Waggish

David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2022: Philosophy

This is the final list for 2022. There is some seriously important work here, particularly the translation of Hans Blumenberg’s late masterpiece The Readability of the World, which is as mind-expanding as the best of his work. (I believe only Hoehlenausgaenge only remains to be translated of his big books.) Just as much are the two new volumes of Myles Burnyeat’s papers, particularly the third’s extensive treatment of the Republic, in particular the long “Plato on Why Mathematics is Good for the Soul,” which marshals the best explanation I’ve read for just why studying pure, unapplied mathematics was so important to Plato (and why it is still important today). It’s a brilliant essay. And Catherine Wilson’s book is one of the best on Kant I’ve read in some time and is as strong as the rest of her work.

The Readability of the World (signale|TRANSFER: German Thought in Translation)
Blumenberg, Hans (Author), Savage, Robert (Translator), Roberts, David (Translator)
Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library

Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century Philosophy
Wilson, Catherine (Author)
OUP Oxford

Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy: Volume 3
Burnyeat, Myles (Author)
Cambridge University Press

Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy: Volume 4
Burnyeat, Myles (Author)
Cambridge University Press

Later Stoicism 155 BC to AD 200: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation (Cambridge Source Books in Post-hellenistic Philosophy)
Inwood, Brad (Author)
Cambridge University Press

Plato's Second Republic: An Essay on the Laws
Laks, André (Author)
Princeton University Press

The Kingdom of Darkness: Bayle, Newton, and the Emancipation of the European Mind from Philosophy
Levitin, Dmitri (Author)
Cambridge University Press

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: On the Body Informed (Modern European Philosophy)
Mooney, Timothy D. (Author)
Cambridge University Press

What's the Use of Philosophy?
Kitcher, Philip (Author)
Oxford University Press

Johann Friedrich Herbart: Grandfather of Analytic Philosophy
Beiser, Frederick C. (Author)
OUP Oxford

Romantic Empiricism: Nature, Art, and Ecology from Herder to Humboldt
Nassar, Dalia (Author)
Oxford University Press

Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy
Copenhaver, Brian (Author)
Oxford University Press

David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2022: Humanities

18 January 2023 / David Auerbach / 1 Comment

A highlight of the year for me was Genese Grill’s wonderful collection of essays, Portals. Grill’s work translating and writing about Robert Musil has long been a source of great insight and inspiration for me, and her uncompromising thoughts on the purpose and function of art come as solace in these times. As do Noga Arikha’s historically-informed look at mental decline and Rens Bod’s ambitious theory of patterns in knowledge-seeking (which is admirably available free).

Portals: Reflections on the Spirit in Matter (Living Essays)
Grill, Genese (Author)
Splice

The Ceiling Outside: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind
Arikha, Noga (Author)
Basic Books

World of Patterns: A Global History of Knowledge
Bod, Rens (Author), Buell, Leston (Translator)
Johns Hopkins University Press

The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason (Volume 76) (Sather Classical Lectures)
Ober, Josiah (Author)
University of California Press

The Orphic Voice: Poetry and Natural History (New York Review Books Classics)
Sewell, Elizabeth (Author), Schenck, David (Introduction)
NYRB Classics

Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present
Drucker, Johanna (Author)
University of Chicago Press

Chaos, Cosmos and Creation in Early Greek Theogonies: An Ontological Exploration (Classical Literature and Society)
Almqvist, Olaf (Author)
Bloomsbury Academic

Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader
Mair, Victor H. (Editor)
Bloomsbury Academic

The Lost Republic: Cicero's De oratore and De re publica
Zetzel, James E. G. (Author)
Oxford University Press

Joy of the Worm: Suicide and Pleasure in Early Modern English Literature (Thinking Literature)
Daniel, Professor Drew (Author)
University of Chicago Press

David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2022: History and Social Science

15 January 2023 / David Auerbach / 0 Comments

I have the least to say about these books. The decline of any assumed consensus has led to an increase in polemicism when it comes to historical and political writing in particular, and it almost takes psychological and sociological (and financial) luxury to write with the kind of anti-presentist detachment required for lasting work. These books below mostly display that quality, to me, though not always consistently. (The Elkins book is frustrating for exactly this reason.) I enjoyed Geuss’s quasi-memoir precisely because he permits himself the sort of doubt and irony that seemingly spell career suicide for junior faculty.

Imaginary Languages: Myths, Utopias, Fantasies, Illusions, and Linguistic Fictions
Yaguello, Marina (Author), Butler, Erik (Translator)
The MIT Press

The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives (Jacobin)
Reed Jr., Adolph L. (Author)
Verso

The Populist Century: History, Theory, Critique
Rosanvallon, Pierre (Author), Porter, Catherine (Translator)
Polity

Utopianism for a Dying Planet: Life after Consumerism
Claeys, Gregory (Author)
Princeton University Press

Diagnosing Social Pathology: Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim
Neuhouser, Frederick (Author)
Cambridge University Press

War: A Genealogy of Western Ideas and Practices
Heuser, Beatrice (Author)
Oxford University Press

Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance
Levy, Karen (Author)
Princeton University Press

Not Thinking like a Liberal
Geuss, Raymond (Author)
Belknap Press

The Age of Interconnection: A Global History of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
Sperber, Jonathan (Author)
Oxford University Press

Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821
Broers, Michael (Author)
Pegasus Books

Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars
Gat, Azar (Author)
Oxford University Press

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower
Dikötter, Frank (Author)
Bloomsbury Publishing

Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past
Bartov, Omer (Author)
Yale University Press

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
Elkins, Caroline (Author)
Knopf

David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2022: Science and Technology

12 January 2023 / David Auerbach / 0 Comments

As ever, there are so many information-laden books on science and tech, as well as analytical ones, that the selection criteria are a little different. I tried to isolate books that contribute something different or at least provide something beyond their purported remit. Peebles’s book, for example, is far more assumption-questioning than most physics books of its kind, and to me far deeper for it. It demonstrates a way of thinking useful well beyond physics or science. If only there were an easier way to locate such books beyond browsing through many less distinguished books.

The Whole Truth: A Cosmologist’s Reflections on the Search for Objective Reality
Peebles, P. J. E. (Author)
Princeton University Press

The Ceiling Outside: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind
Arikha, Noga (Author)
Basic Books

The Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming: The Where, How, When, What, and Why of Dreams
Domhoff, G. William (Author)
The MIT Press

Cyberinsurance Policy: Rethinking Risk in an Age of Ransomware, Computer Fraud, Data Breaches, and Cyberattacks (Information Policy)
Wolff, Josephine (Author)
The MIT Press

The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology
Webb, Amy (Author), Hessel, Andrew (Author)
PublicAffairs

The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning
Smith-Ruiu, Justin (Author)
Princeton University Press

The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together
Pessoa, Luiz (Author)
The MIT Press

Leibniz on Binary: The Invention of Computer Arithmetic
Strickland, Lloyd (Author), Lewis, Harry R. (Author)
The MIT Press

A Philosopher Looks at Science
Cartwright, Nancy (Author)
Cambridge University Press

Dialogue on the Two Greatest World Systems (Oxford World's Classics)
Galileo (Author), Davie, Mark (Author), Shea, William R. (Author)
Oxford University Press

Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities
Auerbach, David B. (Author)
PublicAffairs

David Auerbach’s Books of the Year 2022: Comics and Art

7 January 2023 / David Auerbach / 1 Comment

Installment two of my books of the year, with most nonfiction still to come. It seemed a very lean year for comics overall. The big event is the long-delayed translation of the first half of Lewis Trondheim’s Ralph Azham, his 600-page treatment of power, politics, religion, and family. Trondheim’s ability to improvise a better story than most people can plan out remains exceptional. There is also the final book of Hubert’s uncompleted The Ogre Gods, putting a point on his loss through suicide.

Ralph Azham #1: Black Are The Stars (1)
Trondheim, Lewis (Author)
Papercutz

Ralph Azham #2: The Land of the Blue Demons (2)
Trondheim, Lewis (Author)
Papercutz

First Born: The Ogre Gods Book Four (OGRE GODS HC)
Hubert (Author), Gatignol, Bertrand (Artist)
Magnetic Press

La Synagogue
Sfar Joann (Author), Sfar Joann (Illustrator)
DARGAUD

Dungeon: Early Years, vol. 3: Wihout a Sound (3)
Gaultier, Christophe (Author), Sfar, Joann (Author), Trondheim, Lewis (Author), Oiry, Stephane (Author)
NBM Publishing

Dungeon: Twilight vols. 1-2: Cemetery of the Dragon
Sfar, Joann (Author), Trondheim, Lewis (Author), Kerascoet, [none] (Illustrator)
NBM Publishing