Books finished in July:
(Warning: reviews are unpolished and quickly written.)
A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (The New Cold War History)
Zukor is professor of international relations at LSE. I enjoyed learning some more about the Soviet Union and Russia, although I guess much, though not all, of the material is well known for people who are knowledgeable about the subject. Zubok writes about the general secretaries of the post WWII period, and claims that the Soviet leaders were often less scheming and more influenced by both ideology and domestic concerns than Western observers often assumed. The first secretary-general of NATO, Lord Ismay, said in 1949 that the purpose of NATO was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” I would not bet on the incoming secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg making similar remarks.
I found the last part, about the Gorbachev period, most interesting because I found it easier to relate to this newer material. Zubok writes sees Gorbachev as inconsistent, without a plan and no big statesman, but that he was nevertheless important. He writes of Gorbachev that: “His first priority […] was the construction of a global world order on the basis of cooperation and nonviolence. This places Gorbachev, at least in his image of himself, in the ranks of such figures of the twentieth century as Woodrow Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi, and other prophets of universal principles (p. 315).” The way these somewhat idiosyncratic beliefs influenced the general secretary made him have profound historical importance.
Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle No. 1)
King of the Vagabonds: The Baroque Cycle #2
Ratings and old books are in the library.
(2006) by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Heavy indictment of the American civilian administration in Iraq during the occupation 2003-04. The amount of groupthink, suppression of dissent and intentional conformity pressure present that Chandrasekaran details is almost hard to believe. Republican party connections and a right-thinking attitude were the most important qualifications for employees to have. Of course the situation involved many genuinely hard decisions that did not have one “right” answer, but the administration did not seem to have had the humility to admit this. Chandrasekaran is a bit quick to dismiss the efforts at economic reforms as misguided-these had to involve hard trade-offs one way or the other, but it is clear also they were approached haphazardly: A German working on the privatization of state-owned East-German entities in the German unification says they had 8000 people working on it; the privatization in much more chaotic Iraq was managed by three people. Recommended.
(1995) by Neal Stephenson. Largely entertaining, but I completely lost the thread among all the subplots. The most interesting theme for me was how artificial intelligence could help to educate kids by giving them appropriate challenges and lessons.
(2005) by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Impressive work about Stalin, who at all times was some combination of cynical, ingenious, paranoid, brutal and mad. Purges work some of the time, but give personnel challenges. I should read this again to get more of the history.
(2014) by Nikil Saval. A history of the office and office jobs, from nineteenth century clerks, to todays “knowledge workers”, going through different management fads, worker aspirations and status, design ideas, office frustrations.
(2000) by Vernor Vinge. A great book. To begin with, it has a fantastic plot in which two different human cultures, the largely sympathetic traders Qeng Ho and the at least governmentwise unsympathetic authoritarian Emergents, are on their way to a planet with newly discovered alien life. The inhabitants of the planet have the forms of spiders, but are in other aspects very much like humans on Earth in the 20th century, when atomic energy, space flight, video imaging and other technologies were on the verge of being invented. This provides the ground for topics like governance, research and the benefits of public knowledge, drugs, slavery, free markets, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, all amidst a curious mix of new technology like localizers, focus, and mindscrub and the more known ones emerging among the spiders. Recommended.
(2007) by Vernor Vinge. Near-future novel set in 2025. Augmented reality – implemented by smart clothing and contact lenses – has become ubiquitous, but is also a tool for controlling others. Noah Smith sold this book as being about future labor markets where seniority rules do not apply and older people must go back to high school, but to me it was mostly a confusing mix of conspiracies, literature nostalgia and family affairs. It did not catch me.
(1995) by Greg Egan. Mind-boggling novel about personal identity and artificial life and evolution. Mind uploading has become possible, but being such a “copy” is not a fulfilling existence for most. Part of the story is about a scientist who designs a program within which lifeforms could be capable of evolving. In what must be a reference to Asimov’s I, robot, the evolved creatures do not accept the hypothesis of having been designed. Complex and difficult to follow at times, but recommended nonetheless.
(1843) by Edgar Allan Poe. Short story. A man decodes a cryptographed message. According to Wikipedia, Poe played a role in popularizing cryptography.
(2013) by Adam Minter. A fascinating account of the globalized trade in junk. Illustrates how trade connects parts of the world with different specializations. Repeatedly comes back to the fact that the trash trade has an undeservedly bad reputation: Minter several times acknowledges that there are problems with pollution and lack of labor regulations many places, but emphasizes that the trade allows materials to be used again rather than be used as landfills. If the trade in junk was not there, we would see a lot more environmentally harmful mining to extract these materials, that is something to think about for greens denouncing the garbage trade. Recommended.
(2014) by Nicholas Wade. An interesting book. Wade argues that genetic factors are seriously undervalued and indeed repressed as an explanation for human societal diversity. He claims that different social tendencies at the race level have evolved fairly recently and explain much of today’s economic world. His view is a subtle one – these tendencies are not god-given, but have evolved in response different societies’ needs (-“human evolution has been recent, copious and regional”). However, I think he should have gone more deeply into the point that as in the past, whether traits are good or bad depends on the context, both today and in the future. There was an interesting discussion about the book 
(2010) by Dan Ariely. Ok. Often lacking is a discussion of how various seemingly irrational behaviors may not be so dumb in a larger context, but the book is fine enough, good popularization of many findings.
(2006) by Santiago Roncagliolo. Set in Perú in 2000. Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar investigates murders purportedly carried out by the Maoist terrorist group Sendero Luminoso. Meets and creates several difficulties. The conflict and violence in the novel are modelled on the real world. Despite this, the book was not really my style.
(2007) by Charles Stross. Occult IT expert Bob Howard starts his journeys in the British intelligence organization “the Laundry”. Charlie Stross’ blog is 
(2009) by Charles Stross. Second book about Bob Howard working in intelligence organization the Laundry. This time he outlandishly finds himself in a literal James Bond plot, the idea behing which is a little difficult to follow at times.
(1907) by Joseph Conrad. Disappointing. About anarchist terrorists in London around the end of the 19th century, but one hears little concrete of either anarchism or terrorism, only about the not too interesting characters. One of the characters is supposed to have been an inspiration for the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski.
(1996) by Robert Harris. Picked up this novel set in the codebreaking center Bletchley Park during world war II as a follow-up to reading Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. I learnt less than what I had hoped about cryptography. And I do not find historical fiction in which the protagonists contribute major efforts to historical episodes that interesting. Not recommended.
by Neal Stephenson. We follow two groups of people, one that is attempting to conceal the fact that the Allied powers have broken the German code system Enigma during World War II, and some of their relatives who try to launch a digital currency in the 1990’s. Cryptography plays important roles in both storylines. In contrast to the books of Ramez Naam, which I recently read, the lack of threats of torture is conspicuous and made the plot seem less realistic. The book is good enough, but one should note that it is so long that one can read several other books in the time that it takes to read it.
(2009) by José Saramago. Silly. Death stops within a country, but continues elsewhere. Much ado about this and also when it starts again. Quite boring, and an annoying meta-narrator, who breaks in to talk about his own narration. Did not finish. Not recommended.
(2012) by Ramez Naam. Action-filled story about the moral dilemmas related to new technology. The illegal drug Nexus enables users to achieve mind-to-mind contact. The young scientist Kade Lane gets in trouble because he tries to improve it. Everyone interested in the drug has their own agenda. Recommended, I will surely read the follow-up Crux. Recommended.
(2013) by Zoltan J. Acs. Most of the book is about the the role of entrepreneurship and the opportunities open for all in American economic development. Acs believes philanthropy underlies American economic success. I learnt much less about philanthropy than I expected from this book.
(2003) by Atul Gawande. A great book about the science and practice of medicine. Gawande, a surgeon, gives an insider’s view of the medical profession, a profession that often appears hard-nosed, but is as beset with ambiguity, uncertainty, human judgements, customs, mistakes, and need for practice and learning as other ones. He is not without recommendations, though: Gawande details the benefits of computer-based diagnoses, specialization, the field of anesthesia’s success in reducing human, latent errors by analyzing such errors systematically and comprehensively. Recommended.
(2010) by Greg Egan. The setting is Iran in the near future. Iran is now a democracy, but radical innovation in brain-mapping primarily used for games face opposition from several quarters, the issue being the moral status of the (incomplete) uploads. In particular, the Cis-Humanist League objects to enslaved “proxies” (uploads). I did not enjoy the book that much, but I did finish it, and it does raise issues that will become relevant in the future.
(2013) by Sudir Venkatesh. Against boxes. Sudir Venkatesh tries to renew himself in New York after the success he had with studying drug gangs in Chicago. He is studying prostitution and drug trafficking, but research progress is often slow and he also has professional doubts. With time he arrives at an understanding about how high and low classes mix to a greater extent in New York than other places, and transcends his pre-conceived conceptions of classes, neighborhoods, and the like. The same type of people, like entrepreneurs, can be found everywhere, everyone has dreams and ambitions, many are driven by the same motives, and the “seekers” connect places. An interesting book, though I did not find the author that rogue.
(2007) by Daniel Gilbert. We are not good at estimating how happy we will be in the future, and our mind also distorts our memories from the past. Fascinating subject, but I found the book boring, maybe because much of the stuff has become well known. Not finished.
by Jon Mooallem. The quest to start hippopotamus farming in the US in the beginning of the 20th century. Despite colorful characters, the book is a disappointment, since it takes the far-fetchedness of the idea of importing hippos as given and never gives a clear answer for why it did not happen. Many of the claims about hippos in the book are the oppsite of 
for why they were never domesticated in Africa-namely that they are aggressive and terrorial. To me it did what role such good arguments played.
by Cole Stryker. A look on what was the forefront of the internet, from simple message boards to 4chan, and later became common, like the cheezburger networks. Emphasizes the creativity and in some senses meritocracy that the internet has encouraged. Largely refrains from moralizing.
I was not aware that the neurotic Elling had a fat American relative. (Or rather an ancestor, or at least a predecessor, as Ingvar Ambjørnsen’s Elling first appeared in 1993, as opposed to A Conferderacy…, which was published in 1980). Very funny, but I started to become quite tired of Ignatius J. Reilly a bit more than halfway through the book.
Mostly practical advice, on organization, equipment, discipline, sabotage, and other things. Measured in tone and clear on things like decency towards the civilian population, etc. Also focus on learning and the need for indoctrination. No exaggerated portaits of the other side. It would be good if the tone of ideological discourse was more often like this.
Information overload is fittingly the topic towards the end of Gleick’s great flood of information topics – language, writing, code, encyclopedias, dictionaries, computing, naming, mathematics, logic, computer science, genetics, the internet. Too much for me to take in, no less do justice to in writing. Recommended.
The first televised debates between the US presidential contenders. In the fall of 1960. Much like todays debates. A bit more civilized and a little less spin. Nixon in the third debate: “And I only hope that, should I win this election, that I could approach President Eisenhower in maintaining the dignity of the office; in seeing to it that whenever any mother or father talks to his child, he can look at the man in the White House and, whatever he may think of his policies, he will say: “Well, there is a man who maintains the kind of standards personally that I would want my child to follow.”” Yes. Nixon was going to be elected president in 1968 and 1972, and resigned in 1974. Both were highly professional in the debates, as they would have to be to have come to this stage.
by Parmy Olson. Get to know some of the Anonymous. The story of Anonymous and related “groups” told through the stories of the six core members of LulzSec – hackers with different motivations and skills that happened to come together and get the opportunity to create trouble for PayPal, the Scientology church, authoritarian governments, Sony, private citizens and many others. Often just because they could. Decentralization and coordination both play roles. Numbers sometimes important and sometimes not. Recommended.
by Philip K. Dick. Glen Runciter’s firm is in the “prudence business” – protecting people’s minds against others’ psychic powers, such as mind reading. One mission goes awry, and the team must communicate between living and dead, though it is not easy to tell who is what. Things start to revert to earlier forms, in an entropy fashion.
by Philip K. Dick. Alternate history, Germany won WWII, slavery is still legal in the US. Not finished.
by Jennifer Senior. How are parents affected by their children? Research and anecdotes on parents’ time use, devotion to their children, happiness, marriages, social life, work, parenting styles, and other things. At times heavily geared towards American, not-Scandinavian-style-gender-equal conditions, but in general much to recognize and think about for parents. Tells of a survey where kids wanted less stressed mums more than more time with her. Interesting purported link between child care and happiness.
by Thomas Frank. Shallow (left-wing) criticism of bankers, politicians and in general the politics of the American recession. There are valid points there, but the author is not likely to convince anyone with his hysterical account (and voice-I listened to this as an audiobook).
by William Bernstein. Fairly standard account of the world’s economic history since the industrial revolution. Starts with the value of John Harrisons’s newly invented chronometer (to compute longitude) to seafarers in the 18th century. The invention was the result of a prize offered by the British parliament to improve navigation at sea. Bernstein talks about four essential factors: property rights, scientific rationalism, effective capital markets, efficient transportation and communication needed for prosperity. First a little bit in 16th century Holland, then spread. Argues that the communication revolution took place with the electrical telegraph from around 1840-bigger change from before that than from the telegraph to internet. I liked the hypothesis that cheap cotton underwear lead to a decline in infectious diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Repeated side remarks about less development in non-western cultures and the dangers of cultures crashing do not add to the discussion and just drag the book substantially down.
by Daniel Woodrell. Short stories of people on the edge.
by 
by H. G. Wells. Martians come to earth and dominate. Humans, though they have adapted, must flee or be eaten. Classic.
by John Taylor Gatto. Modern schooling is a tool for stifling thinking and controlling the masses. Endless examples of people without much formal education who have made it big, nothing about the failures. Reasoned critiques of the school system are valuable. This book is not.
by Martin Gardner. Gardner was the legendary writer of a column called “Mathematical games” between 1956 to 1981, and also a prolific writer on other topics. A keen and able magician, he seems to have come across many interesting characters through the magician community. Not a professional mathematician, but says that the fact that he struggled to understand what he wrote helped him “write in ways that others could understand (p 136).” Recommended.
by Ian Ayres. How to use contracts with real incentives to reach your goals. The goals can be anything, from quitting smoking and losing weight to read more books, be on time or call your grandma more often. The key is to have a contract that says if you do not reach your goal, you will give money to a friend, a charity, an enemy, or teach a class wearing only a speedo. If the threat in the contracts is credible, it allows one to commit. The simplest contracts can be based on self-reporting and honesty, but often there is a designated referee and verifiable information involved. Ayres and Dean Karlan set up a website (stickK.com) that allows people to enter into these contracts. Dean Karlan tried to make voting contracts to enable people to make a credible promise to vote, but although effective, they did not catch on so far. Thomas Schelling was early into this field as many others, he wrote about self blackmail-writing a incriminatory letter to be published if the letter-writer was not drug-free at a later testing. These contracts do not solve every problem in the world, but the changes people actually use them for can make a big difference to them.
by Neil Gaiman. Small boy gets caught up with supernatural stuff. Book of the year of 2013 in the British National Book Awards. Not my style.
by Robert Frank. Most of the explanations seemed trivial or silly. I put it down quickly.
by Tony Judt.
, by Robert Frank. Good short version of Frank’s ideas about positional goods, inequality, expenditure cascases, taxes, etc.
, by Jon Ronson. Did the US military have a program that tried to teach soldiers how to stare animals to death? This and related questions are explored in Ronson’s book about supernatural methods and the military. It is funny but does raise real questions about knowledge, on part of both the protagonists and the reader.
, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The classic story of the good, but boring Dr Jekyll who transforms himself into the vital and evil Mr Hyde. Jekyll comes to loath him, but has become addicted. I enjoyed it.
, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not sure what to say that this story was about, but an entertaining, absurd plot. Very short.
, by Steven Johnson. Peer networks to save the world! The book lacks a discussion of possible trade-offs (like “Everything bad is good for you” had). Not Johnson’s best.
, by Fergal Keane. Journalist Fergal Keane’s stories of trouble in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and personal life. Fitting to read now, as Nelson Mandela just passed away. I did not know that the apartheid regime in South Africa was engaged in torture. Keane makes a point of always being understanding of his subjects. I do not know Keane as a journalist, but the book was ok.
, by Joshua Ferris. Tim has to walk. Why or where to he does not know, despite his efforts to find out. Existentialism.
, by Joshua Ferris. Office life. Read about half of it. Some funny bits.
from last year. Here is a mini-review:
, by Steven Johnson.
. Ronald Reagan’s daily radio broadcasts from the late 1975-79. In 1976 Reagan launched a failed bid to become the Republican party’s presidential candidate (against the incumbent Gerald Ford). His small radio speeches were probably a way to continue to be in the public sphere. The editors claimed that Reagan wrote most of the material himself. That is impressive if true, although he did not seem to have a formal job until he became president in 1981. Some of the addresses seem quite idiosyncratic, so that supports the claim. I disagree with many of the views expressed, but it is too bad that politicians today seem to be less free to express their personal views, with political communication having become wholly professionalized.
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