Breakthroughs of 2023, an important thread.
Isabel Kershner, The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Battle for its Inner Soul. An interesting look at Israeli society on the eve of the current war.
2. Robert Darnton, The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789. Perhaps my expectations were too high with this one. I don’t see anything wrong with it, and it is beautifully written. But somehow it didn’t add much to my picture of those events, given I have read many other Darnton books.
3. Hawon Jung, Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’s Rights Worldwide. A good and sobering look at one side of Korean culture. This is also (I hope) an especially effective book to hand to anti-feminist types, since the examples are not coded to standard left-wing vs. right wing American disputes.
4. Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II. The real topic of this book is the decision to use the atomic bomb twice against Japan. Riveting, and provides plenty of detail on the Japanese side, even if some of the interpretative choices are controversial. The author also makes a good point about ending the war sooner, namely it saved a large number of Southeast Asian lives, arguably about 250,000 a month, due to the tyrannical Japanese occupation.
5. Paul Vallely, Philanthropy: from Aristotle to Zuckerberg. Too much of this book is interior to my knowledge set, but for many people this is an excellent overview. 743 pp. of text, and it is pretty comprehensive.
6. Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh, The Swedish Theory of Love: Individualism and Social Trust in Modern Sweden. A fascinating book about how the Swedes pursue a kind of “statist individualism,” namely that they value personal independence very highly, and are happy to use state action to pursue that kind of freedom. They don’t like being so obligated to help each other, thus enter a large welfare state.
As for a useful, and well-written text, there is Karol J. Borowiecki, Charles M. Gray, and James Heilbrun, The Economics of Art and Culture, now in its third edition.