#AcademicRunPlaylist - 8/17/25

It was pretty toasty in Tokyo, but while observing the outside from the indoors I read some books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was "The Middle Ground" by Richard White. This book was updated in 2010, and while it still shows a bit of age in terms of naming conventions it still represents a solid history of the Great Lakes Indians from 1650-1815. While there's a bit of analysis here, it's a fairly relentless run-through of this period, rapidly following the different indigenous, European, and eventually American players through a wide range of interactions and machinations. It can be a bit challenging at times to situate the different developments - this book is probably best read with period maps at hand. What White does extremely well is demonstrate how the "middle ground" policy of Indian/European engagement was constantly returned to despite temporary disturbances through this period. Highly recommend http://cambridge.org/core/books/middle-ground/5F4044644A763E02CC77F1D90AEF865B

Next was "The Queering of Corporate America" by Carlos Ball. Ball chronicles the evolution of large US corporations from active antagonists of the LGBTQ+ community to one that until early 2025 had at least publicly professed to be allies. I wish the book pushed a bit farther back in history - it mostly starts in the '70s - but what comes out is how important activist groups were in agitating for change over the long term. This resulted in a series of small wins that eventually built into a larger trajectory that put the business community ahead of popular opinion on LGBTQ+ issues starting in the 90s. Ball ends with a thought-provoking chapter on how, in the wake of the Citizens United decision, different sane parts of the political spectrum can use the pressure that business puts on governments around LGBTQ+ issues to reconsider their stance around corporate involvement in politics. Highly recommend https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609115/the-queering-of-corporate-america-by-carlos-a-ball/

Last was "The Rise and Fall of the EAST" by Yasheng Huang. The book veers seamlessly between deep insight and radically irresponsible characterization. Huang provides an incredible view into the inner workings of the modern Chinese state and its inheritance from previous Chinese dynasties. Besides that, however, Huang periodically resurrects eugenic tropes and makes the more forgivable but still poor error of conflating "objective" with quantitative in a variety of contexts. This book also frequently contrasts with European dynasties and development, which while occasionally helpful as a contrast to China's development more often comes out as idealizing and flattening Western history. Finally, Huang employs a grab bag of stylized facts in later chapters to make ideological points, despite directly criticizing that approach earlier in the book. If you breeze through those sections, however, there's definitely useful analysis here https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300266368/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-east/