Episode · Lex Fridman Podcast · 2022-05-14
Books mentioned on #285 – Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture
Glenn Loury is a professor of economics and social sciences at Brown University, and a prominent podcaster and social critic who speaks and writes about race, inequality, and social policy. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Lambda: https://lambdalabs.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Slavery and social death
Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson is a comprehensive sociological study examining the institution of slavery across diverse historical civilizations.
Recommended“there's a wonderful book by the sociologist orlando patterson called slavery and social death that was published in 1982 which is a comprehensive history and social analysis of the institution of slavery over 2500 years going back to the classical greek and roman civilizations”
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Cixin Liu Bestselling Collecting Books Series, Set of 4 Books. the Three-Body Problem, the Wandering Earth, the Dark Forest and Death's End
Cixin Liu's acclaimed science fiction series, which includes The Three-Body Problem, The Wandering Earth, The Dark Forest, and Death's End, explores grand cosmic encounters and complex alien civilizations.
Discussed“i mean i read science fiction so that there's this chinese writer chiksan liu is his name i might not pronounce it exactly right c-i-x-i-n l-i-u chickson lou he has a trilogy of the three-body problem the dark forest and death's end”
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Nigger - The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
Discussed“my friend randall kennedy uh the law professor at harvard university has a book called nigger and he uses the word in the title of the book the history of a strange history of a of a provocative word it's something that there's a subtitle but the title of the book is n-i-g-g-e-r colon and then he has a subtitle”
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The Bell Curve
Richard J.
Discussed“charles murray um is a popular social science writer who is famous for his book about iq the bell curve one chapter of which chronicles the racial differences between black and white in performance on mental ability tests and speculates about the extent to which such differences may be connected with the genetic inheritance of these racially distinct populations”
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Das Kapital
Das Kapital by Karl Marx is a monumental three-volume economic and social analysis of capitalism, the commodification of labor, and the alienating effects of industrial modernization.
Discussed“Marx was an important figure in the history of the West, and I think Marx should be read and Capital, three volumes, etc. Alienation of labor and whatnot, the implications of modernization and the advent of industrial capitalism, etc.”
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Das Kapital Karl Marx
Das Kapital by Karl Marx, frequently discussed through analytical commentaries such as Francis Wheen's work, is a foundational critique of political economy that examines the mechanics of capitalism, the accumulation of capital, and class struggle.
Discussed“But at the end of the day, I think that the free marketeers have the better of it. I think the story of the 20th century, as far as economic development is concerned, reflects that.”
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An American dilemma
Discussed“Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist who wrote about economic development, wrote a famous two-volume work, An American Dilemma, about the status of black Americans.”
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The swerve
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt is a work of history and philosophy detailing the rediscovery in 1417 of Lucretius's long-lost classical Latin poem On the Nature of Things and how it helped spark the modern world.
Recommended“i'm afraid now i i read this wonderful book called the swerve uh it's it's about lucretius it's about uh the nature of things which is this great classical work from the roman period uh by this uh guy lucretius and i'm trying to think of the name of the author but you could look it up the swerve”
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As I Lay Dying
As I Lay Dying by theologian Richard John Neuhaus is a reflective meditation on mortality, faith, and suffering written while the author faced a serious cancer diagnosis.
Recommended“there is a book by richard john newhouse the theologian called as i light as i lay dying as i lay dying richard john newhouse uh he had stomach cancer and he thought he was dying and he wrote this book as he lay dying”
