Episode · EconTalk · 2021-01-04
Books mentioned on Matthew Crawford on Why We Drive
Author Matthew Crawford talks about his book Why We Drive with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The conversation is about driving but also much more: how human beings interact with technology and what we gain and give up when we embrace technology driven by corporate profit-seeking.
Russ Roberts discussed Why We Drive by Matthew B. Crawford, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, and The Hidden Half by Michael Blastland. Matthew Crawford discussed Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Why We Drive
Why We Drive by Matthew B.
Discussed“His latest book, and the subject of today's conversation, is Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road.”
Where to get it
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Into Thin Air
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is a gripping and tragic non-fiction account detailing the author's harrowing participation in the disastrous 1996 Mount Everest climbing expedition that resulted in the deaths of several climbers.
Discussed“And when I read the book Into Thin Air, I thought what which is about a bunch of people who climb Mount Everest as as sort of amateurs and push themselves to the limit. Some of them don't come back. Some of them are damaged irrevocably. It's it's a tragic book, but part of the tragedy is like, why?”
Where to get it
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Homo Ludens
Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga is a seminal historical and sociological study examining the crucial role of play in the formation of culture and human civilization.
Discussed“It's a Dutch historian named Johan Huizinga who wrote a book called Homo Ludens. So, that's Latin for, you know, man who plays.”
Where to get it
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The Hidden Half
Michael Blastland's engaging book investigates the unseen statistical and probabilistic factors that frequently disrupt human planning and economic forecasts.
Discussed“Yeah, I I saw recently in uh Michael Blastland's book uh The Hidden Half, I think he tells this that where I saw this, the the defender of of uh European Union explaining to the uh British working class woman that that uh GDP is going to go up if we stay in the EU”
Where to get it
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff is an influential economic and sociological study exploring how tech giants harvest human experience as behavioral data for profit.
Discussed“Well, I mean, I I learned a lot from Zuboff's book, The The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and sort of take it take that up and ask I have a chapter titled If Google Built Cars.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“He is a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and author of Shop Class as Soulcraft.”
“My guest today has been Matthew Crawford. His book is Why We Drive. Matthew, thanks for being part of EconTalk.”