Maria Blanco and Alberto Mingardi have produced a very useful volume, Show and Biz: The Market Economy in TV Series and Popular Culture (2000-2020), providing an updated look at the (somewhat) rising popularity of business and capitalism in U.S. popular culture.
David O’Brien, Exiled in Modernity: Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism. A very good book planting Eugene Delacroix — both his paintings and writings — squarely in a “progress studies” tradition. Like so much other 19th (and also 18th) century art. Good color plates too.
Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women. Do you judge books by their degree of insight, or based on whether you agree with where they end up? This volume is a litmus test for that question, and I give it either an A or an F minus, depending on your standard. In my view, Dworkin remains an underrated and intellectually honest (if overly consistent) feminist thinker. This one is from 1978, still interesting albeit repulsive if you try to apply any moral judgment to it. But don’t! If you are looking for reductios in support of reactionary points of view, this is the best place to start. Better yet is to drop all the consistency requirements and end up somewhere in between.
Simon Shorvon, The Idea of Epilepsy: A Medical and Social History of Epilepsy in the Modern Era (1860-2020). A remarkably thorough and intelligent treatment of a topic that now has a near-perfect stand-alone book.
There is Alan S. Kahan, Freedom from Fear: An Incomplete History of Liberalism.
And Michael J. Bonner, In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present.
Vikash Yadav, Liberalism’s Last Man: Hayek in the Age of Political Capitalism.
Seth D. Kaplan, Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time, forthcoming in October.
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