Marginal Revolution Books

A browsable database of books discussed on Marginal Revolution, sorted by the month of their posting.

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Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World by Rob Sheffield Marginal Revolution post: Dreaming the Beatles by Tyler Cowen on May 2nd, 2017 Release Date: 2017-04-25 Sales Rank: 6335 “This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles,... ...Read More
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday Marginal Revolution post: Reviving productivity by Tyler Cowen on May 3rd, 2017 Release Date: 2016-06-14 Sales Rank: 1399 The instant Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international bestseller“While the history books are filled with tales of obsessive visionary geniuses who remade the world in their image with sheer, almost irrational force, I’ve found that history... ...Read More
Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam by Shahab Ahmed Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 150989 One of the most controversial episodes in the life of the Prophet Muhammad concerns an incident in which he allegedly mistook words suggested by Satan as divine revelation. Known as the Satanic verses, these praises to the pagan deities contradict... ...Read More
After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, Marshall Steinbaum Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 7887 Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the most widely discussed work of economics in recent history, selling millions of copies in dozens of languages. But are its analyses of inequality and economic growth on target? Where shoul... ...Read More
Approaching Zion (The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol 9) by Hugh Nibley Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 88551 Approaching Zion is LDS scholar and social critic Hugh Nibley's most popular book. More accessible than many of his scholarly works, it is replete with Nibley's trademark humor and startling insights into history, religion and life. Well known and... ...Read More
This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organized Crime by Stephen Ellis Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 435842 Nigeria and Nigerians have acquired a notorious reputation for involvement in drug-trafficking, fraud, cyber-crime and other types of serious crime. Successful Nigerian criminal networks have a global reach, interacting with their Italian, Latin ... ...Read More
The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite by Duff McDonald Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-04-25 Sales Rank: 8718 A riveting and timely intellectual history of one of our most important capitalist institutions, Harvard Business School, from the bestselling author of The Firm.With The Firm, financial journalist Duff McDonald pulled back the curtain on consulti... ...Read More
The Federal Judiciary: Strengths and Weaknesses by Richard A. Posner Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 759340 No sitting federal judge has ever written so trenchant a critique of the federal judiciary as Richard A. Posner does in this, his most confrontational book. Skewering the politicization of the Supreme Court, the mismanagement of judicial staff, th... ...Read More
Letters from Iceland by W.H. Auden Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 591334 This highly amusing and unorthodox travel book resulted from a light-hearted summer journey by the young poets Auden and MacNiece in 1936. Their letters home, in verse and prose, are full of private jokes and irreverent comments about people, pol... ...Read More
The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution by Michael J. Klarman Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Sales Rank: 20445 Americans revere their Constitution. However, most of us are unaware how tumultuous and improbable the drafting and ratification processes were. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men bring with them "all their prejudices, their... ...Read More
The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance by Ben Sasse Marginal Revolution post: Saturday assorted links by Tyler Cowen on May 6th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-16 Sales Rank: 19 THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future.Raised by well-m... ...Read More
Xtc: Chalkhills and Children by Chris Twomey Marginal Revolution post: My two favorite books about management, ever by Tyler Cowen on May 7th, 2017 Sales Rank: 1361158 The authorized account of the rise of the Swindon based trio XTC and the reasons behind their longevity and decision to abandon live appearances. Based on interviews with Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory, it tells of their trials an... ...Read More
The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited: The Sequel by Johnny Rogan Marginal Revolution post: My two favorite books about management, ever by Tyler Cowen on May 7th, 2017 Sales Rank: 1323396 Book by Rogan, Johnny
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein Marginal Revolution post: The Color of Law by Tyler Cowen on May 8th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-02 Sales Rank: 835 "Rothstein has presented what I consider to be the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation." ―William Julius WilsonIn this groundbreaking history of th... ...Read More
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott Marginal Revolution post: How long until another Industrial Revolution would have taken place? by Tyler Cowen on May 9th, 2017 Sales Rank: 4580 An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock a... ...Read More
The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) by James C. Scott Marginal Revolution post: How long until another Industrial Revolution would have taken place? by Tyler Cowen on May 9th, 2017 Sales Rank: 59512 For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, c... ...Read More
Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins by Garry Kasparov Marginal Revolution post: My Conversation with Garry Kasparov by Tyler Cowen on May 10th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-02 Sales Rank: 22057 Garry Kasparov's 1997 chess match against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue was a watershed moment in the history of technology. It was the dawn of a new era in artificial intelligence: a machine capable of beating the reigning human champion at thi... ...Read More
Indiscrete Thoughts (Modern Birkhäuser Classics) by Gian-Carlo Rota Marginal Revolution post: Indiscrete Thoughts by Tyler Cowen on May 11th, 2017 Sales Rank: 895278 Indiscrete Thoughts gives a glimpse into a world that has seldom been described - that of science and technology as seen through the eyes of a mathematician. The era covered by this book, 1950 to 1990, was surely one of the golden ages of science ... ...Read More
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky Marginal Revolution post: Robert Sapolsky’s Behave by Tyler Cowen on May 11th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-02 Sales Rank: 173 “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” — David P. Barash, The Wall Street JournalFrom the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior,... ...Read More
The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone by Thomas Winslow Hazlett Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Sales Rank: 99836 From the former chief economist of the FCC, a remarkable history of the U.S. government’s regulation of the airwaves Popular legend has it that before the Federal Radio Commission was established in 1927, the radio spectrum was in chaos, with broa... ...Read More
Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong by Eric Barker Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-16 Sales Rank: 419 Much of the advice we’ve been told about achievement is logical, earnest…and downright wrong. In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker reveals the extraordinary science behind what actually determines success and most importantly, how anyone can ... ...Read More
Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything by Ulrich Boser Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-03-07 Sales Rank: 15248
The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire by Ramiro Matos Mendieta, Jose Barreiro, David Penney, John Oschendorf Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Release Date: 2015-07-21 Sales Rank: 387500 This compelling collection of essays explores the Qhapaq nan (or Great Inca Road), an extensive network of trails reaching modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. These roads and the accompanying agricultural terraces an... ...Read More
World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-09-12 Sales Rank: 1431589 Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and inf... ...Read More
Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama by David Garrow Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-09 Sales Rank: 2886 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERRising Star is the definitive account of Barack Obama's formative years that made him the man who became the forty-fourth president of the United States—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the CrossBarack Oba... ...Read More
The Invisibility Cloak (New York Review Books Classics) by Ge Fei Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Release Date: 2016-10-11 Sales Rank: 76995 An NYRB Classics Original The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing—where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods—and he’s a loser. Well into... ...Read More
Samuel Palmer: Shadows on the Wall by William Vaughan Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 12th, 2017 Sales Rank: 954175 Samuel Palmer (1805–1881) was one of the leading British landscape painters of the 19th century. Inspired by his mentor, the artist and poet William Blake, Palmer brought a new spiritual intensity to his interpretation of nature, producing works o... ...Read More
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 15th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-08-08 Sales Rank: 24555 From one of America’s greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution sh... ...Read More
Collective Choice and Social Welfare: An Expanded Edition by Amartya Sen Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 15th, 2017 Sales Rank: 509429 “Can the values which individual members of society attach to different alternatives be aggregated into values for society as a whole, in a way that is both fair and theoretically sound? Is the majority principle a workable rule for making decisio... ...Read More
Unexpected Elegies: "Poems of 1912-13" and Other Poems About Emma by Thomas Hardy Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 15th, 2017 Sales Rank: 1127432 Thomas Hardy’s famous sequence of love poems, published as a book for the first time. When Emma Hardy died in 1912, her husband, the great novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, began to write “Poems of 1912–13,” a series of elegies that are among the mo... ...Read More
Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 15th, 2017 Release Date: 2016-11-01 Sales Rank: 130967 Award-winning translator and author Ken Liu presents a collection of short speculative fiction from China. Some stories have won awards (including Hao Jingfang’s Hugo-winning novella, Folding Beijing); some have been included in various 'Year's Be... ...Read More
The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us by Richard O. Prum Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 15th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-09 Sales Rank: 2095 A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that ... ...Read More
A New Literary History of Modern China by David Der-wei Wang Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 15th, 2017 Sales Rank: 88427 Literature, from the Chinese perspective, makes manifest the cosmic patterns that shape and complete the world―a process of “worlding” that is much more than mere representation. In that spirit, A New Literary History of Modern China looks beyond ... ...Read More
Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing by Ben Blatt Marginal Revolution post: Number of -ly adverbs per 10,000 words by Tyler Cowen on May 17th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-03-14 Sales Rank: 35160 What are our favorite authors’ favorite words? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichés? How can we judge a book by its cover? Data meets literature in this playful and informative look at our favorite authors and their masterpieces. “A lit... ...Read More
Rethinking Housing Bubbles: The Role of Household and Bank Balance Sheets in Modeling Economic Cycles by Steven D. Gjerstad, Professor Vernon L. Smith Marginal Revolution post: Home Owner’s Equity is Rising and Getting Closer to Peak by Alex Tabarrok on May 19th, 2017 Sales Rank: 1127345 Balance sheet crises, in which the prices of widely held and highly leveraged assets collapse, pose distinctive economic challenges. An understanding of their causes and consequences is only recently developing, and there is no agreement on effect... ...Read More
The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance by Ben Sasse Marginal Revolution post: What should I ask Ben Sasse? by Tyler Cowen on May 19th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-16 Sales Rank: 15 THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future.Raised by well-m... ...Read More
Art Collecting Today: Market Insights for Everyone Passionate about Art by Doug Woodham Marginal Revolution post: Art Collecting Today by Tyler Cowen on May 23rd, 2017 Release Date: 2017-04-04 Sales Rank: 19133 Grounded in real-life stories, Art Collecting Today is the essential practical guide to today's art market. A lightly regulated industry with more than sixty billion dollars of annual sales, the art market is often opaque and confusing to even the... ...Read More
Free To Choose Medicine: Better Drugs Sooner at Lower Cost by Bartley J. Madden Marginal Revolution post: Pharmaceutical Reciprocity for Canada by Alex Tabarrok on May 24th, 2017 Sales Rank: 1551774 Free To Choose Medicine offers a compelling argument for the freedom of every patient, guided by the advice of his or her doctor, to make informed decisions about the use of not-yet-FDA-approved therapeutic drugs that are in late stages of clinica... ...Read More
The Varieties Of Religious Experience: A Study In Human Nature by William James Marginal Revolution post: Why I don’t believe in God by Tyler Cowen on May 25th, 2017 Sales Rank: 41295
Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions by Alexander Todorov Marginal Revolution post: Face Value by Tyler Cowen on May 25th, 2017 Sales Rank: 28239 The scientific story of first impressions--and why the snap character judgments we make from faces are irresistible but usually incorrectWe make up our minds about others after seeing their faces for a fraction of a second--and these snap judgment... ...Read More
The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides by Arnold Kling Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 26th, 2017 Sales Rank: 61260 When it was first released in 2013, Arnold Kling’s The Three Languages of Politics was a prescient exploration of political communication, detailing the “three tribal coalitions” that make up America’s political landscape. Progressives, conservati... ...Read More
The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America by Rick Wartzman Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 26th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-30 Sales Rank: 15178 Having a good, stable job used to be the bedrock of the American Dream. Not anymore.In this richly detailed and eye-opening book, Rick Wartzman chronicles the erosion of the relationship between American companies and their workers. Through the st... ...Read More
White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America by Joan C. Williams Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 26th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-16 Sales Rank: 1232 Around the world, populist movements are gaining traction among the white working class. Meanwhile, members of the professional elite―journalists, managers, and establishment politicians―are on the outside looking in, left to argue over the reason... ...Read More
Beating the Odds: Jump-Starting Developing Countries by Justin Yifu Lin, Célestin Monga Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 26th, 2017 Sales Rank: 68306 How poor countries can ignite economic growth without waiting for global action or the creation of ideal local conditionsContrary to conventional wisdom, countries that ignite a process of rapid economic growth almost always do so while lacking wh... ...Read More
Miracle Cure: The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine by William Rosen Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 26th, 2017 Release Date: 2017-05-09 Sales Rank: 14179 For fans of Microbe Hunters: The epic history of how antibiotics were born, saving millions of lives and creating a vast new industry known as Big Pharma.As late as the 1930s, virtually no drug intended for sickness did any good; doctors could set... ...Read More
The German Slump: Politics and Economics 1924-1936 by Harold James (1986-04-10) by Harold James Marginal Revolution post: What I’ve been reading by Tyler Cowen on May 26th, 2017 Sales Rank:
India's Long Road: The Search for Prosperity by Vijay Joshi Marginal Revolution post: India Fact of the Day by Alex Tabarrok on May 27th, 2017 Sales Rank: 113292 India's economic resurgence has been the subject of many extravagant predictions and hopes. In this powerful and wide-ranging book, distinguished economist Vijay Joshi lays out a penetrating analysis of the shaky foundations of the country's perfo... ...Read More
Proust and His Banker: In Search of Time Squandered by Gian Balsamo Marginal Revolution post: Proust as speculator by Tyler Cowen on May 29th, 2017 Sales Rank: 236082 What Marcel Proust wanted from life most of all was unconditional requited love, and the way he went after it―smothering the objects of his affection with gifts―cost him a fortune. To pay for such extravagance, he engaged in daring speculations on... ...Read More