Abundance

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

April 18. Even before I read it, I was quite familiar with this book. I am an avid reader and listener to Ezra Klein's podcasts and to a lesser degree Derek Thompson's. We saw them speak recently on their book tour, so I knew what to expect. Klein and Thompson's basic argument is that progressives in the 70s, through a distrust in government, made it harder to actually make progress - build things, make things, conduct scientific research, etc. This correleates well with the arguments in Stuck and Why Nothing Works. They assert that progressives gummed up the works of progress by making it hard for government to do things - by creating rules and processes to mitigate risk and slow down progress. In some cases (e.g. housing) the rules and processes have by hijacked by those who resist change for their own purposes and priorities. Now, with a myriad of challenges facing the world - climate change, global competition, the rise of AI, etc. we need to relax some of these rules and processes so American can build and invent again. This is not a wholesale abandonment of regulation (as the Wall Street Journal incorrectly celebrates) but a deliberate focus on building, making, and inventing things. They call for a relaxation of zoning laws, the ability to build energy infrastructure, and a recommitment to science and innovation - particularly getting past the conservatism in scientific peer review that has led to more incremental innovation and less breakthrough innovation. They call for a progressive abundance generation led by technolgicial and developemnt progress rathar than simile redistribution of a fixed pie. Although some of the arguments may be seen as simplistic, what I liked about the book is that it paints a positive progressive vision that I hope motivates people more than the current burn it all down and replace with laisse faire view of the current conservative politics. Further it paints a positive view of government. I fear that both sides of the political debate often advocate returning to some mythical past state of nirvana. Abundance challenges this with painting a positive view forward. I hope it helps.

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Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity

Yoni Appelbaum

April 5. Stuck is part of a triad including Abundance and Why Nothing Works that attempts to explain the failures (and prescriptions) of liberal democracy. Stuck focuses on housing and its impact on physical and social mobility. It covers the history of zoning and, to a lesser degree, urban planning. It describes how restrictive zoning practices at first kept races and classes separate and, later, allowed privileged and high income property owners to keep new housing from being developed in their neighborhoods. Like the other two books it describes processes and systems with initial laudable goals (e.g community involvement, historic preservation, and enviromental protection became weaponized by local citizens to prevent housing development and an influx of "others". Appelbaum describes all of these as the root of the housing crisis and contributory to other social ills such as social mobility. Although there is some overlap with the other two books, it is worth reading on its own merit.

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America's New Map: Restoring our Global Leadership in an Era of Climate Change and Demographic Collapse

Thomas P.M. Barnett

March 31. I first read Barnett when he wrote The Pentagon's New Map, a provocative analysis of the kinds of warfare the US would confront in coming years and how the military would need to structure itself to do so. When I saw that Barnett had written a more general book, I was intriqued. He focuses on two big interrelated mega trands - climate change and migration. He feels that climate change will happen and we will need to adapt - fro example, agricultural regions will shift north. He also posits that lots of people in the equatorial zones will be displaced and migrate northward. This is consistent with his first book where he felt that the equatorial zones would be our primary conflict zones. He talks about great power blocs forming and his solution is for the US to connect with the rest of the western hemisphere - South and Central America to form a big trading and political bloc. His ideas are provocative and many would not be accepted in today's political climate - but his conclusions might. He foresees an integrated western hemisphere economy and that just might happen. This is a very provocative book, like Barnett's first book and I was not disappointed.

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The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resiliance of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World

Dan Senor and Saul Singer

March 18. My Jewish brother-in-law gave me this book to help explain Israel. It is basically a booster book about Israel and covers a lot of what makes Israel special. It did gloss over some of the less seemly parts of Israel - internal political divides, treatment of the Palestinians, illegal settlements, and an eye-for-an-eye mentiality which has resulted in a lot of conflict and bloodshed with its neighbors. It was an OK book, but I would have preferred a more balanced and comprehensive look at Israel. Israel has a lot to be proud of - but also a lot of worrisome issues as well. Those were glossed over.

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The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

Hampton Sides

March 13. This is a history of Captain James Cook's final voyage from England, around Cape Horn to Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and back to Hawaii where he meets his final fate at the hands of Hawaiian natives. The book starts off kind of slow in England and Cook prepares for his voyage but gets more interesting as he gets into the voyage. He is trying to verify that there is a southern continent (Antarctica) although he never finds it and a Northwest Passage in the arctic (but he never finds that either), There are fascinating accounts of Cook and crews encounters with indigenous people in Tahiti, Hawaii, and Alaska. I read this book during and after our trip to the South Pacific so many of the locations, people, and customs were familiar to me. This is a pretty entertaining book and informative about a seminal historical voyage. It really gave a feel for what the early explorers were like and how their missions unfolded.

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Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress -- and How to Bring it Back

Marc J. Dunkelman

March 13. Why Nothing Works is a critique of progressivism and how - through good intention - it allowed government to ossify and stagnate progress. Dunkelman asserts that there are two fundamental philisophical poles in progressivism - Hameltonian - which espouses top-down leadership and Jeffersonian - which espouses bottom-up activism. Dunkelman asserts that progressivism has shifted over time between the two poles. Much progress was made through Hameltonian style leadership - the Tennessee Valley Authority, the interstate highway system, and NY parks and feeway development. But Hameltoninan leadership also led to abuse - disruption of neighborhoods, environmental degradations, etc. A distrust of authority in the 1970s led to a resurgance of Jeffersonian ideals in which more checks and balances were put in place - environmental laws, the ability of citizens to question and block progress, etc. Dunkelman asserts that society over-rotated on Jeffersonian mechanisms to the point where nothing gets done because citizens have ultimate veto power (a minority can block everything), but noone can say "yes". Dunkelman asserts a need to move to back to more Hameltonian leadership - a point of view I agree with. What he fails to convince me of, though, is how to prevent the abuses that led to the Jeffersonian shift. This is particularly the case where we seem to be driving to an autocratic government in the hands of idealoues who lack the competence to do the right thing for the American people. This was a thoughtful book and one of several coming out now trying to explain why government became ossified and paint a positive, progressive path forward.

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Mongkok Station: An Inspector Samual Tay Novel

Jake Needham

March 12. This is the 6^th Samual Tay novel, and like the last, Brother It's Starting to Rain it centers on an assignment given by the shadowy John August and takes place in Hong Kong. The secret daughter of the leader of Hong Kong and the Vice President of the US has gone missing and August enlists Tay and Claire (one of August's operatives from the last book) to find her. They enlist Shepard, from Needham's Laundry Man series to help. Tay is retired from the Singapore police force and has a health scare while in Singapore. The story is more about Tay and his insecurities than about the actual mystery. It ended kind of abruptly with little satisfaction. Like a lot of these mystery series, it is getting formulaic and long in the tooth and it looks like Needham is searching for an actual story.

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Hike Santa Barbara

John McKinney

February 26. This is a short book of hikes in the Santa Barbara area written by John McKinney who also wrote Hike the Channel Islands. We used to live in Santa Barbara in the 1980s and frequently hiked the mountains around Santa Barbara. We had a well-used hiking guide published by the local Sierra Club. I compared our favorite hikes in the old guide with the new guide. Many are still there but there is updated information about trails due to changes in land ownership and fires and mudslides. The new book also has some new hikes. We are going to Santa Barbara in April and the book will help us find and enjoy some classic hikes that we used to do when we lived there.

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Hike the Channel Islands

John McKinney and Chuck Graham

February 26. This is a short book of hikes in the Channel Islands. We are going there in April/May so this gave us an overview of some hikes. Our hikes will be guided so this is supplementla information. I read this after California's Channel Islands so I had some context as to the islands history and geography. The book was written by John McKinney, a well-known hiking expert.

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California's Channel Islands: A History

Frederic Caire Chiles

February 23. This is a history of the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast. We used to live in Santa Barabara and saw the Channel Islands every day on our driv to work but they were inacessable and mysterious. This book goes island by island and details the history from the early native Americans living on the islands to the present day. It was very interesting to see how much agriculture - primarily sheep and cattle grazing happened on the islands. They were inhabited by ranching families (including the authors'). There was a lot of environmental destruction which is now in the process of being mitigated. The book has photos of the early ranchers. There also was a lot of military presence. The book gave a good view of the islands and I learned a lot about the early settlers and particularly the economics of how they lived and worked on the islands. I do wish there were better maps. The narrative would have been improved with more detailed maps so I could tell what was happening where.

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Progressive Capitalism: How to Make Tech Work for All of Us

Ro Khanna

February 20. This book was written in 2022, in the heart of the Biden administration. It is a classic progressive playbook. I liked many of the ideas, but it is dated - although less so than Entrepreneurial Nation.. It seems almost quaint in a Trume era of Doge and a government captured by right wing extremists. I like Khanna and look forward to his prescription for getting out of our current mess and back on a more sustainable and rational political footing.

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Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama

John Avlon

January 30. This is an Obama-era book so it is a little dated. It is about how extreme groups on both the right and the left are taking over the political dialog in the country. Avalon tries to do a balanced reporting – but there are apparently a lot more right wing wingnuts than left wing ones. To give him credit, he really does try to find some left-wing ones. The book is good but a little out of date. Would love to read an updated version.

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Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America’s Future

Ro Khanna

January 25. This book was written by Khanna when he worked for the commerce department in the Obama administration. It has pretty standard liberal policy recommendations for supporting manufacturing in the US – including keeping it here and bringing some back. Khanna had lots of good stories and examples. Nothing earthshattering but interesting. It did seem a little dated.

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To Die For: a 6:20 Man Thriller

David Balddacci

January 24. This is another thriller in the Travis Devine series. Devine is an ex-military federal agent in a shadowy government agency. He is sent to figure out what is going on with the niece of a tech billionaire whose parents were killed and is being adopted by the billionaire. He gets involved with some shadowy conspiracies and is assisted by his nemesis from previous books – the girl on the train. Is she and enemy or an ally? Not sure? The book is improbably and a thriller although it did drag a bit in places. OK vacation reading.

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Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone age to AI

Yuval Noah Harari

January 20. This is Harari’s latest attempt to explain us and, as the title implies, he does it through the lens of information networks. He reinforces assertions from his earlier works that what makes humans unique is our ability to mobilize collective action through telling stories. He asserts that information networks seek both truth and power (although not always in equal proportions). He spends a lot of time on information networks that led to Christianity and those of various political movements. He talks about how the technology of information networks (books, broadcast, social media) affect our storytelling and reach. He contrasts democratic networks – with multiple pathways and error correction – with autocratic ones – centralized and lacking error correction. He is quite worried about artificial intelligence – partly because it can make up its own content rather than simply transmitting human content. He lost me a bit in the AI section because his rumination was somewhat convoluted and he did not reach any succinct conclusion. Perhaps that is the state of thinking about AI at this juncture.

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Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

Steven Watts

January 19. This book was both a biography of Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy Magazine, and a history of the magazine. The stories were intertwined, which made for fascinating reading. The main thrust of the book was playboy’s interpretation of and influence on politics and popular culture in the 60s-90s. Playboy (and Hefner) was a vocal supporter of free speech and the sexual revolution and also a promoter of a consumptive lifestyle. Their canonic reader was a young professional male in his late 20s with cash to spend on cars, stereos, apartments, wine, food, and women. The book was really well-written and was illuminating as to Playboys influence on popular culture when I was growing up. Hefner’s life was fascinating but even more so when depicted against the broader social backdrop he both shaped and was shaped by.

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The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier

Ian Urbina

January 9. This book was recommended by one of the expedition staff on a National Geographic expedition. It covers all kinds of illegal (or legally murky) things that happen on the world's oceans - from illegal fishing to slavery (often of people doing illegal fishing) to repossessing boats, to piracy. The oceans are a vaste empty place where lots of things can happen hidden from the eyes of the law - or where no law exists. The book is pretty interesting, although it did get a bit repetitive at times and covers things many people do not kmow much about. It shows what happens when there is a lot of ocean and little ability or capacity to enforce laws.

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