1. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout. The author uses published works on Louis Armstrong, and tape recordings privately made by Armstrong himself during the course of his life, to tell the story of one of the greatest musicians of the last century. If jazz is your thing, and you like Louis Armstrong, you… Read More »
Niall Ferguson in Newsweek: In Samuel Huntington’s version of the post–Cold War world, there was going to be a clash between an Islamic civilization that was stuck in a medieval time warp and a Western civilization that was essentially equivalent to modernity. What we’ve ended up with is something more like a mashup of civilizations,… Read More »
My years as Gaddafi’s nurse – Oksana Balinskaya ‘…what will ultimately replace today’s dollar-centric international monetary and financial system is a tripolar system organized around the dollar, the euro, and the Chinese renminbi’ – Barry Eichengreen ‘The left love being provoked by me … they think I’m a reactionary imperialist scumbag’ Niall Ferguson Why about 75% of… Read More »
Delivered at Gresham College, London. The summary: Professor Niall Ferguson offers an evolutionary approach to financial history. He questions the impeding of ‘natural selection’ by keeping the financial dinosaurs alive through the life support of monetary injections: “without creative destruction, our economic system cannot be a healthy one.” The view that financial history could be… Read More »