If Books Could Kill

In 2016, J.D. Vance informally launched his political career with "Hillbilly Elegy," a memoir that blames the relative poverty of Appalachian and Rust Belt populations on their own culture. Despite its reactionary premise, mainstream and liberal press outlets were so enamored by the book that they accidentally made Vance a senator.

Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPodWhere to find us:

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Appalachian Reckoning
• America’s Divided Recovery
• What Did Hillbilly Elegy Get Wrong?
• J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America
• Hillbilly Elitism
• Welfare Queens and White Trash
• Consumer Expenditures in 2016
• Household Expenditures and Income
• CFPB Data Point: Payday Lending

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Who poses the greatest threat to democracy? Is it the movement that openly identifies with the symbols, goals and policies of fascist governments? Or is it the median bureaucrat at the Department of Health and Human Services?
In 2008, a National Review nepo-baby attempted to answer this vexing question.
Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

Where to find us:

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• History News Network: A Symposium on Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism
• The Nature of Fascism
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
• The Anatomy of Fascism
• Mussolini and Fascism: The View From America
• The Return of Old-Fashioned Racism to White Americans’ Partisan Preferences in the Early Obama Era
• Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America
• What Hillary Rodham Clinton Really Said About Children’s Rights and Child Policy
• The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930
• A campus takeover that symbolized an era of change

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

How a Stanford lepidopterist convinced the world to fear the breeding habits of the poor. Again.
Support us on Patreon

Where to find us:

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Sonia Shah’s “The Next Great Migration”
• Barbarian Hordes: The overpopulation scapegoat in international development discourse
• Optimism and Overpopulation
• The Population Bomb Revisited
• The Strange History of Birth Control
• Birth Control for Others
• How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History
• Why the Population Bomb is a Rockefeller Baby

This week we're tackling Steven Pinker's 900 page dissection of the reasons why violence, torture and war have declined over the last 10,000 years. Was it an indeterminate mixture of politics, economics, technology and serendipity? Or did some European guys write some books that said murder was bad?
Special thanks to Philip Dwyer, Eleanor Janega, David M. Perry and Doug Thompson for help researching and fact-checking this episode!

Where to find us:

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• The Darker Angels of Our Nature
• Getting Medieval On Steven Pinker
• The Decline of Violence in the West: From Cultural to Post-Cultural History
• Pinker’s (Mis)Representation of the Enlightenment and Violence
• Herding and Homicide: An Examination of the Nisbett-Reaves Hypothesis
• Peace in Our Time
• John Gray: Steven Pinker is wrong about violence and war
• The business class doesn't understand the Enlightenment
• Delusions Of Peace
• Pinker And Progress
• Norbert Elias and the History of Violence
• Modernization, Self-Control And Lethal Violence
• Explaining Long Term Trends in Violent Crime
• The Enlightenment’s Dark Side

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

In 1997, Robert Kiyosaki revealed the secret to lifelong success: Deliver grifty seminars and hire child slaves.
Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPodWhere to find us:

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry
• ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad' Robert Kiyosaki Exposed
• Stupid Investment of the Week
• Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Education on Real Estate Investing Review
• The Ticket to Easy Street? The Financial Consequences of Winning the Lottery
• Why the Myth of the Miserable Lottery Winner Just Won’t Die
• Work Centrality and Post-Award Work Behavior of Lottery Winners
• "The best way to get even with A-grade students was to make them employees of mine"
• Ohio real estate investor’s warning statement on Robert Kiyosaki and Bill Gatten’s complex PACtrust for real estate investing
• Academic Discipline and Personal Finance Instruction in High School

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!