Stationary Bandit

The Winner of the Man Booker International Prize is...

Chinua Achebe.  He certainly deserved it.  I have used his books (Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease) in a course on African Economic Development I have taught for the past couple of years.  They provide nice illustrations of the transition from pre-colonial to post-colonial Nigeria.  He describes credit markets in a world without a written language, the role of legal and political systems in pre-colonial societies, and the importance of incentives in explaining corruption in post-colonial Nigeria.  Maybe next up is the Nobel Prize... (Here and here are additional articles about the award.)

Gunter Grass's Secret

This is a bit surprising.

It’s enough to make an old man cry. Just days before publication of his long-awaited autobiography entitled Peeling the Onion, Günter Grass, bleeding heart icon of the German left, has confessed he was once a member of the Nazi SS.

Story here. 

Achebe on Linguistic Colonialism

World-famous writer, Chinua Achebe has said he wrote in English language because he is a victim of linguistic colonialism, expressing need to preserve indigenous African languages in writing.

Speaking in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Achebe said also that Africans should not be overtly concerned if the long-established tradition of oral storytelling dies out.

He said "we must not lose sight of the need of our mother tongue," adding that he has made arrangements for the translation of his works, especially poetry, into Igbo language.

Story here.  As much as I have enjoyed Mr. Achebe's novels, I doubt that "linguistic colonialism" had much of a negative impact on him.  If he had not written in English, would his books have had the impact they had?  If Things Fall Apart appeared in Igbo and years later was translated into English would he have his position at Bard Collge?  I doubt it.

The Argumentative Indian

Amartya Sen's new book, The Argumentative Indian, offers his defense of public discourse as a mechanism to reduce political and social inequities as well as an interpretation of Indian history that focuses on the scientific and progressive achievements of the subcontinent.  In many ways, the book argues against any notion of a Hindu equilibrium that has constrained the Indian economy (although I did not notice Deepak Lal mentioned).  Overall, I enjoyed the book and discovered numerous books and articles to read about India that I did not know (one often has this experience when reading Sen's writings).  His chapter on Rabindranath Tagore was enjoyable as is the chapter that examines the historical relationship between China and India.

Yet, I came away from the book somewhat disappointed.  If Sen's claim are correct, then why did India stagnate economically and come under colonial rule?  If science was as vibrant as Sen argues, then why no Industrial Revolution?  If dignified discourse has been a fact of Indian life, then why has Kashmir represented such a problem? 

In my opinion, Sen overestimates the role of intellectuals in everyday life.  I got the impression that Sen believes that the existence of scientific findings and political tracts that praise democracy in Indian history is evidence to support his claims.  But what evidence is there that these statements had any impact on everyday life?  Not much that I am aware of.   Additional institutions are necessary for ideas to translate into behavioral changes.  Once we identify the missing institutions in Indian history, then we can revise Sen's claims and better understand Indian history.

A World Historian on Development

Human activity, I came to believe, is governed more by agreed-upon meanings than by external reality, yet the words we use to coordinate behavior are themselves an evolving equilibrium of signs and interact with the biological and physico-chemical equilibria in an inexhaustibly complex fashion to define what actually happens to us and to our terrestrial environment. 

This is from William H. McNeill's autobiography, page 116.  As is often the case, McNeill's discussion of the basis of civilization and the enormous creation of wealth during the past few centuries is much more insightful than most research emanating from the development community.

Red Tea Anyone?

The Toronto Star reports

A best-selling detective series set in Africa, by a Scottish writer, is creating a tea craze in Toronto.

The books, by Edinburgh law professor Alexander McCall Smith, began appearing here three years ago, starting with The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Four sequels followed, with a total of 3.5 million copies in print. Another is due this spring.

The books are rich in reassuring folk wisdom and all feature the sensible, hard-working Precious "Mma" Ramotswe.

I have started the books and so far, they are enjoyable.  Also, the "tea" is quite good as well.

Officially, the herbal tea is called rooibos (pronounced ROY-boss), after the Afrikaans word for redbush. It is made from a bush of needle-like leaves that turn red from oxidization during processing.

It is good see that books on Botswana have some marketability.

Additional Book of the Year

My recent post on Edward Prescott's thoughts regarding the budget deficit reminded me of an important book published earlier this year that I highly recommend: The Coming Generational Storm.  Written by Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, it offers a sobering analysis of the effects of an aging population on the Medicare and Social Security system.  It offers some policy recommendation to avoid a minor catastrophe that encourage optimism.  Unfortunately, success depends on public officials making difficult and unpopular decisions.

Books of the Year

The Economist has published their list of best books in 2004.  Here is the list.  The list includes Bob Dylan's "Chronicles: Volume One," Martin Wolf's "Why Globalization Works," John Lewis Gaddis's "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience," and Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America."  I have enjoyed all of these books.  I would also include Robert Fogel's "The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100" and Jagdish Bhagwati's "In Defense of Globalization." 

The Da Vinci Plagiarism?

The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 12 million copies and has been translated into 42 languages. But now two writers are suing its publishers, claiming that it was copied from their bestseller that first appeared more than 20 years ago.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh claim that Dan Brown, the 39-year-old former English teacher from New Hampshire, has "lifted the whole architecture" of the research that they carried out for their non-fiction work The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which they co-wrote with Henry Lincoln.

They claim that the similarities between the two books are such that they have no choice but to sue Random House, whose imprint Doubleday is the publisher of Brown's novel.

Leigh told the Telegraph after issuing the writ: "It's not that Dan Brown has lifted certain ideas because a number of people have done that before. It's rather that he's lifted the whole architecture - the whole jigsaw puzzle - and hung it on to the peg of a fictional thriller."

After reading both books, I have little doubt that Dan Brown lifted the architecture from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. He may have also borrowed extensively from Lewis Perdue's, Daughter of God and The Da Vinci Legacy. Here is the evidence.

Dylan on Lee

I did read a biography of Robert E. Lee, though, read about how his father had been disfigured in a riot, had lye poured into his eyes and then abandoned his family and went to the West Indies. Robert E. Lee had grown up without a father. Lee had made something out of himself, nevertheless. Not only that, but it was his word and his word alone that America did not get into a guerilla war that probably would have lasted 'til this day.

From Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Volume 1.