Book Club

Like Standage’s The Victorian Internet, this book explores an earlier information revolution, the invention and use of the telegraph. Where The Victorian Internet gave short overviews of a variety of social, economic and legal issues arising from the telegraph, comparing and contrasting these with similar developments arising from the internet, Mr.

Odessa, Ukraine, was the Russian Empire’s gateway to the Middle East, its greatest commercial seaport, and home to one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in all of Europe. Mark Twain described it as “America in miniature” because of its mix of nationalities and religions. Odessa’s reputation for nurturing feisty dissenters, artful raconteurs, and good-natured crooks cemented its place among Europe’s great cities. But in the twentieth century Odessa was battered by pogroms, revolution, war, occupation and atrocities of the Holocaust.

The major league team is the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly “Devil Rays”). As the subtitle indicates, the book (a) is about how the team went from worst to first (b) under new management consisting Wall Street types who applied to baseball some of approaches from the business world. Their challenge was a daunting one since Tampa Bay plays in the same division as the two franchises with the deepest resources, the Red Sox and the Yankees. The Rays remain competitive—as of the final week of the 2011 Regular Session the team is in the race for the AL Wild Card berth.

“The Help is set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you.

Many of us are concerned about the place of the United States in the 21st-Century world. Often – and unfortunately, in my view – the focus is on a declining U.S., with anxious exhortations to fight off the looming threats to U.S. supremacy. Fareed Zakaria’s book focuses on the ascent of other nations, especially China and India, and suggests a productive reframing of 21st-Century trends. Finding the appropriate policies to maximize U.S. progress is vitally important, but there is ample debate about those issues.