Want to know what books David Frum recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of David Frum's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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The #1 bestseller in Latin America for the past year, this book describes underdeveloped countries of the Third World and how their internal economies and political alliances function. Photographs. more The #1 bestseller in Latin America for the past year, this book describes underdeveloped countries of the Third World and how their internal economies and political alliances function. Photographs. less 
David FrumThe Other Path is not a book on the Peruvian economy: it’s a book on Third World economies. I should mention that I haven’t met Simon and I haven’t met Friedman but I know most of the people on this list personally and Hernando de Soto is probably the one I know best and admire hugely. In this book, he does an experiment. His team’s mission was to start a small textile factory with a dozen... (Source)
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David FrumIn 1974 if you asked Americans what their number one concern was, it wasn’t energy, though that was a time of gas lines. It was not unemployment, though there was a terrible recession. It was not inflation, though inflation was accelerating. It wasn’t the war in Vietnam; it wasn’t Watergate. The number one concern was crime. (Source)
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Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz | 4.11
Writing in the June 1965 issue of theEconomic Journal, Harry G. Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: The long-awaited monetary history of the United States by Friedman and Schwartz is in every sense of the term a monumental scholarly achievement--monumental in its sheer bulk, monumental in the definitiveness of its treatment of innumerable issues, large and small . . . monumental, above all, in the theoretical and statistical effort and ingenuity that have been brought to bear on the solution of complex and subtle... more Writing in the June 1965 issue of theEconomic Journal, Harry G. Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: The long-awaited monetary history of the United States by Friedman and Schwartz is in every sense of the term a monumental scholarly achievement--monumental in its sheer bulk, monumental in the definitiveness of its treatment of innumerable issues, large and small . . . monumental, above all, in the theoretical and statistical effort and ingenuity that have been brought to bear on the solution of complex and subtle economic issues.
Friedman and Schwartz marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to support the claim that monetary policy--steady control of the money supply--matters profoundly in the management of the nation's economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. In their influential chapter 7, The Great Contraction--which Princeton published in 1965 as a separate paperback--they address the central economic event of the century, the Depression. According to Hugh Rockoff, writing in January 1965: If Great Depressions could be prevented through timely actions by the monetary authority (or by a monetary rule), as Friedman and Schwartz had contended, then the case for market economies was measurably stronger.
Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976 for work related to A Monetary History as well as to his other Princeton University Press book, A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957). less David FrumThere was an accepted understanding of why it was that the economy went into this searing experience for a generation of Americans and what it was that got the US out again. (Source)
Robert BarroIt’s clear that a lot of the policies that were put into place were negative, but as to sorting out how important they were, that’s much more challenging. (Source)
Christina RomerIf you buy only one economics book, it should be this. The book is important for our understanding of the Great Depression, but its impact goes far beyond that. Friedman and Schwartz show us that monetary events and monetary policy have affected real output throughout American history. (Source)
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This book provides a comprehensive and balanced assessment of the state of the Earth and its inhabitants at the close of the twentieth century. More than fifty scholars from all over the world present new, concise and accessible accounts of the present state of humanity and the prospects for its social and natural environment. The subjects range from deforestation, water pollution and ozone layer depletion to poverty, homelessness, mortality and murder. Each contributor considers the present situation, historical trends, likely future prospects, and the efficacy or otherwise of current... more This book provides a comprehensive and balanced assessment of the state of the Earth and its inhabitants at the close of the twentieth century. More than fifty scholars from all over the world present new, concise and accessible accounts of the present state of humanity and the prospects for its social and natural environment. The subjects range from deforestation, water pollution and ozone layer depletion to poverty, homelessness, mortality and murder. Each contributor considers the present situation, historical trends, likely future prospects, and the efficacy or otherwise of current activity and policy. The coverage is worldwide, with a particular emphasis on North America.
The State of Humanity is a magnificent and eye-opening synthesis of cultural, social, economic and environmental perspectives. It will interest all those - including geographers, economists, sociologists and policy makers - concerned to understand some of the most pressing problems of our time. less David FrumSimon’s point is that there is nothing less natural than a natural resource. All of these things are developed by an investment of knowledge, effort and labour. People do that according to whether it pays. The natural way to think about natural resources is that there is so much copper in the ground and then, after you’ve dug it all up, you don’t have any more. And what he argued is no, the... (Source)
Mark Pellegrino@gnvrbyd @rickrepetti @rickballan @PrimateBri @platypusrex256 @LevelToPower @TeresaRJ3 @AynRand_is_Dead @wellsm8 @twisted_words @KeepItRealLuke @Musicfreak78 @lucidunity2 @angel_scoggins @TheMartyrSpeaks @MDSebach @_ad_libertatum_ @Anarchofree @_AuberonHerbert @comicalwagner @Harun07321327 @Anarchist_Rants @DuneSlaya @Mr_Abysmalyxia @SageThinker99 @HoundJuliet @LuciSoc @JohnFis87569576 @mwhi4321... (Source)
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David FrumSuch a great book, all who care about modern India should read it https://t.co/zOGZyJILVN (Source)
Sanjay JhaWhile on a serene sabbatical read @kapskom’a brilliant book on contemporary Indian politics; it spares no political party, while confesses that India could be perilously close to becoming a authoritarian state.
The book is cathartic, given craven media cheerleading. https://t.co/I2a93no4lT (Source)
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A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future
Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia's great... more A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future
Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia's great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia's failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state.
Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience. less David FrumGreat book by @DavidSatter on the politics of Russian memory, with perfect title: "It was a long time ago, and it never happened anyway." https://t.co/rDYR27nWHx (Source)
Edward LucasI think David Satter has really captured the role of the past in the present in Russia. He’s a very experienced correspondent from the Soviet era who has maintained his interest in post-Soviet Russia. He’s a really energetic, gumption reporter – he just goes to places that foreign correspondents don’t often go to in the provinces and follows up stories he first reported in the 1970s. Also, he’s... (Source)
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Jonathan GruberCharles Murray took the economic concept of moral hazard – the concept that if you reward people for bad behaviour then they behave badly – and turned it into prose. Reading the book moved me a notch to the right. It posed a challenge to liberals – to get more rigorous in our analysis. It showed the simple facts didn’t look so good for us and that we needed to address questions like, “Is welfare... (Source)
Augustine 25@pantspartyjon @sallykohn Yeah. Check out how well black families did prior to LBJ's great society programs. Read Charles Murray's book, Losing Ground for the details. (Source)
David FrumBy 1984, conservatives had won a lot of important arguments about public policy. But there are real problems in the mid 80s for Americans that conservatives don’t have the answers to and one of them is the urban crisis that started in the 50s and 60s and was only getting worse. Welfare dependency was getting worse; there was a new problem of homelessness that was very shocking to people living in... (Source)
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