Page 84 - The Economist

84 Books and arts The Economist December 9th 2017
2 Against the Grain. By James Scott. Yale The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the
University Press; 336 pages; $26 and £20 Aspirational Class. By Elizabeth Currid-
An interestingsummation ofrecent re- Halkett. Princeton University Press; 254
search into why the first states did not pages; $29.95 and £24.95
develop until a longtime afterhumans Ratherthan fillingtheirgarages with
stopped beingnomads and agriculture flashy cars, today’s rich devote theirbud-
had become the norm. gets to less visible but more valuable ends:
education, domestic services and cultural
Economics and business capital. Aprofessorat the University of
Southern California shows why it is so
The Great Leveller: Violence and the His- difficult to stop the privileged position of
tory of Inequality from the Stone Age to the the elites becomingmore entrenched.
Twenty-First Century. By Walter Scheidel. Nicotine. By Gregor Hens. Translated by Jen
Princeton University Press; 528 pages; $35 Calleja. Other Press; 176 pages; $16.95. Fitz-
and £27.95 carraldo Editions; £12.99
An Austrian-born historian, now at Stan- Cigarettes function as punctuation for life,
ford University, argues that only cata- argues GregorHens, a German authorand
strophic events really reduce inequality. translator. They make it coherent and add
Depressingand convincing. drama, insertingcommas, semicolons and
ellipses (and, in the end, an inarguable
Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the
Intangible Economy. By Jonathan Haskel and often premature full stop). Smoking is
bad foryou, but that doesn’t mean it can’t
and Stian Westlake. Princeton University be fun.
Press; 288 pages; $29.95 and £24.95
Businesses in rich countries are increasing- The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary
ly investingin “intangible” assets, in- Culture Adventure of “Les Miserables”. By David
cludingresearch and development, brand- Bellos. Farrah, Straus and Giroux; 336 pages;
ingand public relations, and less in The Souls of China: The Return of Religion $27. Particular Books; £20
“tangible” ones, such as machinery. The after Mao. By Ian Johnson. Pantheon; 448 From the humane treatment ofex-offend-
growingimportance ofintangible assets pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25 ers to the care ofstreet children, Victor
plays a part in some ofthe bigtrends that As ordinary people (and party leaders) are Hugo’s epic novel, “Les Misérables”, spear-
are grippingrich economies, from rising tryingto workout what it means to be headed calls forreform and contributed to
income inequality to weakgrowth in Chinese in the modern world, a Canadi- “the future improvement ofsociety”. Few
productivity. an-born academic shows how a resur- books really change the world. This one
Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty gence offaith is quietly changingthe did, longbefore the musical broke box-
Money and the Quest to Bring Down the country. office records.
Most Wanted Man on Wall Street. By Shee- Dream Hoarders: How the American Middle
lah Kolhatkar. Random House; 344 pages; $28 Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Science and technology
The rise, fall and rise ofSteven Cohen—a Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do
briefhistory ofSAC Capital and how its About It. By Richard Reeves. Brookings Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is
boss inspired Bobby Axelrod of“Billions”. Institution Press;196 pages; $24 Thriving in an Age of Extinction. By Chris
Which ofAmerica’s social fault-lines is the
Janesville: An American Story. By Amy most dangerous? Race? Culture? Wealth? Thomas. PublicAffairs; 320 pages; $28. Allen
Goldstein. Simon & Schuster; 368 pages; $27 This last offers part ofan answer. Having Lane; £20
and £18.99 grabbed theirpiece ofprosperity, the Humans have consigned species to extinc-
The rivetingstory ofwhat happened to a uppermiddle class are fightingto keep it. A tion at an alarmingrate. But hybridisation
company town and the families who lived British scholar, based in New York, argues and speciation is happeningquickly, too.
and worked there when General Motors in detail why it is this10%—ratherthan the An ecologist at the University ofYork
decided to shut down its assembly plant 1% oflore—who are the main beneficiaries shows how humans are bringingabout a
in a city in southern Wisconsin. great new age ofbiological diversity. Ex-
(and the principal cause) ofinequality in
Americana: A 400-Year History of Ameri- America. tinctions ain’t what they used to be.
can Capitalism. By Bhu Srinivasan. Penguin Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and Dawn of the New Everything. By Jaron
Press; 576 pages; $30 What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Lanier. Henry Holt; 351pages; $30. Bodley
Adelightful tourthrough the businesses Really Are. By Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Head; £20
and industries that turned America into Dey Street; 288 pages; $27.99. Bloomsbury; An eccentric, but visionary, tech pioneer
the world’s biggest economy—by a hard- £20 recalls a life spent in virtual reality and
workingimmigrant who himselfbecame Bigdata, says Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a reflects on the growinghubris ofSilicon
an entrepreneur. Apaean to progress. Valley.
formerdata scientist forGoogle, provides
Clashing over Commerce: A History of US new sources ofinformation. It captures Tamed: Ten Species that Changed our
Trade Policy. By Douglas Irwin. University of what people actually do orthink, rather World. By Alice Roberts. Hutchinson; 368
Chicago Press; 832 pages; $35 than what they choose to tell pollsters; it pages; £20
Trade-policy wonks are gluttons forpun- helps researchers home in on and com- Forlovers of“Guns, Germs and Steel” and
ishment. In good times, theirpet topic is pare demographic orgeographical sub- “Sapiens” comes a new, deceptively sim-
dismissed as dull. In bad, they find trade sets; and it allows forsuperfast rando- ple book. Alice Roberts, an anatomist and
beingfaulted foreverything. ADartmouth mised controlled trials. This bookargues palaeopathologist, usesthe story ofhow
College professorsets the record straight, that the web will revolutionise social apples, cattle, dogs, horses and rice came
and in the process elegantly debunks a science just as the microscope and tele- to be domesticated to tell a widerstory
host oftrade-policy myths. scope transformed the natural sciences. about humans’ longhistory. 1