Newmark's Door

Two on Lincoln

Christopher Hitchens reviews the new, nearly 2000 page biography by Michael Burlingame.

No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame, but one way of paying tribute to it is to say that it introduces the elusive idea of destiny from the very start, and one means of illustrating this is to show how the earlier chapters continually prefigure, or body forth, the more momentous events that are to be dealt with in the later ones. 

Sean Wilentz reviews seven recent books on Lincoln. Wilentz's thesis is interesting; his biting comments on his fellow historians and on literary theorists even more so.

Exactly right

From David Klinghoffer's review of a forthcoming book, The Israel Test, by George Gilder:

As Gilder puts it, "The [Israel] test can be summarized by a few questions: What is your attitude toward people who excel you in the creation of wealth or in other accomplishments? Do you aspire to their excellence or do you seethe at it? Do you admire and celebrate exceptional achievement or do you impugn it and seek to tear it down?"

SOME PEOPLE see wealth-creation as a zero-sum game, where your enriching yourself means that you are taking something away from me. Others see wealth as almost miraculous. Material value is created from nothing - ex nihilo. That is, from nothing material - but from an idea, from creativity, from genius. In this view, your enrichment takes nothing from me. In fact, it creates opportunities for your neighbors to enrich themselves by doing business with you. Israel's Palestinian neighbors, with their pitiful economy, have failed spectacularly to perceive this.

Elementally, there are two different personality types here. Where you come down reveals a lot not just about your politics - though political views flow from it - but about the orientation of your soul.

Zero-sum personalities often resent the rich and the gifted and may succumb to a temptation to punish them. Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments are a frequent consequence. Ex-nihilo personalities have no reason to resent Jews or Israel.

Exactly right once again

From David R. Henderson's review of a recent book, The Case for Big Government, by Jeff Madrick:

Consider how Madrick makes the case that economic freedom has failed. If economic freedom works, he argues, our economy should be doing very well because we have had “the rise of laissez-faire economics since the 1980s.”What is his evidence of the rise of laissez-faire economics? He gives none. That’s not surprising given the heft of the Federal Register, the U.S. government publication that lists new regulations. It averaged 72,844 pages annually during the Carter years from 1977 to 1980, just before Madrick’s “laissez-faire” 1980s. The average fell to 54,335 during the Reagan years, rose to 59,527 during the George H.W. Bush years, then to 71,590 during the Clinton years, and finally to a record 75,526 during the administration of the supposed great believer in laissez-faire, George W. Bush. It’s true that Federal Register pages aren’t a perfect measure: when governments deregulate, they must announce those changes, and so some of the pages represent genuine deregulation. But most of the pages listed new regulations, no matter which president was in power at the time. Far from moving away from regulation, the U.S. economy has become even more regulated in recent decades. The almost quarter of a million federal regulators would be surprised to learn from Madrick that they don’t have jobs.

Pioneers of Law and Economics now available

Edited by Lloyd Cohen and Josh Wright. Includes chapters on three old-school UCLA professors: Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, and Ben Klein. (As well as chapters on some lesser lights like Director, Stigler, Becker, Buchanan and Tullock, etc.)

A steal at 94.5 pounds.

Readings in Applied Microeconomics: The Power of the Market . . .

. . . edited by me is now available. $58.45 in paper from Amazon. Thirty-four selections in support of the theme that markets work pretty well.

Randall G. Holcombe wrote:

This volume is a compilation of classic and persuasive articles that lend insight into the operation of the market process. Each article is a classic on its own, but the compilation is much more powerful in its message than the sum of the individual articles. Readers will come away with a great appreciation for the way that the market mechanism coordinates the economic activities of people around the globe for the benefit of everyone.

Claudia R. Williamson wrote:

This text is a much overdue supplementary book to help students understand the role and the power of the market. I believe this book can help dispel some of the myths surrounding capitalism and how markets operate. I foresee this content generating much discussion in the classroom on important economic issues.

"10 Best Head-Scratching Stories, Explained"

From 2001 to The Wall to Infinite Jest.

Free graduate economics/statistics book online

Most of Professor Efe Ok's book, Probability Theory with Economic Applications is--for now--available free online.

You can also look at the Introduction, Table of Contents, and first chapter of his Real Analysis with Economic Applications.

It seems as though both would be very helpful for economics Ph.D. students.

Four links for a true 21st century job: information visualization

Justin Wehr looks at an interesting example and provides the author's background.

Another cool examples: "200 Years That Changed the World".

"Is Information Visualization the Next Frontier for Design?" (Fast Company, 5/10.)

Forthcoming book from O'Reilly: Beautiful Data--The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions.

"Harlan Ellison turns down Cleveland Arts Prize"

Funny.

Nominated several times over the years for a Cleveland Arts Prize, celebrated author and Cleveland native Harlan Ellison finally was awarded a prize for lifetime achievement this year. But he turned it down.

Ellison objected to having to pay for his and his wife's travel and lodging expenses from their Los Angeles home to Cleveland for the awards event in June.

He also objected to an unsigned letter he received from Cleveland Arts Prize Executive Director Marcie Bergman, which stated he would have only three minutes for his remarks. . . .

Cleveland author and past arts-prize winner Les Roberts had submitted Ellison's name a few times for the Cleveland Arts Prize literary awards, Roberts said. "I thought he was a perfect candidate," Roberts said.

Ellison has been called one of the great living American short-story writers. He has written or edited 75 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays and teleplays for "The Twilight Zone," "The Outer Limits" and other television series. Among his most recognized works are "Deathbird Stories" and "Shatterday."

This year, Ellison's name was approved by the literary panel. When Roberts appeared before the entire jury for the final vote, some members said they had never heard of Ellison, who will be 75 this month, Roberts said. The jury voted to give Ellison the lifetime achievement award anyway.

Link via Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion.

I'd like to thank . . .

. . . the Tropical Inn in Key West, Florida for advertising my new book, due out in about a month.