What's Worth Reading
Critical political economy - extended reviews of classic and contemporary texts
This page links to my book review website, What’s Worth Reading: What to Read and what to Avoid in Critical Political Economy. It has been running since 2016, and I aim to post one substantial review (4,000-8,000 words) each month, either of a contemporary or a classic text.
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Nicola Phillips, ed, Global Political Economy, OUP, 2023. A revealing primer for turning students into cosmopolitan liberals, but wide open to subversion from more critical perspectives. 85.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/global-political-economy.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Søren Mau, Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital, Verso, 2023. Excellent - a fundamental contribution on capitalism and social reproduction. Rated 92.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/mute-compulsion.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: World Bank, World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees and Societies. Fundamental reading, like it or not. In fact, the less you like it, the more imperative to read it. Rated 84.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/migrants-refugees-and-societies.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Nancy Fraser, Cannibal Capitalism, Verso, 2022. A heartfelt polemic, but with some analytical flaws. 75.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/cannibal-capitalism.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged [1957], Penguin Modern Classics, 2007. Excruciatingly bad. Impossible that anyone who praises it has actually read it. Rating: 0 - it had to happen some time.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/atlas-shrugged.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead [1943], Penguin Modern Classics, 2007. Surprise! A disturbing psychosexual melodrama that has nothing to do with capitalism. 75 for interest, zero for moral values.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/the-fountainhead.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Jamie Martin, The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance, Harvard University Press, 2022. Should have been called The Case of the Wrong Stick. 60.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/the-meddlers.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Stefan Dercon, Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose, Hurst & Company, 2022. Not very good, I'm afraid. 60.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/gambling-on-development.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination, Princeton University Press, 2019. Not so much worldmaking as mythmaking.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/worldmaking-after-empire.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading (I know, you wait months for a review, and two come along at once): Isabella M. Weber, How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. Routledge, 2021. Shock therapy, maybe. But not as we know it, Jim, not as we know it.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/how-china-escaped-shock-therapy.html
Latest at What's Worth Reading: Ntina Tzouvala, Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Over-complicated, so rated 75, but still worth reading.
https://whatsworthreading.weebly.com/capitalism-as-civilisation.html
09/05/2022
Online event open to non-members, not to be missed!
Fractious Feminisms and Feminist Solidarities Leading feminist scholars share their insights into how feminisms, in their diversity, shed new light on economics and political economy.