That cover looks potentially a little racy for Moby's bus reading too!
If we're going to do reading groups more regularly, we should probably make an effort to not make them practically all books by dudes and definitely not make them books by family members of commenters except by request, I think. This isn't meant as a criticism of this book selection, just vague grumbling toward the future.
White dudes just write more famous books, Thorn. Think about it.
Adam Tooze is a family member of a commenter???
Not sure if Ajay is joking but 3 is not what I meant.
On the other reading group thread, someone mentioned A Spy among Friends. I reviewed it:
http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2014/05/04/kim-philby-and-a-web-of-trust/
I did Wages of Destruction too:
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/review-the-wages-of-destruction-adam-tooze/
Adam Tooze's twitter feed is pretty great, by the way.
"American industry and Russian infantry", as the saying goes.
I've never read anything by Tooze, and I have to say that both linked reviews seem to greet their subjects with modlified rapture. If we were to do one of these, I'd second MC in preferring The Deluge, but for the selfish reason that I've read less about the topic. So whatever. Are they available as ebooks?
Wait what did you mean? 3 is what I wondered to myself as we..
I've requested The Deluge from the library. It seems to have a much shorter wait than peak-popularity Piketty.
The best reading groups are the ones where you've already done the reading. I am into this trend.
Alex's review of the Wages of Destruction is excellent btw, so people who are interested should read that and decide from there. The Deluge may produce some next level Bob comments since it's largely about dominant Anerican finance and has lots of bits about Japan.
Alex is more enthusiastic, and his judgment is generally good. A Spy Among Friends would make a great reading group, because people who hadn't read it before would be all "No! Come on, you're shitting me!" all the way through.
Update re: 7, it turns out I am a moron.
NEVER MIND. I just think it's a good rule to have.
Why? I mean, I don't get it at all. I also don't think it's likely to be much of an issue, but why we wouldn't read a book because it was written by a relative of a commenter is beyond me. Are you thinking about crowding out -- that if we were occupied with nepotistic reading, we wouldn't look further? I don't think there's enough commenter-related-plausibly-interesting literature to worry about.
What if somebody had a spouse and that spouse wrote a book and that book was discussed here and people didn't like it and then everybody forgot about it but Thorn?
3 wasn't serious - but have we done a reading group for a book by a commenter's relative? If not, a relative of mine has a cracking one coming out next month that might be of interest!
14: Oh, hah. Funny, I have 'spouse' in a different mental box than 'relative'. I am not clever.
I for one can't forget 14, because I was the only one who somehow didn't realize until very late in the process that the author was a commenter's relative, and I was very critical, and then I felt bad.
OK, I either missed that or have forgotten it.
I vote for Deluge. Thanks to MC for fpp initiative.
So I suppose we volunteer for chapters now?
Chapters: so many. The book is organised in four sections, plus introduction and conclusion, making 28 chapters in all. Each section has an even number of chapters. So we could do two chapters a post, making 14 posts, which strikes me as too many. Alternatively, we could do 3-4 chapters per post, to get a better fit to the sections: making one post for Part 2 and two posts each for Parts 1, 3, and 4, plus intro and conclusion.
On the basis of 21.2 I'll volunteer tentatively for intro and chapter 1-4. How many posters do we have at this point?
Have we decided on which book? Shouldn't we wait 24 hours in case somebody wants to put an urgent case for the other one?
The Wages of Destruction is a better book from a narrative point of view, I would say; it tells a single coherent story with a beginning and an end, which Deluge doesn't quite manage, and (I think) it has fewer chapters.
But I would be perfectly happy with either.
I think you should do Deluge because the more I hear about it, the more I might read Wages of Destruction but I'm only interested enough in Deluge to read a book club about it, not the book.
I don't have the book yet. I doubt that I personally can manage a pace of 100pp of densely written history/week, though. Piketty was about 4 months of discussion-- is there an equivalently paced choice of interval size possible?
My copies of both are at home anyway so I'll need to wait to Sunday to have a look at whichever one it is and decide which chapters to do.
Two chapters a post sounds about right... I am with lw on this.
Co-sign 25, but lean to Deluge for greater contemporary relevance.
26: Was Piketty that long? If so we could make it happen. But IIRC the Piketty group lost energy over time, so maybe shorter is better.
Anyway, I need to sleep now, so y'all caucus or primary or whatever and I'll check in later.
lean to Deluge for greater contemporary relevance
Jesus, I hope so.
If this is like Piketty, don't sign up for a later chapter that turns out to have a lot of digressions that makes it hard to summarize and then almost no one reads your summary and what comments there are take you to task over a criticism you were mostly kidding about.
I might take part on The Deluge - once I get to the end of Godley & Lavoie's Monetary Economics* I'll need a book.
*aren't you glad nobody started a stock-flow consistent postkeynesian heterodox economics reading group?
Will probably join in with either book, since they do seem to be available for kindle.
I just noticed Wages is an 800 page book. No way I'm reading that either.
I'm up for reading either; they both sound interesting. I ride the same buses as Moby, but I read as ebooks so embarrassing covers are not a problem. I'd also be open to doing a later chapter summary.
Deluge was long, but as I remember easy and interesting reading, but I am a lousy judge of that. I might skim through it on a second reading, but I have other books lined up, including Ulysses again in May.
Among those books is a collection of Haraway, and books by Hester Eisenstein, Rey Chow, Jean Comaroff, Saskia Sassen, and Wendy Brown that are somewhere in the Tooze area of meta-history or whatever. Josh Sides sexual history of San Francisco. Joan Jacobs Brumberg history of anorexia.
I have t read either book, but why is a WWI history book of obviously greater contemporary relevance than a WWII history book?
41: Because the WWI book isn't about WWI per se, it's about America as superpower.
10: I'd be interested in the Philby book in future.
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I am back in Bavaria as paternal grandmother fades out. Franz and Rudolf stayed in Vienna. Oh my god is one of my two aunts a world class train wreck of a human. Whip like instincts to monopolize all energy and attn out of every. single. interaction. I am earning my keep by relieving my other fabulous aunt and somewhat useless but essentially well meaning father from dreaded aunt's hideousness. Slog slog slog.
>
I agree the Philby book sounds great. I always appreciate the recommendation threads. I haven't read a book in way too long and will be so much happier when I do.
I put Deluge and Spy on hold. Deluge just needs to be moved to my local from across the county, but Spy is out everywhere 'round here.
I've always heard that Philby was among the most unbelievable of true sea stories.
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What thread was it that someone dropped that Giles Coren vileness? Because I've had the tab open and now just read it and holy hell I'll never be the same again. Probably the most horrible thing I've read in a long time .
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Barry, the culprit did warn us, even if it wasn't sufficient.
95 in that thread is true. To my everlasting regret.
So, are we reading Deluge? I won't start anything else heavy for a bit then. What's the time scale?
DaRb, you know that if you participate you'll be expected to do a writeup of one of the sessions, right?
Is that a special rule for Darb? These have always been any level of participation welcome, down to not having read the book.
And are we set on Deluge? Because if so, I'll buy a copy.
I'm happy to organize the posting schedule, but I should probably catch up on the thread. Is this fine with everybody?:
The book is organised in four sections, plus introduction and conclusion, making 28 chapters in all. Each section has an even number of chapters. So we could do two chapters a post, making 14 posts, which strikes me as too many. Alternatively, we could do 3-4 chapters per post, to get a better fit to the sections: making one post for Part 2 and two posts each for Parts 1, 3, and 4, plus intro and conclusion.
So we need 7-9 people willing to write up summaries?
Is that a special rule for Darb?
SSSSSSSH
I think Mossy volunteered for the Intro and Chapters 1-4.
Dalriata said he could do a later section.
Who else is willing to take a section?
56. I'm not sure if anybody's owning the decision on what book, but I'm going to assume Deluge and swear at everybody if it isn't.
No one has argued for Wages, so I'm assuming Deluge. By my count we have 6 writers.
To wit me, Thorn, RT, ajay, lw, dalriata.
Contents, if it helps. How many chapters will we do per post. IIRC lw and ajay thought 2 was a good number. Thoughts?
Introduction
The Deluge: The Remaking of World Order
ONE The Eurasian Crisis
1 War in the Balance
2 Peace without Victory
3 The War Grave of Russian Democracy
4 China Joins a World at War
5 Brest-Litovsk
6 Making a Brutal Peace
7 The World Come Apart
8 Intervention
TWO Winning a Democratic Victory
9 Energizing the Entente
10 The Arsenals of Democracy
11 Armistice: Setting the Wilsonian Script
12 Democracy Under Pressure
THREE The Unfinished Peace
13 A Patchwork World Order
14 'The Truth About the Treaty'
15 Reparations
16 Compliance in Europe
17 Compliance in Asia
18 The Fiasco of Wilsonianism
FOUR The Search for a New Order
19 The Great Deflation
20 Crisis of Empire
21 A Conference in Washington
22 Reinventing Communism
23 Genoa: The Failure of British Hegemony
24 Europe on the Brink
25 The New Politics of War and Peace
26 The Great Depression
Conclusion Raising the Stakes
I barely know anything about anything, so you can throw me in wherever there's a gap in the schedule and I'll make do.
I'll do one if necessary. Preferably later rather than sooner.
65 to behaving responsibly, wearing seat belts, buying insurance, and death.
If you eventually read the Philby book mentioned above I recommend supplementing with the fascinating and painful book by Eleanor Philby, The Spy I Loved, and the fascinating, bizarre book about Melinda Maclean by unintentionally hilarious fan boy Geoffrey Hoare.
The WWII book is more focused. I read it fairly quickly after Haldord talked it up. The WWI book has a more ambitious scope. I am slowly making my way through it. Depending, I might volunteer for a write up.
I guess academic books work best for this sort of grad student study group process. Thinking about what Thorn said, and diversity of topic and genre, I wonder how we'd do non-academic books.
I just saw the chapter listing. I am almost done with it! Ebooks that have scholarly apparatus of footnotes, etc. are really hard for me to figure out how close I am to finishing.
I'll add my voice to those saying the Kim book is worth reading.
Happy to be assigned to any chapter set. In it to win it!
I'm also reading Eric Rauchway's new book, The Money Makers. It is really well written. I keep thinking that a topic like this should be harder to read and am awed that he does it so smoothly.
I tried to order that for my dad, but failed for Apple password related reasons.
69: I have the same problem. I amuse myself by guessing at which percentage the book will actually end.
As for which chapter or chapters, anything in the second half will work for me. That should give me enough time to finish my current reading and get on this. Also, revious book clubs have shown we have a lot of great writers here; I'd prefer going after them so I can be in the easier position of meeting a style already established. Any thoughts on the time frame for when we'll do this?
Happy to take a couple of early chapters. Seems fair since I've read it already.
Ajay, I don't think I have your email address. Email me? Use the email address under my name in this comment.
Darb, are you actually interested in being volunteered?
Are we agreed on two chapters per post? I'm still happy to do intro and 1-2, 2-4. And maybe some later chapters if needed. If Darb will in fact write a summary or two, it would be great if he can take the later economics-focused chapters.
Also, on skimming ahead I see the conclusion is really short. We could make it basically an open thread I think.
Darb, are you actually interested in being volunteered?
If you want to make sure that he sees the question you could leave a comment on his post about the reading group.