wealth

Book review – A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations

8-minute read

Not two weeks before I started reading this book, our neighbourhood was hit by a short power cut. It was a potent reminder of how we take electricity for granted and are utterly dependent on it. Author and journalist Robert Bryce has been writing about electricity and power for the last 30 years, publishing numerous articles and several books, and hosting the Power Hungry podcast. A Question of Power is part-history of electrification, part-reportage on current patterns of global electricity consumption, and part-outlook on the future of electricity generation, with Bryce coming out against renewables and in favour of nuclear energy. This proved to be a thought-provoking book and I disagree with some of his ideas, though not for the reasons you might think.

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Book review – The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis

8-minute read

This review is a case of one book leading to another. When I read Carl Benedikt Frey’s The Technology Trap, one argument he raised as to why the Industrial Revolution arrived as late as it did, was the resistance to innovation by guilds. But beyond certain vague and probably romantic notions, what do I really know about medieval guilds? And thus I found myself sitting down with The European Guilds, a hefty 645-page book by economic historian Sheilagh Ogilvie, published in The Princeton Economic History of the Western World series. This meticulously argued book crushes the idea that guilds served the common good. Instead, argues Ogilvie, through their profiteering they held Europe in an economic stranglehold that lasted for centuries.

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Book review – Time and the Generations: Population Ethics for a Diminishing Planet

7-minute read

How many people can planet Earth support? That is the thorny question that economist Partha Dasgupta tackles in Time and the Generations. Or, as he asks: “How should we evaluate the ethics of procreation, especially the environmental consequences of reproductive decisions on future generations, in a resource-constrained world?” Given that I have previously called overpopulation the elephant in the room that few wish to address, my interest was immediately piqued.

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Book review – In Defence of Democracy

9-minute read

This review is one half of a two-parter. Not long after posting my review of Can Democracy Work? I received an email from Dr Roslyn Fuller: since I had mentioned her book In Defence of Democracy, would I be interested in reviewing it? This seemed like a great opportunity to also finally read Against Democracy, which has been sitting on my shelves for a while now. Two books, two opposing viewpoints, two reviews, back-to-back.

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Book review – Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed its Meaning and Lost its Purpose

7-minute read

Not long after posting my review of Can Democracy Work? I received an email from Dr Roslyn Fuller: since I had mentioned her book In Defence of Democracy, would I be interested in reviewing it? And so, a parcel arrived at Inquisitive Biologist HQ my living room with two books, with Beasts and Gods providing valuable background reading to In Defence of Democracy.

Many people feel disenchanted with politics, but can you really articulate why? Bar a select few politically engaged individuals I know (I am not one of them), most of us remain stuck in conspiratorial grumblings at the pub about corrupt politicians. Published in 2015, Beasts and Gods lays bare how modern democracies are invariably broken, examines democracy in ancient Athens, and asks what we can learn from them.

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