City of Scoundrels by Gary Krist

Ever had one of those weeks when it seems like everything that can go wrong did go wrong? I am sure most, if not all of us, can answer yes to this question, but it would be very difficult to identify when as many situations went wrong as they in Chicago during July, 1919. These situations are all recounted in Gary Krist’s new book City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago. Krist is the also the author of The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche.

Krist opens the book with the dramatic retelling of the crash of the Wingfoot Air Express on July 21^st of 1919. The author provides personal accounts of several victims and survivors and how they came to their fate on that day, including the tale of the unfortunate Carl Otto. As the book unfolds we are taken inside the courtroom during the coroner’s inquiry as representatives from Goodyear arrive to take financial responsibility as they defended against charges of negligence.

Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

For all dedicated macro economists and anyone who wants some good news as to the future of the United State’s economy, Why Nations Fail is a book that I highly recommended for you. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty is a new book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Daron Acemoglu is the Killian Professor of Economics at MIT and James Robinson is the David Florence Professor of Government at Harvard University.

This delightful book is the most extensively researched and easy to follow ‘pure’ economics book that I have read. I classify this as a ‘pure’ economics books as opposed to the recent and popular behavioral economics books, such as those by Steven Levitt (see Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything), which themselves are also well researched and written but focus on topics more familiar to a larger number  of readers. The goal of Why Nations Fail is to explain just that; why some nations fail while others succeed. This goal is obtained by providing very simple concepts supported by an abundance of historical and modern day case studies.

Don’t worry if you are an economics novice, Why Nations Fail does not require any pre-requisite degrees, classes or knowledge of economics!

The book opens with a brief account of the recent events in Egypt. As we are all aware, the citizens of Egypt have not been happy with their plight and have recently risen up to precipitate changes within the government. The interesting question that only time will answer is will a regime change in Egypt lead to any increased prosperity for its citizens? This book explores the factors that will determine the fate of Egyptians.

The Man Without a Face by Masha Gessen

As the 2012 Presidential elections are gearing up consider this scenario; the sitting US Vice-President leaves office and is replaced by an obscure government official about which little is known. The President then steps aside and the relatively unknown VP is now sitting on the Oval Office. The new President begins to methodically revert the country back to less democratic days; say by removing women’s right to vote and eliminating the direct election of Senators until more and more power is concentrated at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Does this sound like the farfetched plot of a bad movie? Unfortunately not. An eerily similar scenario has played itself out in Russia starring Vladimir Putin according to the new book The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen. Gessen, a well-established author and journalist and citizen of both Russia and the United States, has written what is likely her most aggressive and controversial work.

Admitting to myself that I am not at all familiar with the former and now again President of Russia I was interested in learning how unlikely his rise to power truly was. The one shortcoming of the book is that Gessen is not able to fully explain, which is likely due to a lack of clear, reputable information, Putin’s rise from humble beginnings to the leadership of the country. This shortcoming is quickly overlooked because the book paints a very vivid and frightening picture of recent developments in Russia during the Putin regime.

Island of Vice: A Q&A with author Richard Zacks

Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York by Richard Zacks, is also the author of The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 and The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd.

Island of Vice tells the fascinating and often funny story of when young Theodore Roosevelt was appointed police commissioner of New York City, and had the astounding gall to try to shut down the brothels, gambling joints, and after-hours saloons. See my book review here.

Thanks Richard for taking time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions.

Q: Why did you write Island of Vice?

A: Among other reasons, I wrote it so that I would be paid to research vice in 1890s NYC. I had started a novel and realized that there was a better non-fiction book idea here. I loved finding authentic 1890s details about brothels, etc. and also watching this strange experiment in municipal government: Tammany Hall's pay-as-you-go vs. Roosevelt's righteous by-the-book crusade. Ultimately neither approach in its most extreme form is feasible.

Q: In the book you relate how after Roosevelt left the Police Commissioner position, New York City regressed further back into a world of vice. How much of the blame for this should be placed on Roosevelt’s successors?