Now that we’re well into the season, let’s talk about spring reading! I’ve got a wide range of books on my list for this month. After checking it out, let me know what you’re reading these days.
Category: Books (Page 1 of 23)
These are posts about books from the blog Base and Superstructure. Occasionally I’ll read a book worth talking about, and write some thoughts on it. These cover a wide range of topics from the blog.
I had the pleasure of listening to an interview on American Prestige with Nathan J. Robinson, editor of Current Affairs and co-author (with Noam Chomsky) of The Myth of American Idealism. The book – as well as the interview – discusses Noam Chomsky’s views on U.S. foreign policy and leftist politics.
I discussed the book briefly in my January Reading List post, but the interview goes into greater detail. Readers should note that the interview sits behind the American Prestige paywall. That said, I’m a subscriber. And I’d highly encourage readers to subscribe, or at the very least to listen to the free weekly news update. It comes out every Friday morning.
That bit aside, let’s talk about the interview. I think a particular line of questioning from Daniel Bessner gets at key issues of leftist strategy in the 21st century.
‘Diversity’ sounds like something transformative or radical. And yet it doesn’t seem to produce meaningful change, even for people labeled as ‘diverse.’ We might call this ‘the enigma of diversity,’ or at least one such enigma worth discussing.
This forms the starting point of sociologist Ellen Berrey in her book, The Enigma of Diversity. In it, she takes a close look at the concept of diversity after the 1960s civil rights era. This gets at the heart of political debates in our turn to cultural politics in the 2010s and 2020s.
Berrey looks into these issues through in-depth case studies in academia, urban politics, and the corporate world. She finds that the appeal to diversity across these domains reflects the interests of powerful decision makers and their constituents. It does so over and above the interests of the people who supposedly benefit from diversity and DEI programs.
Welcome to the third reading list post of 2025! For this month, I’ve got mostly fiction on my list. How does that compare to yours?
Continue reading for some sci-fi, general fiction, and a bit of non-fiction.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the second reading list of 2025! Deep in the Iowa winter, I’m staying warm with some books. And I hope you are, too.
I wrote last month about philosophical counseling, and I’m doing a bit of themed reading around that. Beyond this, I’ve found some interesting politics and fiction.
How about you?
