Readers are aware of the rather eccentric stress this blog puts on the importance of books having annotated bibliographies. Penguin have just published Why Politics Fails – the 5 traps of the modern world and how to escape them Ben Ansell (2023) which ends with a rare essay which covers, for each chapter, the key books the author has found essential as themes for the lens through which he examines democracy, equality, solidarity, security and prosperity.
The only other book I’ve come across with such an essay is Peter Gay’s 680 page magnum opus Modernism – the lure of heresy (2007) which has a stunning 32 page bibliographical essay which, he warned, was “highly selective”! Peter Gay was born in Germany in 1923 but his family came to the States via Havana in 1941 where he became a prolific US historian – as is evident from this Wikupedia entry. One of his books is My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin (1998), a powerful and insightful account of his teenage years in Berlin. Another which also has an extensive bib essay is Freud – a Life for our
Times (1988) whose bib essay extends to 76 pages. The book does, after all, have 1350 pages! For me, such bibliographical essays are rare gems which offer an opportunity
to understand an author’s preferences.
Why Politics Fails reviews
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