In the second half of 2009 (July–December), I read 4,276 pages and listened to 31.5 hours of audio books. Asterisks indicate standouts from the list (though the lack of an asterisk does not necessarily imply non-recommendation). Two asterisks for the top three. For recommendations, click over to statefree-learning.org and explore the Bookfinder.

Books and audiobooks in order consumed:
The Hobbit (BBC Radio Dramatisation)
** Voyage From Yesteryear (Hogan)
Tom Paine Maru
The Lord of the Rings (BBC Radio Dramatisation)
** Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law
** Techniques of the Selling Writer (Swain)
* Little Brother (Doctorow)
Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics
Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Plot & Structure
Needful Things (King)
The Gods Themselves (Asimov)
* The Greatest Show on Earth (Dawkins)
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
A Gift for My Children (Rogers)
* Crashproof 2.0 (Schiff)
* The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Jacobs; first two-thirds only; this has amazing information in it, but is repetitive and begins to drag at some point; the best parts seem to be in about the first half)

Pages read was equal to the first half of 2009 at just over 4,000. Audiobook time was down for two reasons. First, I spent more time writing and note processing. I reviewed, reorganized, and annotated about 70,000 words of notes and ideas that I had recorded over the preceding two years into a journal tool that also made the material much more accessible for future reference. Second, I watched the first five and a half seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as I continue to investigate what has been done so far with the use of science fiction to explore social organization and moral issues. This proved so relevant to the task that I count it as a suitable excuse for the reduction in audiobook time (as an exception!). There was even some entertainment effect (a mere uninvited side-effect for a Vulcan ;-).

One of the themes of Isaak Asimov's The Gods Themselves (1972; winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards) is the way that power politics within academic departments, combined with the interplay between academic views and political priorities, can suppress important scientific truths in favor of less true or incomplete semi-scientific stories. This is a topic right out of today's headlines.

In the book, the potential destruction of the solar system was ignored in favor of a cheap, clean source of energy. The financial pressure was on the side of ignoring reality. The mechanism was to marginalize the scientist who insisted on exposing the real risks, while elevating to star status the scientist who was either willing to ignore these risks or was not sufficiently insightful to understand them.

In our world, I continue to run into one similar example after another in the course of my studies. The manufactured "global-warming consensus" was clearly one of these examples to me long before the recent hacker-revealed emails brought the topic of suppression of academic dissent further into public view than it had been. It is truly Orwellian that the global-warming consensus-constructing machine uses as one of its key rhetorical tactics the image that the "real truth" is with them, while anthropogenic global warming skeptics are ignoring evidence. As I have read the debate and the science, a badge for ignoring and otherwise being selective about evidence surely goes to global warming alarmists themselves.

Discussing climate science, MIT Professor of Atmospheric Studies Richard S. Lindzen, in a recent presentation at Rockhurst University (HT to Stephan Kinsella via Mises Economics Blog), went so far as to say that "Science has been compromised if not corrupted. For the moment, institutional science is part of the problem rather than part of the solution."

One can say the same thing about academic economics over at least the past century. There has been incredible academic pressure to suppress views and approaches that are not in line with consensus, and incidentally, not in line with the aims and dreams of politicians to construct empires, monuments, and glory using wealth extracted from others. Real economists expose the fallacies in such programs, shining light where it is not welcomed. Pet economists, in contrast, refrain from shining unwelcome light and direct their research into either innocent hyper-specialized topics or sheer macroeconomic fantasy worlds that conveniently justify the massive exercise of state power (Keynes, et. al.).

The current resurgence of realistic economics in the tradition of Juan de Mariana, Carl Menger and Ludwig Von Mises has gained its fuel from rebels and private institutions, such as the Mises Institute, that were established outside of or on the edges of the academic edifice. This is as one should expect. New paradigms, said Thomas Kuhn, do not grow from within old establishments. They grow on the outside and on the edges until the clearer grasp of reality that they facilitate, the "new paradigm," finally becomes so obvious to enough people that the previous paradigm begins to fade or even become laughable. The Internet—and don't forget a lot of hard work by a few dedicated people to make good use of it, such as those at the Mises Institute—is greatly facilitating the speed of this process in some fields. Let us hope that the process is fast enough in the most important areas.

Asimov's book is built on a three-part structure labelled with the three parts from Friedrich Schiller's words, "Against stupidity, the gods themselves, contend in vain." Yet Asimov added a question mark at the end of the quote, and he dedicates the book "To Mankind: And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all."

A couple of years after The Gods Themselves first hit the shelves, an April 28, 1975 Newsweek article began: "There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth..." and continued, "To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather...the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down."

Can we join in with the touch of optimism that Asimov added to the Schiller quote with that question mark? Not doing so is probably an evolutionary dead end. Check the environment page at statefree-learning.org for a few select recommendations on this topic, especially Singer and Avery (2008; see my Review: Unstoppable Global Warming).

See also my previous post, The gutting of economics as an anti-state force by fear of offending the powers