Just finished Colossus, by Niall Ferguson. A good, but not great, book, about the unspoken American empire. Like Michael Ignatieff, he allows his liberal interventionism to cloud the fact that the war in Iraq was backed by a pack of lies. Still, I’m broadly sympathetic to his normative position (liberals should not be afraid to be interventionist, or even imperialist.) We should also be quite worried about his conclusion, viz., that America is too broke, has too little manpower, and has too short an attention span to serve as a proper imperial power.
Just reviewing The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World for the National Post. Really interesting look at the relationship between architecture and power.
Just started: Gulag, by Anne Applebaum. Not exactly light summer reading, but essential.
Soundtrack to the summer: Brian Wilson’s Smile. I know it’s been out for a while, but I just discovered it, and I can’t stop listening to it.