by Thant Myint-U
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The Struggle for Egypt
by Steven A. Cook
(Oxford, $28)
Steven Cook’s new history offers “invaluable insights to anyone interested in how Egypt came to its present impasse,” said Thanassis Cambanis in The New York Times. A fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Cook goes back to the 1952 military coup to re-create Egypt’s decline “from pride of the Arab world to shameful decaying autocracy.” Though he “isn’t trying to tell us why Egyptians revolted in 2011, or what might come next,” Cook’s “perceptive analysis helps us answer both questions.”
Stealth of Nations
by Robert Neuwirth
(Pantheon, $26)
Step onto the streets of the developing world and you’ll encounter the entrepreneurs who operate in an informal economy known as “System D,” said Marc Levinson in The Wall Street Journal. Westerners may pity unlicensed taxi drivers in Nigeria, or knockoff-handbag producers in China, but many System D merchants are prosperous. This fascinating book may oversell the value of off-the-books business, but it “challenges conventional thinking about what it means for an economy to develop.”
Instant City
by Steve Inskeep
(Penguin, $28)
“A tribute to Karachi is long overdue,” said Akbar Ahmed in The Washington Post. The Pakistani city was transformed almost overnight from a “sleepy coastal town” into a “sprawling metropolis of 13 million” because of refugees fleeing regional conflicts. Choosing a typically violent day in the city’s life—Dec. 28, 2009, when Sunnis attacked a Shiite procession—Inskeep provides a portrait of Karachi that reveals both its dangers and its “big, courageous, and even generous heart.”
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Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
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'This is a coordinated campaign of harassment'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
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Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”