Books on Big Issues - Prefaces and marketing blurbs

I did a rare thing yesterday – I went back to the "Defending Politics" book I had just finished and reread it from beginning to end, this time more carefully marking the key sections with a pencil.

I had started my last post by saying that it was a “model of the sort of writing we need in these times” - and then went on to create a table which explored different aspects of the 8 basic arguments the book presented. 
I would now like to try to identify what it was that so impressed me – and to use that hopefully to make a wider point about the craft of publishing our thoughts

What I liked about “Defending Politics”…

- The book was short (180 pages) – almost an extended essay. You felt the guy had a thesis – and knew how to hone it down to its essentials

- The text was broken up – every third or fourth page or so had a heading or an indented section which signalled a movement in the argument. My eyes glaze over when I see a chapter of 30 pages of densely-written text - with no graphics, tables or pictures to relieve the pressue….

- each chapter gave an early hint of the basic argument it would present. This was clearly someone who had reread his text with a reader’s eye; asked himself what it was saying; and then ensured that the words actually expressed his intended meaning!

- there were lots of book references – but not of the normal sort in footnotes; or end bibliographies (which often leave me with the feeling of one up-manship!). These were, rather, short lists in the body of the text – generally exemplifying different sides of an argument.  

I readily admit to being a policy geek - and have therefore too readily exposed myself to turgid academic prose. But my patience started to wear thin some years ago with books on important topics which were simply unreadable. Life is simply too short to waste time on writers who feel they have to use clumsy sentence structure and/or pad their material with verbosity. 

A year or so ago I revealed some litmus tests I used whether to buy/read a book on any of the "Big Issues of the Day" – as well as my ten tricks for fast reading and comprehension – which are worth repeating –

How to get the most out of a non-fiction book

General

- Read a lot (from an early age!)

- Read widely (outside your discipline)

- Read quickly (skim)

- If the author doesn’t write in clear and simple language, move on to another book asap. Life’s too short……Bad writing is a good indicator of a confused mind

For each book

- before doing anything else - read the reviews (surf)

- identify the questions these suggest – you should never read a book without knowing what you want to get out of it!

- Mark (with a pencil) passages you both like and don’t like – with underlines, question-marks, ticks, comments and expletives

- Write brief notes to remind you of the main themes and arguments (this will help you remember better; and also helps build up an archive)

- see whether the author explicitly recognises and properly discusses other schools of thought than the one (s)he is pushing

- Check the bibliography at the end – to see if there are any obvious names missing (I grant you that this requires some familiarity with the subject)

This, of course, puts the onus on readers - but the real problem rests with authors and publishers...It is they who swamp our minds with thousands of titles and excessive verbosity. Greater self-discipline is needed..I suggest that, when they come to draft their Prefaces and marketing blurbs, they consider the following -  

- tell us what’s distinctive about your book; ie why you feel you need to add to what is already a huge literature on the subject

- “position” your book – at best this will require you to offer a typology of the different schools of thought on the issue
- convince us that you have not only read the “relevant literature” but that you have done so with a reasonably open mind; At best, offer an annotated list of key reading - with your preferences. This will give us a sense of your stance and fairness

- give a “potted version” of each chapter. Most think-tank reports have executive summaries. I don’t know why more authors don’t adopt the same approach. Amazon, some publishers and Google offer free access to excerpts – but the selections are fairly random.

- use more tables….and graphics

the concerned citizen is very badly served

You would think that, after the last decade of the global crisis, it would not be difficult to find a few impartial books clearly written by those familiar with the huge literature and which help the concerned citizen understand how exactly the crash happened; and whether any measures could realistically rekindle hope….  

We have thousands of books about the causes of the global economic crisis of 2007/08 which pin blame, variously, on banks, speculators and a score of other explanations - but few have actually been written which satisfy the five preconditions which the previous paragraph specifies - in relation to impartiality, clarity, knowledge, audience and prescription ……

Almost all are rather produced to argue an existing (partial) viewpoint; are written for students (to pass exams) or for other academics – rather than for the concerned citizen; and cover only those parts of the literature which the author’s job and/or inclinations require him/her to pay attention to…. (the last therefore excludes, for example, work which comes from the political economy (eg Susan Strange; Mark Blyth); or sociology (Wolfgang Streeck) fields…

I have a simple test for whether a book on the crisis is worth buying - go the Preface/Introduction and check how many of the key points are covered (award one point for each)–

- Does it say why yet another book is needed to add to the huge pile we already have?

- Does it argue that the book has something distinctive to say?

- is anything said about the audience the author is aiming at?

- Does it hint that there are different schools of thinking about the issue?

- No book can be comprehensive – does the author list what subjects (s)he has excluded?

- Is there an annotated further reading list in an annex?

I can’t say I was greatly helped when I googled phrases such as “best sellers in the global crisis” - I got a list of 100 books – but nothing to help me make a selection. 
I did, however, find this annotated list of 12 from someone who was writing his own book and recounted how difficult it was to get past the book buyers of the major companies, 
And there was a rare annotated list of 25 “must read” (mostly American) books on the crisis on an interesting website Planning beyond Capitalism - but its selection was understandably a bit light on books from other ideological stables…
Economics for Everyone in a very friendly-looking book which can actually be downloaded in full (all 360 pages!!) and has an excellent “further reading” list. Zombie Economics - how dead ides still walk among us; by John Quiggin (2010) is a great read    

And here's an introductory course on economics whose 11 sections have some good reading (and viewing) material - with hyperlinks.....

I’m currently sifting all the references I’ve made in my thousand plus blogposts about the issue – to see if I can come up with a commentary which might help others in my position…The names which figure are the following (in no particular order) – Michael Lewis, Michael Hudson, Martin Wolff, David Korten, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Mason, Will Hutton, Paul Hirst, Andrew Gamble, Herman Daly, Susan George, Mark Blyth, Wolfgang Streeck, David Harvey, Michel Albert, Colin Crouch, David Marquand…

If asked to make a single recommendation, I would plump fairly confidently for Mark Blyth’s Austerity – the history of a dangerous idea But I’m sure there is another book out there which I could recommend to the concerned citizen?  

At least, people are now prepared to call the system by its name – “capitalism” – before the crisis, this was a word which rarely passed people’s lips. Now the talk everywhere is not only of capitalism but “post-capitalism”…….And an encouraging American initiative The Next System had an initial report – The Next System Report – political possibilities for the 21st Century (2015) which contains extensive references to writing I had not so far encountered and to good community practice in various parts of the world.  It has since followed up with a series of worthwhile papers.

Update; there's a useful bibliography here - if a bit outdated and American. And I've also just uploaded  Economics for Everyone  – a short guide to the economics of capitalism” by Jim Stanford (2008 - all 360 pages) which I would strongly recommend