Archive for March, 2009

Robert Shiller

Posted By Zócalo On March 18, 2009

robertshiller

Robert Shiller, a Yale economist and author of Animal Spirits, likens the economy to a marriage in at least one respect. Explaining why leaders should be careful with what they say about the economy, he said, “In a good marriage…you never say something awful that will be remembered years later.”

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George Akerlof

Posted By Zócalo On March 18, 2009

georgeakerlof

George Akerlof grew up in various cities on the East Coast, particularly Princeton, in a family of scientists among whom he was something of an outsider. “I thought about things that did not interest them. I was interested in social things: history and, if children can have such interests, economics,” he says in his Nobel Laureate biography.

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Human Psychology Influences the Recession

Posted By Zócalo On March 18, 2009

Robert Shiller and George Akerlof

The cover of Animal Spirits, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller’s book arguing that human psychology plays a crucial part in the economy, conveys much of its message. Furry, droopy-lidded beasts cling to a no-nonsense black line meant to convey the stock market’s highs and lows. The animals fortunate enough to be perched on its peaks are grinning and flashing thumbs-up signs; the ones on the bottom are grim and frightened….

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James Mann on Ronald Reagan’s Rebellion

Posted By Zócalo On March 17, 2009

JM
James Mann, author of The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, stopped by our offices to discuss his book, and why the conservative icon has more in common with Barack Obama than George W. Bush.

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In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind

Posted By Zócalo On March 17, 2009

by Mary Oliver

On cold evenings
my grandmother,
with ownership of half her mind—
the other half having flown back to Bohemia—

spread newspapers over the porch floor
so, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath,
as under a blanket, and keep warm

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Articles

Feuilleton
Friday, December 3, 2010
How One Family Created Chinese America
Zócalo

The Lucky Ones, by Mae Ngai The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America by Mae Ngai Hyphenated cultures seem to be a natural part of California’s landscape today, but it wasn’t always so. The Lucky Ones by Mae Ngai offers a fresh look at California history by reconstructing the lives of immigrant and second generation pioneers who lived between cultures when it was not such a common phenomenon. Ngai’s narrative brings Chinese Americans into a richer tradition of historical storytelling by humanizing an ambivalent, middle-class immigrant family, situating their lives within the more well-known histories of Chinese laborers and those who suffered from the 1882 Exclusion Act.

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