#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/5/25

I had a lovely, mostly relaxing weekend where I was able to read a few books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was "The Little Big Number" by Dirk Philipsen. The bulk of this book is a can't miss history of economic measurement and how the GDP metric came to become such an unquestioned, powerful metric across the world. This is unfortunately accompanied by a degrowth screed, which is thankfully quite short and should be skipped (if you're curious about why this stance is ridiculous, I recommend "Growth" by Susskind). Overall this book makes a good companion to the books on GDP by Coyle, as it gets much more into the weeds around the organizational and social conditions of its development, as well as deeply examining the diffusion of GDP as a core economic and political concept. Highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691166520/the-little-big-number

Next was "The Russian Economy: A Very Short Introduction" by Richard Connolly. As with all "Very Short Introduction" books, this one is brief, although inexplicably about half of it is focused on the post-Soviet economy. If that's what you're looking for this is a very useful jumping off point, but as I wanted to learn more about the Soviet period (which Connolly acknowledges was formative for the modern Russian economy) the space devoted to that was disappointingly brief. It's still an informative book, showing how consistent Russia's economic strategy has been over the centuries, as well as the dominance of the oil and gas industry and its role in propping up the economy for the last ~100 years https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-russian-economy-9780198921998

Last was "Speak Now" by Kenji Yoshino. Yoshino provides a legal scholar's view into the central case for same-sex marriage equality. This book is very focused on the trial itself, with Yoshino providing informed play-by-play and also adding his personal perspective as a married gay man with children. While this issue has faded a bit from popular consciousness over the years, it's important to remember how recent this was, and the legal reasoning Yoshino and this case provides is still enlightening. I only wish there was more background material - very little on gay rights and marriage equality more broadly is incorporated beyond a few short references. Highly recommend https://kenjiyoshino.com/KY/speak-now/