Books we're reading this month

The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in modern European thought , by Jerry Z Muller (Alfred Knopf, 2002).

Anti-globalizing protestors in Seattle and Quebec were not the first to recognize that our predominant form of economic activity brings with it utter transformation of our values and ethics and social structures. This tour of the greatest minds who ever engaged with the implications of capitalism over the last three hundred years is just the kind of social connection we need so that we can build on the work that has already gone before us, instead of starting all over from scratch every generation trying to figure out how to accommodate capitalism without suffering its full range of damages.

- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims and Jews rediscovered ancient wisdom and illuminated the dark ages , by Richard E Rubenstein (Harcourt, 2003).

It’s all because of the astonishing discovery of troves of very smart millennium-old documents in 12 thCentury Spain that we still to this day have a sneaking suspicion there is ancient wisdom more advanced than our own somewhere out there awaiting yet another discovery.

The unfolding three-century long encounter with ancient Greek thought by three overlapping civilizations—Muslim, Jewish, and Christian—and how they were all transformed by it, goes directly to most international political questions posed today. With the historic flash point between the three in the Middle East again in turmoil and war, it may be helpful to remind ourselves that we all have in common not just the same God (which maybe causes all the fighting), but also the same philosophical and intellectual father too (which can only lead to a lot of talking).

- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>