Joshua Kim

One of the most important outcomes of a liberal education should be the permanent eradication of a romanticization of the past. On any measure we care to generate, from health to wealth, we are better off than at any point in history. Go back a mere 200 years and you will find a population hobbled by frequent and persistent famines, early death (with less than half of newborns surviving to age 5), early death, and almost endless agriculturally related toil.

How is it possible that in such a short time span, say since the early 19th century, that the world has become both immeasurable more wealthy and fantastically less equal? Why is it that some nations have seen exponential growth in income per capita, life expectancy and a drop in childhood mortality - where other societies persist in relative poverty and ill-health?

To answer any of these questions, we must first find an economist. Or at least someone who has absorbed the theories and ideas of the great economists.

The idea that a people or a nation could exert some control over its own economic destiny is a relatively new one, and has its origins in the 19th century economic thinkers that Nassar profiles in her gorgeous and essential new book Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius. From the 19th century thinkers such as Karl Marx and Alfred Marshall, grappling with the meaning for society that is shifting for agriculture to industry, Nassar moves on the great economic thinkers of 20th century and how they understood, (and tried to end) two world wars and a Great Depression.

Keynes and Hayek get top billing in this story, and through their lives Nassar illuminates the economic theories and policies that led to, and eventually helped end (with the help of World War II) the depression of the 1930s. The story of Keynes and Keynesian thought is well known to non-economists and economic historians, but Nassar's narrative on the impact of Hayek on our modern thinking was, for me, a revelation.

In Grand Pursuit, Nassar succeeds in elucidating the history of modern economic thought by evoking the personal contexts of the individuals from which these theories emerged. Grand Pursuit could have been subtitled: "A Biography of Economic Thought". This approach takes longer than a straightforward exposition of the major ideas of economic history, but by situating these ideas in the times they were conceived, the reader of Grand Pursuit ultimately enjoy a much richer and nuanced understanding of the ideas the continue to rule our world.

Grand Pursuit is the kind of book I think that will convince some people to go to graduate school to study economic history. That would be a fine result.

When I was in 9th grade (in 1984) I subscribed to 4 car magazines: Motor Trend, Car & Driver, Road & Track, and & Automobile. Today, my fondest dream is to own zero cars and to rent an occasional Zip Car (preferably a Prius, Volt, or Leaf) whenever the need for driving should arise.

Reading "Engines of Change" was a good reminder for me about how important automobiles once loomed in my worldview. At some point my passion for cars was replaced by a passion for computers and technology. At 14 I thought I wanted to be an automotive journalist, and 42 I'm very happy to work at the intersection of education and technology (and to be driving a minivan - slowly).

I'm betting that my story, one of a shift from a love of automobiles to a love of computers, is not unique. How many teenagers who once spent time changing spark plugs and reading car magazines morphed into building PCs and hanging out on computing message boards? I have this theory that today's computer geeks were yesterday's car enthusiasts - and that is why today's Apple new product announcements are so much more exciting than the new model car launches.

Ingrassia takes us back to a time when new cars really mattered. He profiles 15 cars that have had a large impact on American culture. These stories are all engaging and well-told, and in learning about the Model T or the Corvette or the Mustang or the Honda Accord we also learn a great deal about the times in which they were introduced. This is not a book about the "15 best cars of all time", rather Ingrassia is interesting in describing the cars that had the biggest cultural impact.

Ford's Model T literally changed how American society was organized, as an affordable mass produced automobile was a prerequisite to a rural to urban migration and a mobile society. The Honda Accord was the first Japanese car to be built in a U.S. factory (in Ohio), and ushered in a long-term transition away from UAW dominance and the decline of The Big 3. The Chrysler minivan (a Lee Iacocca encore after bringing to life the Mustang) killed the traditional station wagon, empowered a new generation of soccer parents, and eventually led to Mercedes Benz's disastrous and short-lived purchase of Chrysler.

Ingrassia is a terrific writer, and is also the author of the excellent Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road to Bankruptcy and Bailout-and Beyond. I hope that Ingrassia's next project is about the only cars that really excite me now, cars that run on electricity (although his chapter on the Prius in Engines of Change is excellent).

I think that there is a huge market of computer geeks (and educational technologists!) just waiting to buy our first batter powered car, as soon as the technology improves and the costs come down to a point where electric cars are nearly competitive with gas powered vehicles.

The world, or at least my world, needs more high quality concise books. Bryson's new Shakespeare, from the Eminent Lives Series, is one of the genres better examples.

The Modern Library Chronicles is another imprint with some excellent texts. To quote from their page:

"Modern Library Chronicles feature the world's great historians on the world's great subjects. Lively, accessible, and brief (most under 150 pages), these authoritative short histories are designed to appeal to general readers as well as to students in the classroom".

Wonderful, sweeping economic history of the world by one of my favorite writers (Bernstein also wrote "The Birth of Plenty"). These "big" history and "big" thought books are a great antidote to the short time frames and disposable knowledge of our blogging and information overload world. Helps to have a long-term framework to understand our own material lives. Excellent counterpart to Friedman's The World is Flat.

Fascinating extension of the evolutionary psychology framework. Argues that our brains have evolved in often "klugy" ways, meaning that evolution favors what works (and what comes first) and not what is optimal. I learned a good deal about things like memory, emotions, and perception...and now I know why I can be so dumb sometimes. Well written....a fun read.

Fun book from the NYTime's Magazine Consumed column...delves into the world of "murketing" - the new method of connecting with consumers who are immune to traditional mass marketing. Some interesting connections on how we could "market" educational technology.

You will never go into someone's house or office in the same way again. A psychologist who pioneered the field of personality research based on peoples stuff.

The author, a physicist at Cal Tech, is among those rare academics who both write beautifully, and can manage to make complex explanations understandable. This book definitely changed how I understand some fundamental aspects of my life and the lives of those around me, as getting a handle on randomness and probability (which again, our brains don't seem to be built easily to accomplish), helps illuminate some of the fundamental errors in judgment that I seem to make all too often.

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein covers many of the same studies and experiments, and then puts a public policy slant on the conclusions. I'm finding in these sorts of books that the same academic studies and examples pop-up time after time, which is good as it takes me about 5 times to get them straight. Where Sway helped me understand why I'm susceptible to make bad decisions, Nudge helped me understand how I can use the principles of "choice architecture" to influence events and decisions. Both worthwhile reads for folks like us who have a vision of education we are trying to implement, both in terms of why people do things the way they do, and some "libertarian paternalistic" ways to shape decisions and actions.

The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman is a sweet, short popularizer of the current social psych and behavioral econ research.

The original academic and body of research that Gladwell based his best-selling "Blink" on. Gigerenzer experiments on "fast and frugal" decision making have many implications for situations we face all the time in our lives - I just have not quite worked out if I'm so easily swayed and nudged (see below), and my mental probabilistic machinery is so poor (again see below) when I should trust my gut feelings and when I should do the opposite.