"Tedium, Skill, Pleasure, Camaraderie, Exhaustion, Power, and Freedom"

"While so much of Montgomery's writings were focused on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the worlds of work he described have ended up having far more in common with the way we work today than even he might have anticipated. Many of the service-sector workers who have started to organize in recent years—healthcare workers, teachers, screenwriters, actors, and, yes, academics—are people who have strong professional and ethical codes for their work and have become accustomed to some measure of workplace autonomy. They see their freedom at work and their sense of power to do it well threatened by the arbitrary power of their bosses and the sometimes faceless forces of capital. The American workers of today come from many backgrounds and many parts of the world, their politics shaped in part by their experiences in their countries of origin, as was the case for the immigrant workers of the late 19th century whose stories Montgomery told. They are people spurred to action by a rebellion against the imperatives of a new age of scientific management and drawn together by their common plight. They are artists whose day jobs in game stores and coffee shops foster just enough passion and solidarity to try to organize a union. All of this might have been familiar to the iron molders, glass blowers, coopers, and others of the early years of the 20th century."

Kim Phillips-Fein at The Nation reviews A David Montgomery Reader: Essays on Capitalism and Worker Resistance.

In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen

"All of this steered my own work in a new direction. I decided to write a critical genealogy of another cherished contemporary ideal: freedom. I wanted to examine why the identification of liberty with a minimal state, which seemed so dominant in the 2010s, had come about. In exploring this question, I was able to build both on my own earlier work on French eighteenth and nineteenth-century political thought as well as on a vast literature on early-modern conceptions of freedom produced by Quentin Skinner and other Cambridge School historians. In his seminal Liberty Before Liberalism, Skinner had recovered an older way of thinking about freedom he called republican (or neo-Roman) which equated liberty not with an absence of state interference, but with establishing popular control over state power.[16]"

At The Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum, Annelien de Dijn writes about "How I became an Intellectual Historian."

"'A Ritualistic, Disciplined Quest Through the Wasteland of Rabid Consumption'"

"Killian's largely five-star reviews of books, movies, poetry, CDs and the occasional object he may or may not have actually purchased (King's BBQ Potato Salad, Aveda Sap Moss Conditioning Detangler, Gerber baby food that is 'as resolutely sweet as a twenties Irving Berlin standard') are learned, often laugh-out-loud funny, frequently moving, guilelessly enthusiastic and intellectually generous. The biggest laugh is that he conceived of a way to produce a wholly idiosyncratic art project on the ground of corporate real estate."

At The Washington Post, Melissa Holbrook Pierson reviews Kevin Killian's Selected Amazon Reviews.

"You Might Say We're Never a Non-Playable Character to Ourselves"

"But when you fully apprehend an identity as an identity, you can see it is something historically mutable and contingent: not less powerful, but perhaps less permanent—perhaps something you might join with others to try to renegotiate. If we do this, we can be subjects of an identity without being wholly controlled by it, precisely because we recognize it as a version of something that others have, too. We can live it from the inside while also seeing from the outside. We can learn to think in the third person."

Kwame Anthony Appiah at The Washington Post calls for "sponsoring a habit that philosophers call fallibilism."

"'He Seemed to Stand, Above All, for Clarity of Thought'"

"The writer with whom Lears has the closest affinity is the late historian Christopher Lasch. The two have the same frame of historical reference—broad, but with its focal point at the turn of the twentieth century—and the same inclination to embed intellectual history in social history. Lears apparently senses this, too, because one of the most probing essays in this book is 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1995), a long study of Lasch's work published the year after he died. Like Lears, Lasch was a hopeful liberal who, in mid-career, found liberals' interest in the common man to be on the wane. Unlike Lears, Lasch veered sharply to what one would then have called the left, immersing himself in Freud and Marx, before emerging with a populist vision of American life that defended the family against the state and struck a lot of intellectuals at the time as right-wing. Lears was one of these. When Lasch wrote, 'We have become far too accommodating and tolerant for our own good,' Lears confessed that it 'makes me wonder if we lived on the same planet.'"

Christopher Caldwell at The American Conservative reviews T.J. Jackson Lears's Conjurers, Cranks, Provincials, and Antediluvians: The Off-Modern in American History.

"Using Art to Explain Cultural History, Rather Than the Other Way Around"

"Wonderful art objects get demoted to the status of illustrations. Both exhibitions are a big jumble of things brought to bear on cultural history, a subject better handled through texts. That's what illustrations are for--as adjuncts to writing.
"And, yes, both shows tuck some contemporary works into their historical displays, downgrading them as well. The artists will survive, and who can blame them for taking the opportunity? But it's a waste."

Christopher Knight at the Los Angeles Times reviews exhibits at the Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

At The Reading Experience, Daniel Green offers a similar view regarding literature.

How High Is the Water Mama?

"However legitimate the trio's outrage may have been, it failed to channel anger into effective art. De La Soul Is Dead took a bulldozer to the debut's glorious garden. De La Soul's lightness of touch was muscled aside in favor of churlish criticism of hip-hop's new turn toward vulgarity, which for the trio was a kind of minstrelsy. But instead of flowing above the fray, De La Soul fell into the petty snipery of the scene—the big dis, the character assassination. 3 Feet High's Day-Glo grin had twisted into a dyspeptic scowl. The group had given up the high ground, ceded the terms of the debate to its rivals. It was Dre and Snoop's world now, and De La Soul had sunk into it."

Marc Weingarten at The Atlantic discusses Marcus J. Moore's book about De La Soul, High and Rising.

November 2024 Acquisitions

Books:

Movies:

No Country for Old Men, 2007.

Silver Screen Icons: The Thin Man, 2017.

 

Music:

"The Defendant Is Too Popular?"

"I've been known to dabble in satire, but I'm deadly serious here, just as I was last June when I recommended that Trump serve six months at Rikers (which is where New York State sends felons tried in New York City and sentenced to less than one year). Now, of course, the United States government can no longer spare Trump for six months. But it can still spare him for one week. Rikers was good enough for Trump's former chief financial adviser Alan Weisselberg, age 77, who last spring booked himself three months there after perjuring himself on Trump's behalf (in an unrelated civil fraud case, now under appeal, in which Trump was fined $355 million). Rikers should be good enough for Trump, too."

Timothy Noah at The New Republic writes: "Jail Trump for One Week."

"A Section of the Elite That Want to Keep Climbing the Ladder of Privilege but Don't Want to See Themselves as Part of the Elite"

"These works are important in helping make sense of the absurdities of contemporary politics. They explain, for instance, why the Democratic party in the US (and many social democratic parties in Europe) is increasingly a club for the rich and educated, while many working-class voters have abandoned it. They illuminate, too, our culture's obsession with the minutiae of symbolic representation and the policing of language but disregard for real material inequalities."

Kenan Malik at The Guardian discusses Musa al-Gharbi's We Have Never Been Woke.

"California Voters Rejected Progressive Policies on Crime, Housing, and More"

"Taken altogether, however, it represents a significant setback for progressive governance and policymaking in the nation's most populous state. Conservative critics often decry the state's public-policy woes even as they lament its trendsetting role in national politics. This time, however, the Golden State appeared to be in sync with a national shift to the right. The next election cycle in two years will show whether this is a transitory response or a deeper shift in how California governs itself—and leads the nation."

Matt Ford at The New Republic writes about the election results in California.

Götterdämmerung

"I know Trump voters told pollsters that it was all about the economy, and maybe it was. Eggs and milk are higher. I'm not disputing that, but people like me thought our fellow Americans recognized that the cause of that inflation, and which the Trump administration initiated and the Biden administration continued, kept the economy afloat, and that President Biden steered the nation towards the soft recovery every economist believed was impossible. People like me were wrong."

Michael Ian Black at The Daily Beast reacts to Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election.

As do David Frum and Spencer Kornhaber at The Atlantic.

As do John F. Harris, Steven Waldman, and other writers at Politico.

As do Mona Charen and Scott Conway at The Bulwark.

As do Robert Kuttner and David Dayen at The American Prospect.

As do Ed Kilgore and Jonathan Chait at New York.

As do Timothy Noah, Kate Aronoff, Greg Sargent, Jonathan Zimmerman, Eric Schmeltzer, and Michael Tomasky at The New Republic.

As does Sophie Clark at Newsweek.

As does Sam Wolfson (in an interview with Richard Reeves), Ben Davis, and John Harris at The Guardian.

As does Ashleigh Fields (in an interview with Sen. John Fetterman) at The Hill.

As do Paul Rosenberg and Jim Sleeper at Salon.

As do John West and Kara Dapena at The Wall Street Journal.

As do Jeet Heer and Joan Walsh at The Nation.

As does David Brooks of The New York Times.

As do John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot (who earlier argued that "the progressive moment is well and truly over").

"A Democratic Election Is the Antithesis of an Internet Transaction"

"The awkward truth for those of us who rally in defence of liberal democracy today is that it has undergone no obvious renewal since its peak at the end of the last century. We, no less than the nationalists, are imprisoned by nostalgia, wishing the future could be more like the past. And so we find ourselves constantly testing the limits of analogue protection against a virus that is digitally borne."

Rafael Behr at The Guardian argues that "a very online culture, marked by short attention spans, narcissism and impatient consumer appetites, has a more natural affinity with shallow demagoguery than with representative democracy."

"Taking a Race That Democrats Were Going to Lose and Making It Winnable"

"If Harris loses, pundits will focus on a number of decisions: her choice of running mate, her reluctance to break with Biden, her muddled message to young and Arab American voters disgusted by her administration's support for Israel's destructive war in the Middle East, her overcautious approach to both messaging and policy. But the fact remains that Harris gave Democrats a chance they did not have before. That is an accomplishment in and of itself, no matter the outcome of the election."

Alex Shephard praises Kamala Harris at The New Republic.

"Trump's Economic Plans Would Be Disastrous on a Grand Scale"

"Obama came into office in January 2009, amid a global financial collapse and recession. He did notch seventy-five straight months of job growth. Trump did sign a tax law that mostly helped corporations and the rich get richer. (He even bragged about it in those terms at Mar-a-Lago, telling wealthy friends that 'You all just got a lot richer.') That law added $1.9 trillion to the federal debt. And if Trump wins, the cycle will repeat, this time with President Joe Biden overseeing the handoff."

Jill Lawrence at The Bulwark writes, "Trump Wants to 'Fix' Our Booming Economy. Don't Let Him Near It."

October 2024 Acquisitions

Books:

S.A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed, 2024.

Paul Dini et al, Harley Quinn and the Gotham City Sirens, 2024.

Frank Herbert et al, Dune: The Graphic Novel, Book 1, 2020.

John Lewis et al, March: Book Two, 2015.

Music:

Archies, Sugar, Sugar..., .

Leon Bridges, , 2024.

Dare, What's Wrong with New York?, 2024.

Decemberists, , 2024.

Neil Diamond, Classics, .

Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch, .

Heavy Heavy, , 2024.

Hermanos Guiterrez, , 2024.

Lemon Twigs, A Dream Is All We Have, 2024.

Wes Montogomery, , .

Offspring, , 2024.

Thee Sacred Souls, , 2024.

Velocity Girl, , .

Tom Waits, Used Songs, .

Who, Live at Shea Stadium 1982, 2024.

Who, Odds & Sods, .

Various, Atlantic R&B, .

Various, Bluesmasters Vol. 2, .

"But They Disliked Democracy and Taxes and Regulation Far More"

"The aura of evil around the Nazis can make everything associated with them seem exotic and remote. It may be hard for us to imagine how respectable business leaders could enthusiastically support Hitler's election campaign. But their motives were mundane and familiar: pragmatism with a dash of ideological conviction."

Benjamin Hett at The New Republic argues that "[n]early a century later, many of our business leaders are blithely repeating the experiences of their German predecessors."