What I’ve been reading

1. A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium, by Robert Friedel.  A very good treatment of the history of Western technology, although it is not accessible reading for most non-specialists.

2. Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming, by Chris Mooney.  The lower your social discount rate, the more you should worry about (growth-reducing) storms, and the less you should worry about one-time adjustments, such as moving islanders to a mainland.  In other words, you should worry about storms.

3. Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries, 1900-1969, by Dan Nadel.  Some of the best evidence that comic books are valuable art.

4. Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne.  On this rereading, I am obsessed by the notion that it is actually Uncle Toby who is Tristram’s biological father.  In any case this book has held up very well.

5. Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, by Alex von Tunzelmann.  Yet another high quality book on modern Indian history, here the theme is the departure of the British, the establishment of modern India, and of course partition.

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