Thomas Piketty's Capital: Live Blog II

We live tweet events so why don't we live blog our books? They may last longer than a Premier League match or election night special, but we read them continuously and their covers bound a discrete event. During their course our support veers between characters or new facts prompt us to change intellectual direction. They ebb and flow like all tweet worthy events.

Like most academic introductions, this went on as expected with the setting of limits and a conceptual framework. Which is where I fell for Piketty. It wasn't just his put down of math obsessed economists in favour of those who recognize the discipline's ties to politics and history (à la Keynes who remains notably absent). It was his clarion call for interdisciplinarity. Which is entirely believable - so many academics just nod to it out of politeness - given his admiration for Lucien Febvre and Fernand Braudel. Eminent historians both of the Annales school.

And did I mention the translator? He was translator to the later Annales members.

So, I get where M. Piketty comes from. I've spent time in his world. It's a great place.

Thomas Piketty's Capital: Live Blog I

We live tweet events so why don't we live blog our books? They may last longer than a Premier League match or election night special, but we read them continuously and their covers bound a discrete event. During their course our support veers between characters or new facts prompt us to change intellectual direction. They ebb and flow like all tweet worthy events.

Capital In The Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty is the perfect book for this project. It's long. It requires reflection. And because it's such an unexpected hit, everyone's talking about it but can't get their hands on one to read. So a live blog is like the newspaper reader in an eighteenth-century coffee house telegraphing to his neighbours. Which is where the book begins.

The introduction is properly long, properly academic, and properly structured. "Here's my thesis (wealth, as opposed to capital, generates arbitrary inequalities that undermine democratic society); here's a history and literature review (Malthus-Ricardo-Marx-Kuznets, no Keynes); here why my work is so different and necessary (data integrity and longevity); and here are my sources (tax records)."

And that's only the first half of the introduction. So we're off to a classic start and so far (but I am surrounded by cheering fans at the book office) I'm willing to believe some of the superlatives being thrown at this thing.

As an aside, I recognize the translator Arthur Goldhammer from my days as a medievalist. He's always been excellent, and how many times can you say you're familiar with a particular translator's work? More points then.