It wasn't quite as warm as yesterday, but I still went out for a nice run and listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great conversation with Robert Miller on liability-management exercises on the Business Scholarship Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbGubPzsFh0

Next was a fantastic discussion between Ann Lipton and Michael Levin on the ins and outs of the EngageSmart controller lawsuit and a refreshing examination of why companies are agitating for state regulators to constrain proxy advisors on the Shareholder Primacy Podcast. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CJkoblZ4sY

Next was "Habits of Empire" by Walter Nugent. This book examines the long, continuous history of US territorial aggression, mostly vis-a-vis other Western powers. The detail in these areas is excellent, detailing the wrangling between different European powers (and eventually Mexico) and the US and how a combination of subtle invasions and outright war was the drumbeat of American growth. Nugent has a weird fixation on population growth, which given that the US looks like essentially every Western European country of the time from that perspective doesn't lend much credence to that being a uniquely American trait. He does do a good job documenting the overthrow of Hawaii and the Philippines as well. However. Native Americans are barely mentioned until chapter 8, and even then passed over after a few pages. You'll see here repeated long discredited myths of Indian disappearance and the inevitability of their decline in power, marshalling essentially no evidence to support that conclusion. Taken as a whole, I look at this book as a great version of the history I was taught as a kid - overly narrow but rigorous in what it focuses on. If you keep that in mind I can highly recommend it https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/122989/habits-of-empire-by-walter-nugent/

Last was "Fatherhood" by Augustine Sedgewick. This book is best viewed as a collection of short biographies of white men who made important contributions to Western thought over the millennia. This makes for engaging reading but little insight into the nature of fatherhood itself or how it changed over the centuries. It's a shame, because "Coffeeland" by Sedgewick is incredible. There are hints of what the book could have been in the conclusion, but overall it ends up only delivering a few good nuggets on historical figures https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fatherhood/Augustine-Sedgewick/9781668046296