Good evening, everyone. I have a house guest this week, so just posting the notable new nonfiction of the week, and I may not be around for comments until later.
- Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, by Stephen Breyer. Recently retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer skillfully deconstructs the textualist philosophy that dominates the current Supreme Court’s supermajority. This relatively new judicial philosophy claims that the right way to interpret the Constitution and statutes is to read the text carefully and examine the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written. This, however, is not Justice Breyer’s philosophy nor has it been the traditional way to interpret the Constitution since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall, who wrote that the Constitution must be a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations.
Most important in interpreting law, says Breyer, is to understand the purposes of statutes as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. He illustrates these principles by examining some of the most important cases in the nation’s history, among them the Dobbs and Bruen decisions from 2022 that he argues were wrongly decided and have led to harmful results. "Justice Breyer shows how the current Supreme Court's alleged textualism and originalism are unsound. His book is a judicial arms-control agreement advocating moderation and a path to what he calls ‘workable democracy.’ You will not read a more important legal work this election year.” — Bob Woodward
- On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America, by Abrahm Lustgarten. Humanity is on the precipice of a great climate migration, and Americans will not be spared. Tens of millions of people are likely to be driven from the places they call home. Poorer communities will be left behind, while growth will surge in the cities and regions most attractive to climate refugees. America will be changed utterly. Abrahm Lustgarten’s On the Move is the definitive account of what this massive population shift might look like. As he shows, the United States will be rendered unrecognizable by four unstoppable forces: wildfires in the West; frequent flooding in coastal regions; extreme heat and humidity in the South; and droughts that will make farming all but impossible across much of the nation. “Around one third of global migration is already driven by climate change. How much more will it be in the future? A lot more, as Abrahm Lustgarten carefully forecasts in this important book. Can we both relocate and future-proof ourselves at the same time? That is the great challenge humanity faces in an over-heating world.” —Parag Khanna
- Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, by Fareed Zakaria.
Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, war, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk—the early decades of the twenty-first century may be the most revolutionary period in modern history. But it is not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What are these revolutions, and how can they help us to understand our fraught world? In this major work, Fareed Zakaria masterfully investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world. Three such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, a fascinating series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world—and created politics as we know it today. Next, the French Revolution, an explosive era that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us today. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Great Britain and the US to global dominance and created the modern world. “This is the indispensable book for understanding the world today. Fareed Zakaria tackles the central question of our age: What are the causes of the seismic social disruptions we are going through and the political backlashes that have ensued? Connecting five centuries of history to a deep understanding of our current anxieties, he shows how transformations in technology, economics, and politics interact.” — Walter Isaacson
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An Emancipation of the Mind: Radical Philosophy, the War over Slavery, and the Refounding of America, by Matthew Stewart. This is a story about a dangerous idea—one which ignited revolutions in America, France, and Haiti; burst across Europe in the revolutions of 1848; and returned to inflame a new generation of intellectuals to lead the abolition movement—the idea that all men are created equal. In their struggle against the slaveholding oligarchy of their time, America’s antislavery leaders found their way back to the rationalist, secularist, and essentially atheist inspiration for the first American Revolution. Frederick Douglass’s unusual interest in radical German philosophers and Abraham Lincoln’s buried allusions to the same thinkers are but a few of the clues that underlie this propulsive philosophical detective story. With fresh takes on forgotten thinkers like Theodore Parker, the excommunicated Unitarian minister who is the original source of some of Lincoln’s most famous lines, and a feisty band of German refugees, philosopher and historian Matthew Stewart tells a vivid and piercing story of the battle between America’s philosophical radicals and the conservative counterrevolution that swept the American republic in the first decades of its existence and persists in new forms up to the present day. “A beautifully written, myth-busting, and eye-opening uncovering of the radical, humanistic roots of America’s best impulses toward justice and equality. A must-read for anyone who wants to fully understand not only the abolitionist movement and the nation’s struggle over slavery, but also America’s ongoing conflicts related to religion, nationalism, theology, and democracy.” — Phil Zuckerman
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The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, by Manisha Sinha. Acclaimed historian Manisha Sinha expands our view beyond the accepted temporal and spatial bounds of Reconstruction, which is customarily said to have begun in 1865 with the end of the war, and to have come to a close when the "corrupt bargain" of 1877 put Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House in exchange for the fall of the last southern Reconstruction state governments. Sinha’s startlingly original account opens in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln that triggered the secession of the Deep South states, and take us all the way to 1920 and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote—and which Sinha calls the "last Reconstruction amendment." Within this grand frame, Sinha narrates the rise and fall of what she calls the "Second American Republic." The Reconstruction of the South, a process driven by the alliance between the formerly enslaved at the grassroots and Radical Republicans in Congress, is central to her story, but only part of it. As she demonstrates, the US Army’s conquest of Indigenous nations in the West, labor conflict in the North, Chinese exclusion, women’s suffrage, and the establishment of an overseas American empire were all part of the same struggle between the forces of democracy and those of reaction. “A landmark. Manisha Sinha’s searing and revelatory account of Reconstruction redraws its borders, redefines its meaning, and restores its place as the hinge upon which American history turns.” — Jill Lepore
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Get Off My Neck: Black Lives, White Justice, and a Former Prosecutor's Quest for Reform, by Debbie Hines. In Get Off My Neck, Debbie Hines draws on her unique perspective as a trial lawyer, former Baltimore prosecutor, and assistant attorney general for the State of Maryland to argue that US prosecutors, as the most powerful players in the criminal justice system, systematically target and criminalize Black people. Hines describes her disillusionment as a young Black woman who initially entered the profession with the goal of helping victims of crimes, only to discover herself aiding and abetting a system that prizes plea bargaining, speedy conviction, and excessive punishment above all else. In this book, she offers concrete, specific, and hopeful solutions for just how we can come together in a common purpose for criminal justice and racial justice reform. “In this must-read book, Hines tells a courageous account of America's prosecutorial offices in a captivating and exquisitely detailed manner. This book provides revolutionary insight and should be required reading for every law school student across this nation or for anyone proclaiming an interest in disrupting the injustices in the legal system." --Susan Burton
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Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen. Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made.
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Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power, by Timothy W. Ryback. In the summer of 1932, the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse. One in three Germans was unemployed. Violence was rampant. Hitler’s National Socialists surged at the polls. Paul von Hindenburg, an aging war hero and avowed monarchist, was a reluctant president bound by oath to uphold the constitution. The November elections offered Hitler the prospect of a Reichstag majority and the path to political power. But instead, the Nazis lost two million votes. As membership hemorrhaged and financial backers withdrew, the Nazi Party threatened to fracture. Hitler talked of suicide. The New York Times declared he was finished. Yet somehow, in a few brief weeks, he was chancellor of Germany. In fascinating detail and with previously un-accessed archival materials, Timothy W. Ryback tells the remarkable story of Hitler’s dismantling of democracy through democratic process. He provides fresh perspective and insights into Hitler’s personal and professional lives in these months, in all their complexity and uncertainty—backroom deals, unlikely alliances, stunning betrayals, an ill-timed tax audit, and a fateful weekend that changed our world forever. "An expert account of the dizzying months when Hitler solidified his power in Germany... A masterfully narrated story of how a democracy committed suicide, with lessons for today." –Kirkus Reviews
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Bombing Hitler's Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe, by Mike Croissant. In April 1945, Linz was one of Nazi Germany’s most vital assets. It was a crucial transportation hub and communications center, with railyards brimming with war materiel destined for the front lines. Linz was also the town Hitler claimed as home and had long intended to remake as the cultural capital of Europe, filling its planned Führermuseum with world-famous art stolen from his conquered territories. Inevitably, Linz was also one of the most heavily defended targets remaining in Europe. The airmen of the Fifteenth Air Force were a mix of seasoned veterans and newcomers. As their mission was unveiled in the predawn hours of April 25, audible groans and muffled expletives passed many lips. The reality of that mission would prove more brutal than any imagined. Drawing on interviews with dozens of America’s last surviving World War II veterans, as well as previously unpublished sources, Mike Croissant compellingly relates one of the war’s last truly untold stories. “Combining dogged archival research with survivor interviews, Croissant offers a kaleidoscope of perspectives, not to mention hair-raising scenes of aerial combat, exploding bombers, and sheer terror at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere." —James M. Scott
- God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible, by Candida Moss. For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture have credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. But hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of unnamed, enslaved coauthors and collaborators. These essential workers were responsible for producing the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament: making the parchment on which the texts were written, taking dictation, and refining the words of the apostles. And as the Christian message grew in influence, it was enslaved missionaries who undertook the arduous journey across the Mediterranean and along dusty roads to move Christianity to Rome, Spain, and North Africa—and into the pages of history. "Dr. Moss provides a fuller sense of the social and economic milieu out of which the New Testament arose, and in so doing, helps every reader, whatever their religious background, to get a clearer sense of what it might have felt like to be part of the Christian movement at its very early beginnings.”—Brian D. McLaren
- Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind, by Frank Tallis. In Mortal Secrets, Frank Tallis brilliantly illuminates Sigmund Freud and his times, taking readers into the mind of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, chronicling the evolution of psychoanalysis and opening up Freud’s life to embrace the Vienna he lived in and the lives of the people he mingled with from Gustav Klimt to Arnold Schönberg, Egon Schiele to Gustav Mahler. Mortal Secrets is a thrilling book about a heady time in one of the world’s most beautiful cities and its long shadow that extends through the twentieth century up until the present day. “Trivial anecdotes (Freud was scrupulous about his appearance and “visited the barber every day”) sit alongside more substantial character analyses, as when Tallis reveals Freud to be “capable of manipulation and deceit” on the one hand and intellectual cooperation on the other. Throughout, Tallis notes that psychology was one of many fields—including math, science, medicine, art, and philosophy—undergoing enormous changes in Vienna at the time….Stunning in its breadth and depth, this is a magisterial treatment of a towering thinker.” --Publishers Weekly
- Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words, by Anne Curzan. Our use of language naturally evolves and is a living, breathing thing that reflects who we are. Says Who? offers clear, nuanced guidance that goes beyond “right” and “wrong” to empower us to make informed language choices. Never snooty or scoldy (yes, that’s a “real” word!), this book explains where the grammar rules we learned in school actually come from and reveals the forces that drive dictionary editors to label certain words as slang or unacceptable. Linguist and veteran English professor Anne Curzan equips readers with the tools they need to adeptly manage (a split infinitive?! You betcha!) formal and informal writing and speaking. "I was bowled over, page after page, by the author’s fine ear for our language and her openhearted erudition. I learned a lot, and I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more.”—Benjamin Dreyer
- Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe, by Harry Cliff. Something strange is going on in the cosmos. Scientists are uncovering a catalogue of weird phenomena that simply can’t be explained by our long-established theories of the universe. Particles with unbelievable energies are bursting from beneath the Antarctic ice. Unknown forces seem to be tugging on the basic building blocks of matter. Stars are flying away from us far faster than anyone can explain. After decades of fruitless searching, could we finally be catching glimpses of a profound new view of our physical world? Or are we being fooled by cruel tricks of the data? In Space Oddities, Harry Cliff, a physicist who does cutting-edge work on the Large Hadron Collider, provides a riveting look at the universe’s most confounding puzzles, and at the men and women hunting for answers—who have staked their careers and reputations on the uncertain promise of new physics. "Many of us laugh at the implausible cosmologies believed by our medieval and ancient forebears. Dr. Cliff lays out the gaps and anomalies at the edge of modern science, which may make the best theories of today look as quaint as those of long ago." —Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
