Episode · Conversations with Tyler · 2024-12-04
Tyler Cowen & Stephen Kotkin: books mentioned on Conversations with Tyler
Stephen Kotkin on Stalin, Power, and the Art of Biography
Donate to Conversations with Tyler Give Crypto Other Ways to Give In his landmark multi-volume biography of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin shows how totalitarian power worked not just through terror from above, but through millions of everyday decisions from below.
Stephen Kotkin discussed History of madness by Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault, and Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. Tyler Cowen discussed Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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History of madness
History of Madness by Michel Foucault is a comprehensive philosophical work that traces the complex evolution of psychiatric thought, societal exclusion, and the institutionalization of mental illness from the medieval era onward.
Discussed“so I went up to him as a naive with the this book Madness and civilization which we had been forced to read and I I started asking him questions what does this mean”
Where to get it
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Madness and Civilization
Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault is an influential historical and philosophical study examining the changing social perceptions, confinement, and treatment of madness throughout the evolution of Western civilization.
Discussed“so I went up to him as a naive with the this book Madness and civilization which we had been forced to read and I I started asking him questions what does this mean”
Where to get it
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Life and Fate
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman is a sweeping masterpiece depicting the brutality and human ramifications of the Eastern Front, the Holocaust, and totalitarianism during World War II.
Discussed“much of that is a theme in vasel Grossman's life and fate right the paity of people denunciations the logic of decentralized control”
Where to get it
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Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera is a philosophical novel structured as a kaleidoscope of interconnected stories and essays examining memory, political oppression, history, and human folly.
Discussed“just like I read kundra's a book of laughter and forgetting and after I learned Czech it was part of my Czech language training at Berkeley”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“and dto taught me a phrase called the little tactics of the habitat which became one of the core ideas of my book my dissertation and then book magnetic Mountain about this micro power stuff”