CityReads│Top 12 Book Reviews of 2019 by LSE RB

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Top 12 Book Reviews of 2019 by LSE RB

LSE Review of Books selects the top 12 books based on the most popular reviews in 2019.

Source:https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2019/12/19/lse-rb-year-in-review-top-12-book-reviews-of-2019/

12. Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World. Branko Milanovic. Harvard University Press. 2019.

For the first time in human history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. In Capitalism, Alone, Serbian-American economist Branko Milanovic explains the reasons for this decisive historical shift since the days of feudalism and, later, communism. Surveying the varieties of capitalism, he asks: What are the prospects for a fairer world now that capitalism is the only game in town? His conclusions are sobering, but not fatalistic. Capitalism gets much wrong, but also much right-and it is not going anywhere. Our task is to improve it.

Milanovic argues that capitalism has triumphed because it works. It delivers prosperity and gratifies human desires for autonomy. But it comes with a moral price, pushing us to treat material success as the ultimate goal. And it offers no guarantee of stability. In the West, liberal capitalism creaks under the strains of inequality and capitalist excess. That model now fights for hearts and minds with political capitalism, exemplified by China, which many claim is more efficient, but which is more vulnerable to corruption and, when growth is slow, social unrest. As for the economic problems of the Global South, Milanovic offers a creative, if controversial, plan for large-scale migration. Capitalism is a risky system. But it is a human system. Our choices, and how clearly we see them, will determine how it serves us.

11. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. Safiya Umoja Noble. New York University Press. 2018.

Safiya Umoja Noble draws on her research into algorithms and bias to show how online search results are far from neutral, but instead replicate and reinforce racist and sexist beliefs that reverberate in the societies in which search engines operate.

Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.

Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance―operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond―understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance.

10. The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century. Helena Rosenblatt. Princeton University Press. 2018.

Helena Rosenblatt gives an account of how the meanings of ‘liberalism’ have evolved through a world history of its uses from ancient Rome to the present day, recovering some of its connotations that have been lost, discarded or eroded.

Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights. She shows that it was the French Revolution that gave birth to liberalism and Germans who transformed it. Only in the mid-twentieth century did the concept become widely known in the United States-and then, as now, its meaning was hotly debated. Liberals were originally moralists at heart. They believed in the power of religion to reform society, emphasized the sanctity of the family, and never spoke of rights without speaking of duties. It was only during the Cold War and America's growing world hegemony that liberalism was refashioned into an American ideology focused so strongly on individual freedoms.

9.Perilous Futures: On Carl Schmitt's Late Writings by Peter Uwe Hohendahl

Carl Schmitt’s State and Constitutional Theory: A Critical Analysis by Benjamin Schupmann.

In Perilous Futures, Peter Uwe Hohendahl calls for critical scrutiny of Schmitt’s later writings, the work in which Schmitt wrestles with concerns that retain present-day relevance: globalization, asymmetrical warfare, and the shifting international order.

In Carl Schmitt’s State and Constitutional Theory, Schupmann argues that Schmitt's state and constitutional theory remains important: the problems he identified continue to exist within liberal democratic states. Schmitt offers democrats today a novel way to understand the legitimacy of liberal democracy and the limits of constitutional change.

8. Maoism: A Global History. Julia Lovell. Bodley Head. 2019.

Julia Lovell brought readers a fascinating and timely work on one of the most influential and disruptive strands of Marxist thought: that of Mao Zedong. It offers a rich and brilliantly researched history of an important world ideology.

Lovell re-evaluates Maoism by showing how internationalism lay at the heart of it. The Maoist experiment wasn’t about closure, but about supporting all manner of anti-colonial, anti-imperial, nationalist liberation movements around the world.

The book looks at how Maoism was taken up in different countries and the many regions around the world that were influenced by it. The 1968 movement in Europe and America, the political struggles in Peru, Vietnam, Cambodia, Tanzania, South Africa, India and Nepal all turned to Maoism.

Very interestingly, she notes that much of this happened at a time when Russia was in the ascendancy. It was beginning to open up a bit more under Khrushchev. But it was not seen—by anti-capitalist and liberation movements around the world—as the appropriate state system or political philosophy to pursue. Instead of Marxism, they turned to Maoism.

Lovell also argues that after Mao, internationalism continued, but it changed as well. But it’s a new form of internationalism which is much more about helping developing countries build their infrastructure and providing expertise—rather than fomenting Maoist struggle and anti-capitalist revolution. The line of reasoning is that what we see today is part of an old internationalist story.

7. k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016). Mark Fisher, edited by Darren Ambrose with Simon Reynolds. Repeater Books. 2018.

This comprehensive collection brings together the work of acclaimed blogger, writer, political activist and lecturer Mark Fisher (aka k-punk). Covering the period 2004 - 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental health and popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on ''Acid Communism''; and a number of important interviews from the last decade.

6. Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Arlie Russell Hochschild. The New Press. 2018 [2016].

American sociologist, Arlie Russell Hochschild, explores the ‘deep story’ behind the rise of the Tea Party and Donald Trump in the USA, drawing on close contact with her research subjects over a five-year period of living in Louisiana, a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets, people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children.

5. The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality. Katharina Pistor. Princeton University Press. 2019.

A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealth Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. Katharina Pistor offers an expansive analysis of the construction of capital, showing legal coding to be at the heart of this process.

What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.

Katharina Pistor argues that the law selectively "codes" certain assets, endowing them with the capacity to protect and produce private wealth. With the right legal coding, any object, claim, or idea can be turned into capital-and lawyers are the keepers of the code. Pistor describes how they pick and choose among different legal systems and legal devices for the ones that best serve their clients' needs, and how techniques that were first perfected centuries ago to code landholdings as capital are being used today to code stocks, bonds, ideas, and even expectations-assets that exist only in law. A powerful new way of thinking about one of the most pernicious problems of our time, The Code of Capital explores the different ways that debt, complex financial products, and other assets are coded to give financial advantage to their holders.

4.The Finance Curse: How Global Finance is Making Us All Poorer. Nicholas Shaxson. Bodley Head. 2018.

Global finance is a system that works for the few and against the many.

We need finance – but when finance grows too big it becomes a curse. The City of London is the single biggest drain on our resources; it sucks talent out of every sphere, it siphons wealth and hoovers up government time. Yet to be ‘competitive’, we’re told we must turn a blind eye to money-laundering and appease big business with tax cuts. We are told global finance is about wealth creation; the reality is wealth extraction.

Tracing the curse back through economic history, Shaxson uncovers how we got to this point. He exposes offshore tax havens; the uncontrolled growth of monopolies; the myths around the Celtic Tiger and its low corporate tax rate; the bizarre industry of wealth management; the destructive horrors of private equity; and the sinister ‘Competitiveness Agenda’.

Nicholas Shaxson charts the devastation caused by the concentration and consolidation of global finance, its ideologies and institutions. The book underscores the need for fundamental reform of business, accounting and finance education

3. The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties. Paul Collier. Allen Lane. 2018.  

Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of Britain and other Western societies: thriving cities versus the provinces, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit and the return of the far right in Germany.

Paul Collier, a distinguished economist, ventures onto the terrain of ethics to explain what's gone wrong with capitalism, and how to fix it. To heal the divide between metropolitan elites and the left-behind, he argues, we need to rediscover an ethic of belonging, patriotism, and reciprocity. 

2. The Class Ceiling: Why It Pays to be Privileged. Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison. Bristol University Press. 2019.

Politicians continually tell us that anyone can get ahead. But is that really true? This important book takes readers behind the closed doors of elite employers to reveal how class affects who gets to the top. Friedman and Laurison show that a powerful class pay gap exists in Britain s elite occupations. Even when those from working-class backgrounds make it into prestigious jobs, they earn, on average, 16% less than colleagues from privileged backgrounds. ‘Black British working-class women have average earnings in top jobs that are £20,000 less per year than those of privileged-origin white men.’

But why is this the case?

Drawing on 200 interviews across four case studies - television, accountancy, architecture, and acting they explore the complex barriers facing the upwardly mobile. This is a rich, ambitious book that demands we take seriously not just the glass but also the class ceiling.

1.National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin. Pelican. 2018.

Across the West, there is a rising tide of people who feel excluded, alienated from mainstream politics, and increasingly hostile towards minorities, immigrants and neo-liberal economics. Many of these voters are turning to national populist movements, which have begun to change the face of Western liberal democracy, from the United States to France, Austria to the UK.

Written by two of the foremost experts on fascism and the rise of national populism, this lucid and deeply-researched book is a vital guide to our transformed political landscape. Challenging conventional wisdoms, Eatwell and Goodwin make a compelling case for serious, respectful engagement with the supporters and ideas of national populism.

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