Entry details

Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

September 6th, 2008

Tags

Comments

14 Comments so far.
Add yours.

What is your dream book?

Marginal Revolution asks: What is your dreak book? Criteria: it’s a book that doesn’t currently exist, it is a work of non-fiction, the author must be living, and it must be a work the author could plausibly write. So you could request “Jared Diamond on sexual selection” but not “Joseph Stiglitz on the early history of Ghenghis Khan.”

The comments contain a great selection, and I’d invite readers to read those, and also share your dream book in the comments. I’ll start with my selection: Robert D. Kaplan on Travels Across the Orient: Journeys through all corners of Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan

Comments to this entry

Elambend
September 6, 2008
1:51 am
The Economic history of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Or, just an Economic history of the Roman Empire. By Douglass North.
Elambend
September 6, 2008
1:52 am
PS - Someone at Marginal Revolution suggested a Max Hastings book on Vietnam. I want it!
Michael
September 6, 2008
4:06 am
After responding to Robert Olson's wisecrack on Harry Potter, I suggested:

A history of the rest of the Middle East (or a broader, non-personal history of Iran) by Marjane Satrapi.

A collaboration between Toms Barnett and Friedman, and Richard Florida, on social, cultural and economic connectivity.
Gollios
September 6, 2008
4:39 am
The first one's easy, but since its already being written it doesn't count. That would be Niall Ferguson's book on Kissinger.

The others:

"The People's House: The Ecology and Manners of Democratically Elected Politicians" by Tony Horwitz

"The Forge: The Birth & Batles of an Iraqi Battalion 2008-2010" by Mark Bowden

"Make Policy the Bruce Campbell Way - A B Movie Actor's Run for the Senate" by B. Campbell

"Immortals: The Iranian Military and Three Governments of Persia" by Sandra Mackay

"Heinlein: A Biography" by Neal Stephenson

"Prodigal Sons: The Reconciliation of Islam and the West" by Bernard Lewis (O.K., so it stretches a bit toward fantasy land, but it would be wonderful if circumstances allowed this to be his last book before he keels over at 102 or so.
Aceface
September 6, 2008
5:25 am
"Robert D. Kaplan on Travels Across the Orient: Journeys through all corners of Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan"

I've already read his writing on Korea and Chinese strategy.
Obviously Kaplan is no Asia hand(and he would probably feel Japan extrremely boring).

"Joseph Stiglitz writing on Genghis Khan" is not so absurd idea,considering the Japanese economy pundit and one time director of now-gone Economic Planning Agency and ex-MITI official,Sakaiya Taichi had written three volumes on the life of Genghis Khan portraying him as the first creator of globalized economy(the novel was originally written for Nikkei)and has been in the annual best sellers list.

My dream book will be Ian Buruma "Inside South Korean Film",James Fallows"Containing Japan,Twenty years later" and Redmond O'hanlon "In search of Almaas,the Mongolian Yeti".
Lexington Green
September 6, 2008
5:27 am
Our Democracy: A History of Political Parties from the Beginning to Today, by Michael Barone (he had a sketch of what this book would be like in an essay in Policy Review years ago and never followed up; it would basically take his masterpiece, Our Country, global.)

Home Front: A Cultural History of America in World War II, by David Hackett Fischer

The third volume of N.A.M. Rodgers' history of British naval power -- which is in fact in the works.
Eddie
September 6, 2008
5:39 am
"Shooting Star Below Heavens" William Dalrymple in China

"No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: America's Military 2020 & Beyond" Gen. James Mattis, USMC (Ret.) Forward by Gen. Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret.)
Yours Truly
September 6, 2008
1:04 pm
A History of the Communications Revolution (50's - 00's) : from Marshall McLuhan to Wikipedia & FaceBook, by Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson & William Gibson

South East Asia in a Nutshell : Culture, History, Politics & Disaster. Authored by Niall Ferguson with a preface by Eric Hobsbawm

The Frontier : The Wild West, by Robert Kaplan
Joe Jones
September 6, 2008
1:52 pm
YT has inspired my final answer: I want a multi-volume history of the world written by Neal Stephenson.
Yours Truly
September 7, 2008
8:42 am
F@#$! : A Compendium of Profanities, by Yours Truly (don't think anyone else is gonna write somethin' like this.)

Economics for Dummies : The Exact Science from Another Point of View, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Yep, JJ. Neal Stephenson would probably come up with somethin' awesome if he attempted that.
Pallidbust
September 7, 2008
5:39 pm
"Why I am such a lying douchebag" by Michael Moore.
Brent Grace
September 8, 2008
3:30 pm
"Shrinking the Gap at Home: A Grand Strategy to Connect out Inner Cities to Globalization" by Thomas Barnett and Sudhir Venkatesh

Put me down as a big +1 on a book by Bob Kaplan about the American West
Joe Jones
September 9, 2008
1:12 am
Pallidbust: Note that "it must be a work the author could plausibly write."

If that restriction weren't there, I would want to see "Get a Life--Martyrdom is for Wimps" by Osama bin Laden and the Hamas Executive Board.
zenpundit
September 10, 2008
3:31 am
"...but not “Joseph Stiglitz on the early history of Ghenghis Khan.”

Stiglitz would posit the Great Khan as the head of the IMF of the Steppes.