As long promised (sorry!), here are some books and a few papers I recommend. I’ve read at least some of (almost) all of them and (almost) all of most titles I refer to (not all the textbooks). Please leave errors and suggestions below, I’ll tweak and add over time and notify of updates. In particular I’ll add textbooks, history and philosophy which I’ve largely left out.
I dont object to reading history at Uni & would encourage it if interested in politics/government - my point is that you can focus on quant subjects earlier when theyre easier to learn and read history for the rest of your life, but it's MUCH harder to do quant subjects later in life and you can never get to the level hat you cd have done... while with history, like writing novels, talent matures later in life...
In my idea new version of PPE people wd do stats courses AND read Thucydides, Bismarck case study etc.
I hear you. History - seen as a “easy option” let’s be frank. Of course Psychology has a terrible rep. Given my time again Pure Maths. Or Engineering obvs. These are the Experts, no?
Great stuff. Do you still actively use Anki to remember all this? I feel like Nielsen's essay on it should be a first port of call before getting too trigger happy with the buy-it-now button on Amazon, as is my tendency.
You should try stacking Anki with Obsidian. There’s plug-ins that integrate the two tools and it’s a powerful combo. Start in Obsidian, with ‘networked notes’, synthesise multiple threads into one topic you want to memorise, format correctly and run the obsidian to Anki plugin. The plug-in will then import as flash cards into Anki.
For Modern fiction try 'The Man Who Was Thursday' by GK Chesterton. It has Echoes of Master and Marguerita, and occupies a little hidden corner in Western Literature.
Great list. Id add Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death as an example of what motivates people and particularly people in power. We are all engaged in immortality projects. Also agree that Good Strategy, Bad Strategy is awesome and very underread in business
I’ve read a bit of/about Yarvin and while he seems to be an astute observer and critic of modern power structures, he seems to have no serious idea what to replace them with. He says (IIRC) something about a CEO-like monarch who would be accountable something like a board of directors, but doesn’t contend with all the ways that could go horribly wrong.
He reminds me of Marx. If he does turn out to be influential, it’ll most likely be because his ideas made the world a worse place.
If you go down the rabbit hole on Yarvin he explains chapter and verse on how to replace the Ancien Regime with a more functional monarchical government akin to a benevolent dictatorship. He cites, along with Cummings, historical examples of how FDR and Lincoln operated as effective dictatorships that had absolute control of the government. But I think we can agree that the sclerotic political system of the U.S. needs to be overhauled since it’s become beyond evident that we are an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy.
There is no such thing as a political structure that cannot be turned against the populace. Power is power. Aristotle laid out the forms of government derived from the One, the Few and the Many, each of which has a moral/immoral manifestation (care to guess where democracy lies on that scale?). The best you can hope for is transparency as to who is in charge. Monarchy is the best option, as the person responsible for all the problems is known to everyone, as is the solution to tyrannical rule. Modern democracy is akin to a bullfight, with the public the bull, the media the cape and the deep state the matador.
Okay, how does he try to maximize the chances of the monarchy being functional and benevolent as opposed to a tyrannical horrors where the standard of living for most people is extremely poor? Monarchies have existed for millenia and most people's lives were awful under them. This assertion that "monarchy is the best option" is extremely dubious.
1. You cannot design a system that effectively substitutes morality with process. As DC points out in the memoirs of LKY, the primacy of the quality of people in positions of authority is non-negotiable The Americans tried with the innovative (French) notion that competing power centres can keep each other honest and goal-oriented. An examination of the Federalist Papers shows that they were very smart men who were well equipped to put totogether a genuinely new approach to exercising power and limiting abuse. As we can see, the US constitution has been an abject failure in its goals of preserving liberty - if the founding fathers saw the USA today they would reduce it to ash.
Monarchy, being a hereditary institution, is essentially a selection procedure by random accident of birth. Assuming healthy genetics and an avoidance of inbreeding (not guaranteed, I know), the rate of randomly generated psychopaths defined by cruelty would be at base rate of population - which is very low. By contrast, within bureaucratic systems we see a selection procedure that favours the sociopath and reliably delivers the absolute worst people into the highest levels of authority. Hayek laid out this argument in devastating detail in chapter 10 of "The Road to Serfdom."
The Venetians had an interesting system which installed the Doge, a non-hereditary monarch, by randomly selecting from the aristocratic pool of talent. Given the longevity of Venice as a power centre, this method is worthy of scrutiny.
2. The modern understanding of the phrase "standard of living" tends to derive from technological advances such as indoor plumbing, semiconductor fabrication etc. I'm not as keen to throw European monarchies under the bus for failing to deliver such advancements in the 13th century.
If we look at legislative impact of monarchies on the peasant class, we see that they compare very favourably to modern living. The tax burden was shockingly light, the cost of living was much reduced and indebtedness was nowhere near as endemic. A medieval peasant could meet his annual cost of living plus tax burden in the first fourteen weeks of the year - the rest of his earnings was discretionary spending. He also worked an average of 20 hours a week and had substantially more holidays from work than the modern employee under even the most favourable terms offered today. In terms of criminalising the populace, the kings of yesteryear passed nowhere near the number of laws created by modern democracies.
Now, I'll certainly concede that awful monarchs did surface from time to time, but eventually bad kings die and the mantle passes to the next man whose moral judgement generally reverts to mean and undoes the damage done. By contrast, the immortal legislative state generated by democracy shows no sign of corrective action from those who inherit the reigns of power. BJ's sixty seat majority means he could utterly annihilate Labour's legislative vandalism if he so chooses, but he cannot. The administrative power centres have formed a ratchet that only turns in one direction. Kings may die, but the deep bureaucratic state is an immortal corporate actor whose influence cannot be stopped by sickness, revolt or old age.
In short, I think the image of monarchies as uniformly dreadful places to live is a modern fiction. History shows that this is not the case.
Your answer seems to confirm what I thought, which is that Yarvin puts minimal effort into trying to make the king/CEO benevolent. The foundation of his whole shtick rests on a claim that a monarchical system, on average, will deliver better results than our modern day systems. This seems silly to me.
Civil wars were very common in the past, since might determined who would be granted the seat of absolute power. This system also meant selecting for sociopathic and power-hungry kings; much higher than the base rate population. The historical data seems pretty clear to me that liberalism helped innovations and increased standards of living in ways that monarchies and dictatorships rarely do.
Suggested other books you might want to recommend:
-Zero to one
-All out war by Tim Shipman
-books about the Obama campaign from Axelrod and Plouffe
Expansion for this article:
-what books people actively SHOULD AVOID reading (I believe you have criticism the work of Matthew Goodwin for example).
-what YouTube videos do you recommend?
Question: why did you recommend Kissinger’s book? Do you reject the criticisms of his foreign policy?
My own unwanted unsolicited recommendations:
- Suspicious Minds (a pre-Trump presidency book on psychology of conspiracy theories).
-Permanent Record by Ed Snowden (politics on NSA leaks aside, the passages about being inside the dysfunctional intelligence agencies with outdated equipment and incompetency seemed relevant to this blog).
-This is Paradise (general life in North Korea).
-Securing Democracy (a book about Brazilian politics, designed to inform non Brazilians).
-Relentless Pursuit (a book about Jeffrey Epstein by a lawyer who was a major enemy of his - reveals manipulation in the legal system, media and government).
-Manufacturing Consent (book on how the media chooses what to cover and what to ignore).
-Merchants of doubt (how companies have created doubt over tobacco health issues and climate change).
Jun 26, 2022·edited Jun 26, 2022Liked by Dominic Cummings
Great list; for the record, Richard C. Wirthlin’s book is not “Richard Worthlin” but Dick Wirthlin with Wynton C. Hall, The Greatest Communicator: What Ronald Reagan Taught Me About Politics, Leadership, and Life (New York: Wiley, 2004).
Among many things a portrait of man who communicated with rare talent — not only his sweet voice but ability to set out ideas (often against the grain) and then wrap then in compelling or even fun stories and anecdotes: the ideas became familiar but rarely boring due in part to Reagan’s inner reserves of narrative.
Wirthlin’s volume is compelling in many ways; a portrait of man whose public frame was undergirded by personal commitment (though not obsession with) to those ideas and the rare wisdom to being good to his word.
One example of the book’s insight and learning is on page 68: In July 1980, while campaigning, Wirthlin, Reagan’s pollster, pleaded with the candidate to cancel an increasingly problematic hustings — a speech on states’ rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers in their early twenties, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in 1964 — and which, according to Wirthlin’s own most recent data, was no longer necessary as Reagan has pulled sufficiently ahead of the southern candidate himself, President Carter.
Reagan did not wish to cancel. Wirthlin persisted. Reagan explained himself. “Dick, one thing I learned as an actor was that once the billing is set you don’t pull out.”
Re Jean O'Leary, I don't have any links but Patty Owen worked very closely with her and Groves. She was about 12 years younger and she and Jean were lifelong friends. She may have published some insights.
Excellent post as usual! Without a shadow of a doubt, Come and See was the most disturbing war film I’ve ever seen. The horror the eastern front are grossly overlooked in lieu of Wester Glory films like Saving Private Ryan or Dunkirk, etc, etc. Since you’re a man with an eclectic palette, I’m truly surprised you don’t have any Tarkovsky films on this list (ie Stalker or Andrei Rublev) but I highly recommend taking that Russian metaphysical journey before the west “cancels” him like they did with Tchaikovsky.
I was a researcher on C4’s “100 Greatest War Films” many years ago, before which I hadn’t heard of “Come and See”. It blew me away. Best war film of all time, followed by “Paths of Glory” and “Battle of Algiers”. Unsurprisingly, all three were much further down the list.
Couldn't agree more about Paths of Glory and Battle of Algiers. One of the most interesting facts about Battle of Algiers is that it shows the effective simplicities of guerrilla/insurgent warfare in urban combat and physical copies of the film has been found in terrorist safe houses belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and IRA, which gave them inspiration.
That’s something I find absolutely fascinating. My undergraduate degree was in Modern History but I was always fascinated by film and its effects on society (I went to a couple of seminars by Ian Christie at college and almost applied to do postgrad film studies). With the current conflict in Gaza, one wonders if Hamas followed the PLO’s example?
Did you mention in books 'Ordinary Men' Have yet to wade though all but looks vv interesting. Film list yup really great-highly recommend 'Elvis' not wishing to rain on your highbrow list but it is EEEEPIC.
Definitely worth finishing Ordinary Men. It’s absolutely frightening to see how Middle aged men from one of the most socially liberal cities in Germany were so easily converted into cold blooded murderers.
Re: ‘how to predict the news?’ Worth reading Robert Schiller’s recent book on ‘narrative economics’ (think there’s a short version/article that does the same job in pdf floating around online somewhere). I don’t agree with all of it but there is definitely something in the central thesis, and it’s particularly interesting to try and understand the role of ‘narrative’ to economic events such as inflation, alongside the underlying structural factors.
Re snippets why not mention in bold on yr twitter HEADS UP NEW SNIPPETS FOR SUBSCRIBERS and add snippets to regular substack...? I am not on Twitter but I do check in on the ones they let you look at before barring so catch updates.
Naive Decision Making: Mathematics Applied to the Social World , Tom Korner, 2008. An enjoyable journey through many aspects of mathematical decision making, with pithy observations, anecdotes and quotations. Basic calculus is the only prerequisite.
The Pleasures of Counting, Tom Korner, 1996. Tom's approach puts the maths into the context of how it is used to solve real-world problems - giving an insight into the development of applied mathematics. An eclectic mix of topics eg the outbreak of cholera in Victorian Soho, the Battle of the Atlantic, African Eve and the design of anchors.
On Maths&Stats some of the best and most original books I’ve read are from the Mir collection - Mir publishers, old USSR. They are not easy to find but there was an initiative on reprinting them. Alternatively, some can be found online across various archives.
I dont object to reading history at Uni & would encourage it if interested in politics/government - my point is that you can focus on quant subjects earlier when theyre easier to learn and read history for the rest of your life, but it's MUCH harder to do quant subjects later in life and you can never get to the level hat you cd have done... while with history, like writing novels, talent matures later in life...
In my idea new version of PPE people wd do stats courses AND read Thucydides, Bismarck case study etc.
I hear you. History - seen as a “easy option” let’s be frank. Of course Psychology has a terrible rep. Given my time again Pure Maths. Or Engineering obvs. These are the Experts, no?
On reflection, maybe the crucial thing is to know how to talk to them. This is teachable.
Huff (1954)
Essential companion (and very much ignored by most Americans) to The Federalist Papers - the so-called Anti-Federalist Papers (AFP):
http://resources.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/Constitutional/AntiFederalist/antifed.htm
Here is a decent briefer on the AFP:
https://history.nycourts.gov/about_period/antifederalist-papers/
Re Monnet ~ https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/october-2020/the-eu-godfathers-wall-street-roots/ and Draghi ~ https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2021/the-sphinx-who-reshaped-europe/
Regards
Great stuff. Do you still actively use Anki to remember all this? I feel like Nielsen's essay on it should be a first port of call before getting too trigger happy with the buy-it-now button on Amazon, as is my tendency.
I'm too lazy to use anki in a disciplined way but everyone without a photographic memory shd!
Yeah I'm about as disciplined with it as I am with reading itself, but investment is worthwhile when I actually make it.
Btw, surprised There Will Be Blood isn't on movies list - oversight, not seen or don't rate that highly? Same with Moneyball perhaps...
havent seen
Both are fantastic! You’d enjoy them I’m sure
How do you structure your notes/knowledge base?
Always impressed by depth of knowledge that you draw upon - is it hard-copy underlining/notes in books, or something more sophisticated/digital?
You should try stacking Anki with Obsidian. There’s plug-ins that integrate the two tools and it’s a powerful combo. Start in Obsidian, with ‘networked notes’, synthesise multiple threads into one topic you want to memorise, format correctly and run the obsidian to Anki plugin. The plug-in will then import as flash cards into Anki.
For Modern fiction try 'The Man Who Was Thursday' by GK Chesterton. It has Echoes of Master and Marguerita, and occupies a little hidden corner in Western Literature.
Great list. Id add Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death as an example of what motivates people and particularly people in power. We are all engaged in immortality projects. Also agree that Good Strategy, Bad Strategy is awesome and very underread in business
I’ve read a bit of/about Yarvin and while he seems to be an astute observer and critic of modern power structures, he seems to have no serious idea what to replace them with. He says (IIRC) something about a CEO-like monarch who would be accountable something like a board of directors, but doesn’t contend with all the ways that could go horribly wrong.
He reminds me of Marx. If he does turn out to be influential, it’ll most likely be because his ideas made the world a worse place.
If you go down the rabbit hole on Yarvin he explains chapter and verse on how to replace the Ancien Regime with a more functional monarchical government akin to a benevolent dictatorship. He cites, along with Cummings, historical examples of how FDR and Lincoln operated as effective dictatorships that had absolute control of the government. But I think we can agree that the sclerotic political system of the U.S. needs to be overhauled since it’s become beyond evident that we are an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy.
How does he ensure that this overhaul will result in a functional benevolent government as opposed to a Stalinist horror?
There is no such thing as a political structure that cannot be turned against the populace. Power is power. Aristotle laid out the forms of government derived from the One, the Few and the Many, each of which has a moral/immoral manifestation (care to guess where democracy lies on that scale?). The best you can hope for is transparency as to who is in charge. Monarchy is the best option, as the person responsible for all the problems is known to everyone, as is the solution to tyrannical rule. Modern democracy is akin to a bullfight, with the public the bull, the media the cape and the deep state the matador.
Okay, how does he try to maximize the chances of the monarchy being functional and benevolent as opposed to a tyrannical horrors where the standard of living for most people is extremely poor? Monarchies have existed for millenia and most people's lives were awful under them. This assertion that "monarchy is the best option" is extremely dubious.
1. You cannot design a system that effectively substitutes morality with process. As DC points out in the memoirs of LKY, the primacy of the quality of people in positions of authority is non-negotiable The Americans tried with the innovative (French) notion that competing power centres can keep each other honest and goal-oriented. An examination of the Federalist Papers shows that they were very smart men who were well equipped to put totogether a genuinely new approach to exercising power and limiting abuse. As we can see, the US constitution has been an abject failure in its goals of preserving liberty - if the founding fathers saw the USA today they would reduce it to ash.
Monarchy, being a hereditary institution, is essentially a selection procedure by random accident of birth. Assuming healthy genetics and an avoidance of inbreeding (not guaranteed, I know), the rate of randomly generated psychopaths defined by cruelty would be at base rate of population - which is very low. By contrast, within bureaucratic systems we see a selection procedure that favours the sociopath and reliably delivers the absolute worst people into the highest levels of authority. Hayek laid out this argument in devastating detail in chapter 10 of "The Road to Serfdom."
The Venetians had an interesting system which installed the Doge, a non-hereditary monarch, by randomly selecting from the aristocratic pool of talent. Given the longevity of Venice as a power centre, this method is worthy of scrutiny.
https://unenumerated.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/unpredictable-elections/
2. The modern understanding of the phrase "standard of living" tends to derive from technological advances such as indoor plumbing, semiconductor fabrication etc. I'm not as keen to throw European monarchies under the bus for failing to deliver such advancements in the 13th century.
If we look at legislative impact of monarchies on the peasant class, we see that they compare very favourably to modern living. The tax burden was shockingly light, the cost of living was much reduced and indebtedness was nowhere near as endemic. A medieval peasant could meet his annual cost of living plus tax burden in the first fourteen weeks of the year - the rest of his earnings was discretionary spending. He also worked an average of 20 hours a week and had substantially more holidays from work than the modern employee under even the most favourable terms offered today. In terms of criminalising the populace, the kings of yesteryear passed nowhere near the number of laws created by modern democracies.
Now, I'll certainly concede that awful monarchs did surface from time to time, but eventually bad kings die and the mantle passes to the next man whose moral judgement generally reverts to mean and undoes the damage done. By contrast, the immortal legislative state generated by democracy shows no sign of corrective action from those who inherit the reigns of power. BJ's sixty seat majority means he could utterly annihilate Labour's legislative vandalism if he so chooses, but he cannot. The administrative power centres have formed a ratchet that only turns in one direction. Kings may die, but the deep bureaucratic state is an immortal corporate actor whose influence cannot be stopped by sickness, revolt or old age.
In short, I think the image of monarchies as uniformly dreadful places to live is a modern fiction. History shows that this is not the case.
Your answer seems to confirm what I thought, which is that Yarvin puts minimal effort into trying to make the king/CEO benevolent. The foundation of his whole shtick rests on a claim that a monarchical system, on average, will deliver better results than our modern day systems. This seems silly to me.
Civil wars were very common in the past, since might determined who would be granted the seat of absolute power. This system also meant selecting for sociopathic and power-hungry kings; much higher than the base rate population. The historical data seems pretty clear to me that liberalism helped innovations and increased standards of living in ways that monarchies and dictatorships rarely do.
Suggested other books you might want to recommend:
-Zero to one
-All out war by Tim Shipman
-books about the Obama campaign from Axelrod and Plouffe
Expansion for this article:
-what books people actively SHOULD AVOID reading (I believe you have criticism the work of Matthew Goodwin for example).
-what YouTube videos do you recommend?
Question: why did you recommend Kissinger’s book? Do you reject the criticisms of his foreign policy?
My own unwanted unsolicited recommendations:
- Suspicious Minds (a pre-Trump presidency book on psychology of conspiracy theories).
-Permanent Record by Ed Snowden (politics on NSA leaks aside, the passages about being inside the dysfunctional intelligence agencies with outdated equipment and incompetency seemed relevant to this blog).
-This is Paradise (general life in North Korea).
-Securing Democracy (a book about Brazilian politics, designed to inform non Brazilians).
-Relentless Pursuit (a book about Jeffrey Epstein by a lawyer who was a major enemy of his - reveals manipulation in the legal system, media and government).
-Manufacturing Consent (book on how the media chooses what to cover and what to ignore).
-Merchants of doubt (how companies have created doubt over tobacco health issues and climate change).
All out War is a truly magnificent book, excellent insight on how to stage a political coup against the establishment.
I don’t read as much as you - please can you recommend your top three - politics, strategy and life please
Thucydides
Sun Tzu
War & Peace
!
Great list; for the record, Richard C. Wirthlin’s book is not “Richard Worthlin” but Dick Wirthlin with Wynton C. Hall, The Greatest Communicator: What Ronald Reagan Taught Me About Politics, Leadership, and Life (New York: Wiley, 2004).
Among many things a portrait of man who communicated with rare talent — not only his sweet voice but ability to set out ideas (often against the grain) and then wrap then in compelling or even fun stories and anecdotes: the ideas became familiar but rarely boring due in part to Reagan’s inner reserves of narrative.
Wirthlin’s volume is compelling in many ways; a portrait of man whose public frame was undergirded by personal commitment (though not obsession with) to those ideas and the rare wisdom to being good to his word.
One example of the book’s insight and learning is on page 68: In July 1980, while campaigning, Wirthlin, Reagan’s pollster, pleaded with the candidate to cancel an increasingly problematic hustings — a speech on states’ rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers in their early twenties, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in 1964 — and which, according to Wirthlin’s own most recent data, was no longer necessary as Reagan has pulled sufficiently ahead of the southern candidate himself, President Carter.
Reagan did not wish to cancel. Wirthlin persisted. Reagan explained himself. “Dick, one thing I learned as an actor was that once the billing is set you don’t pull out.”
thx
Re Jean O'Leary, I don't have any links but Patty Owen worked very closely with her and Groves. She was about 12 years younger and she and Jean were lifelong friends. She may have published some insights.
Excellent post as usual! Without a shadow of a doubt, Come and See was the most disturbing war film I’ve ever seen. The horror the eastern front are grossly overlooked in lieu of Wester Glory films like Saving Private Ryan or Dunkirk, etc, etc. Since you’re a man with an eclectic palette, I’m truly surprised you don’t have any Tarkovsky films on this list (ie Stalker or Andrei Rublev) but I highly recommend taking that Russian metaphysical journey before the west “cancels” him like they did with Tchaikovsky.
I watched some of them 25 years ago but can't remember thro vodka haze!
Probably if I rewatched them now I'd put some of them on this list...
Hopefully you’ll give them another go with some quality vodka this time around!
Watched Come and See after reading your blog. A shattering piece of work ! Made worse by the fact that the real thing was a million times worse .
I was a researcher on C4’s “100 Greatest War Films” many years ago, before which I hadn’t heard of “Come and See”. It blew me away. Best war film of all time, followed by “Paths of Glory” and “Battle of Algiers”. Unsurprisingly, all three were much further down the list.
Couldn't agree more about Paths of Glory and Battle of Algiers. One of the most interesting facts about Battle of Algiers is that it shows the effective simplicities of guerrilla/insurgent warfare in urban combat and physical copies of the film has been found in terrorist safe houses belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and IRA, which gave them inspiration.
That’s something I find absolutely fascinating. My undergraduate degree was in Modern History but I was always fascinated by film and its effects on society (I went to a couple of seminars by Ian Christie at college and almost applied to do postgrad film studies). With the current conflict in Gaza, one wonders if Hamas followed the PLO’s example?
Did you mention in books 'Ordinary Men' Have yet to wade though all but looks vv interesting. Film list yup really great-highly recommend 'Elvis' not wishing to rain on your highbrow list but it is EEEEPIC.
Definitely worth finishing Ordinary Men. It’s absolutely frightening to see how Middle aged men from one of the most socially liberal cities in Germany were so easily converted into cold blooded murderers.
Re: ‘how to predict the news?’ Worth reading Robert Schiller’s recent book on ‘narrative economics’ (think there’s a short version/article that does the same job in pdf floating around online somewhere). I don’t agree with all of it but there is definitely something in the central thesis, and it’s particularly interesting to try and understand the role of ‘narrative’ to economic events such as inflation, alongside the underlying structural factors.
Re snippets why not mention in bold on yr twitter HEADS UP NEW SNIPPETS FOR SUBSCRIBERS and add snippets to regular substack...? I am not on Twitter but I do check in on the ones they let you look at before barring so catch updates.
Maths:
Naive Decision Making: Mathematics Applied to the Social World , Tom Korner, 2008. An enjoyable journey through many aspects of mathematical decision making, with pithy observations, anecdotes and quotations. Basic calculus is the only prerequisite.
The Pleasures of Counting, Tom Korner, 1996. Tom's approach puts the maths into the context of how it is used to solve real-world problems - giving an insight into the development of applied mathematics. An eclectic mix of topics eg the outbreak of cholera in Victorian Soho, the Battle of the Atlantic, African Eve and the design of anchors.
On Maths&Stats some of the best and most original books I’ve read are from the Mir collection - Mir publishers, old USSR. They are not easy to find but there was an initiative on reprinting them. Alternatively, some can be found online across various archives.