Person
Every book Byrne Hobart recommended on podcasts
Key facts
- Byrne Hobart has recommended or discussed 11 books on podcasts, as of December 13, 2023.
- Byrne Hobart has talked about books on 2 podcasts, as of December 13, 2023.
- Those books came up in 3 episodes, as of December 13, 2023.
- The 3 books Byrne Hobart has mentioned in the most episodes, as of December 13, 2023: Dude, Where's My Flying Car?, The years of Lyndon Johnson (Volumes 1-3) and Death by Regulation.
- The latest episode with a book mention from Byrne Hobart aired on December 13, 2023.
Updated
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Byrne Hobart appears on, in one place — not just one.
Byrne Hobart’s most recommended books
- Dude, Where's My Flying Car? by Tim Jackson
- The years of Lyndon Johnson (Volumes 1-3) by Robert A. Caro
- Death by Regulation by Mary J. Ruwart
- Princes of the Yen by Richard Werner
- The Economics of World War II by Mark Harrison
- The Iliad by Homer
- The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
- The Money Game by Adam Smith
- The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
- The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean
Byrne Hobart discussed a wide array of historical, economic, and literary texts across his podcast appearances. On the Dwarkesh Podcast, he recommended Tim Jackson's book Dude, Where's My Flying Car?, describing it as a thoughtful and well-footnoted exploration of the history and regulatory hurdles surrounding flying vehicles. During an episode of How I Write, Hobart analyzed corporate literature by discussing Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind's The Smartest Guys in the Room, noting how books about Enron often reflect former employees shifting blame after corporate collapses. Across multiple episodes of the Dwarkesh Podcast, Hobart referenced Robert Caro's biographical works, including The Years of Lyndon Johnson and The Power Broker, using them to analyze the political operations, operational skills, and moral ambiguities of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses. Furthermore, he cited Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace to illustrate the personal and cultural impact of Napoleon, referenced Homer's The Iliad to provide a historical example of the sunk cost fallacy influencing strictly rational decision-making, and mentioned Mark Harrison's The Economics of World War II to compare the differing wartime material consumption rates of various nations.
Books recommended by Byrne Hobart
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Dude, Where's My Flying Car?
Dude, Where's My Flying Car? by Tim Jackson is a detailed, thoughtful, and thoroughly footnoted exploration of technological stagnation, energy systems, and the regulatory and historical hurdles preventing the realization of personal aerial vehicles.
Recommended“where's my flying car which is um it's basically this extended um very detailed very thoughtful very well footnoted rant from someone who really wants to have a flying car and he's interested in them”
Where to get it
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The years of Lyndon Johnson (Volumes 1-3)
The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A.
Discussed“I've been reading the Robert Caro LBJ biography and there's this bit towards the end of the first volume where LBJ is put in charge of this fundraising organization for Democrats in Congress and when you read about it he sounds like a traitor.”
Where to get it
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Death by Regulation
Discussed“she worked on a pharma company and she wrote a book called death by regulation and one of the points she made was um you know if anybody like actually talked about like how many deaths the fda causes by you know”
Where to get it
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Princes of the Yen
Princes of the Yen by Richard Werner is an investigative economic book that examines the hidden mechanics of central banking policy, focusing particularly on how structural interventions influenced Japan's economy during the twentieth century.
Discussed“There's a book called Princess of the Yen which is mostly about Japanese central banking policy but it has some early bits about how the structure of Japan's economy works.”
Where to get it
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The Economics of World War II
Mark Harrison's scholarly volume provides a rigorous comparative economic analysis of how various nations mobilized their resources and sustained themselves during the Second World War.
Discussed“I recently read a book The Economics of World War II which was comparing a bunch of countries and how their economies performed in World War II and one of the things that stood out about the U.S was that in a lot of terms of material consumption, the U.S didn't really look like a country going through a war.”
Where to get it
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The Iliad
Homer's ancient epic poem The Iliad chronicles the final weeks of the Trojan War and the devastating wrath of the Greek warrior Achilles.
Discussed“You can also go back to the Iliad and read another case where sunk cost fallacy dominated strictly rational decision making and only divine intervention could ultimately lead to a good outcome for the attacker and even then maybe not such a great outcome all things considered.”
Where to get it
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The Looming Tower
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright is a detailed non-fiction account tracing the origins of the war on terrorism, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the events leading up to September 11.
Discussed“the book the looming tower it talks about bin laden's early life and his early campaigns as a sort of terrorist”
Where to get it
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The Money Game
Discussed“but there's actually there's a story in adam smith um the pseudonymous financial commentator um not the not the economist adam smith's money game where he talks about a guy who did that in the 19th century and he bought a lot of very reliable blue ship stocks and he i think he set up his will”
Where to get it
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The Power Broker
The Power Broker by Robert A.
Discussed“You really notice this when you read different paragraphs of The Power Broker where early on, if you just read the first third or the first half The Power Broker, you're like, clearly Caro is writing about Robert Moses the way he writes about Lyndon Johnson where”
Where to get it
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The Smartest Guys in the Room
The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind is an investigative book detailing the rise and corporate collapse of Enron.
Discussed“So if you read Enron books, you can basically read books like Smartest Guys in the Room as every ex Enron employee trying to explain why it was some other part of Enron's fault that Enron collapsed.”
Where to get it
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War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a monumental historical novel blending grand military strategy with intimate domestic life against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.
Discussed“There's a line from war and peace where one of the Russian aristocrats is mad that his son is joining the war and he goes, “It's that man Napoleon.”
Where to get it
Byrne Hobart talked about The Iliad, one of the books trending on podcasts right now.