Thursday, July 27, 2006
nonfiction
As you will note if you look to the right side of your screen, I have solved my reading dilemma. For a couple days I didn't read much of anything (except for a few articles out of a copy of The Economist that E bought), and then I settled on a nonfiction book that I brought with me that is not quite as academic as the Krugman or Keynes that I foolishly brought with me. Since virtually the entire field of mainstream economics is essentially pro-globalization (which is not to say that we don't examine the problems and inequities it causes, because we do--Joseph Stiglitz's books are one good example), I find that it's helpful to do some reading that takes a more critical look at globalization from a standpoint other than textbook economics. The last couple books I tried in this vein were unneccessarily hostile and flippant and horribly written, but William Greider is an excellent and even-handed writer, so I'm looking forward to this one.
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5 comments:
Honey - I'm going to tell you this because I love you. When you are an economist... make sure you have an interesting hobby. ;)
I noticed that it's a 1998 book...does it seem dated?
at least you are keep reading...
i only talk about reading,
and have stopped reading for a month now... -_-;; can't read in hot...nyahaha
IB--my copy says copyright 1997... anyway, i'm less than 30 pages into it, so i can't totally judge yet, but it doesn't seem like it will be too dated. obviously, the examples he uses and some of the things he talks about are going to be dated, but his framework for looking at globalization is fairly broad and long term, so i don't think the underlying themes will seem dated. i find that it's mostly predictive books that become dated (you know, like those "why japan is going to crush america and steal all our jobs" books from the 80s) and this book seems like it's only going to be predictive in a very broad sense, like, "these are some ways that globalization has been and will slowly reshape political structures, human interactions, etc". but we'll see. and besides, if it's dated, i'll just call it a history book. =)
rebel--hobbies...hmm...i like scrabble. i've been playing against the computer a lot. and i'm knowledgable about the world of competitive scrabble playing. i might even pick it up one day myself (i'm pretty good now, but there's serious work involved in playing competitively...you have to memorize lists of words and stuff). is that less dorky than econ?
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