Reading as a Conversation

Some months back I offered some hints to identify whether a book was worth reading 

-       check the Introduction – or Preface. This is the author’s chance to show (s)he understands how overwhelmed we are by the choices; to offer us a convincing argument about why (s)he has to inflict yet another book on us. And the best way to do that is to give a brief summary of what others have written and identify the missing elements which make a book necessary. Books which fail even to attempt that prove that the author is living in a bubble... 

-       Look for a summary of each chapter…..I have always liked the old habit of prefacing a book chapter with an explanation of what that chapter will deal with. When I got hold recently of George Bernard Shaw’s The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism; (1928) it was to discover that his Table of Contents has no fewer than 33-pages..

-       Look, at the end, for a (short) list of recommended reading, ideally with notes explaining the choice. Most books have a long “bibliography” which, I’ve taken to calling a “virility test” - demonstrating nothing more than (a barely compressed sense of) superiority. I want instead to see a shorter (and annotated) list for several reasons - partly to smoke out the author’s prejudices; partly to see how honest (s)he is; and partly to see how well (s)he writes    

-       Make sure that the writing is clear – with suitable use of graphics and tables which are needed both to break up and to illustrate the text…. 

But I also need to be persuaded that the book in question has three other features --

- respects the basic facts about an issue;

- has a coherent “narrative structure” (here’s a good example of a book which lacked this)

- refers to the various sides of the key arguments on the issue  

And this can be done only by checking the reviews. 

These, of course, are just my views. Different sorts of people have different methods  of productive or active reading.

Those who want to know more about how to extract most benefit from a book should have a look at the classic How to Read a Book (1965) by Mortimer Adler whose first edition  was actually written in 1940. Part I is best skimmed – the meat of the book is from chapter 7

Adler divides what he calls “inspectional reading” into two categories. The first is skimming; the second is superficial reading. 

Skimming is the most effective tool for discovering those truly great books you want to read.

If upon skimming a book, you realize it doesn’t hold your interest or have new information, that’s a success. It means you’ve made your way through a title in just a few minutes instead of spending a couple hours to arrive at that conclusion. If you realize you are interested in the text, you’ve guaranteed you’ll enjoy reading the entire book.

For any non-fiction book we read, we should be able to answer a few questions after spending just a few minutes with the book. First, what kind of book is it? Is it explanatory or expounding? Is the purpose of the book to explain how something works, or to convince the reader to take a certain action? Broadly, what is the author trying to say? The purpose of skimming is to learn these answers quickly – at a bird’s perspective – and have a feel for the style of the author. 

This is actually an excerpt from a post with the great title of How to never read another boring book by Elizabeth Peterson in which she shares her approach to active reading. 

Chapter names and summaries
Inspect the table of contents for chapter titles and descriptions. The chapter titles will reveal how the information is organized. Older books often include descriptions or outlines about the organization of individual chapters. This is also useful for when you want to read about a specific idea or piece of research. 

Index
Look through the index to see the individuals, concepts, studies, etc., the author references in the book. This is will give you an idea of what ideas or research, if any, the book presents, and a blueprint of their arguments. You’ll also be able to see quickly whether the book covers any ideas or ground that is new to you. Additionally, you might choose to go straight to a certain chapter to see the research on a given topic. 

Publisher’s Blurb and Preface
The publisher’s blurb often includes a summary of the author’s arguments and conclusion, making it a great resource for answering basic questions about the book. You may be inclined to dismiss the publisher’s blurb as empty praise to convince you to read or buy the book or simple adulation for the author – and you may be right in some instances. However, you should definitely read the blurb to find out.
Likewise, in their prefaces or “notes to the reader”, authors often include interesting observations or references which didn’t make it into the final version of the book. The preface also usually includes the author’s hopes for the books stated clearly. 

Introduction
If the book has an introduction, read it. There is often so much good information added here that the author thought was important, but for whatever reason, couldn’t include in the body of the book. Often, a chapter or passage got cut from the final version of the book, so the author included those resources or ideas for the reader in an introduction. With older books, the introduction often explains the cultural setting and ideas the author was addressing at the time. Contemporary titles often include references to similar or related work, for you to read next. The editor may also have notes explaining why the book is structured in a particular way. 

Final chapter
Finally, look through the end of the final chapter. As Adler advises, “Few authors are able to resist the temptation to sum up what they think is new and important about their work in these pages. You do not want to miss this, even though, as sometimes happens, the author himself may be wrong in his judgment.” 

Having read all or most of these key passages, we can now explain the conversation the book is joining, the major arguments the author includes, and their conclusion. Instead of sinking a couple hours into a book we may or may not finish, we now know the major points and whether we want to read the entire book. This brief skimming may very well be all the time you need to spend with a book. 

And here’s another fascinating read – which introduces me to the benefits of a book’s Index! 

-       The index is everything

-       Use the Table Of Contents as the skeleton

-       Preview with the preface 

The Index is Everything

You can take any path you want, but for me, the index is my first stop after the title. Armed with a guess of the book's point of view from the title, I use the index to understand what topics we’re going to cover and hopefully how we’re going to approach them. 

If you want to play along, open that non-fiction book you haven’t read yet — or just see the example below. Look through the index, notice what topics are covered, and more importantly, at what depth. If an author is spending a good deal of pages on something, make a note of that topic.

Remember, what we’re trying to do with this process is answer two questions: what is this book about, and, am I interested in reading it? I’ll take a look at a random book from my bookshelf and look through the index, right now. Turns out this book is Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. 

Ok, first index page...boom! What do I see? What stands out? What topics get a lot of coverage? What seems interesting or out of place? 

What is this book trying to get across?

For Homo Deus, it looks like this author is trying to set up a new paradigm called Dataism. It might be related to scaling human cooperation, and he seems to be supporting his thesis with some tenets from techno-humanism, pre-existing religions, and probably some AI for extra spice.

Am I interested? Eh, kinda. Enough to delve deeper for sure.  

The Table Of Contents is the Skeleton of a Book

Once I’m armed with a handy-dandy list of topics culled from the index, I compare my index map with the good old TOC (table of contents). The TOC is the skeleton of the book, and the terms from the indexes you grabbed earlier are like the fleshed-out limbs. 

The TOC shows the way the author wants you to understand the progression of the book. (Like the title, authors also think about what the TOC looks like.) It gives you the big picture of the approach. Then the index helps you fill in the types and level of details. 

You could start your process at the TOC if you want to, but I have found that starting with the index and overlaying that research on top of TOC is most helpful. 

It looks like Harari takes a historical view of humanity as he leads us to what is coming next—if I can assume as much, because it’s the final chapter of his book: “The Data Religion.” And when I look at the index and account for the way page numbers and chapters align, I can see the stuff about “Dataism” is overlaid against a chapter titled “The Data Religion.”

My best guess right now is that this book is about how we will organize ourselves using data in the future instead of religion.

Do this for a few minutes. Build a rough map in your mind of the book. It’s sort of like connecting the dots between the chapter titles in the TOC and the topics and page numbers listed in the index. All of the above takes 5-15 minutes and is really a simplified version of “inspectional reading,” popularized by Adler and van Doren, which is just a more methodological skimming or “pre-reading” process. Once we’ve answered the question of what the book is about, the remaining question—and indeed the main question—remains. 

Do you care?

If not, throw the notecard in the front pages somewhere (for future reference) and toss the book back on the shelf. Maybe, if you are interested in knowing more, spend an hour or two reading some of the sections that interest you. For instance, with Homo Deus, I’m likely to read a few index points and the final chapter on Dataism. 

But, before I do any of that, I always skim the preface.  

Preview with the Preface 

In the preface, good authors will tell you right away what the book is about and where it is going. In that way, the preface is like the trailer to a movie. Maybe you see Ben Affleck and Pee Wee Herman are co-starring and lose interest. Maybe the author makes a point you never thought of, and you become more interested. Follow that instinct. 

I’ll get through a preface in about 5 minutes. Skimming is my friend—I don’t need to memorize or meditate too deeply on it. It’s mostly just to make sure my mental map is on the money. 

The preface and the index are indispensable to understanding what the book is about. So far, all we are trying to understand is: what is this book trying to get across? 

How to Extract the Knowledge Nuggets

So how do I get those useful knowledge nuggets? I use the index map (page numbers) and again, I follow my interests or problem-solving needs. I start by reading the pages corresponding to the seemingly useful parts from the index. Yeah, right in the middle of the book. Feel free to just start reading on page 212. Seriously.

For instance, from the index map above, do I really want to understand what the “biological poverty line” is? Or did some other topic seem more interesting? This is where I break free of the author's structure, and delve into the book to find the pieces I need or that I want to know. 

I suggest following a topic over multiple chapters, so if the author starts talking about something on page 2, picks it up again on pages 25-29, and then again at 101-105, read those pages in sequence. Other interesting topics might be mentioned along the way. If so, add those to your map and find their places in the index. Let curiosity and interest take the lead.  

Interact with the Book

Writing in the margins and taking notes is also a huge part of this process for me; underlining words and marking up pages. I like to draft points to myself—notes, ideas, thoughts. If it’s a hard copy of a book I’ll use a pencil. If it’s digital, I’ll use the built-in notes app.

One thing I appreciate about notations in a book is that it allows you to track your thinking about the book over time. If you do end up coming back later, these little notes can serve the same purpose that commenting your code does.  

It’s been a long read – so here’s a video from Ryan Holiday – one of at least three people who have made a profession out of helping us find our way through this pro- and con- fusion of books, the others being Tom Butler-Bowden who has produced a very useful series of book summaries; and Robert Greene who produces superbly-designed books covering such central topics as War, Strategy, Seduction, Mastery and Human Nature and whose working methods are nicely described here.

The picture is "Conversation" by Rene Magritte

How to Fix the World?

I’ve managed to keep my head down and get a sense of the first 6/7 books in my list of some 30 I felt I needed to look at to spark off some movement in my brain cells as I try to write a satisfactory conclusion to the text I’ve been working on for some years about the various global crises we confront (the 1st of the E-books listed in top-right corner). These are the books – and my initial reactions… 

Title	What I make of them
Development Betrayed – the end of progress and a coevolutionary revisioning of the future; Richard Norgaard (1994)	A book ahead of its time – with its distaste for modernity and progress and our loss of community. It’s strong on the philosophical mistakes we’ve made but the gloom of its first half made it difficult to sustain the reading. Need to return for the positive messages
The Third Way and Beyond – criticisms, futures and alternatives ed Hale, Leggett and Martell (2004)	There was a moment in the late 1990s when the idea of “stakeholding” (Hirst; Hutton) offered a different concept of the company and of capitalism – but Tony Blair blew the opportunity. I’ve just come across this book – which seems to capture the possibilities of that time…..
Common Ground – democracy and collectivity in an age of individualism Jeremy Gilbert (2013)	The title certainly points to what I consider the central dilemma of our times – although Gilbert’s language is too suffused with French “constructivist” thinking to make much sense to me….
Unaccountable – how the elite brokers corrupt; Janine Wedel (2014)	Wedel is an anthropologist – and gives a powerful account here of the corruption at the heart of the American economic and political system. A bit light on prescriptions
Rebalancing  Society – radical renewal beyond left, right and center Henry Mintzberg (2015)	One of my favourite little books which I’ve brought in as a measure for the other books. He’s basically got it all – strong analysis of what’s wrong; recognition of the importance of worker coops and social enterprise; and of the need for a shift in power
Back to the future of Socialism Peter Hain (2015)	Most of the books in the table are by academics but this one is by that rarity – a thoughtful and caring politician. The title is a reference to the classic 1956 “Future of Socialism” and is a useful update – although it has been criticised for being too much of a defence of New Labour
Reclaiming the State – a progressive vision of sovereignty in a post neo-liberal world Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi (2017)	written by an Australian economist and Italian journalist, this is an excellent analysis of the various forces which both weakened the state and strengthened the forces of privilege and reaction You get the sense that leftist parties and governments just rolled over…The last half of the book focuses on 3 issues – modern monetary theory, UBI and nationalisation

 As usual, however, I’ve been diverted by other tantalising titles – not least Gordon Brown’s new book "Seven Way to Change the World" 

I have always had mixed feelings about Brown - admiration at one level for his mind but awareness that he could be a bit clunky and overwhelming.

I still have memories of going to meet him for lunch in 1974 when he had invited me to contribute to his famous "Red Paper on Scotland" . I had just been elected to one of the top positions in Europe's largest Region and he, I was thinking at the time, is a bit of a young upstart - being talked about even in his early 20s as a future Prime Minister. 

But I must have hidden such feelings well - since he asked me a few years later to write one of the chapters of a book he and Robin Cook edited about inequality in "Scotland; the Real Divide".

He may have been out of power now for more than a decade - but he is extraordinarily well-connected to the global intellectual elite and, if anyone's capable, of getting their mind around the key issues confronting us, it's him.

My gut feeling is that he is too much of an ivory-tower "policy wonk" to be able to communicate with us - but the title he's chosen shows that he knows he's got to get the level right.....even if the sub-title “how to fix the most pressing problems we face” is a bit hubristic.

But this was ever Gordon’s problem – a confidence that targets and incentives could fix problems….Interesting to see that the phrase also creeps into the title also of Ed Miliband’s new book….What does this tell us? 

Other tempting titles are -

Title	Why the book seems relevant
Rethinking Governance – the centrality of the State; S Bell and A Hindmoor (2009)	It was a rare voice in those days actually making the case for strategic government
Power and Love – the theory and practice of social change; Adam Kahane (2010)	One of 3 important books I missed in those years demonstrating the lessons the burgeoning social movement offered for a revitalised democratic practice – Kahane being now a Canadian consultant in reconciliation and change
Can Democracy be Saved? Participation, deliberation, social movements; Della Porta (2013)	Della Porta is Italian and one of the world’s most prolific writers on social movements
Waves of Democracy – social movements and political change; John Markoff (1996 - 2013)	And Markoff is a Pittsburgh Prof of political science
Dangerous Years – climate change, the long emergency and the way forward; David W Orr (2016)	David Orr is one of the most serious academic ecologists. This interview gives a good sense of the book’s argument
Human Scale Revisited – a new look at the classic case for a decentralist future; Kirkpatrick Sale (2017)	An updating of an important 1950s book which has long fascinated me
Democracy and Prosperity – reinventing capitalism through the century of turbulence T Iversen and D Soskice (2019)	This is a pretty academic book – taking us through the very important literature on “Varieties of Capitalism”
Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire; Rebecca Henderson (2020)	A powerful book which pursues the critical question of whether capitalism can actually change for the better. Henderson thinks it can – an argument I look forward to hearing!
Inequality and the labyrinths of democracy; Goeran Therborn (2020)	The possibility that capitalism is inconsistent with democracy has become an increasingly loud question in recent years – and is here magisterially addressed
Market Economy, Market Society; interviews and essays on the future of European social democracy; ed M Adereth (2021)	What looks a fascinating contribution to the discussion from the Iberian peninsula
Seven Ways to Change the World – how to fix the world’s most pressing problems; G Brown (2021)	Brown is the most serious and well-read of global ex-leaders –as is shown in this excellent review
Go Big – how to fix our world; Ed Miliband (2021)	another defeated ex-Leader of the Labour party, Miliband doesn’t quite have Brown's gravitas – but gets a suitably serious assessment analysis from the other side of the Atlantic here

 

GroupThink – what always brings power down

One of the features of systems of power is what Noam Chomsky has called “Manufacturing Consent” – or the insidious imprinting by national educational systems and media empires of simplistic stories of heroes, villains and other questionable narratives….. Unfortunately, however, for the powerful they end up believing their own propaganda – dissenters who suggest that the world is not as the official organs are portraying it are ridiculed and marginalised.

“Groupthink” came into our language as a result of a 1972 book - and Paul t’Hart’s subsequent  “Groupthink in Government” (1994) helped spawn a veritable industry…

Organisations and governments should therefore all be alive to the dangers of complacency and some indeed have gone to the lengths of appointing “devil’s advocates” to challenge the status quo…. “Rebel Ideas” is a recent good read on this. 

But, somehow, all the checks consistently fail – as we have just seen, tragically, in Afghanistan. To many of us, of course, we should never have been there in the first place but the question on everyone’s lips these days is how on earth so-called “intelligence” – let alone the “chattering classes” - could have got things so wrong. It is a question that seems to have been recurring rather too frequently these past few years – vide Brexit and Trump 

One of the answers is that people have been looking in the wrong places – if they really wanted answers about Afghanistan, they should have been asking basic questions about money flows and social systems.

-      Take, for example, this report just issued by the independent British Think-tank ODI – Lessons for Peace which demonstrates that the cash from the poppy trade outstrips disbursements from the Kabul government by a factor of 10 to 1.

-      Or this short article from Anatol Lieven that explains the role that social networks have played in the collapse of any resistance to the Taliban 

But Presidents and governments prefer to listen to the assured voices of the military who promise victory – and seem to have a built-in resistance to listening to the doubtsayers who bring bad news….. And, since the start of the Vietnam war, there have been any number of voices questioning the conventional wisdom. One of the most prominent has been Paul Rogers (suffering perhaps from his designation as Professor of Peace Studies – although increasingly recognised by security advisers). Even before 9/11 he was making the argument against the belief that military power could defeat guerrilla tactics – as you can see from his collected writing here 

Update; 

Of all the analysis I've seen since the weekend about the Afghan tragedy, this is the best I've read. It's from a marvellous small weekly E-journal Scottish Review

Tariq Ali has a good briefing - another excellent source of information is here

But perhaps the best is this recent briefing from a couple of anthropologists who worked in the country some decades ago and this one from an unknown pakistani  

The Importance of Critical Reading

Five weeks ago, I shared a list of books which I felt would help me as I tried to draft a conclusion to the book I’ve been working on for the past few years about the sense of crisis which has gripped us westerners since the start of the new millennium.

I confessed that I was one of these gullible readers who imagined that reading would somehow transmit important messages to my brain – and that I lacked the patience to formulate some questions with which to interrogate a book before I opened it… 

And lo – after 5 weeks – despite having recognised the importance of these books, I’ve failed utterly to follow through. The books lie unread – perhaps because I couldn’t be bothered to pose the sorts of questions which would help me identify those sections of books which seemed to offer answers

So, I’m having another go – but I never learn….I’ve added a few more books!! 

But, this time, I’ll start at the beginning – and try to work my way through the list – gradually…..hopefully posting as I go?  

The first column gives the book titles – in chronological order – starting with the earliest. The second column explains why I think they could be useful 

Title	First Impressions
Development Betrayed – the end of progress and a coevolutionary revisioning of the future; Richard Norgaard (1994)	A profound and clearly-written explanation of what has gone wrong….To keep the narrative going the main text avoids footnotes and references which are put at the end in a superb 65=page set of bibliographic notes
Why the Third Way Failed – economics, morality and the origins of ”the big society”; Bill Jordan (2010)	This, for a social democrat, is one of the most important questions – why did a consensual approach which rebuffs both left and right ideologies fail? Was it the absence of a serious approach? Or are we doomed to be tribal?
Common Ground – democracy and collectivity in an age of individualism Jeremy Gilbert (2013)	The title certainly points to what I consider the central dilemma of our times – although Gilbert’s language is too suffused with French “constructivist” thinking to make much sense to me….what, for example, are we supposed to make of this section – “It explores the implications of ideas of affect for a non-individualist conception of political agency, and goes on to develop these ideas with reference to philosophical reflections on the nature of decision to be found in the work of Derrida, Levinas and Laclau. The chapter then asks what some of the political and analytic implications might be of such a conception of agency, in particular what the implications might be for thinking about cultural and aesthetic experience, examining the arguments for and against Nicolas Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ and the ongoing value of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque”
Unaccountable – how the elite brokers corrupt; Janine Wedel (2014)	Wedel is an anthropologist – and applies those skills to the contemporary political system of the USA
Rebalancing  Society – radical renewal beyond left, right and center Henry Mintzberg (2015)	One of my favourite little books which I’ve brought in as a measure for the other books. He’s basically got it all – strong analysis of what’s wrong; recognition of the importance of worker coops and social enterprise; and of the need for a shift in power
Back to the future of Socialism Peter Hain (2015)	Most of the books in the table are by academics but this one is by that rarity – a thoughtful and caring politician. The title is a reference to the classic 1956 “Future of Socialism” and is a useful update
Reclaiming the State – a progressive vision of sovereignty in a post neo-liberal worldBill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi (2017)	I like the look of this book – written by an Australian economist- which, unusually for the time, argued for a more activist role for the state. His co-author, interestingly, is an Italian journalist. It’s just that I get impatient with economic arguments these days
A Research Agenda for Neoliberalism Kean Birch (2017)	Seems to be one of these rare clearly- written books which asks the questions citizens want answers to. He seems to be a sociologist?
Wrong Turnings – how the left got lost; Geoff Hodgson (2018)	Hodgson is both a political economist and social democrat and has a strong analysis here
Why the Left Loses – the decline of the centre left in comparative perspective; R Manwaring and P Kennedy (2018)	The classic book on social democracy (Berman) was published 15 years ago. This is a more recent assessment from Australians which looks at the lessons from recent experience. See reading list here
Is Socialism Feasible? Geoffrey Hodgson (2019)	Hodgson writes clearly - and is prepared to face hard truths
From What Is to What If – unleashing the power of imagination to create the world we want Rob Hopkins (2019).	Hopkins is an environmental activist who founded the Resilient Towns movement.
The Demons of Liberal Democracy; Adrian Pabst (2019)	Pabst is a Third Way man who abhors left and right. I felt this would challenge some of my preconceptions
Winners take all – the elite charade of changing the world; A Girdiharadas (2019)	One of the problems progressives have is that the devil has stolen a lot of his tunes.
Goliath – the 100-year war between monopoly power and democracy; Matt Stoller (2019)	very important review suggests the author has swallowed the liberal competition ideas of economists too literally; and has underestimated the power of class struggle in the post-war US achievements
The Free Society in Crisis; David Starkey (2019)	Have included this curious book largely from admiration of the author’s courage in limiting his reading list to books that are more than 50 years old
The evolution of communitarian ideas – history, theory and practice Henry Tam (2019)	Communitarianism is an important strand of progressive thought Tam is a very thoughtful and excellent writer who blogs here
The Third Pillar – how the market and the state leave the community behind Raghuram Rajan (2019)	an overdue analysis of the huge role which community bodies have to play in the future which was all too easily dismissed by the loose talk of ”The Third Way” and the ”Big Society”.  Although we do have to ask why it is that ideas apparently attractive to mainstream opinion were never taken seriously....
The New Class War – saving democracy from the new managerial elite; Michael Lind (2020)	I want to like this book – but feel the argument that managerial power needs taking down is hardly likely in itself to lead to the rebalance of power we need
Twenty-First Century Socialism; Jeremy Gilbert (2020)	This is a short and very readable book.
Unrigged – how Americans are battling back to save democracy; David Daley (2020)	The book may have a focus on the US but the move to discredit democracy and disenfranchise voters is widespread (eg contemporary UK) as is evident from books with titles such as “Against Democracy” (2016)
Rentier Capitalism – who owns the economy? Brett Christophers (2020)	A British economist gives us a good sense of the curious direction the British economy has taken. Strongly influenced by the work of US economist Michael Hudson, famous for his “Killing the Host” and “J is for Junk Economics”
Futures of Socialism – the pandemic and the post-Corbyn Era; ed G Blakewell (2020)	A series of short, succinct statements from pro-Corbyn social scientists working in the UK. Gives a very good sense of what is currently fashionable
Authoritarianism and how to counter it; Bill Jordan (2020)	The sociology author of ”Why the Third Way failed” takes on the question of why voters have turner again to ”the hard men” and what we can do about it...
Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century ; Andreas Malm (2020)	Malm is a Swedish economic historian/ecologist who has become, in the past decade, one of the most radical of the global warming campaigners. In this latest book, he explores the very different paths governments have taken faced with the Corona and Climate challenges; and maps out a very different route…  There’s an interesting interview with him here
Share the Wealth – how to end rentier capitalism; Philippe Askenazy (2021)	Too many anglo-saxon economists dominate this field – so it’s good to get a French view (a translation of a 2016 book)
Mission Economy – a moonshot guide to changing capitalism; Mariana Mazzucato (2021)	This Italian economist now based in Britain is one of the few economists who has been prepared to argue strongly for public investment and an activist role for government – see also Bill Mitchell (above) and Andrew Cumbers
Consequences of Capitalism; Noam Chomsky and Mary Waterstone (2021)	Very disappointing book – based on recent lectures delivered by Chomsky. And it shows….with the narrative often jumping into distracting stories.
Post Growth – life after capitalism ; Tim Jackson (2021)	The elephant in the room…. Written in a refreshingly accessible style
The Return of the State – restructuring Britain for the Common Good Ed P Allen et al (2021)	A book calling for a rethink on globalisation and the place of financial capital – with contributions from people such as Robert Skidelsky, Ann Pettifor and Stewart Lansley – questioning the role of financial capital.