The World's Best Book Summaries
How did the American consumer mindset come to be? What role did the government have to play? In his book The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel included a postscript that discussed how the current mindset around money came to be. He argues that World War II and the Great Depression played a big part in how Americans approach money. Here’s why Americans have so many conflicted feelings about money, according to Housel’s postscript.
How did humanitarian aid help Africa during the AIDS crisis? Could have the crisis have been handled better? In his book The White Man’s Burden, economist William Easterly believes that the AIDS crisis could have been dealt with more effectively if the humanitarian aid programs had focused more on prevention and less on treatment. This stance is controversial because the utilitarian viewpoint basically ignores those who are already sick. Continue reading to learn about Easterly’s take on the AIDS crisis.
Has the human species evolved independently around the world? Or is there a common human ancestor? Until around the 1970s, many anthropologists believed that modern man had evolved independently in different populations around the world. However, the sheer genetic diversity of African populations (compared to the rest of the world) suggests that humans originated in sub-Saharan East Africa and migrated around the world from there. Keep reading to learn about the evidence of early human migration and how it changed our understanding of human evolution.
What caused Dan Harris’s panic attack on a 2004 episode of Good Morning America? In what ways did the attack impact Harris’s life? Dan Harris is a self-help writer who is famous for his book 10% Happier. But Harris didn’t always have it together. Before his writing career, Harris was a news correspondent who suffered a panic attack on live tv. In his book, he details the lead-up to the traumatic event and what he learned from it. Keep reading to learn about Harris’s fight against anxiety and ego.
What are the different personality tests used in personality typing? Is personality typing useful in the modern-day? Personality typing is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it can be traced back thousands of years. In the modern-day, personality typing is a useful tool when it comes to communication and human resources in the workplace. Below, we’ll go over the history of personality tests and their uses, with special attention to Thomas Erickson’s color model from Surrounded by Idiots.
What caused the United States subprime mortgage crisis in 2008? How did the mortgage meltdown spill out into a global financial crisis? The United States subprime mortgage crisis was years in the making. However, few could anticipate one of the biggest financial crises in history—in spite of the warning signs. At its heart, was a relatively new class of asset: the mortgage-backed security. In this article, we’ll discuss how mortgage-backed securities caused the biggest financial crisis in the eight preceding decades.
Will democracy survive? What can be done to prevent America from democratic backsliding? According to Levitsky and Ziblatt, the authors of How Democracies Die, American democracy is going to face strong challenges. The authors present three key factors that they believe will determine whether or not democratic norms survive in American politics: 1) the behavior of party leaders (particularly Republicans), 2) public opinion, and 3) the possibility of crises like war or terrorist attacks. We’ll discuss the implications of each below.
When did political polarization start in the United States? At what point did partisan struggle start to subside? Immediately after the ratification of the United States Constitution, the American political system was characterized by intense partisan warfare between America’s two original parties—the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. The partisanship subsided following the demise of the Federalist Party, only to escalate again in the 1850s. Eventually, the partisan struggles subsided and the democratic norms were restored. Here is a brief history of American partisanship.
What is court-packing? What do politicians aim to achieve by increasing the number of justices in the Supreme Court? “Court-packing” is usually used to refer to changes in the size of the Supreme Court. This typically involves increasing the number of seats in the Supreme court with a view of changing its ideological makeup. Keep reading to learn about court-packing, explained with examples.
How do political parties choose their candidates for president? How has the presidential nomination process changed over the years? Before the 1970s, a candidate had to win over party insiders in the so-called “smoke-filled rooms” of party conventions and caucuses to even have a chance of winning a major-party nomination. This old party system began to change during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago when party delegates entered the convention with no clear consensus on who the nominee should be. In this article, we’ll explore the evolution of the presidential nomination process in the United States.