I’m still a bit jet lagged, but I’m finally home with the family and this guy! On the long flight home I was also able to listen to books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was “Voyagers” by Nicholas Thomas. This book is a historical triumph, with Thomas deftly weaving together deep historical and archaeological data to provide a revelatory account of the Pacific Islands without unduly privileging European perspectives. Importantly, by using more modern understandings of migratory history Thomas insightfully parses the different early written accounts to help give clarity to the relationships between different islands, political trajectories, lifeways, and navigational techniques. This is not a long book, and so it doesn't go very deep on any particular people, and so rather serves as an authoritative overarching entry point to this region's history. Highly recommend https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/nicholas-thomas/voyagers/9781541620056/

Last was “Ages of American Capitalism” by Jonathan Levy. This book is an absolute tome, mostly using that length to provide a fairly undistinguished individual-focused chronology of American economic history. There's little analysis here, with the reader given the task to actually connect the different individual case studies and events into a theory of larger themes. The analysis is also fairly dated - nearly completely ignoring Native Americans, focusing pretty much exclusively on white men's economic conditions (albeit at least sometimes acknowledging it), etc. Levy inexplicably doesn't take on the role of capitalism in driving slavery, despite spending time with causality on a number of other, much less important, issues. Unsurprisingly, a clear Chicago School ethos is present throughout. He even has the audacity to say we don't know what to call the American economic system after 1980 (hint: it rhymes with "leo-niberalism"). Similarly giving neoliberalism credit for ending Jim Crow policies is laughable, as is the on brand Chicago School criticism of the literally never before or since reproduced economic growth of the New Deal era.

These shortcomings are a shame, as there are some fascinating nuggets buried within this volume. Macro economic conditions and capital concentration metrics during the Civil War in particular stood out. In addition, Levy provides citations to so many primary sources and period texts that simply as a pointer to references this book is undeniably impressive. If only the analysis was as similarly compelling https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227741/ages-of-american-capitalism-by-jonathan-levy/