Every week in the PS Book Recommendations newsletter – available for free to all registered Project Syndicate users – PS contributors share books that they have found insightful, informative, or otherwise compelling. This holiday season, we present a selection of recommendations that you don’t want to miss.
Nicholas Agar Recommends…
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story
By Kara Swisher
Agar says: “Our ‘gods of tech,’ this book shows, have some suspiciously human vulnerabilities. I am looking forward to the much more scathing sequel that Swisher will write after Donald Trump’s administration in the United States looks to Elon Musk for opportunities to juice Big Tech’s profits further. Perhaps we will learn about the difference between ‘moving fast and breaking things’ and ‘moving faster and breaking everything.’” Read more from Agar.
Anders Åslund Recommends…
Les Aveuglés (The Blinded)
By Sylvie Kauffmann
Åslund says: “France and Germany’s approach to Russia in the last quarter-century amounts to the single greatest failure of modern European foreign policy. This book, written by a former executive editor of Le Monde, offers a sharp, insightful critique of this failure. Germany focused on increasing trade with Russia, partly because it believed, according to the logic of Wandel durch Handel, that commerce could induce political change; instead, Germany became dependent on gas imports from an autocratic state. By contrast, France’s approach was shaped by its lingering vision of itself as a global power; Kauffmann depicts French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who served from 2007 to 2012, as the ultimate fool.” Read more from Åslund.
Todd G. Buchholz Recommends…
Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
By Glenn Loury
Buchholz says: “In this frank and sometimes sordid memoir, Loury describes growing up in a modest and fractured black family and overcoming obstacles to earn a PhD from MIT and to make a name for himself as an economist and social critic. With extraordinary candor, Loury discusses his drug addictions and marital infidelities, and struggles to defend his conservative intellectual leanings.” Read more from Buchholz.
Diane Coyle Recommends…
The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – and How the World Lost its Mind
By Dan Davies
Coyle says: “This is a book about decision-making. When a mistake is made or a crisis erupts, it never seems to be anybody’s fault; ‘the system’ is to blame. To explain why markets, institutions, and even governments regularly produce unwanted outcomes, Davies uses the concept of an ‘accountability sink’: a policy or set of rules that prevent individuals from making or changing decisions in response to new information or events, thereby precluding accountability. The principle that feedback from outcomes must be translated into actions, for which someone is held accountable, will become increasingly important as more decisions are taken by AI, especially in high-impact domains such as criminal justice and employment.” Read more from Coyle.
James K. Galbraith Recommends…
The Poverty of the World: Rediscovering the Poor at Home and Abroad, 1941-1968
By Sheyda Jahanbani
Galbraith says: “A splendid and highly illuminating history of the ideas of underdevelopment and poverty, which originated in the United States – specifically in the Bureau of Indian Affairs – after the Great Depression, in the age of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. These ideas then spread around the world in the post-World War II era of decolonization and returned to the US to inform President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. I should declare an interest: this book is based partly on extensive research in the John Kenneth Galbraith archive at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. It draws on a lot of material I did not previously know about.” Read more from Galbraith.
Fawaz A. Gerges Recommends…
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017
By Rashid Khalidi
Gerges says: “This is a lucid and provocative recent book on the Palestinian history that has long been denied. Khalidi narrates Palestinians’ history on their own terms, enabling everyday people to tell their stories of occupation, dispossession, colonization, and hope.” Read more from Gerges.
Mordecai Kurz Recommends…
The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
By Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
Kurz says: “Oreskes and Conway deliver an eye-opening exposition of the extensive efforts by powerful corporate interests and wealthy individuals to convince the American people that unfettered free-market capitalism is the only way to guarantee their liberty. It traces the political development of the coalition that ultimately brought Ronald Reagan to power and ensured the establishment of a neoliberal economic-policy approach.” Read more from Kurz.
Marietje Schaake Recommends…
The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology
By Nita Farahany
Schaake says: “With today’s tech-policy debate focusing increasingly on artificial intelligence, we risk overlooking other emerging technologies that need to be subject to greater scrutiny. This frightening read describes the coming wave of neurotechnology that will disrupt not only markets, but also our thinking, bodies, and behavior.” Read more from Schaake.
Anne-Marie Slaughter Recommends…
The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World
By Allison J. Pugh
Slaughter says: “So much of my writing about care attempts to explore and capture the indispensable role that human connections play in enabling individuals and societies to thrive. Pugh, a sociologist, makes a huge contribution to our understanding of human nature, social relationships, and the future of work by examining the concept of ‘connective labor’ (a term she coined). Such work is essential, yet almost entirely overlooked.” Read more from Slaughter.
Joseph E. Stiglitz Recommends…
Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories
By Amitav Ghosh
Stiglitz says: “Drawing on extensive research, Ghosh illuminates the role of the nineteenth-century narcotics trade, which Europe fought to keep open in the Opium Wars, in the creation of wealth on both sides of the Atlantic. He also shows how those who grew rich from this nefarious activity quickly attained respectability for themselves and their descendants.” Read more from Stiglitz.
Nicholas Agar Recommends…
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story
By Kara Swisher
Agar says: “Our ‘gods of tech,’ this book shows, have some suspiciously human vulnerabilities. I am looking forward to the much more scathing sequel that Swisher will write after Donald Trump’s administration in the United States looks to Elon Musk for opportunities to juice Big Tech’s profits further. Perhaps we will learn about the difference between ‘moving fast and breaking things’ and ‘moving faster and breaking everything.’” Read more from Agar.
Anders Åslund Recommends…
Les Aveuglés (The Blinded)
By Sylvie Kauffmann
Åslund says: “France and Germany’s approach to Russia in the last quarter-century amounts to the single greatest failure of modern European foreign policy. This book, written by a former executive editor of Le Monde, offers a sharp, insightful critique of this failure. Germany focused on increasing trade with Russia, partly because it believed, according to the logic of Wandel durch Handel, that commerce could induce political change; instead, Germany became dependent on gas imports from an autocratic state. By contrast, France’s approach was shaped by its lingering vision of itself as a global power; Kauffmann depicts French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who served from 2007 to 2012, as the ultimate fool.” Read more from Åslund.
Todd G. Buchholz Recommends…
Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
By Glenn Loury
Buchholz says: “In this frank and sometimes sordid memoir, Loury describes growing up in a modest and fractured black family and overcoming obstacles to earn a PhD from MIT and to make a name for himself as an economist and social critic. With extraordinary candor, Loury discusses his drug addictions and marital infidelities, and struggles to defend his conservative intellectual leanings.” Read more from Buchholz.
Diane Coyle Recommends…
The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – and How the World Lost its Mind
By Dan Davies
Coyle says: “This is a book about decision-making. When a mistake is made or a crisis erupts, it never seems to be anybody’s fault; ‘the system’ is to blame. To explain why markets, institutions, and even governments regularly produce unwanted outcomes, Davies uses the concept of an ‘accountability sink’: a policy or set of rules that prevent individuals from making or changing decisions in response to new information or events, thereby precluding accountability. The principle that feedback from outcomes must be translated into actions, for which someone is held accountable, will become increasingly important as more decisions are taken by AI, especially in high-impact domains such as criminal justice and employment.” Read more from Coyle.
James K. Galbraith Recommends…
The Poverty of the World: Rediscovering the Poor at Home and Abroad, 1941-1968
By Sheyda Jahanbani
Galbraith says: “A splendid and highly illuminating history of the ideas of underdevelopment and poverty, which originated in the United States – specifically in the Bureau of Indian Affairs – after the Great Depression, in the age of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. These ideas then spread around the world in the post-World War II era of decolonization and returned to the US to inform President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. I should declare an interest: this book is based partly on extensive research in the John Kenneth Galbraith archive at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. It draws on a lot of material I did not previously know about.” Read more from Galbraith.
Fawaz A. Gerges Recommends…
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017
By Rashid Khalidi
Gerges says: “This is a lucid and provocative recent book on the Palestinian history that has long been denied. Khalidi narrates Palestinians’ history on their own terms, enabling everyday people to tell their stories of occupation, dispossession, colonization, and hope.” Read more from Gerges.
Mordecai Kurz Recommends…
The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
By Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
Kurz says: “Oreskes and Conway deliver an eye-opening exposition of the extensive efforts by powerful corporate interests and wealthy individuals to convince the American people that unfettered free-market capitalism is the only way to guarantee their liberty. It traces the political development of the coalition that ultimately brought Ronald Reagan to power and ensured the establishment of a neoliberal economic-policy approach.” Read more from Kurz.
Marietje Schaake Recommends…
The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology
By Nita Farahany
Schaake says: “With today’s tech-policy debate focusing increasingly on artificial intelligence, we risk overlooking other emerging technologies that need to be subject to greater scrutiny. This frightening read describes the coming wave of neurotechnology that will disrupt not only markets, but also our thinking, bodies, and behavior.” Read more from Schaake.
Anne-Marie Slaughter Recommends…
The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World
By Allison J. Pugh
Slaughter says: “So much of my writing about care attempts to explore and capture the indispensable role that human connections play in enabling individuals and societies to thrive. Pugh, a sociologist, makes a huge contribution to our understanding of human nature, social relationships, and the future of work by examining the concept of ‘connective labor’ (a term she coined). Such work is essential, yet almost entirely overlooked.” Read more from Slaughter.
Joseph E. Stiglitz Recommends…
Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories
By Amitav Ghosh
Stiglitz says: “Drawing on extensive research, Ghosh illuminates the role of the nineteenth-century narcotics trade, which Europe fought to keep open in the Opium Wars, in the creation of wealth on both sides of the Atlantic. He also shows how those who grew rich from this nefarious activity quickly attained respectability for themselves and their descendants.” Read more from Stiglitz.