Kristen Ghodsee, Barry Eichengreen, and more for PS Read More

Cold War Anthropology, by David H. Price; The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow; and more The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Read More]( Welcome to PS Read More, a bi-weekly feature dedicated to enriching your bookshelf, with Project Syndicate contributors' help. In this week's edition, we share recommendations from Kristen Ghodsee, Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. We also highlight a recent work by Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, and bring suggestions from Columbia University’s Anya Schiffrin and the University of Hong Kong's Andrew Sheng. Kristen Ghodsee Recommends... [Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History]( By Lea Ypi Lea Ypi’s gorgeously written text – part memoir, part bildungsroman – tells a very personal story of socialism and post-socialism in Albania. In much the same spirit as Jana Hensel’s 2002 memoir [Zonenkinder]( Ypi’s reflections on the stability and comfort of the Marxist worldview of her youth speak to the experiences of hundreds of millions of individuals whose lives were upended by the events that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ypi does not hesitate to criticize the many faults of Albania’s previous regime, particularly as they related to the persecution of her own family. But she avoids simplistic, knee-jerk anti-communist sentiment, and balances her condemnations of authoritarian rule with an equally critical view of the social, political, and economic processes that typified the arrival of democracy in the 1990s. Ypi is a smart political philosopher examining what it means to be “free” in societies where not everyone has the opportunity to live up to their full potential. [The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity]( By David Graeber and David Wengrow Bold, smart, and absolutely mind-expanding, The Dawn of Everything challenges many long-held assumptions about “noble savages” and the “state of nature.” Anthropologist David Graeber and archeologist David Wengrow are wonderfully grumpy and contrarian in this more than 700-page tome, and if you take the time to get through it, you will emerge on the other side with your worldview shaken. An unlikely bestseller, everyone I know these days is reading and discussing this book. There are so many amazing insights to be found here, but I think the book’s main feat is forcing readers to recognize how timid and limited we have all become in terms of our political imaginations. [Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology]( By David H. Price I have long been interested in the effects of Cold War politics on the production of knowledge, and back in graduate school I read an [essay]( by Laura Nader about what she called the “phantom factor” in anthropology: the persistent (if hidden) presence of the US Central Intelligence Agency. Both Nader and Price document the uncomfortable relationship between the scholarly study of foreign cultures and the US military’s needs as it endeavored to prevent the spread of communism globally. As Price shows, after World War II, the CIA funneled research funding through dummy agencies toward unsuspecting scholars and into academic research centers and area studies institutes, in order to shape narratives. The CIA also repurposed ethnographic research without the consent of the scholars who produced it. Don't miss Ghodsee's recent [Say More interview]( in which she considers social factors that may have made Ukraine seem vulnerable to Russia, identifies socialist-era policies that countries today should adopt, and more. [Read more](. By a PS Contributor [In Defense of Public Debt]( By [Barry Eichengreen]( Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener Eichengreen says: "We started this book, about the role of borrowing in helping governments to meet emergencies, before COVID-19 came along and made the case for us. Fortunately, lower interest rates have made the resulting higher levels of public debt sustainable. But we have learned that Black Swan events – novel coronaviruses, financial crises, geopolitical events – happen more frequently than often thought. And when they erupt, governments will again have to turn to public debt issuance to meet them." Listen to "Debt Wars," an [Opinion Has it podcast]( in which Eichengreen discusses the book – and the purpose, power, and peril of public debt – with host Elmira Bayrasli. [Listen now](. More Contributor Recommendations From Anya Schiffrin: [Democracy Without Journalism?: Confronting the Misinformation Society]( By Victor Pickard Upon finishing this book, I felt encouraged by Pickard’s sensible and feasible recommendations for ensuring the survival of quality journalism. Pickard, who has spent much of his career thinking about this question and observing what works, makes a compelling case for publicly-funded journalism. [Read more](. --------------------------------------------------------------- From Andrew Sheng: [The Arthashastra]( By Kautilya (Translation: L. N. Rangarajan) This classic on statecraft, written in (it is estimated) the fourth century BC, begins with the premise that it is not only people’s material welfare that matters; spiritual good and aesthetic pleasures do, too. Some may consider Kautilya’s thinking to be even more ruthless than Machiavelli’s, but this is the most comprehensive and realistic system-wide classic that I have ever come across. [Read more](. [Register now for our upcoming economics and finance event, Finance 3.0.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.