I’ve received a few emails on this front:

Greetings Jonah –
I apologize for filling your inbox when I haven’t read the book in question, but the Amazon description makes me worry about you a bit. A vanishing middle class? Environmental limits to prosperity? And you apparently agree with most of this…have you gone over to the other side? Could you expound upon your enthusiam for this book in the Corner? It sounds like a liberal screed to me.

I haven’t gotten to these arguments yet in the book (assuming they’re there), but this is a sweeping intellectual history. I don’t think you have to agree with every conclusion an author reaches to enjoy how he or she got there. Moreover, if you read the Preface alone or scan the index for environmentalism (mentioned on 2 pages in a 500+ page book) you can conclude pretty quickly that the Library Journal review was imposing an interpretation on the book. Anyway, I’ll comment more when I’m done with it.