January and February’s book recommendations
I’ve been a bit tardy in updating the book recommendations — still recovering from being Andrew Sullivan. So these recommendations will cover the next two months. The international relations book for the next six weeks is Kenneth Dam’s The Rules of the Global Game: A New Look at U.S. International Economic Policymaking. It’s one of ...
I've been a bit tardy in updating the book recommendations -- still recovering from being Andrew Sullivan. So these recommendations will cover the next two months. The international relations book for the next six weeks is Kenneth Dam's The Rules of the Global Game: A New Look at U.S. International Economic Policymaking. It's one of the primary textbooks for my U.S. Foreign Economic Policy class. From an academic perspective, the book is a somewhat unusual recommendation -- there's not a lot of original theory or new models explaining either the global economy or U.S. economic policy. However, Dam's comparative advantage is formidable. First, his policy experience (OMB staffer under Nixon; Deputy Secretary of State under George Schultz; Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Paul O'Neill) dwarfs that of any academic currently writing on the subject. Second, Dam's academic experience at the University of Chicago makes him singularly suited to translate the arcana of policy into an accessible format. Go check it out. The general interest book is Robert Fogel's The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism. This choice is partially inspired by a series of blog entries that Brad DeLong, Mark Kleiman, and Tom Spencer posted at the end of last month about living "through both the Fourth Great Awakening and the Second Gilded Age," as Mark put it. As I read this, I was ruminating about something Kevin Drum posted last month after hosting a blog dinner party:
I’ve been a bit tardy in updating the book recommendations — still recovering from being Andrew Sullivan. So these recommendations will cover the next two months. The international relations book for the next six weeks is Kenneth Dam’s The Rules of the Global Game: A New Look at U.S. International Economic Policymaking. It’s one of the primary textbooks for my U.S. Foreign Economic Policy class. From an academic perspective, the book is a somewhat unusual recommendation — there’s not a lot of original theory or new models explaining either the global economy or U.S. economic policy. However, Dam’s comparative advantage is formidable. First, his policy experience (OMB staffer under Nixon; Deputy Secretary of State under George Schultz; Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Paul O’Neill) dwarfs that of any academic currently writing on the subject. Second, Dam’s academic experience at the University of Chicago makes him singularly suited to translate the arcana of policy into an accessible format. Go check it out. The general interest book is Robert Fogel’s The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism. This choice is partially inspired by a series of blog entries that Brad DeLong, Mark Kleiman, and Tom Spencer posted at the end of last month about living “through both the Fourth Great Awakening and the Second Gilded Age,” as Mark put it. As I read this, I was ruminating about something Kevin Drum posted last month after hosting a blog dinner party:
Most lefty bloggers are actually pretty moderate liberals: me, Josh Marshall, Atrios, Matt Yglesias, Jeralyn Merritt, Brad DeLong, etc. (Atrios is a hardnosed partisan, but his politics are actually fairly centrist liberal. Surprise!) Most righty bloggers are actually libertarians, not conservatives.
I think Kevin’s assessment is correct. What’s missing from that political spectrum is anyone who would actually participate in any kind of religious activity that could be linked to a Great Awakening — the evangelical community in particular. I wouldn’t say that the leading lights of the blogosphere are exactly hostile to the devoutly religious. There might, however, be a gulf of understanding that needs to be bridged. The Fourth Great Awakening — written by a Nobel prize-winning economic historian — seems like a good start, in discussing the role that religious awakenings have played in American history. Fogel’s book is an interesting mix of economic and social history, with a partial explanation for the occurrence of religious revivals. It’s also something that’s been on my “need to read” list for some time. Click here for a precis of Fogel’s argument, and here for his whiggish predictions for the future.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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