1. “The 10 Best Books of 2007”
2. “Book Review: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World”
“Why do some countries have an economically helpful culture while others don’t? And, since no society got very far in economic terms before the Industrial Revolution, what caused the culture of the recently successful ones to change? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, suggests an intriguing, even startling answer: natural selection.”
3. “All Brains Are the Same Color”
“[T]he evidence heavily favors the view that race differences in I.Q. are environmental in origin, not genetic.”
4. “What Did the Professor Say? Check Your iPod”
“These days, students who miss an important point the first time have a second chance. After class, they can pipe the lecture to their laptops or MP3 players and hear it again while looking at the slides that illustrate the talk.”
5. “Pay What You Want for This Article”
“Radiohead’s pay-what-you-choose gambit didn’t just set off economic debates. It should also establish 2007 as two kinds of tipping point for recorded music.”
6. “Questions for John Podhoretz”
“I look at The New York Review of Books. It’s what it has been for 35 or 40 years, which is a highly sophisticated vehicle for anti-American self-hatred.”
“Men have always had personal retreats — antiseptic or wood-paneled — filled with concert mementos, career trophies and esoteric collectibles. And women have always been mystified by them.”
