The People's Economics

Ammonium chloride as an ingredient of an anti-rust paint? Levi knows
it is completely useless as I can state from first-hand experience because it...

The peak of the British novel? I can't remember much about it - but then I tend to remember what's wrong with a book.

Woolf has plenty of opinions on 19th Century Literature

Contains the short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas . Would you stay or would you walk away.

Will this succeed in changing the way mathematics is done?

Many people use Bourgeois purely as an insult. Is it possible to change this viewpoint

We need new ideas in economics, but can we get away from just dressing up old ones?

All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I...

The laser isn't as much of a success for quantum theory as some would have us believe.

Orwell's voice is one that I respect. I feel that it is important to get beyond 1984 .

£30 for 10000+ pages is less than 0.3 pence per page which is pretty good value.

It is often thought that Einstein lost his way with quantum theory. But was he really a voice in the wilderness who was saying something important?

And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.

An important work in understanding the divisions in our society and what we can do to bridge them

Mentions system III thinking, but I think that it more of a repackaging of system 2 thinking.

Malcolm Gladwell claims that the 10000 hours of practice applies to many areas of expertise. He is persuasive, but it's important to note that in...

Builds upon the idea that we need 10000 hours to achieve excellence. But does this mean that we have to have years of training before we can presume...

In this book Ronald B. Levinson responds to many of Karl Popper's criticisms of Plato in The Open Society and its Enemies.

This was supposedly a rebuttal to Snow's Two Cultures arguments. But it wasn't. It was mostly an attack on C. P. Snow himself, and then went on to...

How could the gulf between science and the arts be bridged

Rowling's bestselling series.

This book continues Kurzweil's ideas on how to live longer (rather than wishing for some future singularity) but it has got rather buried in the huge...

When compared to Fantastic Voyage the title shows the move away from what path we need to follow to live longer, and towards the idea of some...

Arthur Ransome tells the story of a former factory owner, known as Uncle. Following the revolution he the idea of common ownership, and put plenty of...

A chapter looking at Marx's shortcomings is followed by one looking at the work Alfred Marshal. Nasar doesn't do so explicitly, but one can't help...

We hear of how the British always claimed to be acting according to free-market principles, but that their military control meant that they could...

Businessmen are persuading the government to pass an act creating a Muffin Monopoly. Was Dickens more in favour of the free market than people think?

The hero has made his money in what was considered an honourable way — the spoils of war. (The British government would give 'prize money' to naval...

The top down nature of early societies meant that there was a class which carried on more or less as normal even if there was widespread famine.

Is it a myth that Adam Smith promoted selfishness?

Adam, Adam, Adam Smith,

John North describes the astronomical clock built at St. Alban's abbey. How did the abbey pay for such a feat of engineering? One important source of...

The author takes the right wing view that the rich — even the super rich — deserve the money they get. But he also suggests their offspring shouldn't...

’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes,

Chasing friendship for friendship's sake may well lead nowhere. Friendship arise when people are pursuing the same goal.

Lewis Carroll's rambling work, partly serving as a vehicle for some of his ideas about religion and society.

15-year-old Elena goes to stay with a relative of her teacher. Her host runs a B&B and when Elena she gets there she finds that she is expected...

Blyton's message here is that children need discipline to grow up into responsible adults and should be grateful for even the least communication...

Were the 1970s really comparable to a Zombie Apocalypse.

Hans Rosling tells of how one of his students said he wanted to punch the owners of a drug company in the face. Rosling responded that he was really...

I'm very suspicious of Malmgren's suggestion that one way to deal with the national debt is to increase the population

This book describes how solar power has the advantage that it's getting cheaper all the time. I can't help thinking that in a few years time people...

It will take time to get to the new 'growth engine' suggested in 'The Economic Growth Engine', but this book shows that we can bridge the gap by...

This book shows how GDP growth correlates with energy use. and arguesthat renewables aren't replacing fossil fuels at the rate that would be...

I felt that Lomborg's books deserved a book length reply, where the author could develop the arguments fully. Unfortunately I felt that Friel's book...

Bjorn Lomborg's claim that environmental worries are overly alarmist.

There was a claim that growing pressure on resources would push the price of raw materials sky-high. In this book we hear how Julian Simon, bet Paul...

This book argued that without drastic change we'd all be starving by the year 2000. But we're still here, and in fact many people have escaped hunger.

The first edition started with the prediction:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve...

Polanyi read much of the work of earlier economists, and so his book provides many useful insights into economic history. I can't help feeling though...

William Godwin's very wordy tome, in which he argued, in a very repetitive way, that we needed to get rid of the hierarchical nature of society,

Price looked forward to an age of plenty, but this seemed to be a more religious view of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Malthus's famous prediction of a never ending struggle for existence. He got it wrong - but could he have known this at the time?

Doorothy L. Sayers's play about Christ caused something of a stir.

For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true.

Seemed to me to be more about the philosophy of mind than a discussion of miracles.

Newland Archer has plans to introduce his new wife, who has led a sheltered life, to wider interests. But is it Newland who is the innocent one?

A collection of C.S. Lewis's essays, making many interesting points.

This is where the religious motivation for the Narnia stories takes over from the plot. I feel there are serious inconsistencies with the earlier...

Queen Susan considers marrying the Calormene Prince Rabadash corresponding to the proposed marriage between Joan, the sister of Richard I, and...

The Lyons version does seem to have all 1001 nights in 3 volumes - I'd only been able to find a selection of tales up to now.

The scientists have become devil-worshippers, being in thrall to a disembodied head. It's quite obvious where this head comes from: 12th Century...

A scientist goes mad and the protagonist realizes he must kill him. A mirror to The War of the Worlds?

The first book of Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy. He makes the valid point that if scientists become too arrogant then they may well miss what is really...

The protagonist realized that he must silence a curate who is behaving is such a crazy way as to attract the attention of the Martians — so he kills...

Bishop Samuel Wilberforce's review of Darwin's classic work is well worth a look at

One of those grand schemes showing the progress of mankind from the earliest days and predicting great things in the coming centuries (He was largely...

Has a door which is very similar to that it H.G. Wells's The Door in the Wall

A child goes through a door and plays in a paradisical world for an afternoon. The door appears for him again at various times through his life, but...

Eustace, having turned into a dragon, is turned back into a boy by having his dragon skin removed, illustrating Lewis's idea that grace was within...

Anna Henchman shows how new scientific discoveries came as a breath of fresh air. It wasn't just scientists who were interested, any educated person...

Milton mentions planet Earth , giving a nod to the heliocentric rather than geocentric model of the solar system. It's hard to appreciate just how...

C.S. Lewis expresses the wish that the medieval model of the universe shouldn't just be thrown out because it has been superseded.

Walter Lewin says that failing to teach physics students about the science of rainbows is criminal.

Rubens is not to be blamed for ignorance of optics, but for never having so much as looked at a rainbow carefully

Describes how those who we think of as part of the romantic movement were deeply interested in the new scientific discoveries.

Mary Shelley's classic work, which I would say that Frankenstein is much more a woman's look at how a man might treat the task of bringing a new...

A look at how the strange ideas of quantum theory have developed.

Feynman describing some episodes from his life

Tolkien's classic, from which I have quite a few quotes in System 3 thinking

I have no intention of trying to read this work.

A classic by Dr Seuss, but unlike the tricksterish Cat in the Hat, we realize that Sam-I-am is working for those in power.

Dr Seuss's classic work, introducing that trickster figure The Cat in the Hat

The title of Hyde's book shows the purpose of the trickster, not to lay down the path of righteousness, but to stop the world becoming ossified and...

I don't buy into Rubenstein's claim that we should treat economic ideas the way we treat stories.

Landsberg is a bit too keen to believe his own stories

Boethius claiming that life in prison isn't so bad after all. I'm not convinced.

Karl Popper's criticism of Plato and Marx

Reviewed by J. G. F. Powell at
So I comment on Powell reviewing Gorman describing Cicero's interpretation of Socrates.

One of those rare books that actually question whether Socrates' arguments were in any way persuasive

Entertaining introduction to probability. Unfortunately it seems hard to get hold of a copy today.

Contains the following viewpoint of Florence Nightingale
To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of His...