My 10+ most influential books

There's an Internet meme going around of "the books that most influenced me," usually in lists of 10, started by Tyler Cowen and furthered by Will Wilkinson, Bryan Caplan and Matthew Yglesias. Here's mine, in roughly chronological order.

1. Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. I read this around when it came out in 1980 (I was about 15) and never saw science as uninteresting again, even if some of my classes were. Enjoyed his intertwining of science and history; was less enthused by his politics.

2. Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties, by Paul Johnson. Read this around the same time, and it furthered my conservative reaction against the 1970s. Later came to think of it as less than profound scholarship, but its sweep and drama still left an impression.

3. The Creation, by P.W. Atkins. An evocative view of cosmology, and as with Sagan, showed that science could be lyrical. Had some affinity for Atkins' atheism, but remained wary of dogma in matters of religion (or non-religion).

4. Safire's Washington, by William Safire. Safire's brand of libertarian conservatism always appealed to me. Still does, perhaps because he managed to avoid either libertarian or conservative extremes.

5. The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, by Ayn Rand. I was never really a Randian, but I was definitely fascinated by her while in college and at times thereafter. Unlike many, I didn't start with her novels, and never liked them. But the non-fiction essays in this book, particularly "Apollo and Dionysus," drew connections for me between politics and science.

6. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris. A rousing story about a great man en route to the presidency. I could never buy into the later right-wing disdain for T.R.

7. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory and The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940, by William Manchester. These fostered my sense of history, fascination with greatness, and loathing for appeasement and pacifism as causes of war.

8. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. An epic story, presented in a formal yet accessible writing style that influenced, among others, Churchill (and me).

9. The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, by Robert Zubrin. This expanded my affinity for space exploration, helping make that the main focus of my career for a few years around the late 1990s. I never was sure we need a crash effort to get to Mars, though, and have become less enthused about that over time.

10. Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow. He was incredibly smart, and right about a lot of things; and as with T.R., I have little interest in libertarian dismissals of him. This book helped inspire my turn toward writing on economic and financial history in recent years.

11. Bonus book: Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus, by Martin Gardner. Hilarious as well as thought-provoking.

Buy any of these books via the Amazon links above and I'll potentially get some share of proceeds. (As is true with Amazon links throughout this site, though proceeds have been scarce.) Note: I've generally tried to link to the versions of the books I read, not later revisions.

Why Bush not cannibalized

A press release I just received for Navy Wings of Goldstates that the book explores themes including (at the top of the list) "the only thing that prevented George H. W. Bush from being captured, executed, and cannibalized." I have requested a review copy and plan to report back to readers of this blog.

UPDATE: The book's publicity agent, in sending it to me, told me the short answer is "his brotherhood." The story is told in some detail in Ch. 19, which recounts the story of Lt. (j.g.) Nathaniel "Blackie" Adams, a key participant in Bush's rescue.

Try a longer dash

I was interested in reading a conservative publication that advertised itself as being "Ann Coulter-free," but it turns out Human Events offers her weekly email free of charge. Too bad. At least the ad gives some insight into their editorial savvy.

Various and misc.

At FrumForum, Alex Knepper doesn't like Richard Spencer of Alternative Right. I weigh in at the comments.

At Barron's, Thomas H. Kee Jr. says the stock market won't get better until 2023.

In the WSJ, Peter Berkowitz blames Climategate on litany of academic woes, including postmodern attack on objective truth; never bothers to show any connection.

Spending problems

David M. Walker, former comptroller general of the United States, has a good point or three:

There are three key points with regard to spending. Spending more money than you make on a reoccurring basis is irresponsible. Irresponsibly spending someone else's money is unethical; and if you're a fiduciary, a fiduciary breach. And irresponsibly spending someone else's money when they're too young to vote and not born yet is immoral.

He and Paul Volcker will be speaking about this fiscal debacle next month; I wonder if the latter feels disconcerted that his current position gives an undeserved imprimatur to an administration whose behavior is accurately described above.

Climate wars

Randy Olson, whose films I've reviewed now and then, is in a somewhat heated discussion here about how scientists need to be better, and less robotic, communicators so as to stop flubbing PR showdowns such as "Climategate." For my part, I think the global-warming-is-not-a-problem side is overplaying its hand badly in the wake of that overblown not-really-a-scandal, for example by calling global warming "thoroughly debunked" and a "Freudian displacement."

It's one thing to argue the problem's been overstated, or that proposed solutions would be ineffective or too expensive (there are some good arguments there); it's another to deny the warming is anthropogenic or even real. By going there, the skeptics/denialists are demonstrating that they don't know what they're talking about and/or don't care, and I think these shortfalls will become clear enough to the public, despite the PR ineptitude of many scientists.

Gold standard radio

I'll be on the Gabe Wisdom Show on Mon., March 8 at 7 pm ET to discuss the history and prospects of gold. The interview can be listened to live on radio or online or in the archives for a couple weeks afterwards, and will find a longer-term home here.

Horrible financial mess

"Reining in the Bankers." I look at Larry Kotlikoff's proposal for radical financial surgery. Excerpt:

Kotlikoff’s new book Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking offers an ambitious proposal to fix — or, more precisely, replace — our ailing financial system. The title refers to It’s a Wonderful Life, in which Stewart played a trustworthy small-town banker. Any resemblance the banking industry may once have had to that movie is long gone, as Kotlikoff points out, and the recent financial sector — with bankers taking on massive risks they neither disclose nor understand, then leaving taxpayers with the bill —is better described as “It’s a Horrible Mess.”

Ongoing apocalypse

The Sky Has Fallen film (reviewed here) is now available on DVD.

Gold past and future

Its price has never been zero, but it's got plenty of leeway to fall. My look at the history and prospects of gold, including the quixotic notion that the gold standard should return: "The Gleam of Gold." Excerpt:

Nor is it clear that a resurrected gold standard would have credibility. To a greater degree than in earlier eras, governments today would have to convince markets that they would not simply abandon a gold standard during times of economic stress. Such credibility was easier to achieve when metal-backed money was the norm and before the world saw multiple historical episodes of commodity standards being cast aside.

In the event that the U.S. adopted a new gold standard, one plausible consequence would be an enormous increase in gold prices. Substantial gold backing of the money supply could require the government to establish convertibility at a price several times higher than current levels. (Alternatively, to keep gold prices stable, policymakers would have to allow the money supply to contract drastically, leading to severe deflation.)

Limited purpose banking

Review copy received: Jimmy Stewart is Dead: Ending the World's Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking, by Laurence Kotlikoff, whom I introduced at a conference last fall after Research ran a profile of him. I'll likely have something on the book at some point.

UPDATE: My review.

My anti-Ron Paul collection

Now that Ron Paul has won the presidential straw poll at CPAC, and given that in his speech there he said "if you disagree with me, think about it – read about it,” I note that I have been thinking, reading and writing about it quite a bit in recent months, and find I disagree with him in an intense and growing way. Here are links to several articles I have written that are relevant to Paul and particularly to his campaign against the Fed:

"Ron Paul's New Book: More Exaggeration and Conspiracy-Mongering." FrumForum, Sept. 8, 2009. My negative review of End the Fed. Excerpt: "His explanation mixes some legitimate concerns into a stew of exaggeration, misdirection and conspiracy-mongering. His solution combines the counterproductive with the untried, and is offered with an ideologue’s certitude that no adverse consequences or difficult tradeoffs need be considered."

"The Tumultuous 19th Century." Research, January 2010. Excerpt: "The course of that century, with its recurrent and severe financial crises, raises considerable doubts about End the Fed, the slogan of Paul’s movement and title of his bestselling book, and whether doing so would really produce greater financial stability and economic prosperity."

"The Fed and Its Enemies." Research, February 2010. Excerpt: "Debates about the Fed’s future should be informed by accurate accounts of the institution’s past, and that means disentangling history from some baseless, even bizarre, beliefs. Moreover, obscure figures are not alone in propagating the misconceptions. Consider how so prominent a politician as Ron Paul promotes the idea that the Fed is private...."

And there is more to come. Soon: a look at the history and prospects of the gold standard.

UPDATE: "The Gleam of Gold."

UPDATE 11/20/10: "The Fed and the GOP Weren't Always Enemies."

UPDATE: 2/25/11: "Furious at Finance."

MORE: "How Did Libertarians Lose Their Way?"

And on Rand Paul: "Paul Plays Politics with Physics."

UPDATE: Updates should not be considered comprehensive, as I have more anti-Ron Paul material than I can find time to include in this post. But here's one more: "Ron Paul's Spaced Out Plan."

Snowy house, NJ

Looking forward to a good weekend in New Jersey.

Mount Vapid Statement

I agree with Jacob Sullum and Jesse Walker, and with David Frum, who from different standpoints converge on the view that the Mount Vernon Statement of "conservative beliefs, values and principles" is meaningless schlock. Hopelessly vague, lacking any iota of self-criticism or self-reflection, and blandly invoking the founding fathers without the slightest awareness of their titanic disagreements, the thing is a document of vapidity, best soon forgotten.

ID's last gasp

Future historians of real and fake science, looking for the anticlimactic death rattle of the Intelligent Design movement, might pinpoint the essay "The End of Intelligent Design?" in the religious-conservative magazine First Things, by Stephen Barr, whose book I reviewed a few years ago. (Essay found via Walter Olson.) For years, I tried to point out that the ID argument (that the laws of nature are inhospitable to life, which thus must have arisen by a miracle) is at odds with the anthropic type of argument propounded by Barr and others (that the laws of nature are strangely hospitable to life, and thus the laws were deliberately fine-tuned). Getting design enthusiasts to even recognize this tension was hard. When it comes to making a choice, they're well-advised to ditch the ID argument.

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, Barr's essay gets a negative reaction from IDer William Dembski, who accuses Barr of trying to curry favor with his scientific colleagues. IDers at this point apparently care little for such respect, or have just given up on it.

Libertarian piety watch

One reason libertarianism isn't more influential is the sheer smugness with which it's so often presented. Here's Matt Welch showing some self-satisfaction:

What I do care about, regardless of who's president, is human freedom and prosperity. And I strongly and consistently suspect that when the government accumulates more power, I and everyone else (except those wielding it) have less of which I seek. Republicans diss libertarians when they're in power, and Democrats diss libertarians when they're in power. Their changing attitudes toward our little (albeit growing) tribe is mildly interesting, but it's about as newsworthy (and painful) as a dog biting a chew toy.

Yes, "human freedom and prosperity" -- how admirable to care about those things. And when Welch says government power means "less of which I seek," what is he even talking about? Power? Or freedom and prosperity? Or is the sentence so noble it doesn't have to make sense?

UPDATE 2/15: A positive plug from a prime practitioner of pompous presumption.

Two cheers for Obama in space

Who's right about Obama's space policy? Those such as Charles Krauthammer and John Vecchione who argue that it's a recipe for decline and stagnation? Or those such as Rand Simberg, Newt Gingrich and Robert Walker who see it as a bold step toward a free-enterprise space future? Certainly, the policy has cut across ideological lines in an interesting way, in that everyone I just mentioned is right-of-center in some way (and I presume there are similar divisions on the left, though I haven't had time to research it). My own view goes more toward the Simberg-Gingrich side, though as I've argued before, I wish there were some indication of a long-term plan to develop energy and other resource production (and property rights) in space.

UPDATE: Taylor Dinerman argues the private sector isn't up to the job. I've had similar concerns, but we need a diversified portfolio of public and private space projects if much of anything is going to happen out there.

Sowell's Wolfe bane

At TNR, Alan Wolfe finds Thomas Sowell's new bookabout intellectuals to be joyless and not worth reading. That would not surprise me, as I was finding Sowell's work to be getting tiresome and repetitive as far back as 1995. On the other hand, a review as casually dismissive as Wolfe's makes me wonder what's actually in the book, since it's hardly discussed.

Varied and misc.

Posting isn't going to speed up too soon. Here are some things that are on my reading list:

"The New NASA: A Path to Anywhere, and Everywhere," by Rand Simberg.

"FF Symposium: Where's the Vital Center?" at FrumForum.

"Welcome to Atlantis and the quest for nitrogen," by Kathryn Eident.

Also, my radio interview with Gabe Wisdom about the Fed is currently available here (the Feb. 8 module), and as it happened the guest after me was my onetime office colleague Jim Picerno, formerly of Wealth Manager. My segment will in due course also be posted here.

Semi-hiatus

Posting may continue to be light in the near term, as I focus on some other projects. Note: I'm scheduled to be on the Gabe Wisdom radio show on Feb. 8 at 7pm ET to discuss "The Fed and Its Enemies."

Here's a picture of me with DeWitt Clinton, ancestor and namesake of my son.