Five Books Newsletter 29
This week's interview
http://www.fivebooks.com/interviews/james-owen-weatherall-on-physics-and-financial-markets http://www.fivebooks.com/interviews/james-owen-weatherall-on-physics-and-financial-markets
James Owen Weatherall on Physics and Financial Markets
Blaming "the quants" for the recent financial crisis is simplistic and short-sighted, says the author of The Physics of Wall Street. He picks five books showing the contribution physics has made to understanding financial markets.
Books of the Week
http://fivebooks.com/recommended/logic-violence-civil-war-by-stathis-n-kalyvas“This book had a revolutionary effect on the way social scientists think about civil wars.”
Andrew Exum on Understanding the War in Afghanistan (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/andrew-exum-on-understanding-war-afghanistan)
http://fivebooks.com/recommended/essentials-classic-italian-cooking-by-marcella-hazan“I would have thought this was the perfect book for somebody who doesn’t know how to cook.”
Madhur Jaffrey on Wonderful Cookbooks (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/madhur-jaffrey-on-wonderful-cookbooks)
http://fivebooks.com/recommended/passions-and-interests-by-albert-o-hirschman“When we reflect on some of the horrors of capitalism, we have to consider that things could have been much worse: our fights would have been on real battlefields, rather than economic battlefields.”
Robert Shiller on Human Traits Essential to Capitalism (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/robert-shiller-on-human-traits-essential-capitalism)
http://fivebooks.com/recommended/under-volcano-by-malcolm-lowry“The novel tells the story of a day in his life, or, rather, death, under the shadow of a volcano in a small Mexican town.”
Hugh Thomson on Mexico (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/hugh-thomson-on-mexico)
http://fivebooks.com/recommended/why-nations-fail-by-daron-acemoglu-and-james-robinson“The book runs through several thousand years of history, and tries to explain how societies work and why, often, they fail to generate prosperity for their citizens. It’s a very political story.”
Daron Acemoglu on Inequality (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/daron-acemoglu-on-inequality)
http://fivebooks.com/recommended/companion-jane-austen-by-claudia-l-johnson-and-clara-tuite“The scholars writing these essays are, without exception, among the most distinguished people writing now.”
Patricia Meyer Spacks on Jane Austen (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/patricia-meyer-spacks-on-jane-austen)
Quote of the Week
"In dividing human qualities into masculine and feminine, sexism separates everyone from parts of themselves.”
Carol Gilligan on Gender and Human Nature (http://fivebooks.com/interviews/carol-gilligan-on-gender-and-human-nature)