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Book Group: Past books
Book Group Information
Tue, 01/15/2013 - 5:34pm — Sandra.CoynerA list of books selected and read by this book group from 2008 to 2013 can be found here. For recent books, see below.
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| 12/03/2024 - 2:00pm | Book Discussion of Ours Was the Shining Future by David Leonhardt |
The Jefferson Center Book Group will meet on Zoom to discuss Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream by David Leonhardt (2023). Leonhardt traces origins, success of, and challenges to the American Dream from the Depression to the present. The big arc of the history he covers is probably familiar, but this author has non-standard (well supported) interpretations of how various parts of the trajectory interrelated. Ends with discussable ideas about what political “compromise” might mean. |
| 06/17/2024 - 12:00pm | What We Owe the Future |
What We Owe the Future: The author is a professor of moral philosophy and this is a philosophical argument that we should prioritize positively influencing the long term future. It’s philosophy, not social science, so it is an argument/essay. |
| 05/20/2024 - 12:00pm | Poverty, by America |
Names, examines, and evaluates all the usual explanations/justifications for poverty, showing what makes sense and what doesn’t. He discusses “what we can do about it” more extensively than other books we have read. Very discussable! |
| 04/22/2024 - 12:00pm | The Gender Knot |
The Gender Knot: A feminist man’s explanation of patriarchy avoiding guilt, blame, anger, denial. |
| 03/18/2024 - 12:00pm | The Power of Crisis |
The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats—and our Response—Will Change the World 2022 by Ian Bremmer. Recent crises show threats & possibilities for hope. Discusses global health emergencies, climate change, and AI. “Provides a roadmap for surviving—even thriving in—the 21st century.” |
| 02/19/2024 - 12:00pm | Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues |
Covid was definitely not the first one. This book examines human history as far back as the Paleolithic through eight serious encounters with infectious disease. Do any patterns emerge? Does it make a difference to view history with disease at the center, perhaps from the main viewpoint of the virus/bacterium? |
| 01/15/2024 - 12:00pm | Debt: The First 5000 Years |
Sweeping narrative history essentially argues that many of our ideas about money and credit are limited, if not wrong. |
| 12/18/2023 - 12:00pm | Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It |
Everybody complains about big Pharma but we aren’t fixing it yet. |
| 11/20/2023 - 12:00pm | Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity |
How do people get misled so easily? |
| 10/16/2023 - 12:00pm | Persuasion in Parallel: How Information Changes Minds about Politics |
Persuasion in Parallel: How Information Changes Minds about Politics: "Overturns” conventional wisdom. Is sharing information useless in politics? This book argues that people do change their minds in response to information.. Uses evidence from randomized controlled trials; most everyone updates toward information, at least a little. Affects people on both right and left. “The other side is not lost." |