Interlude

I had a welcome visit last week from one of my daughters – the reason for my blog silence. A round trip to Koprivshitsa, the old town of Plovdiv and Rila Monastery ensued – with a lovely night spent at the Old Plovdiv Hostel right in the heart of the cobbled old town and a superb meal at the Hebros restaurant just round the corner.

The highlight however (apart from wine-tasting in Sofia) was our discovery of an amazing junk yard on the road back from Rila – with powerful relics of Bulgaria’s recent history….  

In March the post on Mood Music subjected readers to a bibliographical tsunami of texts - which plotted (chronologically) perceptions since the 1950s of the western system of political economy….

Inevitably I missed some important books, the most important of which was probably Economics and Utopia – why the learning economy is not the end of history; by Geoff Hodgson (1999) – the link accesses the complete text……

It’s a clear and tough analysis by a top-class economic historian of why socialism lost its way – and exploration of what it will take for it to restore its energies. If you want to get a sense of the range of arguments which have convulsed economists and activists over the past century, this is the book for you.