Category Archives: Book Notes

Jonathan Haidt, THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

Posted on Thursday 16 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” (Penguin Press, March 2024, 385pp, including 90pp of acknowledgements, notes, references, and index.) Here’s the latest by the author of one of my favorite books, THE … Continue reading →

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Zack Beauchamp, THE REACTIONARY SPIRIT

Posted on Tuesday 14 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “How American’s Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World” (PublicAffairs, July 2024, 262pp including 16pp of acknowledgements, selected bibliography, and index.) Here’s another recent book, which I bought mainly because I’ve seen the author’s name quite a number of … Continue reading →

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Bill Adair, BEYOND THE BIG LIE

Posted on Saturday 11 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy” (Atria, Oct 2024, xxiii + 273pp, including 55pp of acknowledgements, sources, notes, and index.) This is a recent book, just published … Continue reading →

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George Lakoff, THE POLITICAL MIND

Posted on Monday 6 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain” (Viking, June 2008, 292pp, including 20pp of acknowledgements, notes, and index.) Note that the paperback edition from 2009 changed the subtitle to “A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your … Continue reading →

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What Conservatives Want to Conserve

Posted on Friday 3 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Another passage from Lakoff, with my interpolations. From page 68: In its moral basis and its content, conservatism is centered on the politics of authority, obedience, and discipline. This content is profoundly antidemocratic, whereas our country was founded on opposition … Continue reading →

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Remembering Y2k; a Political Commentator admits he was wrong; Fallibilism; Reading Lakoff

Posted on Thursday 2 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Back to interesting ideas. Heather Cox Richardson recalls Y2K, 25 years ago on January 1st, and how since the problem was fixed (by the scientists and tech guys) some people felt the problem had never been real. As always, she … Continue reading →

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César Hidalgo, WHY INFORMATION GROWS

Posted on Monday 4 November 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies” (Basic Books, 2015, xxi + 232 pp, including 51pp of acknowledgements, notes, and index) A few weeks ago I sat down to read the new Yuval Noah Harari book, NEXUS, and … Continue reading →

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Prothero: WHY LIBERALS WIN THE CULTURE WARS…

Posted on Saturday 2 November 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

(EVEN WHEN THEY LOSE ELECTIONS), subtitled “The Battles That Define America from Jefferson’s Heresies to Gay Marriage” (HarperOne, Oct 2016, 326pp, including 62p acknowledgements, notes, and index.) I’ve mentioned this book a few times, the first time even before it … Continue reading →

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Lukianoff & Haidt, THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND

Posted on Sunday 1 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book that was published six years ago this month, and which I read one year ago last month. Subtitle: “How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure” (Penguin Press, Sept. 2018, 338pp, including … Continue reading →

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Robert Reich, THE COMMON GOOD

Posted on Friday 30 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another shortish book I read recently, not a memoir but a book at the intersection of politics, morality, and human nature, which is itself another theme of my reading the past two or three years. It’s by Robert Reich, … Continue reading →

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