{"id":84,"date":"2013-01-14T19:35:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T09:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/?p=84"},"modified":"2013-01-14T19:35:41","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T09:35:41","slug":"my-2012-holiday-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2013\/01\/my-2012-holiday-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"My 2012 holiday reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History<\/b><\/a>. I spent ages searching for a book of this sort \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a clear, concise, holistic overview of the subject. The book is divided into three parts, each broadly dedicated to a specific century \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the 1500s, then the 1600s, then the 1700s through to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. In turn, each part then contains three chapters (each by a separate author): one on economic history and everyday life; one on ideas and religion; and one on politics and statecraft.<\/p>\n

I found the book offered just the right amount of detail for a relative newcomer such as myself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c enough to give me a feel for each subject, while not so much as to overwhelm. Thumbs up!<\/p>\n

The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China<\/b><\/a>. A social history of the Ming dynasty, written by Timothy Brooks of Vermeer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hat<\/i><\/a> fame. More scholarly and less popular than Vermeer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hat<\/i>, but still very approachable. It explores the growing prosperity of Ming China, as seen in topics ranging from transport to gender economic roles to luxuries and antique-collecting – and the attitudes this upswell faced. A worthwhile look at how people lived in what was then the greatest empire on Earth.<\/p>\n

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined<\/b><\/a>, by Steven Pinker. No slight on the other two, but I found this, by far, the most significant of the three. Very readable yet very weighty, this chronicles perhaps the most important development in human history: compared to our ancestors, those of us who live in developed countries are far, far <\/i>less likely to be murdered, tortured, executed, killed in battle, put to the sword by an invading army, or fall victim to discrimination or a hate crime.<\/p>\n

Now, I was already aware of this fact before I began the book; but Pinker marshals ream after ream of data to support it. Not only does he chronicle that<\/i> this happened, but as promised, he also delves into why <\/i>– which impulses within our brains drive us to violence, and which faculties hold us back; which institutions and social developments encourage our worst instincts and which restrain them. Is he right? I’m no expert, and the book is bound to have flaws, but as a whole the book rings true to me – and nothing contradicts my own reading. (For instance, one bit of research cited by the book helps answer a question I’ve recently seen posed – how did South Korea manage the miracle of going from dictatorship to thriving modern democracy in one lifetime?)<\/p>\n

As such, this is one of the rare books that deserves the label “magisterial”, bringing together big history, science and psychology, and a dash of economics to explain a vital topic – and in an easy-to-read way. I don’t often issue blanket recommendations, but I will here. Anyone with an interest in the world around them should at least sample this book.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History. I spent ages searching for a book of this sort \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a clear, concise, holistic overview of the subject. The book is divided into three parts, each broadly dedicated to a specific century \u00e2\u20ac\u201c … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}