A Year in Reading 2022
Hey everyone,
It’s been a while! (The mic still works, right?)
I launched this newsletter in 2020 hoping to give a weekly round-up of policy debates online, especially in newsletters, podcasts, etc. And you all hopped on, for which I’m super-grateful.
But, as 2021 wore on, and I got more immersed in working on a book manuscript, I just couldn’t find the bandwidth to keep up with the newsletter and do it the right way. So I let it go dormant.
(What’s the book about, you say? Briefly, it tries to sketch out some of the off-liberal routes of liberty. A lot of debates in the “liberalism” wars these days focus on the project of autonomy and whether that “liberal” autonomy is a cause for sorrow or rejoicing. This book looks at the project of liberty beyond autonomy—including ancient philosophy, Confucianism, and the Puritans, among others.)
In any case, I was thinking about starting this newsletter up again. It wouldn’t be weekly, but I thought this could be a good scrapbook for material (including some stuff I’d love to put in the book but might not fit). I’d still try to do some “rounding up,” but it would be more open-ended and occasional.
And what better way to restart than a quick list of some of the books I read this year and have found interesting?
The list is below. (And some links to some pieces over the past year, too…)
Thanks—and happy holidays!
12 Books for 2022
Konrad Adenauer, World Indivisible: Called “Der Alte” (“the old man”—he served as Germany’s chancellor until his 80s), Adenauer was one of the major architects of postwar Germany and early European integration. This 1955 collection of his speeches offers a glimpse into the worldview of a major political actor in the early days of post-WWII politics; Adenauer tackles the dangers of Communism, the value of transatlantic relations, and the importance of democratic accountability.
Jeffrey Church, Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life: I haven’t finished this yet, but it’s a fascinating read. Roughly, Church argues that a lot of contemporary theories of liberalism offer an insufficient grounding of meaning in life—but that Kant offers a helpful corrective here. Digging into Kant’s anthropology, Church proposes that Kant’s project of endless self-development could indeed offer a mode of existential grounding.
Matthew Continetti, The Right: A veteran of conservative politics, Continetti has spent years researching the trajectory of the political “right”—and it shows. Members of various factions within the right (some coming from very different perspectives) have praised the amount of detail in this book.
Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents: The author of the famed “end of history” thesis addresses present-day challenges. Fukuyama says he aims to defend the project of liberalism in this book, but he finds that neoliberalism has hardened elements of liberalism into an ideology that is too rigid. So reforms have to be made.
John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A very readable and insightful survey of the conflict that shaped the second half of the twentieth century.
Shadi Hamid, The Problem of Democracy: Hamid (whom you might know from The Atlantic, his Wisdom of Crowds podcast, or a bunch of other places) lays out a theory of “democratic minimalism” in this book—arguing that there should be less focus on promoting “liberal values” and more on promoting the basic rudiments of the democratic process.
Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left: This novel is a quick, eerie read on imagination and human connection. Without giving too much away: A screenwriter and his family move to a new house while he tries to finish his next script, but weird things start happening…
Kurt Raaflaub, The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece: A deeply learned discussion of the evolving notions of “freedom” in the ancient world—also covers how freedom intersects with questions of social class and hierarchies.
Zadie Smith, Feel Free: Smith ranges widely in this 2018 essay collection, covering everything from Facebook to Justin Bieber to Martin Buber. Her writing shows a lovely balance between the sensuous and the theoretical. The essay “Joy” is a gem.
Immanuel Wallerstein, After Liberalism: I’ve seen Wallerstein’s name come up a few times, so I thought I’d give this 1995 collection a read. Wallerstein approaches contemporary world history from a Marxist (and some would say contrarian) perspective. He argues that the period between 1945 and 1990 was the time of American hegemony; the Soviet Union was in fact a “subimperialist agent” of the US. Not everyone might agree with that take, but Wallerstein also projects that the end of the Cold War would in fact pave the way for much deeper anxiety and disruption.
John Williams, Augustus: Over the past decade or so, Williams (who published his three most famous novels in the 60s and 70s) has been rediscovered. Probably Stoner is his most famous book these days. While that novel focuses on a midwestern English professor, Augustus is a grand historical novel about, well, Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. It’s told in a series of letters by his friends, foes, and family. Augustus is a moving reflection on ambition and its costs.
Xenophon, Memorabilia: I’ve been trying to improve my Greek this year, so I’ve been reading more Xenophon. I’ve never read his full Memorabilia before (shock!) and set out to correct that this year. In the Memorabilia, Xenophon gives us his own picture of Socrates (one that differs maybe in some ways from Plato’s). A lot of interesting conversations about political rule, ethics, and, of course, the quest for wisdom.
Selected Links from 2022
Democratic controversies
Liberal Democracy Hasn’t Prevailed Yet (October)
Saving Democracy Requires More than “Struggle” (October)
Another Danger of Domestic Political Escalation (August)
“Our Democracy” v. “We the People” (May)
On the value of the filibuster and the Senate as an institution (January)
Charles Taylor at 90 (January)
Bipartisan realignments
An Era of State Capacity? (September)
When Democrats Embrace Nationalism (October)
Tom Cotton’s “Jacksonian Internationalism” (February)
The Sunshine Coalition (December)
Punditry
Mixed-Term Elections (September)
Trump 2024 Is No Sure Bet (July)