100 books like COVID-19 and Sovereign Debt

Out of all my recommendations, this book is the most dense in terms of detailed descriptions of the history of debt. The author needs to be specific since he’s challenging the economic establishment’s false claims.

The most telling example is that there’s no evidence that barter led to exchanging goods in a marketplace. Debt, not barter, was the original economic system for trade in a village. 

War became the catalyst for the creation of currency since soldiers couldn’t afford to wait till after the war concluded for the government to pay its debts.

If you’re curious about the real history of money and debt, this is the book for you.

Most debts embody a legal contract specifying how and when the borrowed funds will be repaid and any circumstances in which the obligation can be amended.

Non-payment of most loan contracts end up before a judge whose decisions on repayment are guided by a national bankruptcy law. Debts of sovereign states differ.

Insolvent governments negotiate partial or delayed repayment with their various creditors. The starting point is always that the contracts must be honored.

Professor Lienau argues that there are instances in legal theory and historically in practice in which governments did not and should not have had to repay “illegitimate” debts. She calls for international recognition of a legally enforceable concept of “responsible” lending and borrowing.

Imagine how that might make creditors think twice about lending to oppressive regimes?

When people talk about human rights and sovereign debt, it is usually when the government cannot pay its obligations and squeezes its citizens in the effort.

Who will speak up to protect those people? Thirty authors (including your correspondent) aim to do just that.

While one essay claims that creditor (property) rights trump human rights in international law, most of the authors discuss how to bring human rights into the legal landscape governing different types of foreign loans or investment, or how to protect the rights to food, health, education and more when the International Monetary Fund and creditors demand austerity.

Other essays propose international legal reforms (including arbitral, soft law, and “anti-vulture” litigation). Scholars, activists, or just the curious will want to consult this important and thoroughly accessible volume.

Government borrowing is the golden goose that makes possible investment in public infrastructure and continuing expenditures despite temporary shortfalls in tax revenue.

But when not managed well or when rocked by unforeseen catastrophes, sovereign debt can become an impossible burden.

Because the International Monetary Fund is mandated to worry about international financial stability, it is the central institution for international oversight of sovereign debt.

In this volume, the IMF brought together 38 economic and legal experts to explain to a broad audience why governments borrow, how to borrow sustainably, and how to emerge from default.

It is not a training manual but is comprehensive and clearly written so that even ministers of finance and legislators should understand it and civil society should draw on it in campaigns against debt crises.

How could I leave out the doyen of modern-day autobiographical travel writing? Paul Theroux’s list of books describing his overland adventures and the history and culture of places he rides through, is impressive. He is funny, cantankerous, offensive, likable, and informative. I chose his last book Zona because he travels the same path I myself once took. It also differs from his earlier tomes in one distinct way; Paul undertook the hard overland journey from Cape Town to Angola at age 71, when most of us expect to be tucked up in bed with a warm toddy and a cat purring at our feet. His perspective from an older man commentates on and compares the Africa he once knew to now. At times, it’s a depressing tale, exposing stories of hunger and starvation, genocide, nature clogging with plastic, and vast examples of greed, climate change, wilderness destruction, and species extinction.… show more.

“I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalization. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.”

In 2005, Tony Blair told his party that a new, free-market, globalized form of capitalism was inevitable. Filipino theorist, activists and later politician Walden Bello begged to differ. He believed globalization was a political choice, and one that suited Western elites and their multinational corporations, at the expense of the mass of humanity.

In Deglobalization, Bello sets out to show how things could be different, imagining a more diverse international economy centred on the principle of being as democratic as possible.

Seek finds Johnson mining his own humanity through true tales of Alaskan gold prospecting and the manhunt for a serial bomber.

He loses himself in fungus at an Oregan hippie festival and searches for God at a Christian biker rally in Texas. His travels take him to the sometimes-literal frontlines of the news, including the hellish delirium of the Liberian civil war and conversations with Constitution-toting Montanans bent on the overthrow of the United States government.

Johnson's writing in this compilation of essays was absolutely searing and a revelation to me. This stuff belongs in the home library of anyone who's ever aspired to pick up the pen.

What I most admire about Autocracy and Redistribution is that it brings the best of contemporary political science to bear on questions of deep scholarly and real-world importance: what explains redistributive land reform? Albertus argues that redistributive land reform is much more likely when 1) top-level state leaders and large landowners have diverging interests and 2) institutional barriers to achieving large-scale reform are lower. Albertus shows that redistributive land reform is more likely under dictatorship than democracy. 

I "discovered" Hancock's book by coincidence in the summer of 2000, when I stayed in Oxford.

While working on my book I met a scholar who recommended me the book when he learned about my study. He thought that Hancock's book could offer me some exciting insights. Reading the book was overwhelming for me, as I found out that my "Nepali experience" in the context of a women's development project was not exceptional.

I realized then that my critical analysis gained further evidence, through elaborating on Hancock's numerous examples from other places where the World Bank and Western Capitalist agencies were involved.     

This book is like the other side of the coin to Sex and World Peace.

In that book, the authors articulate the connection between gender inequality and global suffering through statistics, whereas Half the Sky describes it in individual stories. It is moving to hear about these women’s suffering, but it is also uplifting to hear how they have overcome.

This book is an excellent resource for understanding how gender equality leads to increasing economic growth while reducing global poverty and inequality. It is an important tool in any ordinary hero’s toolkit.