Jane Jacobs: Dark Age Ahead (2004)

In this indispensable book, urban visionary Jane Jacobs–renowned author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Economy of Cities–convincingly argues that as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future, we stand on the brink of a new dark age, a period of cultural collapse. Jacobs pinpoints five pillars of our culture that are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation, and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism, and the growing gulf between rich and poor.

But this is a hopeful book as well as a warning. Drawing on her vast frame of reference–from fifteenth-century Chinese shipbuilding to Ireland’s cultural rebirth–Jacobs suggests how the cycles of decay can be arrested and our way of life renewed. Invigorating and accessible, Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacobs’ career, but one of the most important works of our time.

Publisher Random House, 2004
ISBN 1400062322, 9781400062324
Length 241 pages

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Bruno Latour, Vincent Antonin Lépinay: The Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde’s Economic Anthropology (2009)

“How can economics become genuinely quantitative? This is the question that French sociologist Gabriel Tarde tackled at the end of his career, and in this pamphlet, Bruno Latour and Vincent Antonin Lépinay offer a lively introduction to the work of the forgotten genius of nineteenth-century social thought. Tarde’s solution was in total contradiction to the dominant views of his time: to quantify the connections between people and goods, you need to grasp “passionate interests.” In Tarde’s view, capitalism is not a system of cold calculations—rather it is a constant amplification in the intensity and reach of passions. In a stunning anticipation of contemporary economic anthropology, Tarde’s work defines an alternative path beyond the two illusions responsible for so much modern misery: the adepts of the Invisible Hand and the devotees of the Visible Hand will learn how to escape the sterility of their fight and recognize the originality of a thinker for whom everything is intersubjective, hence quantifiable.

At a time when the regulation of financial markets is the subject of heated debate, Latour and Lépinay provide a valuable historical perspective on the fundamental nature of capitalism.”

Publisher Prickly Paradigm Press, Chicago, 2009
Volume 37 of Paradigm
ISBN 0979405777, 9780979405778
100 pages

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SubStance journal 112: Italian Post-Workerist Thought (2007)

SubStance is an interdisciplinary journal for discourses converging upon literature from a variety of fields, including philosophy, the social science, science, and the arts.

Issue 112 (Volume 36, Number 1), 2007
Special Issue: Italian Post-Workerist Thought
Edited by: Max Henninger, Giuseppina Mecchia, and Timothy S. Murphy

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