The Words of Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted on April 6, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Words of Martin Luther King Jr.
© 1983, edited by Coretta Scott King
112 pages

I had intended to read a book on Martin Luther King Jr. back in January near his birthday, but the requested book never arrived. After watching Gandhi last week — repeatedly — I thought of King and decided to find another book containing his work. The Words of Martin Luther King Jr. do not contain the full text of his speeches, but consists rather of quotations organized by topic. The most famous portions of “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” and “I Have a Dream” are listed, but not “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”, which was the speech that made King come alive for me. The quotations are fitted into various selections — “The Community of Man”, “Racism”, “Civil Rights”, “Justice and Freedom”, “Religion and Faith”, “Nonviolence”, and finally “Peace”, with the bits from his most famous speeches inserted at the end along with a proclamation of Martin Luther King day, signed by Ronald Reagan, and a chronology of King’s life. For those interested, I will soon post some of the quotations I liked most at my philosophy/humanities blog. The book’s contents were generally enjoyable, but its use is limited: this is a collection of quotations, and while I could make some generalizations about the character of King as they portray it, I would rather draw from a greater context — like a book containing full speeches.

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The Ghost

Posted on April 5, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Ghost: a Novel
© 2007 Robert Harris
412 pages

I know the Internet is the stuff a paranoiac’s dreams are made of. I know it parcels up everything — Lee Harvey Oswald, Princess Diana, Opus Dei, AL Qaeda, Israel, M16, crop circles — and with pretty blue ribbons of hyperlinks it ties them all into a single grand conspiracy. But I also know the wisdom of the old saying that a paranoiac is simply a person in full possession of the facts…

With those words, a ghostwriter’s struggle to find his client’s voice begins to grow into a mystery thriller, ending unexpectedly. The controversial prime minister of the United Kingdom stepped down from his post two years ago, accepting ten million dollars by a US publishing firm for the publication of his memoirs. Wanting to leave a testament behind him but unwilling to actually do the work, Adam Lang — a “thinly veiled” version of Tony Blair — passes the work off to loyal aide Mike McAra, who spends two years engrossed in libraries doing research. As Lang and his ghostwriter approach the deadline, McAra’s body washes up on a beach. The PM’s wife Ruth Lang, having read several ghost-written works by our narrator — as the book is written in first-person — recommends him to finish the job.

The timing is most inconvenient, as an ex-colleague of Lang’s has recently seen fit that the International Criminal Court should investigate Blai— pardon me, Lang‘s — role in allowing the United States to kidnap several Pakistani nationals and then stick them in secret “black site” interrogation centers to be tortured for information. As such, Lang — holed up on an island in the United States while resting from a recent lecture tour — is forced to respond to those accusations while being interviewed by our narrator. The potential stress of the job does not compete with the $250K our narrator is being paid for the month of work, and so he takes it on.

He struggles to find his subject’s voice early on, grappling with the question of who his client is. Who is the man behind the public face? Nothing makes sense, and in the course of doing his research he stumbles into more serious questions, questions that endanger his life and trap him in a web of political intrigue. I enjoyed the book extremely: unlike Enigma and Archangel, I didn’t have to work my way through this one. Every page captured my attention, and I finished it in a matter of hours. Characterization is particularly strong in this novel, I think. I laughed out loud when reading the narrator’s response to seeing his predecessor’s work for the first time: after reading through an extremely dull manuscript (which he is expected to revise), he realizes how much work there is ahead of him and describes his reaction: “I pressed my hands to my cheeks and opened my mouth and eyes wide, in a reasonable imitation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.” After the emoting, he turns to see Lang’s wife staring at him. Her only response is to raise an eyebrow and say, “As bad as that?” I found the scene funny: Harris doesn’t have his narrator describe his feelings: he has the narrator show them in a spontaneous way. The characters’ personalities come through in little quirks like this. Another example is Ruth Lang’s bodyguard, who likes to read Harry Potter books on the job. There aren’t too many major characters, and each of them are fleshed out well. (Lang, interestingly, receives no physical descriptions beyond his clothing: if Lang is indeed Tony Blair, I suppose Harris thought none was necessary. It’s as if he’s telling the story with a wink to his audience. The story, by the way, is told to the reader — breaking the fourth wall — by the unnamed narrator, and so includes bits of foreshadowing. Nothing is ruined, though. Beyond characterization, the book’s plot develops in interesting ways. Harris is plainly used to the modern era: at one point he has the narrator Googling for information and presents search results in the text — including fake Wikipedia articles, lending a touch of realism. These little touches and the plot in general made for a fun read — extremely enjoyable stuff, and a very worthy diversion from the sociology paper I worked on all day.

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The Great Warming

Posted on April 4, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
© 2008 Brian Fagan
282 pages

Earlier this year, Dr. Brian M. Fagan visited my university to deliver a talk titled “Climate Change, the Flail of God, or the Elephant in the Room” in which he spoke on the effects of the “Medieval Warming Period” on societies then existing. Fagan elaborates in the book that while the “Medieval Warm” was a topic of discussion occasionally bandied about, there was little in the way of concrete evidence outside of oral history. He did find evidence to support such a theory, but more disturbing was the evidence of severe climactic disturbances elsewhere on the global — perhaps different consequences of the same weather pattern. This book is — as I’ve hinted — a full elaboration of that brief lecture, and in fact answered a question I raised during the question and answer session that Fagan only answered half-heartedly then. The full title is Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. Fagan is primarily concerned with the global consequences of the Medieval Warm period, and his chapters — while beginning in sunny Europe, enjoying a climate far more conducive to being able to grow surplus food than ever before, take us to the Sahara, following Moorish caravans, eventually visiting every continent except Antarctica.

I read Collapse by Jared Diamond back in December, and this book reminded me of it in many ways. Both Fagan and Diamond examine the expanding reach of the Vikings and how settlers in Greenland struggled to survive in the harsh climate, eventually being cut off from Europe when the warm period ceased and vanishing all together. (My question to Fagan was if the warm period had affected Scandinavia to the point that surpluses had created a population boom, necessitating the Vikings attempting to make a living for themselves by trading with and sacking parts of Europe. That’s a lot to fit into one question, so there’s little wonder he misheard me then. The answer, according to the book, is yes. My suspicions were confirmed.) Diamond and Fagan both address the Mayan “implosion”, although I will say that Fagan’s coverage of the Maya was more exhaustive. In his lecture, Fagan told us how the Mayan temples were actually used to catch and channel water in additional to being tall and intimidating. Fagan covers more ground than Diamond, though,visiting places I’ve never heard of.

The theme of the book is how climate change alters human societies differently depending on where they live. While some societies — the Europeans, for instance — fared well during the warm period, severe and extended droughts and flooding periods in other parts of the world killed millions and in some cases dealt societies a staggering blow from which they would not recover. An observation of mine was of how vulnerable we are to droughts, flooding, and so on: we seem utterly at the mercy of the climate. My opinion of the book is mixed. While the information was interesting and generally presented well, it wasn’t that strong of a narrative: it didn’t grip me the way Diamond did. I’m going to read a little more Fagan to see if it was just this book, though.

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The Book that Changed my Life

Posted on April 3, 2009 by smellincoffee

The Book that Changed My Life
© 2006 editors Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen
197 pages

Last week while ending a walk about town, I stopped in my university library to refill my water bottle and investigate On the Road to see if it was worth reading. While strolling through, I happened to see The Book that Changed my Life on display. Its title amused me to the point of picking it up, and I settled down to read it at various intervals throughout the week. The book consists of seventy-one essays by authors on the book (or sometimes, “books”) that changed their life in some way. Most of the essays are short — a page and a half seems to be average — and all were fairly easy reading. The books covered are mostly literature, with some exceptions — The Guns of August, for instance, which inspired Doris Kearns Goodwin to become a historian even though it was a field — was and still is, perhaps — dominated by men. Some essayists shared books in common — J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were both mentioned multiple times. The essayists’ motivation for choosing one book or another varied. For some, it introduced them to reading for pleasure: for others, their books gave them new insights. One person wrote on the effect that the Sears Catalouge had on him as a child. Of the essayists, I only recognized two — Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain. (One of Lieberman’s picks was “The Bible“, but he gives it little more than lip service, as would be expected.) The book was an enjoyable read, and will be of interest to “readers”: I was able to find a few suggestions for further reading.

Just a few of the titles I wrote down:

  • Out of my Life and Thought, Albert Schweitzer
  • Letters to a Young Poet, Ranier Maria Rilke
  • The Snake Has All the Lines, Jean Kerr
  • The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker (this was mentioned twice)
  • The Reason Why, Cecil Woodham-Smith
  • An Introduction to Contemporary History, Geoffry Barraclough

It seems appropriate, after reading this book, to consider the question of the book or books that have changed my life. There are many that have changed my thinking — Neil Postman immediately comes to mind — and some that have entertained me beyond measure (John Grisham’s The Rainmaker), but when I turn my mind to the question but don’t think about it, Paul Zindel’s The Pigman* comes to mind. Zindel was the first author I ever read who wrote about “strange” things, and his The Pigman was the first book about serious issues I ever read. As a child, the book seemed to be very “adult”, and I remembering it being perhaps the first book to move me to tears, to have a memorable response other than basic enjoyment. This is a book that lingers in my memory. Because of it I read everything my high school library had by Zindel, including The Pigman’s Legacy and The Pigman and Me.

* Ordinarily I’d link you to the Wikipedia page, but the page in this instance is abysmally done and I won’t be responsible for whatever impression it gives about the book.

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Through a Window

Posted on March 31, 2009 by smellincoffee

For now we see as through a glass, darkly…

Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
© 1990 Jane Goodall
267 pages

I’ve always been fascinated by the behavior of our fellow apes. Unlike ants or birds, they behave in ways similar to us — in ways we can understand. And because of their similarities to us genetically, their behavior can give us insight into our own history. I realized this latter observation in reading Carl Sagan’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Jane Goodall is a name I’ve heard of many times before, but have never been able to read until now. As you may be able to discern from the title, the book is her account of the thirty years she has spent observing a chimpanzee community in Tanzania.

She begins it frankly in “The Mind of the Chimpanzee” by commenting on the difficulties in analyzing chimpanzee behavior.We can’t know chimpanzees are experiencing anger or depression: we can only allow their responses to what happens to them to guide us, giving us information that we can infer such a conclusion from. The same is true — although she does not use this as an example — of hierarchies within chimpanzee communities. From here she comments in general on chimpanzee intelligence as we have been able to detect it. Next she introduces “The Research Centre”, describing how she came to Gombe and what she and her fellows attended to accomplish.

The bulk of the book consists of chapters on a particular subject — “Mothers and Daughters”, “War”, “Sex”, “Mothers and Son” — as well as chapters concentrating on particular individuals within the chimpanzee community that contributed much to its history. As the book covers thirty years, we see leaders rise and fall — some to rise again. Goodall, through these various chapters, not only relates information about the structure of their community, but gives it a history, as well. There was sense of time passing as I read, bringing with it highs and lows. This is supplemented by pictures — mostly black and white, but some in color. The black and white pictures generally accompany the timeframe of the chapter they are set in, but the color photographs — set in the middle of the book — reflect a much broader period. Goodall writes very well: the praise I’ve heard about her is duly given.

In the antepenultimate* chapter, Goodall uses her observations to reflect on similarities and differences between humans and chimpanzees in regard to war, compassion, parenting,and other social issues. Next, in “Our Shame”, she informs the reader of the dire state of chimpanzees in the world today: not only are their habitats receding rabidly, but they are being poached in the wild. Many are stolen and subject to severe mistreatment. This reminds me of the Primates of the World book I read back in the summer, with almost every chapter ending with a section on how that chapter’s animal was in grave peril. The last chapter includes finishing thoughts, including musings by Goodall on how chimpanzees might write their own history.

And so to end: the book was well-written, quite interesting, and entirely worthy of reccommendation.

* I read today that this word — meaning second-to-last — is no longer used. Because it’s such an interesting word, I’m going to use it when I can.

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This Week at the Library (30/3)

Posted on March 30, 2009 by smellincoffee

Books this Update:

  • Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
  • Roman Blood, Steven Saylor
  • Rubicon: the Last Years of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland
  • Transforming the Mind, Tenzin Gyatso

I began the week with the strangely-titled Freakonomics, work done by Steven Levitt and written by Stephen Dubner. The original work was apparently quite popular, as it merited a “revised and expanded” edition. The original book’s contents — a series of essays on social questions analyzed using economic principles — have been supplemented by a number of shorter essays in a similar vein, as well as a number of “blog” posts rendered in print form. Beyond using economic principles, there is no unifying theme to the book and none is intended. Its specific topics include cheating, real estate, the economics of crack trafficking, the decline of crime in the 1990s, and the impact of gun control. Although economics is not a strong subject of mine, the book was fun to read and easily understandable.

Next up, a little fiction: I read Steven Saylor’s Roman Blood, a mystery novel set in the latter days of the Roman Republic. The era’s equivalent to a private eye — Gordianus the Finder — is commissioned by a young advocate, Cicero, to help him build a case defending a man accused of killing his father. What begins as a simple murder mystery expands to a tale of political intrigue that threatens the life of Gordianus. The book is a bit over four hundred pages long and fairly captivating, although there are some purely gratuitous sex scenes that seemed to add little to the actual story.

Staying in the same topic but moving to a different genre, I read Rubicon by Tom Holland, a narrative history work depicting the twilight years of the Republic and the beginnings of the Empire’s long night. Although the book is principally concerned with the political conflicts that lead to the Republic’s crumbling — the civil wars between Sulla and Marius, for instance — Holland fits those conflict into particular themes. Sulla and Marius’ conflict, for instance, is grounded in the same patrician versus populist politics that will see the rise of both Pompey and Caesar. Men like Cicero and Cato also receive their due. The book reads quite well, although the author did use modern terminology more than I would have liked. Describing Roman affairs using World War 2 terminology may convey ancient ideas to modern readers, but I have the feeling that they cheapen those ideas as well.

Lastly I read a transcription of a series of lectures delivered by the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, about the power of mental transformation. The lectures seemed to be more about Buddhist doctrine and less about ethics. I think his An Open Heart is better at explaining how his religious principles influence mental discipline, and that Ethics for the New Millennium and The Art of Happiness are better for ethics purposes.

Pick of the Week: Rubicon: the Last Years of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland

Quotation of the Week:

More than two millennia after the Republic’s collapse, the “extraordinary character” of the men — and women — who starred in its drama still astonishes. But so too — less well known perhaps than a Caesar, or a Cicero, or a Cleopatra, but more remarkably than any of them — does the Roman Republic itself. If there is much about it we can never know, then still there is much that can be brought back to life, its citizens half emerging from antique marble, their faces illumined by a background of gold and fire, the glare of an alien yet sometimes eerily familiar world.

– from Rubicon

Potentials for Next Week:

  • Through a Window, Jane Goodall
  • The Ghost, Robert Harris
  • The Great Warming, Brian Fagin
  • The Words of Martin Luther King Jr
  • The Moscow Option, David Downing, a recommendation.
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Transforming the Mind

Posted on March 30, 2009 by smellincoffee

Transforming the Mind: Teachings on Generating Compassion
© Tenzin Gyatso 1999
168 pages

This book was not written as a book: it is, rather, the transcript of a series of lectures Gyatso gave in London. According to its introduction, many people asked for a print form of the material and Transforming the Mind is that. Because this was not meant as a book on its own, it can’t really be compared to Ethics for a New Millennium or The Art of Happiness. It reminds me of An Open Heart in that it focuses more on religious practices and less on secular ethics. Gysato explains the Four Noble Truths and their relation to transformation, and one of the book’s three parts features commentary on an eight-verse prayer related to the subject. The text of question and answer sessions is also included, as is a brief lecture titled ‘Ethics for the New Millennium“. I think this book would mainly appeal to those who wanted the lecture transcription, as the book’s religious material is dealt with better in An Open Heart and its ethical material in Ethics for a New Millennium.


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Rubicon

Posted on March 30, 2009 by smellincoffee

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
© 2003 Tom Holland
407 pages, including index

As a student of history, Rome holds a particularly strong fascination for me. Having been brought up in western civilization, Roman history is my history. I can see echoes of it in my everyday life, from the words I use to the ways in which I think. Despite its importance, it has been quite some time since I refreshed myself in its history, and so this week I read Rubicon: the Last Years of the Roman Republic. The author begins by stating that narrative history is starting to come back into vogue now, and that is the style in which he intends to write. For my part, I prefer narrative history to any other kind I know about.

More than two millennia after the Republic’s collapse, the “extraordinary character” of the men — and women — who starred in its drama still astonishes. But so too — less well known perhaps than a Caesar, or a Cicero, or a Cleopatra, but more remarkably than any of them — does the Roman Republic itself. If there is much about it we can never know, then still there is much that can be brought back to life, its citizens half emerging from antique marble, their faces illumined by a background of gold and fire, the glare of an alien yet sometimes eerily familiar world.


– from the preface

Holland begins with “The Paradoxical Republic”, where he examines the character of the Republic itself, telling the reader of its many contradictions: that it urged its citizens to care for glory above all, but that it also also tried to corral that zeal for glory into purposes that would increase the stature of the state: that its citizens were both free and tyrannized, and that despite all of its problems there existed “an almost religious sense of community”. Here he introduces about the growing influence of populist politics versus patrician politics — a theme is woven throughout the book. In “The Sibyl’s Curse”, Holland addresses a kind of morbid fear that Roman citizens had about the splendor of their Republic, that one day its own citizens would destroy it. I was unaware of the “prophecies of Sibyl”, but according to Holland three books of prophetic sayings were hidden in one of the temples and consulted during moments of great crisis.

Beginning with the third chapter, the book becomes less background and more narrative. Like all narratives, this is one driven by characters, and the first is the character of Sulla. Holland puts to pen Sulla’s rising fortune and influence and his conflict with Marius, leading to the civil wars, the existence of which surprised me the first time I heard about them so many years ago. Sulla, Crassus, and Marius all dominate the first part of the book. Sulla is perhaps the most difficult to put one’s finger on, Crassus perhaps the easiest. Given that Sulla and Crassus were both characters in the Roman fiction I’ve been reading, my interest in them was particularly heightened. In “Fame is the Spur”, Holland introduces the young character of Caesar, who will return — obviously, given the book’s title.

Caesar emerges as Sulla and Marius are passing way into death and as the Republic is now driven by the likes of Pompey and Crassus. Holland is not just interested in political power, however. He also visits men like Cato and Cicero, who will be voices questioning the way the Republic is crumbling until the end of the book. (Holland mentions two trials of Cicero’s: one was in Imperium, and the other was in Roman Blood. Holland’s description holds firm with both Harris’ and Saylor’s, increasing my appreciation for both. They seemed to have been able to render a story while keeping it true to the facts at hand, assuming all three of them are not engaging in an authorial conspiracy. The latter third of the book begins with the First Triumvirate, and the beginning of the end for the Republic. We can see the Republic’s old ideals fading even as they are championed.

The book does not end with the Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon. Holland continues, describing the war between Marc Antony and young Octavian. Holland titles this “World War”, and this is typical. The narrative is somewhat informal, and Holland has a tendency to impose 20th century terminology on the history of the past. He refers to Marius’ putsch, calls Pompey the “Generalissimo”, and describes Caesar’s war in Gaul as consisting of a “blitzkieg“. The latter is somewhat amusing given the location (Gaul being France), but I didn’t enjoy the “imposition”. This is a matter of taste, of course, but it seemed to detract from the purity of the text for me. Overall, though, I found the book to be quite enjoyable. It raised a lot of issues for me, personally.

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Roman Blood

Posted on March 28, 2009 by smellincoffee

Roman Blood: A Novel of Ancient Rome
© 1991 Steven Saylor
401 pages

They had an awful lot of sex in ancient Rome. Not quite as much as the Cro–Magnons in Jean M. Auel’s Earth Children series, but a good part of this book is people trying to further people the Republic. The same friend who told me about Robert Harris’ Imperium and Pompeii also told me about the Roma Sub Rosa series by Steven Saylor, an apparent mystery series set in ancient Rome. That may seem like an unlikely setting, but it’s working so far. Roman Blood is the first in said series, and begins with Tiro — the loyal servant of Cicero who penned who told us the story of Imperium — arriving at the door of Gordianus the finder, the ancient Republic’s version of a private eye. Young Cicero — who is just beginning his career as an advocate — has been assigned a troublesome case, one involving patricide. Given Cicero’s limited experience and the short time in which he is to build a case, the soon-to-be master orator hires Gordianus to help him find evidence that Sextus Rosicus — the accused — is innocent.

What begins to unfold is a gritty detective novel that could be just as easily set in 1930s New York as in the Roman Republic. Gordianus quickly receives threats to his life as what began as a simple murder investigation takes on hints of political corruption. Together, Tiro and Gordianus will travel throughout Rome, visiting urine-soaked plebian alleys as well as luxurious palatine estates — with a brothel thrown in. As the story continues to unfold, though, it becomes more than just a detective novel, and the whole story does not become apparent until after the trial is over. I found Saylor’s prose to be enjoyable, and his descriptions sometimes waxed on poetic, especially when describing the city of Rome. The story is told through the first-person, although Gordianus seems to be aware of the reader following behind him: some of his comments seem to be made for our sakes. Because Cicero and Tiro are main characters of this novel and of Imperium, the urge to compare the two is almost irresistible. It seems somehow unjust to compare one author’s work to another as if one were authoritative, but I will say that Saylor’s depiction shows a different side of Tiro than Harris. We first see it in a brothel. The rate at which we see characters engaging in sexual intercourse seems to increase in intensity as the trial approaches, and then vanishing soon afterwards. In my experience reading fiction, I’ve found that depictions of sex are really hit and miss. Sometimes they work well and fold into the story, but more often than not it seems as if the author is writing on sex gratuitously. That became the case for me in the middle of the book, and is essentially my only negative comment.

Because my knowledge of Roman life is still fairly limited at this point, I cannot comment with any authority on its historicity. I did notice — and here I am comparing Saylor to Harris — that Saylor’s depiction of a trial was quite different from Harris’. In Harris’, the trial wore on for days while the candidates gave arguments and rebutted their opponents. In Saylor’s trial, the event takes place in one day and with only two arguments. This may be because the two proceedings took place in different courts. In the afterward, Saylor writes that the trial in the book was a real trial and that Cicero’s arguments were used in the book with some alterations to make them fit into a narrative. He makes further comments on his sources and how he used them, which I appreciate. Reading historical fiction set in such a world apart from ours can make it difficult to discern what liberties the author has taken with the truth. I found the novel to be enjoyable overall and may continue in the series.

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Freakonomics

Posted on March 25, 2009 by smellincoffee

Freakonomics: Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Revised and Expanded Edition)
© 2005 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
320 pages

I gave little thought to choosing to read this book this particular week. I’d heard of the book before, and decided to give it a go. I am generally not so casual with my reading — I’m actually very picky. Going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Economics is not a favorite subject of mine beyond how it shapes society and influences history. I can remember various terms from my economics courses in my freshman year — “elasticity”, “oligopoly”, and “opportunity cost” among them — but mostly what I remember is that my professor had a knack for explaining various economic situations through his passion for pints of BlueBell ice cream.

It pleased me, then, to see that this is not a book about economics: it is more a book of applying economic principles, namely seeing situations in terms of incentives, to various questions. Beyond that, there is no unifying theme to the book. The authors acknowledge this and almost seem proud of it, stating in the “expanded” parts of the book that there’s no reason books should have to have a unifying theme. They see the book as a collection of essays applying the same means to answer varying questions, and since other collections (like short story collections) can only own a very general theme, the authors are not particularly worried. Steven Levitt is the “rogue economist”, while Dubner is the writer.

Some of the essays have whimsical titles, like “What Do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?”, while some are slightly more serious — “What Makes a Perfect Parent?” The essays — constituting the original book — take up about two-thirds of the book’s overall volume. The first chapter introduces the idea of incentives, and uses it to examine the behavior of schoolteachers regarding classroom performance on standardized tests and the ranking systems of sumo wrestlers. What schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common is a willingness to cheat, provided that they are accidentally given incentives to do so. In “How is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents,” Levitt argues that “nothing is more powerful than information, especially when its power is abused”. Chapters three and four address the economics of drug trafficking and the decline of crime, while the last two chapters deal with parenting issues — from the naming of children to value of “good schools”.

While it is difficult to make generalizations on the contents’ book*, I can say that reading it was fun. I would not expect to be entertained by economic principles, but I was. The information was also thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing. For instance, in “Where Have All the Criminals Gone?”, Levitt critiques various explanations put forth for the decline of crime in the United States during the mid-late 1990s — a growing economic, capital punishment, gun-control laws — and puts forth a few ideas of his own, namely fluctuations in drug trafficking and the Roe v. Wade case. That last one may give you pause, as it did me. The idea is that abortions, happening disproportionally among low-income families in situations that promote contempt for the legal system and greater opportunities in criminal activities — lower crime in a passive way. Although I find the idea repulsive and sinister, the chain of events seems to work. Levitt acknowledges the same revulsion. If this is true, it only supports my idea that good can come from evil and evil from good: not that I view early-term abortion as evil, but I do view the need for it as a social problem. The last third of the book consists of various newspaper articles written by and about Levitt, as well as print forms of his blog entries. These, too, have no general theme outside of Levitt looking for economic principles at work behind social questions.

Although I chose the book rather randomly and its suggested topic does not appeal to me, I found the book to be an enjoyable read. If you can find it, I think it would be a solid and quick read.

* I noticed this mistake in proofreading, but it amused me so I kept it.

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