What is it that turns smart people into Marxists?

I cannot write this review without prefacing the perspective that I come from: I'm from LA, a member of a West Side Jewish family involved in real estate development, and these days a grad student in science and technology studies. What I was interested in was what Los Angeles means; is it the American dream or the American nightmare? Davis almost gets there, but instead gets stuck reproducing the shibboleths of political economy.

Davis chronicles the struggles of various LA power centers: the downtown establishment against the Westside insurgency; boosters against noir exiles; white and black; police and gangs; factions within the catholic church. But while he starts from a fascinating premise the LA is somehow a uniquely post-modern city, he quickly becomes embroiled in standard narratives about oppressed minorities struggling against fascist power structures. I don't disagree with him here, LA is a racist and oppressive city, and was more so in the late 80s when this book was researched, but saying so isn't particularly interesting. I enjoyed the chapters on noir and police brutality, and a glimpse into the hidden workings of the Catholic church, but Davis spent so much time look for the periphery that he misses the centers of power lie the LA Times, the County Board of Supervisors, Home Owners Associations, or transit planning (these are centers he himself brings up, and then glosses over in favor of community organizers and unions).

This isn't the worst book ever, and it's actually a fun read for Marxist geography, but it's not the LA that I know, (development, freeways, Hollywood, Judaism, the West Side, and The Valley), and it's not the "real LA" either, whatever that is.

What can you say about "The Big Sleep" that hasn't already been said? This is a classic of hard boiled noir. The language is as glamorous as the dames, as punchy as private-eye Marlowe, and as dark as the souls of the criminals, dissolute rich, and corrupt cops who inhabit the world. If you haven't read it, you're missing out.

The most dangerous book of the year. Arum and Roksa present a controversial thesis: that college is not teaching students critical reasoning and writing skills, and back it up in-depth research based on a survey of 2200+ students across 24 institutions, and results on the CLA standardized test.

As a recent college graduate and current PhD student, "Academically Adrift" matches my experiences to a T. While some students are capable of benefiting from college, many students (45% by the authors numbers) show no learning, managing their career to minimize time in difficult classes while maximizing socializing as they achieve an increasingly expensive and meaningless certificate.

This crisis has many parents: poor high schools, an academic culture that does not value teaching, students-as-consumers, and so on. I don't know what the fix is, but this book is starting a much needed conversation.

And as a final note, in sociology you can always critique somebody methodology. Much of the study is based on changes in the CLA across two years. In my experience, the first two years of college are about searching many fields for the one that appeals to you. Its a slew of introductory classes. The meaty classes that teach critical reasoning don't show up until the 300 and 400 level. So, the authors might be over-stating their claims in this regard. On the other hand, the number of people with "some college" is a significant category, and we may have to recognize that these people are much less educated than thy appear to be.

A few days ago, I read "Academically Adrift" which argues that undergraduates aren't learning. "How the University Works" doubles down by presenting a Marxist critique of higher ed, and the hyper-exploitation of graduate students and non-tenured faculty by a 'management culture' of late stage capitalism.

I think Bousquet is half right; grad school pays peanuts for long hours, becoming a professor is basically a lottery, and even then it's the least financially rewarding career available with that level of education (this very morning I read a bunch of articles on adjunct faculty on food stamps). I will agree that the university as it stands today is exploitative, that it pushes the day-to-day realities of teaching off onto the most junior members of the profession, and that a PhD prepares you for nothing. The insights into Toyota-style management and the continual "stressing" of the production process are particularly valuable. No wonder nobody is learning!

Where I diverge is in the solution. Bousquet thinks that we need a union, some solidarity, and then we can get some respect and equal pay from evil administrators. But like the rest of Marxist scholarship, Socialism gets less attention than the flaws of Capitalism. As best as I can tell, for Bousquet, The University is a place which exists first to keep grad students in ramen and cheap whiskey, next a place that does undergrad education (but not for capitalists), and finally a place that does research (but only to expose and correct injustice). I'm not sure that Bousquet's university truly deserves to survive.

Can we just admit that True Socialism and Revolutionary Solidarity is a Utopian pipedream, and that the Revolution is about "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

The back of this book promises "breathless swashbuckling, intrigue, spying, and sword fights" in the vein of The Three Musketeers plus dragons. On that account, the book delivers. On the other hand, if you want things like a plot that make sense and relatable (or even distinguishable) characters, this is not the book for you.

Yes, works in translation are always a little chancy, but I think the problems with The Cardinal's Blades are structural. The average chapter length is about four pages. Fast cuts substitute for pacing. Every character is dashing and deadly and mysterious and little bit cruel, but still a charmer with the ladies. Suspense is created by concealing from the reader what the characters already know, rather than by real intrigue and mystery. The end result is like reading a Dan Brown thriller crossed with one of Michael Moorcock's more disposable novellas with a French accent. Maybe the later books in the series improve, but I don't care to find out. A novel cannot stand on sword fights alone.

This is a short book that neatly balances the hagiographic approach (Coram-The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War) and the intellectual history (Osinga-Science, Strategy, and War). Having read a bunch of Boyd books recently, I'd say that this one is probably the best primer.

However, it doesn't quite live up to the subtitle. Daniel Ford has a fascinating personal background; a Korean War veteran and Vietnam War reporter for the left-leaning The Nation who in his 70s took a Masters in War Studies at King's College London with a bunch of British officers. With that, I was hoping for some kind of personal yet synoptic perspective that would apply the theories of John Boyd to the realities of counter-insurgency warfare in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Instead, Ford remains over the surface of the topic, producing a work that is pretty much what you would expect from a basic familiarity with John Boyd and the headlines coming out of the wars. This feels like chapters 1 and 2 of a much better book, and I hope that Ford finds time to finish it.

Wow... having just read this book, I don't really know what to think, so I'll err on the side of gushing. Genesis is a novel of Ideas, with all that that entails. The setting, characters, and plot are minimal, but immense didactic attention is focused on how we understanding history, the mind, the purpose of life, and the role of the State. The ambition and willing to try and encompass Big Ideas easily smooth over any minor quibbles I might have.

Academic theory is frequently a mess; the author needs to balance between correctly explaining the details of their case studies with sufficient power to be useful on other problems. And in the social sciences, where you can't really test theories, it's doubly hard.

With that in mind, Ostrom manages to synthesize a powerful and rigorous theory about how rules structure the use of common pool resources. Drawing from examples in political economy and game theory, she develops a model of how rules work (ADICO, on pg 139), and the kinds of institutions that lead to better outcomes than Hobbsian rational self-interest.

Her framework is rigorous enough to allow comparisons across diverse case studies, simple enough that most people can use it without being polymathic geniuses (*cough* Sheila Jasanoff *cough*), and flexible enough to accurately depicted the complexity of the real world.

Ostrom received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on common pool resources. I think any scholar working in this area who did not use Ostrom's framework would have some serious justification to do, so why only four stars? Well, first I'm not sure how well her framework can be extended beyond common pool resources; seeing everything as this kind of social dilemma is limited. Second, while this is a well-researched book, it's also a slog. I can't imagine sitting down and enjoying this book, which is not true of some academics.

I had a review, but the browser ate it. In brief, late-period Heinlein about a secret agent who has unlikely erotic adventures while navigating a libertarian dsytopia. The plot exists mostly to just string together action and sex scenes, and while the bones of the setting are interesting, it doesn't match up to fleshed out details of Heinlein's better work. Oh brain eater, why do you have to hit my favorite authors?

On the plus side, all characters are of legal age, and I don't recall any relatives sleeping together.

This is a book of monsters; fragile monsters, armored monsters, subtle monsters, monster who were once human, once had families, used to be like us. And looming over it all, the monsters of the post-global warming climate and the post-industrial economy. Each of the 11 stories in this collection are a facet onto the central concerns of the author. Fears about humanity and nature and labor which are my worries, and which should be your worries as well.

Paolo Bacigalupi smells like the future. I can give no higher praise.