Ново в Икономическата библиотека (31 януари – 04 февруари 2011)
Новини
Излезе седмият брой на информационния бюлетин на Икономическата библиотека – един философски старт в новата 2011 година. Представена е книгата на Робърт Нозик, която, заедно с „Теория на справедливостта” на Джон Ролс, се превърна в класика за западната политическа философия. Перифразирайки думите на автора за книгата но Ролс, може да се каже: отсега нататък политическите философи или трябва да работят в рамките на теорията на Нозик или да обясняват защо не го правят. Книгата се превръща не само във фундамент на неолиберализма, нейните идеи са в основата на „рейганомиката” и „татчеризма” и днес продължават да се прилагат в различни страни.
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality
Shortlisted for the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize
Longlisted for the 2009 Royal Society Science Book Prize
Manjit Kumar
Icon Books, 2009
For most people, quantum theory is a byword for mysterious, impenetrable science. And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its heart.
For 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. Yet Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century.
http://library.ime.bg/quantum/
The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred
Niall Ferguson
Penguin Books, 2007
The War of the World, published in 2006, had been ten years in the making and is a comprehensive analysis of the savagery of the 20th century. Ferguson shows how a combination of economic volatility, decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, and racially/ethnically motivated (and institutionalized) violence resulted in the wars, and the genocides of what he calls „History’s Age of Hatred“. The New York Times Book Review named War of the World one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2006, while the International Herald Tribune called it „one of the most intriguing attempts by an historian to explain man’s inhumanity to man Ferguson addresses the paradox that, though the 20th century was „so bloody“, it was also „a time of unparalleled [economic] progress“. As with his earlier work Empire War of the World was accompanied by a Channel 4 television series presented by Ferguson.
http://library.ime.bg/the-war-of-the-world-1/
Colossus: The Rise And Fall Of The American Empire
Niall Ferguson
Penguin Books, 2005
Ferguson’s book, though by no means blithely optimistic about the US empire in general or Iraq in particular, does hold out a prospect of success there.
He indicates that the vast costs of security and reconstruction will be covered by oil sales. This begs the obvious question: will a supposedly sovereign Iraqi government, after 1 July, really use its huge oil revenues to thank the Americans for their kind help?
This brings us to the final criticism of this book.
While not neglecting the subject entirely, it has something of a blind spot about international law. In particular, it fails to note the insidious effects on international opinion of simultaneously having a capacity to wage war from the air with few casualties, failing to prepare for occupation, and mistreating prisoners in contravention of the most basic norms. There is no mention of the long-running sore of Guantanamo. The book’s UK subtitle, with its reference to the „rise and fall“ of the US empire, may contain an uncomfortable truth.
http://library.ime.bg/colossus/
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages
Carlota Perez
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2002
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, now available in paperback, presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way.
Carlota Perez draws upon Schumpeter’s theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a ‘New Economy’ and how these ‘opportunity explosions’, focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises.
These findings are illustrated with examples from the past two centuries: the industrial revolution, the age of steam and railways, the age of steel and electricity, the emergence of mass production and automobiles, and the current information revolution/knowledge society.
By analyzing the changing relationship between finance capital and production capital during the emergence, diffusion and assimilation of new technologies throughout the global economic system, this seminal book sheds new light on some of the most pressing economic problems of today. http://library.ime.bg/technological-revolutions-and-financial-capital/