A book very well worth reading. Morris is an excellent historian and a great story teller. He weaves the exploding body of empirical evidence about human history into an easily followed story line culminating in the emergence of the contemporary “world order.” However, as a theorist of history he has a long way to go.

Morris attempts to begin this intellectual journey with the origins of humans ca. 2 million years ago. But evolutionary biology and paleoanthropology are not his forte and this early part of the book is a little shallow and unsatisfying. However, as he reaches the eras where his specialties, archaeology and history, get traction, the story gains powerful substance and narrative force.
(more…)

Stop everything and read this book – not tomorrow, today! Taibbi is the latest and, by far (so far), the best of the army of scholars and journalists illuminating the horror of the recent financial crisis and the malfeasance of major players. His directness and candor is refreshing and informative. He lays out the real significance of the AIG bailout, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the taxpayer-subsidized super-profitability of Goldman Sachs, Greenspan’s insane shenanigans at the Fed, the authentic toxicity of the health care bill (not the brainless critique from the radical right) among other things. You will emerge from this book understanding your world and its mortal perils with astonishing new lucidity. Another outstanding book, Winner Take All Politics (Pierson and Hacher, 2010), gives you the 30 year strategic history of the most recent seizure of our country by financial elites. Taibbi gives you the tactical implications of this seizure. If we are to take back our political and economic systems, this kind of clear-eyed understanding is the crucial first step.

Reviewed by Paul M. Bingham and Joanne Souza
Coauthors of “Death from a Distance and the Birth of a Humane Universe”

Griftopia:
Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

Matt Taibbi
Spiegel & Grau (2010)

This documentary does an outstanding job of bringing home the details of how a series of truly bad financial actors catalyzed the current (and still ongoing) financial crisis. Many of the specifics of this story will not be new to readers of the outstanding books on the financial crisis. However, to see all the threads of this story pulled together with such clarity and dramatic power is extremely bracing. Equally importantly, this documentary brings home another crucial point, which has previously been little understood. Some segments of academic “economics” have been bought by elite financial interests (through donations, speaking fess, rich consulting contracts, etc). The professional academy is supported by all of us (through massive tax-payer-funded government support of both public and private universities). Thus, this breach of trust is especially egregious. We have, tragically, come to expect our politicians to be prostitutes, but we should never tolerate whores in the academy. It will be of the greatest interest to see how (or, sadly, if) the economics profession moves to clean up its house. We should all see this documentary and have its message ever in mind as we listen to the dubious pronouncements of politicians and bought economists. Those who have criticized this important piece as “socialists” are either clueless or have some very narrow interests to protect – interests not confluent with most of the American electorate. If you want to be a part of taking back the American economy for most Americans (rather than the hyper-rich) this film is a must-see.

Reviewed by Paul M. Bingham and Joanne Souza
Coauthors of “Death from a Distance and the Birth of a Humane Universe”

Inside Job

Starring Matt Damon, Directed by Charles Ferguson
Representational Pictures (2010)

Huffington uses her vantage at The Huffington Post to gain access to the best thought on the financial crisis. She capitalizes on this perspective to add to our understanding of how millions of American lives have been damaged or destroyed by the narcissistic behavior of some truly bad actors in our financial and political communities. This individual, personal perspective is the greatest value of this book, allowing us to see exactly how so many of us have been brutally harmed by parasites on our system of democratic capitalism. The individual accounts here are heart breaking. This evocative perspective arms us to move forward (as we must) to ostracize corrupt or incompetent politicians and reassert common control of the economic system that, after all, belongs to all of us. Huffington also adds to our empirical ammunition against bad actors – she names names, specific acts, individual politicians, particular financiers. This detail is a useful addition to the insight we also get from powerful recent accounts by professional scholars (see, especially, “Winner Take All Politics” by Pierson and Hacker and “Predator State” by Galbraith). Policing bad actors on the basis of the information we share as members of the pan-human wise crowd is our ancient strategy for dealing with all adaptive challenges. Huffington makes a powerful addition to our mutual use of this ancient human strategy as we proceed to recapture our society and our economy.

Reviewed by Paul M. Bingham and Joanne Souza
Coauthors of “Death from a Distance and the Birth of a Humane Universe”

Third World America:
How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream

Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington
Crown (2010)

Galbraith does a masterful job of educating us in some illuminating ways. Though the book starts a little slowly, the reader who stays with it will be richly rewarded. If we are to assert our mutual control over our economic system, we must first become much more knowledgeable about how it works. Most of us (including a shocking number of politicians and business people) are blithely ignorant in these matters. As Galbraith compellingly argues, our system of democratic capitalism is not, even in principle, a “free market,” for example. Rather, our economics and politics emerge from the clashing (often) or cooperating (occasionally) of interest groups who mostly seek to manipulate our larger society in pursuit of their own narrow goals. Worst of all, these interest groups concoct “ideologies” (belief systems) justifying their actions – dressing up what otherwise would be transparently naked self-interest. “Free-market capitalism” is one of these ideologies. This belief system is like fundamentalist religion, serving the common interests of its elite adherents with no need for facts or empirical support. From this bracing perspective, Galbraith gives us an insider’s tour of how our economic system came to its present, grossly distorted state. No one who is looking to reclaim control of our financial system in the interests of all of us should miss this potent book. All activities (financial or otherwise) not monitored and managed by the people for the people through regulation are predicted to become predatory on the people. And they have.

Reviewed by Paul M. Bingham and Joanne Souza
Coauthors of “Death from a Distance and the Birth of a Humane Universe”

The Predator State:
How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too
James Galbraith
Free Press (2008)

Posted in book reviews | No Comments »