Timothy Noah. The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It. Bloomsbury Press, 2012, pp. 264, $25.00 In August 2012, a Pew Social & Demographic Trends report indicated that the American middle class has fallen on tough times. Among its interesting findings is that more self-described members of the middle [...]
Noam Scheiber, The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled The Recovery. Simon & Schuster, 2012, pp. 351, $28.00 When he assumed the Office of the Presidency in January 2009, Barack Obama faced challenges on multiple fronts. Ground troops were still in Iraq, the deleterious effects of the housing bubble were rippling throughout the economy, and [...]
Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu. The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet. . Public Affairs, 2012, pp. 256, $26.99 In a July 1, 2012 article, The New York Times highlighted the growing trend toward growing and consuming locally grown and produced food. One of the individuals profiled in the Times was a wealthy [...]
Eduardo Porter. The Price of Everything: Finding Method in The Madness of What Things Cost (paperback). Penguin Books, 2011, pp. 296, $16.00 Why do generic drugs cost less than name-brand drugs even though the chemical makeup is, for all intensive purposes, identical? Are wealthy people happier than poor people? Moral objections aside, can one put [...]
Daniel Gross. Better, Stronger, Faster: The Myth of American Decline . . . and the Rise of a New Economy. Free Press, 2012, pp. 260, $26.00 Is the United States is economic decline? There certainly have been enough commentators and pundits who have made this point in one form or another. Even a cursory glance [...]