Indian author Pankaj Mishra writes a brutal
takedown of Niall Ferguson's latest book,
Civilisation: The West and the Rest in the
London Review of Books.
Ferguson responds to the critical book review with a
lawsuit.
[more inside]
posted by bodywithoutorgans
on Dec 5, 2011 -
107 comments
"Writing about metaphor is dancing with your conceptual clothes off, the innards of your language exposed by equipment more powerful than anything operated by the TSA. Still, one would be a rabbit not to do it in a world where metaphor is now top dog, at least among revived rhetorical devices with philosophical appeal." [
What's a Metaphor For?]
posted by vidur
on Jul 12, 2011 -
20 comments
Physicist Freeman Dyson reviews two new books about Richard Feynman, one about the science and one in
graphic novel form.
He never showed the slightest resentment when I published some of his ideas before he did. He told me that he avoided disputes about priority in science by following a simple rule: "Always give the bastards more credit than they deserve." I have followed this rule myself. I find it remarkably effective for avoiding quarrels and making friends. A generous sharing of credit is the quickest way to build a healthy scientific community.
(
previously, previously, and probably in the future, but not predictably so.
posted by cogneuro
on Jul 12, 2011 -
20 comments
Martha Nussbaum
reviews three recent books on Shakespeare and philosophy. The essay offers an excellent analysis of love in
Antony and Cleopatra and
Othello, and an excellent discussion of the interaction between philosophy and literature.
[more inside]
posted by painquale
on May 5, 2008 -
17 comments
"A few years ago a psychologist and a philosopher got into an argument over whether we can accurately describe our thoughts. "Yes," said the psychologist; with training and the help of my special technique, we can accurately describe our thoughts. The philosopher doubted it. To resolve their argument, they recruited a young woman who agreed tell them her thoughts, so that they could argue over whether she was credible." Eric Schwitzgebel and Russ Hurlbert debate
the transparency of inner experience. See also Schwitzgebel's extremely interesting
blog.
posted by painquale
on Jan 13, 2008 -
34 comments
The bookforum
site deserves to be brought to the attention of right thinking MeFis everywhere. It like a collection of really good front page posts: annotated collections of 10 or so links from disparate sources on a common theme.
[more inside]
posted by shothotbot
on Dec 22, 2007 -
9 comments
Are You There God? It's Me, Monica In equal parts a book review, investigative journalism and an autobiographical account; the author of this article takes on the topic of teenage oral-sex in the US today. There are no easy answers for the reader at the end, but it makes for fairly compelling reading. (Apart from some sexual terminology, the article is SFW)
[via]
posted by your mildly obsessive average geek
on Mar 16, 2007 -
71 comments
Oh God, please never let the NYT review of my latest novel never start like this: Every few years, as a reviewer, one encounters a novel whose ineptitudes are so many in number, and so thoroughgoing, that to explain them fully would produce a text that exceeded the novel itself in both length and interest. Lately it seems the book reviewers at the NYT--including Michiko Kakutani,
on Jonathan Franzen's latest (
"Just why anyone would be interested in pages and pages about this unhappy relationship or the self-important and self-promoting contents of Mr. Franzen’s mind remains something of a mystery")--have been pulling out all the stops. Poor Irvine Welsh (?).
posted by gottabefunky
on Aug 29, 2006 -
61 comments
For more than two centuries, nationalism in all its various forms—from the high-minded chauvinism of the British Empire to the virulent poison of Nazism—has been a familiar, and often negative, phenomenon. Emerging first in Europe, which it nearly destroyed and which has now apparently learned to control it, extreme nationalism still erupts from time to time in other parts of the world. The word "nationalism" never quite seemed to fit the United States, where continental vastness and enormous power have hitherto been tempered by an often-expressed distaste for empire and by the notion of world leadership by example. In the first years of the twenty-first century, however, in a dramatic departure from traditional policy, the spirit of unilateralism and militant nationalism began to dominate Washington's policies and attitudes toward the outside world.Extreme Makeover - Brian Urquhart reviews
America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism. And
here is Gerald Rellick's take on the book. From Asia Source, a long and informative interview with
Anatol Lievin. From the Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley's Conversations with History,
A Conversation With Anatol Lieven. Also by Anatol Lieven,
A Trap Of Their Own Making.
posted by y2karl
on Feb 14, 2005 -
10 comments
Matt Taibbi checks in with 'Excerpt from The Rise and Fall of the United States (Putnam, 2037), William Shirer IV. From the chapter entitled, "The Anschluss Begins."' Typically clever stuff, especially the Franzen bit.
posted by GriffX
on Oct 21, 2003 -
5 comments
Iraq: What Went Wrong By General Wesley K. Clark. I appreciate this article. It is simple, easy to read, and represents what I've been feeling for quite some time now. (NY Review of Books)
posted by y2karl
on Oct 1, 2003 -
21 comments
David Garland's disturbing new book addresses the question why there are so many more people in jail in America and Britain than anywhere else... Its broader concern is with "cultures of control," how societies treat deviance and violence and whom they single out for what treatment. Here are some facts about skyrocketing imprisonment... There are approximately two million people in jail in America today, 2,166,260 at last count: more than four times as many people as thirty years ago. It is the largest number in our history... [and] between four and ten times the incarceration rate of any civilized country in the world... Twelve percent of African-American men between twenty and thirty-four are currently behind bars (the highest figure ever recorded by the Justice Department) compared to 1.6 percent of white men of comparable ages. And according to the same source, 28 percent of black men will be sent to jail in their lifetime... It was not until crime rates had already leveled off that incarceration rates began their steady, year-by-year climb. Between 1972 and 1992, while the population of America's prisons grew and grew, the crime rate as a whole continued at the same level, unchanged. Jerome S. Bruner reviews
The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society for
The New York Review of Books, as does
Austin Sarat in the
American Prospect.
posted by y2karl
on Sep 18, 2003 -
9 comments
Michiko Kukatani goes whacky! (NYT Reg Required) Maybe all the craziness at the NYT is taking its toll, but everyone's favorite high-brow book bully reviews Candace Bushnell's (Sex and The City chick's) new book as a letter from...Elle Woods?!
posted by adrober
on Jun 19, 2003 -
13 comments
