Some of the books I’m reading or have read (or re-read) over the summer.
Plunder by Steven Greenhut. If you haven’t read it, buy it today and read it. In short the book is about how public employee union members have become the new elite, and how the situation is unsustainable.
The Same of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens. After you read the Greenhut book read this series of articles in book form. They run over the corruption of 19th Century political machines that led to civil service reform that lead to civil service machines.
All of the original James Bond novels by Ian Flemming. A guilty pleasure I revisit most summers. Read them slowly and enjoy.
Red State Blue State Rich State Poor State by Andrew Gelman. We live in a news world that divides states red and blue. Why? Are they? If so, why? Is it income? Yes and no.
The Stalinist Penal System by Otto Pohl. This is an original source filled book that makes you glad you weren’t middle class, or non-Russian, or any number of other things when the Soviet gulag was around. More statistical than narrative.
August 26th, 2010 at 12:00 am
All very good choices !
On the subject of Stalin, it is never too late to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s
masterpiece, “The Gulag Archipelago”. It is a non-fiction history of that
massive state-within-a-state, thousands of prison camps and MILLIONS of
innocent civilian prisoners. Many of them never came home.
Nobel Prize winner Solzhenitsyn spent 10 years in one of them himself.
A censor reported a private letter he wrote as a solider in WWII, calling
for reforms at war’s end. The man’s drive and courage afterwards are a
testament of his strong religious faith.
August 27th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Totally agree Jim. ‘Gulag’ is terrifying, actually… full of concrete examples of the brutality, rape, slave labor, bribery, theft, and murder that makes authoritarian systems work.
Of course though since Gulag is written by a Russian, and their style is not exactly American modern, many readers may find it a bit repetitive and wordy. Think a slightly wordier Ayn Rand.