The Hatching: A Novel (The Hatching Series) Paperback – February 14, 2017 by Ezekiel Boone (Atria/Emily Bestler Book)

 

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The Hatching – World War Z With Spiders!


She was not afraid of spiders. There was no reason to be afraid of spiders.

My Friend Is  one of the biggest fans of horror movies and novels I know. He devours stuff that would give most people nightmares, but even though Ezekiel Boone’s debut horror novel The Hatching is one of the freshest, most engrossing entries to the genre that I’ve come across in years, my brother refuses to read it. Because in The Hatching, Ezekiel Boone imagines an global apocalypse not borne by the usual suspects of zombies, bio-engineered plagues, or nuclear war but by the rebirth of ancient species of spiders. And myfriend has severe arachnophobia.

Thanks to Ezekiel Boone a lot of other people soon will, too. He opens his novel with a South American tour guide literally eaten alive by what appears to be a black river but is actually a swarm of carnivorous creepy crawlies. Further incidents start to take place everywhere from Minneapolis to China, to New Delhi, to Scotland, to L.A and the end of times may be upon us with eight legs. As you read on in growing horror and dread you find yourself periodically checking to make sure nothing’s crept up on your shoulder.

Boone amply keeps the tension rising with his main characters, FBI agent Mike Rich, spider expert Melanie Guyer, President Stephanie Pilgrim and her chief of staff and lover Manny (who happens to be Melanie’s ex-husband.) In most novels of this genre, the disaster is compounded by human stupidity and while we have some of that here as well, Boone’s brilliance lies in showing numerous authority figures responding appropriately to the threat – but even so it might not be enough given what they’re facing. And the worst part is that The Hatching is only the beginning of the series! The Skittering is due out in 2017!

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The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City” by Margaret Creighton, W.W. Norton & Company, 2016

With “The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City” (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), Margaret Creighton, a history professor at Bates College in Maine, has written an interesting, engaging, and—at times—troubling account of a moment in time that many of us have probably forgotten. The “rainbow city” in the title was the nickname for the 1901 Buffalo World’s Fair, and it is best remembered for a political assassination. William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, was shot at the exposition, and died a week later.

The theme of the World’s Fair was technological progress and electrification. Using alternating current, the grounds of the fair were lighted at night. Creighton does an impressive job of providing pictures and maps that help take her readers back 11 decades. Even with that distance, it is clear that the fair was something impressive.

There are all sorts of side stories to the fair that Creighton develops well. Frank “The Animal King” Bostock ran the animal acts and a human oddities show. His star performer was the “Doll Lady,” Alice Cenda, who was two feet tall, but had features that were perfectly in proportion unlike other individuals who have achondroplasia. She often performed with a monkey trained to play musical instruments. There were others. Geronimo, the Apache war chief, was there as part of the Indian Congress, which re-enacted famous battles from the Indian Wars.

The fair was about promoting a certain concept of the United States and the world. Capitalism, technology and the new ways of the New World were central to the vision. Although the fair was a commercial endeavor, many people were trying to use it to their own ends. Annie Edson Taylor used the publicity of the World’s Fair to go over Niagara Falls in barrel in an effort to turn herself into a celebrity. Geronimo learned that he could make money, charging people to pose for a picture with them. The Indians that performed in the reenacted battles made derogatory comments about people in the audiences to their faces, but not in English.

The assassination of McKinley might not be the only story of the world’s fair, but it is the best known. Creighton’s account is gripping. Readers know it is not going to end well for the Ohio politician, but his assassination has never had the following of Abraham Lincoln’s or John F. Kennedy’s. So we know the end, but not how we get there. Creighton is a gifted writer, and unfolds events in a compelling manner. Two bullets hit McKinley before Jim Parker, an African American waiter, and secret service agents wrestled Leon Czogosz to the ground. One wound was superficial, but another bullet went deep into his abdomen. Despite later recriminations, Creighton makes it clear that McKinley received prompt and competent medical attention, but surgeons were unable to recover the bullet. His weight got in the way. (He was 5’7” and about 230 pounds.) For a week, he seemed to be making a full recovery, but he suffered a rapid decline, dying eight days later. An autopsy found that the bullet had hit the pancreas, which leaked enzymes into the president’s body, causing the gangrene that killed him. Creighton consulted with a trauma surgeon, a pathologist, and an infectious disease specialist who explained that while McKinley might have survived such a wound today, the required antibiotics and surgical devices were not available in 1901.

What is troubling about this account is how entrepreneurs often expect various forms of corporate welfare to fund their spectacles—be it a world’s fair, a Super Bowl, or the Olympics. (This issue has not gone away; the San Diego Chargers are currently moving to Los Angeles because the City of San Diego refuses to use public funds to build them a new stadium). Despite the crowds, the World’s Fair lost money. The U.S. Congress—after a lobbying effort—agreed to pay half of the remaining debt since McKinley’s death had something to do with lower turnout than expected.

The book is also a testimony to the vapid nature of popular culture and the transitory nature of fame. Parker was touted as an American hero and was careful not to exploit his status in an unseemly way, but he was black and there was a predictable and racially charged backlash against him. He died destitute and ended up as a medical school cadaver. Taylor earned money briefly as a public speaker, but died living in a Buffalo area almshouse.

All in all, Creighton has written a book that is a delight to read and offers a new window on a distant time that makes you think, which is always a good thing.

Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens Paperback – December 20, 2016 by Aristotle (Author), Jonathan Barnes (Translator), Melissa Lane (Introduction)

Aristotle was the first philosopher in the Western tradition to address politics systematically and empirically, and he remains a central figure in political theory. This essential volume presents Aristotle's complete political writings--including his Politics, Economics, and Constitution of Athens--in their most authoritative translations, taken from the complete works that is universally recognized as the standard English edition. Edited by Jonathan Barnes, one of the world's leading scholars of ancient philosophy, and with an illuminating introduction by Melissa Lane, an authority on ancient political philosophy, this compact but comprehensive volume will be invaluable for all students of politics, philosophy, classics, or Western thought.


Aristotle: private property and money 

The views of the great philosopher Aristotle are particularly important because the entire structure of his thought had an enormous and even dominant influence on the economic and social thought of the high and late Middle Ages, which considered itself Aristotelian. Although Aristotle, in the Greek tradition, scorned moneymaking and was scarcely a partisan of laissez-faire, he set forth a trenchant argument in favour of private property. Perhaps influenced by the private-property arguments of Democritus, Aristotle delivered a cogent attack on the communism of the ruling class called for by Plato. He denounced Plato's goal of the perfect unity of the state through communism by pointing out that such extreme unity runs against the diversity of mankind, and against the reciprocal advantage that everyone reaps through market exchange. Aristotle then delivered a point-by-point contrast of private as against communal property. 

First, private property is more highly productive and will therefore lead to progress. Goods owned in common by a large number of people will receive little attention, since people will mainly consult their own self-interest and will neglect all duty they can fob off on to others. In contrast, people will devote the greatest interest and care to their own property.

 Second, one of Plato's arguments for communal property is that it is conducive to social peace, since no one will be envious of, or try to grab the property of, another. Aristotle retorted that communal property would lead to continuing and intense conflict, since each will complain that he has worked harder and obtained less than others who have done little and taken more from the common store. Furthermore, not all crimes or revolutions, declared Aristotle, are powered by economic motives. As Aristotle trenchantly put it, 'men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold'. 

Third, private property is clearly implanted in man's nature: His love of self, of money, and of property, are tied together in a natural love of exclusive ownership. 

Fourth, Aristotle, a great observer of past and present, pointed out that private property had existed always and everywhere. To impose communal property on society would be to disregard the record of human experience, and to leap into the new and untried. Abolishing private property would probably create more problems than it would solve. 

Finally, Aristotle wove together his economic and moral theories by providing the brilliant insight that only private property furnishes people with the opportunity to act morally, e.g. to practise the virtues of benevolence and philanthropy. The compulsion of communal property would destroy that opportunity. While Aristotle was critical of money-making, he still opposed any limitation - such as Plato had advocated - on an individual's accumulation of private property. Instead, education should teach people voluntarily to curb their rampant desires and thus lead them to limit their own accumulations of wealth. 

Despite his cogent defence of private property and opposition to coerced limits on wealth, the aristocrat Aristotle was fully as scornful of labour and trade as his predecessors. Unfortunately, Aristotle stored up trouble for later centuries by coining a fallacious, proto-Galbraithian distinction between 'natural' needs, which should be satisfied, and 'unnatural' wants, which are limitless and should be abandoned. There is no plausible argument to show why, as Aristotle believes, the desires filled by subsistence labour or barter are 'natural', whereas those satisfied by far more productive money exchanges are artificial, 'unnatural' and therefore reprehensible. Exchanges for monetary gain are simply denounced as immoral and 'unnatural', specifically such activities as retail trade, commerce, transportation and the hiring of labour. Aristotle had a particular animus toward retail trade, which of course directly serves the consumer, and which he would have liked to eliminate completely. Aristotle is scarcely consistent in his economic lucubrations. For although monetary exchange is condemned as immoral and unnatural, he also praises such a network of exchanges as holding the city together through mutual and reciprocal give-and-take. 

The confusion in Aristotle's thought between the analytic and the 'moral' is also shown in his discussion of money. On the one hand, he sees that the The first philosopher-economists: the Greeks 15 growth of money greatly facilitated production and exchange. He sees also that money, the medium of exchange, represents general demand, and 'holds all goods together'. Also money eliminates the grave problem of 'double coincidence of wants', where each trader will have to desire the other man's goods directly. Now each person can sell goods for money. Furthermore, money serves as a store of values to be used for purchases in the future. Aristotle, however, created great trouble for the future by morally condemning the lending of money at interest as 'unnatural'. Since money cannot be used directly, and is employed only to facilitate exchanges, it is 'barren' and cannot itself increase wealth. Therefore the charging of interest, which Aristotle incorrectly thought to imply a direct productivity of money, was strongly condemned as contrary to nature. Aristotle would have done better to avoid such hasty moral condemnation and to try to figure out why interest is, in fact, universally paid. Might there not be something 'natural', after all, about a rate of interest? And if he had discovered the economic reason for the charging - and the paying - of interest, perhaps Aristotle would have understood why such charges are moral and not unnatural. 

Aristotle, like Plato, was hostile to economic growth and favoured a static society, all of which fits with his opposition to money-making and the accumulation of wealth. The insight of old Hesiod into the economic problem as the allocation of scarce means for the satisfying of alternative wants was virtually ignored by both Plato and Aristotle, who instead counselled the virtue of scaling down one's desires to fit whatever means were available.

 Aristotle: exchange and value 

Aristotle's difficult but influential discussion of exchange suffered grievously from his persistent tendency to confuse analysis with instant moral judgement. As in the case of charging interest, Aristotle did not remain content to complete a study of why exchanges take place in real life before leaping in with moral pronouncements. In analysing exchanges, Aristotle declares that these mutually beneficial transactions imply a 'proportional reciprocity', but it is characteristically ambivalent in Aristotle whether all exchanges are by nature marked by reciprocity, or whether only proportionately reciprocal exchanges are truly 'just'. And of course Aristotle was never one to raise the question: why do people voluntarily engage in 'unjust' exchanges? In the same way, why should people voluntarily pay interest charges if they are really 'unjust'? 

To muddle matters further, Aristotle, under the influence of the Pythagorean number-mystics, introduced obscure and obfuscating mathematical terms into what could have been a straightforward analysis. The only dubious benefit of this contribution was to give many happy hours to historians of Economic thought before Adam Smith economic thought attempting to read sophisticated modern analysis into Aristotle. This problem has been aggravated by an unfortunate tendency among historians of thought to regard great thinkers of the past as necessarily consistent and coherent. That of course is a grievous historiographic error; however great they may have been, any thinkers can slip into error and inconsistency, and even write gibberish on occasion. Many historians of thought do not seem able to recognize that simple fact. 

Aristotle's famous discussion of reciprocity in exchange in Book V of his Nichomachean Ethics is a prime example of descent into gibberish. Aristotle talks of a builder exchanging a house for the shoes produced by a shoemaker. He then writes: 'The number of shoes exchanged for a house must therefore correspond to the ratio of builder to shoemaker. For if this be not so, there will be no exchange and no intercourse'. Eh? How can there possibly be a ratio of 'builder' to 'shoemaker'? Much less an equating of that ratio to shoes/houses? In what units can men like builders and shoemakers be expressed? The correct answer is that there is no meaning, and that this particular exercise should be dismissed as an unfortunate example of Pythagorean quantophrenia. And yet various distinguished historians have read tortured constructions of this passage to make Aristotle appear to be a forerunner of the labour theory of value, of W. Stanley Jevons, or of Alfred Marshall. The labour theory is read into the unsupportable assumption that Aristotle 'must have meant' labour hours put in by the builder or shoemaker, while Josef Soudek somehow sees here the respective skills of these producers, skills which are then measured by their products. Soudek eventually emerges with Aristotle as an ancestor of Jevons. In the face of all this elaborate wild goose chase, it is a pleasure to see the verdict of gibberish supported by the economic historian of ancient Greece, Moses I. Finley, and by the distinguished Aristotelian scholar H.H. Joachim, who has the courage to write, 'How exactly the values of the producers are to be determined, and what the ratio between them can mean is, I must confess, in the end unintelligible to me'.

Another grave fallacy in the same paragraph in the Ethics did incalculable damage to future centuries of economic thought. There Aristotle says that in order for an exchange (any exchange? a just exchange?) to take place, the diverse goods and services 'must be equated', a phrase Aristotle emphasizes several times. It is this necessary 'equation' that led Aristotle to bring in the mathematics and the equal signs. His reasoning was that for A and B to exchange two products, the value of both products must be equal, otherwise an exchange would not take place. The diverse goods being exchanged for one another must be made equal because only things of equal value will be traded. The Aristotelian concept of equal value in exchange is just plain wrong, as the Austrian School was to point out in the late nineteenth century. If A trades The first philosopher-economists: the Greeks J7 shoes for sacks of wheat owned by B, A does so because he prefers the wheat to the shoes, while B's preferences are precisely the opposite. If an exchange takes place, this implies not an equality of values, but rather a reverse inequality of values in the two parties making the exchange. If I buy a newspaper for 30¢ I do so because I prefer the acquisition of the newspaper to keeping the 30 cents, whereas the newsagent prefers getting the money to keeping the newspaper. This double inequality of subjective valuations sets the necessary precondition for any exchange. If the equation of ratio of builder to labourer is best forgotten, other parts ofAristotle's analysis have been seen by some historians as predating parts of the economics of the Austrian School. Aristotle clearly states that money represents human need or demand, which provides the motivation for exchange, and 'which holds all things together'. Demand is governed by the use-value or desirability of a good. Aristotle follows Democritus in pointing out that after the quantity of a good reaches a certain limit, after there is 'too much' , the use value will plummet and become worthless. But Aristotle goes beyond Democritus in pointing out the other side of the coin: that when a good becomes scarcer, it will become subjectively more useful or valuable. He states in the Rhetoric that 'what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful. Thus gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful'. These statements provide an intimation of the correct influence of different levels of supply on the value of a good, and at least a hint of the later fully formed Austrian marginal utility theory of value, and its solution of the 'paradox' of value. These are interesting allusions and suggestions; but a few fragmentary sentences scattered throughout different books hardly constitute a fully fledged precursor of the Austrian School. But a more interesting harbinger of Austrianism has only come to the attention of historians in recent years: the groundwork for the Austrian theory of marginal productivity - the process by which the value of final products is imputed to the means, or factors, of production. In his little-known work, the Topics, as well as in his later Rhetoric, Aristotle engaged in a philosophical analysis of the relationship between human ends and the means by which people pursue them. These means, or 'instruments of production', necessarily derive their value from the final products useful to man, 'the instruments of action'. The greater the desirability, or subjective value, of a good, the greater the desirability, or value of the means to arrive at that product. 

More important, Aristotle introduces the marginal element into this imputation by arguing that if the acquisition or addition of a good A to an already desirable good C creates a more desirable result than the addition of good B, then A is more highly valued than B. Or, as Aristotle put it: 'judge by means of an addition, and see if the addition of A to 18 Economic thought before Adam Smith the same thing as B makes the whole more desirable than the addition of B' . Aristotle also introduces an even more specifically pre-Austrian, or preBohm-Bawerkian, concept by stressing the differential value of the loss, rather than the addition of a good. Good A will be more valuable than B, if the loss of A is considered to be worse than the loss of B. As Aristotle clearly phrased it: 'That is the greater good whose contrary is the greater evil, and whose loss affects us more.' Aristotle also took note of the importance of the complementarity of economic factors of production in imputing their value. A saw, he pointed out, is more valuable than a sickle in the art of carpentry, but it is not more valuable everywhere and in all pursuits. He also pointed out that a good with many potential uses will be more desirable, or valuable, than a good with only one use. 

Critics of the economic importance ofAristotle's analysis charge that, with the exception of the saw-and-sickle passage, Aristotle made no economic application of his broad philosophical treatment of imputation. But this charge misses the crucial Austrian point - made with particular force and elaboration by the twentieth century Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises - that economic theory is but a part, a subset, of a broader, 'praxeological' analysis of human action. By analysing the logical implications of the employment of means to the pursuit of ends in all human action, Aristotle brilliantly began to lay the groundwork for the Austrian theory of imputation and marginal productivity over two millennia later.

Atlas of Cities by Paul Knox (editor) ,Princeton University Press

Atlas of Cities,Paul Knox (editor)Princeton University Press

Most atlases are largely collections of maps. A compelling and unique book, Atlas of Cities goes beyond maps to provide insights into the dynamics of how cities shape contemporary social and economic activities. Framed around 13 urban geographic types, this book not only broadens readers’ knowledge about today’s urbanism but also questions the future of life in an increasingly urban world. Accounts of exciting development strategies and technological applications are balanced by sobering discussions of worsening problems of inequality, migrant anomie, and worsening climate change.

Each city prototype is explored in a chapter containing one or more “core” city examples chosen by the authors to illustrate the key features of the type. Arranged in chronological order, the chapters start with the familiar historic stories: the “foundational” cities of Athens and Rome, the “networked” merchant cities of late medieval Europe, the “imperial” city of Istanbul, the “industrial” city of Manchester, and the “rational” city of Paris in the 20th and 21st centuries. For those interested in modern urbanism, the chapters proceed to the “global” city exemplified by London and New York, the “celebrity” city of Los Angeles, the “megacity” of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the “instant” city of Brasilia, the “transnational” city of Miami, the “creative” city of Milan, the “green” city of Freiburg, and the “intelligent” city of London. To understand the book’s approach, the reader should consider three of the 13 prototypes: megacity, creative city, and green city.

“Megacities” are those with more than 10 million inhabitants. Mumbai is selected as the core exemplar. As of 2013, the world contained 28 megacities: Tokyo-Yokohama was the largest, with 37,239,000 people; New York came in eighth, with 20,673,000; and Mumbai was 13th, with 17,307,000. Most megacities are in the developing world, fueled by rural-to-urban migration and coping with strained infrastructure and problematic densities. Mumbai is nearly 18 times as crowded as New York, even though they have comparable populations. Mumbai continues to grow outward, making it difficult to commute. Its rail system carries 7.2 million passengers per day. And nearly half the people in Mumbai, a city of extremes, live in slums, despite a large and prosperous middle class.

“Creative” cities contain a rich mix of creative industries that share ideas and resources and generate a distinctive local vibe. Milan is the selected core city. The commingling of the creative class—a term coined by Richard Florida, who wrote the book’s foreword—brings together the social worlds of work and lifestyle. Creative cities like Milan, with its Italian design aesthetic in industrial design, furniture, and fashion, become global tastemakers. Along with the hubs of its larger city-region, Milan has transformed itself into an ecology of design, architecture, manufacturing, and craftsmanship. As the book notes, “. . . urban governance . . . has become increasingly concerned with providing a ‘good business climate’ that might attract investment. The increasing entrepreneurism of urban governance has made rebuilding, repackaging, and rebranding the urban landscape a common priority among large cities.” Like many places, Milan enlisted “starchitects” such as Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid to build its symbolic capital, created design districts to house its creative enterprises, and marketed itself through a conscious city-branding campaign.

“Green” cities are focused on sustainability, where “politicians, urban planners, and citizens are working toward developing more resilient infrastructures, institutions, and behaviors to help them face the problem of climate change.” Freiburg, Germany, the selected core city, has set the goal of becoming one of the most sustainable places in the world by reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent by the year 2030. Freiburg, the smallest core city with a population of 220,000, has already made significant progress. It reduced its carbon emissions by 14 percent as of 2007, implementing two completely green neighborhoods and shifting to renewable energy sources. Other small cities have joined together in international networks, such as the Slow City movement whose charter emphasizes a calmer and less polluted environment.

The book is written by an accomplished slate of geographers and urban studies experts. The editor, Paul Knox, is a distinguished professor of urban affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His fellow authors include 16 academics whose research centers on one or more of the cities discussed. The result is an original synthesis of the operations of the urban world, packaged in a glossy, large-format book in which colorful infographic images of maps, tables, and diagrams share every page with text. This is a book for the eye as well as the brain.

Atlas of Cities has some shortcomings, however. It neglects the history and importance of East Asian cities, tends to oversimplify some complex issues in order to reduce them to dramatic graphics, and identifies significant urban problems, such as rampant migration, but suggests few long-range solutions. However, until a comparable atlas with a broader world focus and a longer-range outlook appears, this is one of the most thought-provoking and accessible books available on contemporary urbanism.

Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle Over American Power,” by Mark Landler, Random House

Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle Over American Power,” by Mark Landler, Random House

A new book about the relationship between U.S. President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton paints her as politically much closer to Israel’s skeptical view than the Obama administration which she served, even claiming she was swayed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the lifting of sanctions after she left the State Department.

The New York Times published an excerpt of the volume called “Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle Over American Power,” by Mark Landler, on Monday, which show her as much more ambivalent than President Barack Obama was through the process of negotiations.

Clinton has since claimed a share of credit for the deal and yet from the outset her skepticism has been plain to see, the article said.

According to the book, during the negotiations, Clinton was swayed by many in Congress, as well as by Netanyahu, who argued Iran was so desperate for a deal that tightening the vise would have extracted better terms, the newspaper said.

“She would have squeezed them again,” a person who has worked with her for several years said, “and the only debate is what they would have done.”

Obama feared then though that ratcheting up the pressure would undercut Rohani, unravel the sanctions coalition and doom his diplomatic efforts. He persuaded the Senate to hold off on new sanctions.

Clinton never made her differences with Obama public, and she has publicly endorsed his nuclear deal, though with more caveats than her former boss, the newspaper said.

“It’s not enough just to say yes to this deal,” Clinton said in October. “We have to say, ‘Yes, and.’ Yes, and we will enforce it with vigor and vigilance. Yes, and we will embed it in a broader strategy to confront Iran’s bad behavior in the region. Yes, and we will begin from Day 1 to set the conditions so Iran knows it will never be able to get a nuclear weapon.”

Other less remembered remarks by Clinton about Iran include how during the 2008 presidential campaign she famously ridiculed Obama’s pledge to hold talks with Iran’s leaders.

She also warned at that time that if Iran ever launched a nuclear strike on Israel, the United States would “totally obliterate” it, the article said.

Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, quoted by the Times, said that Obama and Clinton “shared the same tactic, which was engagement, but they envisioned different endgames.”

”Clinton had a more cynical view of the endgame,” Sadjadpour said. “‘We’re going to engage them not because we think they’re going to reciprocate, but because when they rebuff us, it will expose the fact that the problem lies in Tehran, and not in Washington.’”