements–learned to rely on their other senses, most notably touch.
. . .
“For Enlightenment consumers, a delicious food or beverage had more than just the power of giving a person pleasure,” writes Ms. Purnell; taste, it was held, could influence personality, emotions and intelligence. Take coffee, “the triumphant beverage of the Age of Enlightenm ent.” Considered a “sober liquor,” it stimulated creativity without courting the prospect of drunkenness. Sir James Mackintosh, the Scottish philosopher, believed that “the powers of a man’s mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks.” Voltaire agreed and supposedly quaffed 40 cups of it every day. Taste was also gendered: Coffee was deemed too strong for women; drinking chocolate was thought more suitable.

For the full review, see:
MARK SMITH. “The Stench of Progress.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., MARCH 11, 2017): C9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 10, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Purnell, Carolyn. The Sensational Past: How the Enlightenment Changed the Way We Use Our Senses. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.

Panopticon: “Bentham’s Most Infamous Idea”

(p. C6) Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the book, highlighting Mr. Crawford’s ability to mix philosophy and reporting, is the one about the panopticon. The idea of an annular building with a central observation tower was conceived by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). The utilitarian is known most superficially by students of and visitors to University College, London, as the eccentric who willed that, after his death, his body be preserved seated on a chair in a glass case.
Mr. Crawford fleshes out the story, noting that, in fact, the smartly dressed Bentham figure that sits inside a glass display case today is actually a skeleton of the man, his head a wax replica of the real one that did not survive the preservation process. When I was a regular at University College one summer, I was told that the cabinet holding the “Auto-Icon” (Bentham’s term) was rolled over to the lecture hall on occasion, something that I don’t recall witnessing.
The author’s real purpose in discussing Bentham’s most infamous idea is to describe the utopian–or dystopian, depending upon one’s point of view–concept. In one embodiment, it took the form of a rimless wagon wheel, in which someone situated at the hub could oversee activities in all directions, making the layout ideal for insuring that workers in a factory did not take more breaks than allowed, inmates did not misbehave in a prison or students did not cheat on an exam.
Bentham’s insight was that the mere fact that those being observed knew that they were being watched would cause them to alter their behavior for the better. Could Bentham have imagined that his idea would form the foundation of our surveillance society? Looking at our culture today–with its CCTV, smartphones and so on–to some it surely seems that we live in a permanent panopticon. “All this,” Mr. Crawford writes, “from a ‘simple idea in architecture.’ “

For the full review, see:
HENRY PETROSKI. “What Goes Up.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., MARCH 11, 2017): C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 10, 2017, and has the title “The Lives and Deaths of History’s Greatest Buildings.”)

The book under review, is:
Crawford, James. Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of History’s Greatest Buildings. New York: Picador, 2017.

Brits Saw America “as a Place to Dump Their Human Waste”

(p. 11) . . . , Isenberg — a historian at Louisiana State University whose previous books include a ­biography of Aaron Burr — provides a cultural ­history of changing concepts of class and inferiority. She argues that British colonizers saw their North American empire as a place to dump their human waste: the idle, indigent and criminal. Richard Hakluyt the younger, one of the many colorful characters who fill these pages, saw the continent as “one giant workhouse,” in ­Isenberg’s phrase, where the feckless poor could be turned into industrious drudges.

For the full review, see:
THOMAS J. SUGRUE. “‘Hicks’ and ‘Hayseeds’.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., JUNE 26, 2016): 11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JUNE 24, 2016, and has the title “A Look at America’s Long and Troubled History of White Poverty.”)

The book under review, is:
Isenberg, Nancy. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. New York: Viking, 2016.

Muzzled Chinese Historian Dares to Publish Truth of Cultural Revolution

(p. 7) BEIJING — It seemed that China’s censors had finally muzzled Yang Jisheng, the famed chronicler of the Mao era. Last year, he had finished writing a widely anticipated history of the Cultural Revolution. But officials warned him against publishing it and barred him from traveling to the United States, he has said, and he stayed muted through the 50th anniversary of the start of that bloody upheaval.
Now Mr. Yang has broken that silence with the publication of his history of the Cultural Revolution, “The World Turned Upside Down,” a sequel to “Tombstone,” his landmark study of the famine spawned by Mao’s policies in the late 1950s. The 1,151-page book is the latest shot fired in China’s war over remembering, or forgetting, the dark side of its Communist past, a struggle that has widened under the hard-line president, Xi Jinping.
“I wrote this book to expose lies and restore the truth,” Mr. Yang writes in the book, which has been quietly published in Hong Kong, beyond the direct reach of Chinese censors. “This is an area that is extremely complicated and risky, but as soon as I entered it, I was filled with passion.”
Since Mr. Xi took power in 2012, the Communist Party authorities have denounced historians who question the party’s lionization of its past and exhume grim events like the Cultural Revolution, which Mao started in 1966, opening a decade of purges and bloodshed.
Tens of millions were persecuted and perhaps a million or more people were killed in that convulsive time. But officials say dwelling on such events is subversive “historical nihilism” aimed at corroding the party’s authority.

For the full story, see:
CHRIS BUCKLEY. “Historian’s New Mao Book Turns Acclaim in China to Censure.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., JAN. 22, 2017): 7.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 21, 2017, and has the title “Historian’s Latest Book on Mao Turns Acclaim in China to Censure.”)

The English translation and condensation of Mr. Yang’s earlier book, is:
Yang, Jisheng. Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962. Translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.