Looking for some summer reading?
Capitalism and the Jews, by Jerry Z. Muller: This new book grew out of Muller’s monumentally important earlier work The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought. If you want to understand why Jews have done phenomenally well in capitalist societies and at the same time have been some of capitalism’s harshest critics, this history will help you understand. (Those of you familiar with the Teaching Company should check out Muller’s course “Thinking about Capitalism.”)
The Axe and the Oath: Ordinary Life in the Middle Ages, by Robert Fossier: Well, there’s this: “Man is the only mammal, if not the only animated being, who destroys and kills out of hatred or for pleasure, without being pushed to it by fear, hunger or some sexual impulse. He is the most dreaded and pitiless of predators.” Can you say beach reading? This remarkable book, forthcoming from Princeton University Press, belongs with William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire as a window into a world so far removed from us and yet still very much present today.
Sonic Boom: Capitalism at Mach Speed, by Gregg Easterbrook: With a sluggish economy, looming entitlement disasters, and high unemployment, it’s hard to be optimistic about the future. Gregg Easterbrook’s new book is an antidote to doom and gloom. There’s a lot to be bullish about, if you look in the right places. Gregg is your guide.
— Nick Schulz is editor in chief of American.com.
There are more suggestions, from many different authors, here and here.