Discover books through authentic mentions from writers, thinkers, and creators you trust. Follow the trails of recommendations from podcasters, writers, and thought leaders.https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/en-ushttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/eichengreen-golden-fetters-krugman/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/eichengreen-golden-fetters-krugman/<p>"You stole the phrase 'golden fetters' from Keynes, but it was basically these kinds of chains that prevented countries from responding effectively to the Great Depression."</p><p>— Paul Krugman, Talking with Barry Eichengreen - Substack Interview</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositivePaul Krugman: Now, it probably annoys you as much as it annoys me to have people talk about your great work, stuff that's so far in the past you can barely remember having done it, but you wrote a really great book, Golden Fetters, about the gold standard and the Great Depression. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Because I think it is relevant to where we are. Barry Eichengreen: Well, I think the point of that book was, in part, that simple rigid rules are not a reliable guide for the conduct of monetary policy, and leaving it to the good judgment of an individual, be he in the boardroom of the Fed or the White House, is not a good arrangement either. We have been moving toward constrained discretion over time, where an independent central bank has discretion over monetary policy. But it faces constraints from its mandate, where the powers that be have kind of laid down what objectives it should pursue. And I do think that if you go back to the gold standard, it also functioned best when politicians didn't get in the way. Before 1913, when political pressures were relatively limited, the extent of the franchise who could vote was limited in most countries, men of property in most places, white male adults in the United States. Trade unions were relatively unimportant, so people clamoring for lower interest rates to bring down unemployment wasn't a factor. All that changed after World War I with extensions of the franchise, the rise of labor unions and parliamentary labor parties. So with those pressures, the gold standard became more fragile and ultimately came crashing down in the Great Depression. So I think that tells you that no monetary ruler or regime is immune from political pressure, but you need an adequate setup, you need adequate institutions to contain that pressure. Paul Krugman: Yeah. Supposedly when FDR took the U.S. off the gold standard, his budget director said "This is the end of Western civilization." So there was a view that it was really critical. You stole the phrase "golden fetters" from Keynes, but it was basically these kinds of chains that prevented countries from responding effectively to the Great Depression. Finding a way to have flexibility without opening the door to abuse of that flexibility was a long process, and we ended up with this modern regime of the independent central bank, ultimately answerable to the political process, but not quickly. But now technocrats and all of that is suddenly on the line again. Barry Eichengreen: Yeah, the idea that the central bank is independent but accountable to the politicians, that idea rests on the notion that the politicians will punish the central bank when it acts recklessly, but it will reward the central bank if it behaves responsibly. We're about to find out whether the United States is still operating in that kind of world.economicshistorymonetary-policygreat-depressionPaul Krugmanhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/qntm-antimemetics-division-clark/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/qntm-antimemetics-division-clark/<p>"There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, which is this book about a government agency that is dealing with antimemes, ideas that erase themselves from your memory after you've dealt with them but are themselves important."</p><p>— Jack Clark, Conversations with Tyler - Episode with Jack Clark (Co-founder of Anthropic)</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveTyler Cowen: What's a book you think more and more about these days? Jack Clark: There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, which is this book about a government agency that is dealing with antimemes, ideas that erase themselves from your memory after you've dealt with them but are themselves important. It's about creating a bureaucracy that can handle ideas which are themselves dangerous and self-erasing because I think it gets at some of the problems that we're experiencing. The other book that I think about a lot and might be especially relevant to you is, a historian and economist called Fernand Braudel wrote a book called Capitalism and Material Life. Tyler Cowen: Oh, I love those. Three volumes — they're incredible. Jack Clark: Yes. I read it in university, and I returned to it recently because it makes this point that you can look at how people's lives change through just the things they had available, like cutlery or whatever, or basic tools. I think about AI through that lens. How is AI going to actually change my material life? It comes to why I'm skeptical about some of the more ambitious forms of change is, the actual change in our day-to-day lives has been very, very, very slow even with these advances. But if you read those books, it seems like the most significant things stem from changes in everyone's material day-to-day. Tyler Cowen: They're reissuing the antimimetic book, by the way.science-fictionphilosophyaibureaucracyJack Clarkhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/braudel-capitalism-material-life-clark/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/braudel-capitalism-material-life-clark/<p>"It makes this point that you can look at how people's lives change through just the things they had available, like cutlery or whatever, or basic tools. I think about AI through that lens."</p><p>— Jack Clark, Conversations with Tyler - Episode with Jack Clark (Co-founder of Anthropic)</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveTyler Cowen: What's a book you think more and more about these days? Jack Clark: There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, which is this book about a government agency that is dealing with antimemes, ideas that erase themselves from your memory after you've dealt with them but are themselves important. It's about creating a bureaucracy that can handle ideas which are themselves dangerous and self-erasing because I think it gets at some of the problems that we're experiencing. The other book that I think about a lot and might be especially relevant to you is, a historian and economist called Fernand Braudel wrote a book called Capitalism and Material Life. Tyler Cowen: Oh, I love those. Three volumes — they're incredible. Jack Clark: Yes. I read it in university, and I returned to it recently because it makes this point that you can look at how people's lives change through just the things they had available, like cutlery or whatever, or basic tools. I think about AI through that lens. How is AI going to actually change my material life? It comes to why I'm skeptical about some of the more ambitious forms of change is, the actual change in our day-to-day lives has been very, very, very slow even with these advances. But if you read those books, it seems like the most significant things stem from changes in everyone's material day-to-day. Tyler Cowen: They're reissuing the antimimetic book, by the way.historyeconomicsmaterial-cultureaiJack Clarkhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/reinhart-rogoff-this-time-different-evans/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/reinhart-rogoff-this-time-different-evans/<p>"There's a famous book about financial bubbles called This Time Is Different because people always say this time is different, and it always is."</p><p>— Benedict Evans, The Knowledge Project Podcast with Shane Parrish</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTneutralShane Parrish: Put this [AI] in historical context for us with other platform shifts. Everybody's saying this time is different, which everybody does at each platform shift, I would imagine. And what's the same? Benedict Evans: Well, there's a famous book about financial bubbles called This Time Is Different because people always say this time is different, and it always is. Like the dot-com bubble was different from the late '80s and the Japanese financial bubble was different from any other bubble you want to pick. They're always different, but that doesn't mean they're not a bubble. And the same thing is happening here. I have a diagram I use a lot from 1995. A research firm made a diagram of something they called "cyberspace" because it wasn't clear it was just going to be the internet. It was clear that everyone was going to have some kind of computer thing connected to some kind of network. Remember the phrase "information superhighway," which sort of conveyed that it would be centralized and controlled by cable companies and phone companies and media companies, which is how everything had always previously worked. It wasn't clear that it was going to be the internet. It wasn't clear the internet was going to be kind of radically decentralized and permissionless, and anyone could do what they wanted. It wasn't clear the internet was going to be the web and only the web because there were all these other things going on.economicsfinancehistorybubblesanalytical-mentionBenedict Evanshttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/spufford-red-plenty-evans/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/spufford-red-plenty-evans/<p>"There's a fascinating book I read a while ago called 'Red Plenty,' which is about Soviet central planning in the '60s, '70s, '80s and it's about sort of what happens when you have a central planning that just cannot cope with the level of complexity of a sophisticated economy."</p><p>— Benedict Evans, The Knowledge Project Podcast with Shane Parrish</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTneutralBenedict Evans: Part of this is that like in most non-emotive fields, we kind of do, like you understand, people understand that, you know, if you make, you know, more employment regulation tends to produce slower growth but more protection for employment and you you're choosing a trade-off. You, people kind of I think everybody on both sides of that equation understands that that, that's a trade-off and you're choosing one versus the other. The point is you can have a fully functioning free market and you can regulate some of the negative externalities of free markets that anybody in any part of the economic spectrum understands there are negative externalities to free markets. You can also have like a government provided alternative. You can have the government do the fire department where you have some of the kind of most obvious gaps between the US and Europe it seems to me sometimes are in places where you kind of have neither. So the US neither has a government-controlled healthcare system nor a free market healthcare system. Do you see what I mean? You have neither a government-controlled housing which you have in like in weird places like Singapore nor a free market in housing. So you kind of break the free market. So you stop the price signaling. This is like the great insight of Hayek is that pricing is a signal. Pricing is an information system. It's telling people what's wanted. It's not, it's not just a signal of worth. It's a signal of demand. There's a, a fascinating book I read a while ago called "Red Plenty," which is about Soviet central planning in the '60s, '70s, '80s and it's about sort of what happens when you have a central planning that just cannot cope with the level of complexity of a sophisticated economy in the '60s and '70s as opposed to let's make grain and tractors and locomotives in the '20s and '30s and steel which already kind of works. But once you actually have a sophisticated industrial economy, central planning can't handle the complexity. And so you try and create incentives and structures around that while not having pricing and that just doesn't work. I suppose there's a sort of a generalized point which is like a market economy is a system and if you pull a lever here something will move there and you can't just pull a lever here and say, "Well, I don't want that to move because it's a democracy." It will move anyway and so you have to understand how the system works and understand what consequences you want from that and what your parameter, parameters are within this.economicshistorycentral-planningsoviet-unionanalytical-mentionBenedict Evanshttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/bayard-how-to-talk-books-evans/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/bayard-how-to-talk-books-evans/<p>"There's a book written by a French academic sort of 20 years ago or something called 'How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read,' which sounds very kind of snide. But kind of his point is that like there's the book you read when you were 17 and you really didn't get it."</p><p>— Benedict Evans, The Knowledge Project Podcast with Shane Parrish</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTneutralBenedict Evans: It's funny. I'm, I'm, I have a draft thinking about like what LLMs do to web search and publishing and discovery and e-commerce and like big, foot of hand wavy fuzzy all of that stuff. And I was sort of thinking about this and there's a book written by a French academic sort of 20 years ago or something called "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read," which sounds very kind of, um, snide. Um, but kind of his point is that like there's the book you read when you were 17 and you really didn't get it. And if you read it now, you'd get it. And there's the book that like he's got this kind of list of like, there's the books that everybody else has read so it's to say you've read them. There's the books that like you've read three other books by that writer so you don't really need to read this one too. Um, you get it like you do need you know, do you need to read another Malcolm Gladwell book like if you you've kind of got the Malcolm Gladwell experience. So there's this sort of generalized sense of pattern and accumulation of what you've seen, what you've half seen, what you've half remember. There's also I think you know what your, your, your viewers, listeners might notice is I I kind of have two modes, two or three modes. I have a mode that's sort of discursive and slightly rambling and free associating and I'll kind of spiral off in different directions and hopefully come back to the point. Um, and then there's a mode where I want to try and pin the thing down and break it apart and say what are the two, three, four things that are happening here, which is what you see in the slides.philosophyliteratureknowledgereadinganalytical-mentionBenedict Evanshttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/zola-au-bonheur-des-dames-evans/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/zola-au-bonheur-des-dames-evans/<p>"There's a book by Zola about the creation of department stores called Au Bonheur des Dames, which means 'The Ladies' Paradise.' It's basically about a 19th-century Jeff Bezos calling a department store into existence out of thin air through force of will."</p><p>— Benedict Evans, The Knowledge Project Podcast with Shane Parrish</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTneutralBenedict Evans: You know, our world as "content creators" is a very wide spectrum of people who do very different stuff. There are people doing AI slop and there are people doing, you know, what is it called, the passive income thing. But there are people who do very different kinds of content coming from different places for different reasons. You know, Scott Galloway does very different kinds of stuff to me. Mary Meeker does very different kinds of stuff than me. You do very different kinds of stuff to me. It's just part of that is about who you are and your story and the authenticity of it. And some of it is about no one cares who you are, but you're saying interesting stuff and some of it's a recommendation algorithm or something else. There's a book by Zola about the creation of department stores called Au Bonheur des Dames, which means "The Ladies' Paradise." It's basically about a 19th-century Jeff Bezos calling a department store into existence out of thin air through force of will. He invents fixed prices so that you can have discounts and loss leaders, and mail order and advertising. He puts the slow-moving, expensive stuff at the top of the store and he puts food and makeup on the bottom of the store. There's nothing new under the sun. And meanwhile, the shopkeepers on the other side of the street are saying, "Have you seen what that maniac's doing now? He's selling hats and gloves in the same shop. He's got no morals. He'll be selling fish next." And of course, he's got the character. There's a whole plot point about loss leaders. So you can step back and think, "Well, people have freaked out about industrialized, mass-produced products before. People have freaked out about there being too much content." There's a line that Erasmus was the last person to have read every book, right? There's too much AI content slop on the internet now. How many books do you think were being published in 1980? Do you think everyone was reading all the books then? It's the same thing, just different scales, I guess.literaturebusinessretailinnovationanalytical-mentionBenedict Evanshttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/pierre-false-aftab/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/pierre-false-aftab/<p>"It is an intellectually rigorous, urgent exploration of why human beings believe things that aren't true. The book draws from psychology, psychiatry, cognitive science, and social theory, and it speaks directly to the uneasy question of the fragility of truth."</p><p>— Awais Aftab, Book Review: Machinery of Misbelief - Psychiatry at the Margins</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveThis is a review of the book "False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things That Aren't True" by Joe Pierre, MD, published by Oxford University Press, 2025. If you've ever tried to reason with an uncle who swears the election was stolen, or felt that sinking dread when a friend shares a viral post about miracle cures targeting root causes, you know the territory Joe Pierre is mapping in False. A professor of psychiatry at UCSF and an experienced academic clinician, Pierre takes apart the mechanics of belief in things that aren't true with the eye of a clinician and the curiosity of a social scientist. It is an intellectually rigorous, urgent exploration of why human beings believe things that aren't true. The book draws from psychology, psychiatry, cognitive science, and social theory, and it speaks directly to the uneasy question of the fragility of truth. Pierre sets himself a formidable task: to trace the full spectrum of false belief, from clinical delusions to everyday distortions, and to explain why a species capable of scientific accomplishments such as putting men on the moon also struggles to agree on basic facts. He draws on cognitive psychology, psychiatry, and media studies to produce a diagnosis of the "post-truth" condition. That Pierre's project remains stable, and his thesis retains both vitality and viability, is a testament to his scholarly rigor and the excellence of this book.psychologycognitive-sciencemisinformationpsychiatryepistemologyAwais Aftabhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/silver-edge-art-risking-everything-cowen/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/silver-edge-art-risking-everything-cowen/<p>"The example I think I use in the book is Ezekiel Emanuel, telling people you shouldn't go to restaurants because we still have some COVIDs like now, in 2022, 2023, right? But he rides a motorcycle, which is known to be one of the most dangerous things per mile that you can do. People are usually not super meta-rational about risk."</p><p>— Nate Silver, Conversations with Tyler - Episode with Nate Silver</p>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveTyler Cowen: Now, there's plenty of material in your book about people who take a lot of risk. The subtitle is The Art of Risking Everything. How much do you think people segregate areas of risk-taking? For instance, people might say, "Well, Tyler, you travel to some dangerous locations." But I'm totally afraid to scuba dive. I feel I'm very strongly segregated. I either take a fair amount of risk or close to none at all. Is that your model of most humans? Nate Silver: That's pretty normal. Yes. The example I think I use in the book is Ezekiel Emanuel, telling people you shouldn't go to restaurants because we still have some COVIDs like now, in 2022, 2023, right? But he rides a motorcycle, which is known to be one of the most dangerous things per mile that you can do. People are usually not super meta-rational about risk. Tyler Cowen: But should they be? Should you have one general risk attitude? Is that more meta-rational? Nate Silver: Look, I think things that seem irrational are often rational on a higher plane, right? Tyler Cowen: Sure. Yes. Nate Silver: Like loss aversion. I had a pair of headphones stolen from me the other day, and I felt very guilty about that. We hadn't locked the door of our car, and it was my fault. Tyler Cowen: This is in New York? Nate Silver: Actually, in upstate New York. You've got to be careful in upstate. Tyler Cowen: Real home of thieves. Sure. Nate Silver: You're like, "Oh, okay. I can afford a new pair of headphones. It's not that big a deal." If you were chronically sloppy about things like that, then that would cause more hardship and would be wasteful, and so, loss aversion, things like that — they come from flawed iterations of rationality that might serve a higher purpose or might have served an evolutionary purpose earlier in human civilization.risk-takingpsychologydecision-makingbehavioral-economicsNate Silverhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/dalrymple-shattered-lands-kamath/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/dalrymple-shattered-lands-kamath/<p>"Shattered Lands by @SamDalrymple123 is a must-read for history buffs."</p><p>— Nithin Kamath, Twitter recommendation</p>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI didn't realise that lands from Muscat and Oman, the UAE, all the way to Burma were once part of the British Indian Empire. I'd always thought of India's partition as only involving India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Shattered Lands by @SamDalrymple123 is a must-read for history buffs. And thanks to good genes, I guess. :) The Anarchy by @DalrympleWill is still one of my favourites. It tells the story of how the East India Company came to India to trade, became immensely wealthy, and, in their pursuit of more, became ruthless. It makes me wonder: today, as trillion-dollar companies rise, what happens if they turn evil, too?historyasiapartitiongeopoliticsmodern-historyNithin Kamathhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/roberts-domination-rubinstein/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/roberts-domination-rubinstein/<p>"I'm unlikely to read this but it strikes me as a little bit lame to write a whole book quite obviously trying to challenge Tom Holland's _Dominion_ & then not even mention him by name."</p><p>— Samuel Rubinstein, Twitter discussion</p>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTcriticalI'm unlikely to read this but it strikes me as a little bit lame to write a whole book quite obviously trying to challenge Tom Holland's _Dominion_ & then not even mention him by name. > This book feels like one last obnoxious death rattle of New Atheism. Building an identity out of the nonexistence of God was always a tricky project. The further attempt to fill the god-shaped whole with, essentially, the Lib Dem manifesto was doomed from day one. > > — Peter Hague (@peterrhague) [https://x.com/peterrhague/status/1964382664107933734](https://x.com/peterrhague/status/1964382664107933734)religionphilosophynew-atheismcriticismcultural-analysisSamuel Rubinsteinhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/bennett-brief-history-intelligence-hidalgo/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/bennett-brief-history-intelligence-hidalgo/<p>"This is the best book I've read this year. It is also an important book. In a world obsessed with AI, Max Bennett approaches intelligence from a key point of view: biology."</p><p>— César A. Hidalgo, Twitter book review and recommendation</p>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveThis is the best book I've read this year. It is also an important book. In a world obsessed with AI, Max Bennett (@maxsbennett) approaches intelligence from a key point of view: biology. A Brief History of Intelligence assembles the many mechanisms that contribute to intelligence in chronological order. This is not just clever structure. By explaining the problem each mechanism solves you get a deep understanding of why intelligence emerged and how it differs among species. In this theory, intelligence emerges in animals because, unlike plants who can produce their own food, or fungi who eat what is already dead, animals roam the environment in search for something to kill and eat. In some ways, animals developed intelligence because we started in the worse ecological niche and were forced to innovate to survive. These innovations start with the problem of deciding a common direction of motion in a multicellular organism. One of the things I found extremely refreshing, is that Bennet explains these mechanisms by summarizing experiments on c. elegans, a microscopic worm with about 300 or so neurons, that can be used to understand a primitive dopamine system and even emotions. Do you ever feel like running away when you are in an uncomfortable situation? Do you like dancing when things go your way? Well, so does this little worm. The book is filled with clever experiments that help separate the intelligence of worms, fish, and us, while showing that we still have much in common. When do we start recognizing patterns, and why? Why do the mechanisms that allow us to learn can lead to addiction? Why is imagination a key to intelligence? From the basics of sensory input, valence, and motility Bennet takes us into neurochemistry, reinforcement learning, and credit assignment problems, showing that what we consider cutting edge research in machine learning is often something that evolution solved over one hundred million years ago. A truly refreshing read that humbles the field of AI while putting it into a broader perspective. I would recommend this book to everyone interested in AI. After all, it is about something more general. About the I, no matter if it comes with an A or not. It is about the common problems that lead to the development of that I, and how these are shared by biological and artificial systems. 5 stars!!artificial-intelligenceneuroscienceevolutionbiologycognitive-sciencemachine-learningCésar A. Hidalgohttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/huang-1587-year-no-significance-sine/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/huang-1587-year-no-significance-sine/<p>"1587 is absolutely one of the great books on Chinese history. It is a series of vignettes, each a chapter centered on the life of a single notable individual in a single year during the Ming dynasty's decline."</p><p>— Jonathon P Sine, Twitter thread recommendation</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositive1587 is absolutely one of the great books on Chinese history. It is a series of vignettes, each a chapter centered on the life of a single notable individual in a single year during the Ming dynasty's decline. Actually kind of gives ATLA's "Tales of Ba Sing Se" vibe if you're unfamiliar with Tales of Ba Sing Se please rectify your ignorance forthwith 1587 gives a vivid sense of the stultifying moral-political order of the late Ming. And nobody was more put upon than the emperor himself. One deeply sympathizes with Wan Li's decision to just quiet quit for 4 decades. 一本好书 made it into a tv episode As one would expect, though, Huang saves the best for last. Even the chapter title—a divided conscience—is chef's kiss. It profiles a devote Confucian civil servant (Li Zhi) who at the age of 50 decides the tartuffery is just too much and becomes a buddhist monk. but his fate was to be the same as all of 1587's protagonists: a group whose fascinating "toil and trouble proved to be only futile." An aside, his China: A Macro History is also really good, concise, often incisive intro text overviewing the duration of the country's history. I don't know of any that do a better job!chinese-historyming-dynastyhistorical-biographypolitical-historyJonathon P Sinehttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/huang-china-macro-history-sine/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/huang-china-macro-history-sine/<p>"An aside, his China: A Macro History is also really good, concise, often incisive intro text overviewing the duration of the country's history. I don't know of any that do a better job!"</p><p>— Jonathon P Sine, Twitter thread recommendation</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveAn aside, his China: A Macro History is also really good, concise, often incisive intro text overviewing the duration of the country's history. I don't know of any that do a better job!chinese-historyhistorical-overviewintroductory-textcomprehensive-historyJonathon P Sinehttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/vogel-deng-xiaoping-transformation-china-ma/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/vogel-deng-xiaoping-transformation-china-ma/<p>"I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China."</p><p>— Zixuan Ma, Twitter thread - Six Foundational Books on China</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI am launching a blog on Chinese political economy. It's my contribution to the conversation on China. "An ancient civilization starting anew, China remains poorly understood by the world. Superficial resemblance to the Soviet Union masks its complex history, distinctive culture, and hybrid economy. Yet the importance of getting China right can hardly be overstated." In the inaugural essay, I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) by Ezra Vogel 1587, a Year of No Significance (1981) by Ray Huang The Rise of Modern China, 6th Edition (1999) by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) by Zhao Ziyang The State Strikes Back (2019) by Nicholas Lardy How China Works: An Introduction to China's State-Led Economic Development (2024) by Lan Xiaohuanchinese-historypolitical-economybiographyeconomic-reformdeng-xiaopingZixuan Mahttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/huang-1587-year-no-significance-ma/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/huang-1587-year-no-significance-ma/<p>"I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China."</p><p>— Zixuan Ma, Twitter thread - Six Foundational Books on China</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI am launching a blog on Chinese political economy. It's my contribution to the conversation on China. "An ancient civilization starting anew, China remains poorly understood by the world. Superficial resemblance to the Soviet Union masks its complex history, distinctive culture, and hybrid economy. Yet the importance of getting China right can hardly be overstated." In the inaugural essay, I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) by Ezra Vogel 1587, a Year of No Significance (1981) by Ray Huang The Rise of Modern China, 6th Edition (1999) by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) by Zhao Ziyang The State Strikes Back (2019) by Nicholas Lardy How China Works: An Introduction to China's State-Led Economic Development (2024) by Lan Xiaohuanchinese-historypolitical-economyming-dynastyfoundational-readingZixuan Mahttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/hsu-rise-modern-china-ma/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/hsu-rise-modern-china-ma/<p>"I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China."</p><p>— Zixuan Ma, Twitter thread - Six Foundational Books on China</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI am launching a blog on Chinese political economy. It's my contribution to the conversation on China. "An ancient civilization starting anew, China remains poorly understood by the world. Superficial resemblance to the Soviet Union masks its complex history, distinctive culture, and hybrid economy. Yet the importance of getting China right can hardly be overstated." In the inaugural essay, I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) by Ezra Vogel 1587, a Year of No Significance (1981) by Ray Huang The Rise of Modern China, 6th Edition (1999) by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) by Zhao Ziyang The State Strikes Back (2019) by Nicholas Lardy How China Works: An Introduction to China's State-Led Economic Development (2024) by Lan Xiaohuanchinese-historypolitical-economymodern-chinafoundational-readingtextbookZixuan Mahttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/zhao-prisoner-of-state-ma/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/zhao-prisoner-of-state-ma/<p>"I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China."</p><p>— Zixuan Ma, Twitter thread - Six Foundational Books on China</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI am launching a blog on Chinese political economy. It's my contribution to the conversation on China. "An ancient civilization starting anew, China remains poorly understood by the world. Superficial resemblance to the Soviet Union masks its complex history, distinctive culture, and hybrid economy. Yet the importance of getting China right can hardly be overstated." In the inaugural essay, I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) by Ezra Vogel 1587, a Year of No Significance (1981) by Ray Huang The Rise of Modern China, 6th Edition (1999) by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) by Zhao Ziyang The State Strikes Back (2019) by Nicholas Lardy How China Works: An Introduction to China's State-Led Economic Development (2024) by Lan Xiaohuanchinese-historypolitical-economymemoirtiananmen-squarezhao-ziyangfoundational-readingZixuan Mahttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/lardy-state-strikes-back-ma/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/lardy-state-strikes-back-ma/<p>"I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China."</p><p>— Zixuan Ma, Twitter thread - Six Foundational Books on China</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI am launching a blog on Chinese political economy. It's my contribution to the conversation on China. "An ancient civilization starting anew, China remains poorly understood by the world. Superficial resemblance to the Soviet Union masks its complex history, distinctive culture, and hybrid economy. Yet the importance of getting China right can hardly be overstated." In the inaugural essay, I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) by Ezra Vogel 1587, a Year of No Significance (1981) by Ray Huang The Rise of Modern China, 6th Edition (1999) by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) by Zhao Ziyang The State Strikes Back (2019) by Nicholas Lardy How China Works: An Introduction to China's State-Led Economic Development (2024) by Lan Xiaohuanchinese-economypolitical-economyeconomic-reformstate-interventioncontemporary-chinafoundational-readingZixuan Mahttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/lan-how-china-works-ma/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/lan-how-china-works-ma/<p>"I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China."</p><p>— Zixuan Ma, Twitter thread - Six Foundational Books on China</p>Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI am launching a blog on Chinese political economy. It's my contribution to the conversation on China. "An ancient civilization starting anew, China remains poorly understood by the world. Superficial resemblance to the Soviet Union masks its complex history, distinctive culture, and hybrid economy. Yet the importance of getting China right can hardly be overstated." In the inaugural essay, I recommend six books that serve as the necessary foundation for in-depth understanding of China. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) by Ezra Vogel 1587, a Year of No Significance (1981) by Ray Huang The Rise of Modern China, 6th Edition (1999) by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) by Zhao Ziyang The State Strikes Back (2019) by Nicholas Lardy How China Works: An Introduction to China's State-Led Economic Development (2024) by Lan Xiaohuanchinese-economypolitical-economystate-led-developmentcontemporary-chinaeconomic-policyfoundational-readingZixuan Mahttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/birkerts-gutenberg-elegies-marriott/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/birkerts-gutenberg-elegies-marriott/<p>"This is a wonderful and moving book predicting the replacement of books by screens published in 1996. The author repeatedly apologises for how pessimistic he sounds. He had no idea."</p><p>— James Marriott, Twitter recommendation</p>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositivetechnologyreadingculturedigital-ageliteraturemedia-theoryJames Marriotthttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/zubok-collapse-soviet-union-eden/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/zubok-collapse-soviet-union-eden/<p>"I'm halfway through now and this book is getting seriously upsetting. I've never seen someone fumble with such catastrophic consequences before. He led his whole country off a cliff for Bush to repeatedly embarrass him. Like stomach churning awfully embarrassing"</p><p>— Anthony Eden hate account / New Left EViews, Twitter - book mention</p>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTpositiveI'm halfway through now and this book is getting seriously upsetting. I've never seen someone fumble with such catastrophic consequences before. He led his whole country off a cliff for Bush to repeatedly embarrass him. Like stomach churning awfully embarrassing I have no personal or familial connections to the Soviet Union and I was born after it collapsed but I found this book strangely traumatising. An impressive but decidedly not cheerful read.historysoviet-unionpolitical-historygorbachevcold-warcollapseAnthony Eden hate account / New Left EViewshttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/mears-very-important-people-henderson/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/mears-very-important-people-henderson/<p>"Shared excerpt discussing Veblen's theory of the leisure class and status displays among the rich, focusing on how wealth is flaunted through leisurely pursuits and 'pecuniary emulation' while masking anxieties about status relative to aristocratic elite."</p><p>— Rob Henderson, Twitter - book mention (excerpt)</p>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTneutralsociologystatuswealthveblenconspicuous-consumptionsocial-classRob Hendersonhttps://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/buss-evolution-of-desire-henderson/https://booktrails.rabbitholes.garden/mentions/buss-evolution-of-desire-henderson/<p>"Shared excerpt discussing Langlois's research on infant preferences for attractive faces, showing that infants as young as 2-3 months looked longer at more attractive faces, and that 12-month-olds showed more positive interactions with attractive stimuli."</p><p>— Rob Henderson, Twitter - book mention (excerpt)</p>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTneutralevolutionary-psychologyattractionhuman-behaviorpsychologymating-strategiesRob Henderson