2 Books Like God Is Watching You

I am an academic economist (retired) whose career always has had a strong interdisciplinary orientation. Among other fields, I have long been interested in psychology, especially social psychology, but also been skeptical of the tendency among its practitioners to use convenience samples of handy crowds of U.S. (or otherwise "western") undergraduate students to draw grand conclusions about human behavior. Prof. Henrich, a cultural anthropologist (and aerospace engineer!), shares this skepticism. In particular, he presents in this book theory and evidence of how WEIRD people in the Western world are relative to the majority of peoples elsewhere. (WEIRD = people in western, educated, industrialized, rich, developed countries.) This matches my own experiences across the world, and so I was curious to read this book. Culture, Prof. Henrich writes, influences brain development and results in persistent ways of seeing the world, and vice versa. Culture and psychological form and reform each other… show more.

This is a very important re-evaluation of the economic role of slavery in the British Industrial Revolution of 1760-1820. It is widely accepted that the transatlantic slave trade expanded massively in the 18th century. But several scholars have argued, even recently, that slavery played a marginal role in promoting economic growth in Britain. Economic historians Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson carefully examine the evidence, exploring all the major influences of the slave trade on the British economy. They conclude that slavery was a major factor in promoting investment, innovation, and growth. But they do not go so far to suggest that the Industrial Revolution could not have happened without slavery.