Person
Every book Dan Wang recommended on podcasts
Across 3 podcasts. Every show Dan Wang appears on, in one place — not just one.
Dan Wang’s most recommended books
- Red and the Black by Horace Barnet Samuel
- Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
- The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott
- Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
- The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
- A lion for love by Robert Alter
- Anna Karenina by Лев Толстой
- Prototype Nation by Silvia M. Lindtner
- The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Writings on China by Perry Link
- The Charterhouse of Parma by John). STENDHAL (Marie-Henri Beyle) (BERRYMAN
Dan Wang is a writer and commentator who appeared on Conversations with Tyler to discuss economics, technology, and what China and America can learn from each other. Throughout the conversation, he discussed and compared various works of literature, expressing his personal literary preferences. He stated a strong preference for Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks over The Magic Mountain, noting that Buddenbrooks offers a more linear novel structure. In addition, he contrasted Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina with War and Peace, indicating that he much prefers Anna Karenina. Dan also discussed the anthropological works of James C. Scott, offering a critical perspective on his most popular publication, Seeing Like a State, which he unfortunately considered to be Scott's weakest work. Conversely, he praised The Art of Not Being Governed as James C. Scott's absolute best work, highlighting the extensive fieldwork the author conducted in Yunnan and the broader mountainous regions of southwest China and Southeast Asia to examine state evasion and regional politics.
Books recommended by Dan Wang
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Red and the Black
Why people recommend it: Red and the Black by Stendhal is a classic 19th-century psychological novel that traces the ambitious and tragic journey of a young provincial man striving to rise above his humble origins in post-Napoleonic France.
Discussed“Stendhal mentioned the Comte Ory in my favorite book, my favorite novel, The Red and the Black.”
Where to get it
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Seeing Like a State
Seeing Like a State by James C.
Critiqued“I think that James C. Scott's most popular work, Seeing Like a State, is also, unfortunately, his, I would say, weakest work.”
Where to get it
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The Art of Not Being Governed
The Art of Not Being Governed by James C.
Discussed“I think that, by far, James C. Scott's very best work is The Art of Not Being Governed, in which he did extensive fieldwork in Yunnan, as well as the broader zone of southwest China and southeast Asia, which is heavily mountainous, an area that is larger than Western Europe.”
Where to get it
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Buddenbrooks
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann is a sweeping historical novel that chronicles the decline of a prosperous merchant family across four generations in northern Germany.
Discussed“I prefer Buddenbrooks to Magic Mountain.”
Where to get it
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The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain is a monumental early twentieth-century philosophical novel that follows a young engineer named Hans Castorp during an extended, transformative stay at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps.
Discussed“I prefer Buddenbrooks to Magic Mountain.”
Where to get it
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A lion for love
Discussed“Robert Alter, before he translated the Torah, wrote a biography of Stendhal called A Lion for Love.”
Where to get it
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Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a monumental 19th-century masterpiece of Russian literature that explores complex themes of love, adultery, social class, and tragic human choices.
Discussed“I much prefer Anna Karenina to War and Peace.”
Where to get it
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Prototype Nation
Discussed“My wife is a professor at the University of Michigan. She's an anthropologist really of technology cultures and so she wrote a book about Shenzhen maker spaces called Prototype Nation.”
Where to get it
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The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Writings on China
Discussed“There's a great sinologist named Perry Link who came up with this excellent metaphor for how to think about Chinese censorship. And that metaphor was the anaconda and the chandelier.”
Where to get it
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The Charterhouse of Parma
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal is a classic nineteenth-century novel that explores the political intrigue, romance, and complex personal fates of individuals moving through post-Napoleonic Europe.
Discussed“My favorite writer, my favorite novelist is uh Standal um whose big works are the red and the black as well as the charter house of Parma.”
Where to get it
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The Population Bomb
The Population Bomb is a 1968 book by biologist Paul R.
Discussed“One of the things I will always be grateful to economists for is that economists were the greatest critics of the one child policy in China as well as briefly when it was kind of discussed in the US after Erlick published the population bomb.”
Where to get it
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The Three-Body Problem
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu is a sweeping hard science fiction trilogy starter that chronicles humanity's first contact with an alien civilization facing imminent destruction from a triple-star system.
Discussed“Liu Cixin, author of The Three-Body Problem.”
Where to get it
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War and Peace
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is a sprawling Russian epic novel that chronicles elite society and military conflict during the Napoleonic era.
Discussed“I much prefer Anna Karenina to War and Peace.”
Where to get it
