In 2020, I published a book about a topic long thought boring: street addresses. But it isnât, as I found out, boring at all; instead, the rise of street addresses is an immensely important story of identity, race, wealth, and power. Iâm not a geographer myselfâIâm a lawyer by trainingâbut I am deeply interested in reading fascinating stories about overlooked technologies. The books I've chosen here are just a few that meet this brief.
I thought this book would be a dry, academic choreâit really is all about house numbers, for goodnessâ sakeâbut the Enlightenment story of the rise of house numbers is, in its own way, a brilliant story of the making of modern government.
The author is an Austrian academic, but the book doesnât read like other academic booksâthe fact that he found a sometimes thrilling story on this topic felt like a miracle the first time I read it.
House numbers are small things that appear quietly on the walls, gates and porches of our homes and places of work. They seem to have come from nowhere and are now taken for granted in everyday life. But house numbers have their own history - one that is retrieved, assembled and presented here, for the first time, in vivid images from around the world.House numbers started their lives in a grey area between the military, the tax authorities and early police forces. Anton Tantner's engaging, intriguingly quirky book is a chronicle of the house number, from its introduction in EuropeanâŠ
This is a book for people who love books. Itâs a history of the index, but itâs really a history of information and mankindâs love affair with knowledge. I expected this book to be dense, but Duncan, a brilliant writer, proved me wrong.
Filled with fascinating anecdotes from the 13th century to the present day, this book tells the story of yet another overlooked technology in an engaging and witty way.
Most of us give little thought to the back of the book-it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-knownâŠ
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to runâŠ
Bear with me; this is an academic bookâbut it doesnât read like one. Instead, itâs a book of stories about how attempts (often well-meaning) to shape modern society have dramatically failed those they intended to help.
Much of the book is about how the government learned to âseeâ its people and the often disastrous consequences of state intervention. You may have to take the conclusions with a fine grain of salt if you are not as radical as Scott, but I can honestly say that no book has ever changed the way I see the world like this one.Â
"One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades."-John Gray, New York Times Book Review
"A powerful, and in many insightful, explanation as to why grandiose programs of social reform, not to mention revolution, so often end in tragedy. . . . An important critique of visionary state planning."-Robert Heilbroner, Lingua Franca
Hailed as "a magisterial critique of top-down social planning" by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail-sometimes catastrophically-in grand efforts to engineer their society or theirâŠ
I suppose I canât get over books that tell me how something Iâve never thought about before influences almost every aspect of my life. This book is that book. Who knew about the struggles of containerization and how it makes the modern economy possible?Â
Itâs also the story of the man (and fellow North Carolinian) Malcolm McLean, who brought the idea to lifeâan idea that, for better or worse, made it possible to stuff our homes and offices with cheap goods produced around the world.
In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about. But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a newâŠ
LeeAnn Pickrellâs love affair with punctuation began in a tenth-grade English class.
Punctuated is a playful book of punctuation poems inspired by her years as an editor. Frustrated by the misuse of the semicolon, she wrote a poem to illustrate its correct use. From there she realized the other marksâŠ
This is such a different kind of book, and genuinely, one that really should be very boring; how much is there to say about a punctuation mark? But instead, itâs totally winning. The story of the semi-colon, and that of the authors who loved (and hated) it, is a delightful romp through history and literature.
Watson herself is a âreformed grammar fetishistâ and approaches her topic with real curiosity while she probes our collective obsession with grammar.
'Fascinating... I loved this book; I really did' David Crystal, Spectator
A biography of a much misunderstood punctuation mark and a call to arms in favour of clear expression and against stifling grammar rules.
Cecelia Watson used to be obsessive about grammar rules. But then she began teaching. And that was when she realized that strict rules aren't always the best way of teaching people how to make words say what they want them to; that they are even, sometimes, best ignored.
One punctuation mark encapsulates this thorny issue more clearly than any other. The semicolon. Hated by Stephen King,âŠ
When most people think about street addresses, they think of parcel deliveries or visitors finding their way. But who numbered the first house, and where, and why? What can addresses tell us about who we are and how we live together?Â
I look at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr., how ancient Romans found their way, and why Bobby Sands is memorialized in Tehran. I explore why it matters if, like millions of people today, you don't have an address. Full of eye-opening facts, fascinating people, and hidden history, this book shows how addresses are about identity, class, and race. But most of all, they are about power: the power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn't, and why.
LeeAnn Pickrellâs love affair with punctuation began in a tenth-grade English class.
Punctuated is a playful book of punctuation poems inspired by her years as an editor. Frustrated by the misuse of the semicolon, she wrote a poem to illustrate its correct use. From there she realized the other marksâŠ
Social Security for Future Generations
by
John A. Turner,
This book provides new options for reform of the Social Security (OASI) program. Some options are inspired by the U.S. pension system, while others are inspired by the literature on financial literacy or the social security systems in other countries.
An example of our proposals inspired by the U.S. pensionâŠ
