Assuming there is anyone left who still reads this blog, what can I say but that I’m sorry. I’m sorry because it has now been a year since I last posted anything here. I’ve gone through periods of infrequent posting before, but nothing like this. What can I say? As with many others, 2020 threw me a curveball. A couple of them actually.
The first of them was COVID. With having to suddenly bug out of the office, getting used to working from home, the strains of isolation, lack of the day-to-day stimulus of social living that often gives me the inspiration to write, all of this wreaked havoc on my powers of concentration.
And then, what little mental power I had left has been spent on work. Back in March, literally the week before life turned upside down, I was in discussions about a career change, or rather, a professional development opportunity. I would be seconded to another unit within the university where I work, to take on a position that would definitely have been a challenge at the best of times. It proved doubly so during COVID, and to further complicate matters, for various reasons I can’t go into here, for much if not most of the year I was doing both jobs — yes, two full-time jobs. So perhaps understandably this blog rapidly slipped below the horizon of my cares.
However, I have decided that 2021 will be different. Fresh start and all that. Due to my work situation, things will remain complicated until sometime in April, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get my feet wet here.
I am starting off unambitiously, by returning to a Spectacled Avenger tradition: The annual January report on my previous year’s reading. One noticeable thing about my 2020 reading list is that it is somewhat shorter than average (for the reasons outlined above).
Otherwise, in terms of reading patterns in 2020, you’ll see quite a bit on the following:
- English legal and administrative history (Baker, Coke, Blackstone, Elsyng, FitzNigel, Smith, the Parliamentary Register, the Debate at Large on James II’s abdication)
- Public choice and libertarian political economy (Brennan & Buchanan, Hayek)
- History of witchcraft and magic (Boguet, Evans-Pritchard, Gow, Guazzo, Hartlieb & Molitoris, Kieckheffer, Kramer & Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum, and Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft)
The witchcraft literature is most uncharacteristic of me, but it was research for a paper I had committed to writing. The paper is finished and has been presented. Although writing that paper is another reason for my lack of blogging, I hope to share the fruits of that labour with you here in the near future.
Without more ado, my reading list is below. As in previous years, entries in bold are books I particularly enjoyed for one reason or another.
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ADDISON, Joseph and Richard STEELE. The Spectator (Vol. I). London: J. and R. Tonson, 1739.
ADDISON, Joseph and Richard STEELE. The Spectator (Vol. II). London: J. and R. Tonson, 1739.
AINSLIE, George. Picoeconomics: The Strategic Interaction of Successive Motivational States within the Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
ANONYMOUS. The Debate at Large, between the House of Lords and the House of Commons…Relating to the Word, Abdicated, and the Vacancy of the Throne. London: J. Wickins, 1695 (facsimile, Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972).
ANONYMOUS. The Parliamentary Register; or History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons (Vol. XVI). London: J. Debrett, 1784.
AUGUSTINE, ST. The Confessions. Henry Chadwick (trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
BAKER, Sir John. Sources of English Legal History: Private Law to 1750 (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. I). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. II). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1766 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. III). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1768 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. IV). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1769 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
BOGUET, Henry. An Examen of Witches. E. Allen Ashwin (trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2009.
BORKOWSKI, Andrew and Paul du PLESSIS. Textbook on Roman Law (3rd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
BRENNAN, Geoffrey and James M. BUCHANAN. The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 9). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000.
BRENNAN, Geoffrey and James M. BUCHANAN. The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 10). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000.
BREUER, Joseph. Introduction to the Theory of Sets. Howard F. Fehr (trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006.
BURKE, Edmund. Letters on a Regicide Peace (Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 3). Francis Canavan (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1999.
BURKE, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: J. Dodsley, 1790 (facsimile, New York: Classics of Liberty Library, 1992).
BURLAMAQUI, Jean-Jacques. The Principles of Natural and Politic Law. Thomas Nugent (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2006.
BURNET, Gilbert. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (Vol. I). Martin Joseph Routh (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833.
CLEVELAND, John. The Poems of John Cleveland. Brian Morris and Eleanor Withington (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
COKE, Sir Edward. The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England; concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts. London: W. Clarke and Sons,1817 (facsimile, Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, 2015).
CUDWORTH, Ralph. The True Intellectual System of the Universe (Vol. I). London: Thomas Tegg, 1845.
DODINGTON, George Bubb. The Political Journal of George Bubb Dodington. John Carswell and Lewis Arnold Dralle (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
ELSYNG, Henry. Judicature in Parlement. Elizabeth Read Foster (ed.). London: Hambledon Press, 1991.
EVANS-PRITCHARD, E. E. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.
FERGUSON, Adam. Principles of Moral and Political Science (Vol. I). Edinburgh: A. Strahan and T. Creech, 1792 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1975).
FERGUSON, Adam. Principles of Moral and Political Science (Vol. II). Edinburgh: A. Strahan and T. Creech, 1792 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1975).
FIELDING, Henry. The Jacobite’s Journal and Related Writings. W. B. Coley (ed.). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975.
FITZNIGEL, Richard. Dialogus de Scaccario (The Dialogue of the Exchequer) and Constitutio Domus Regis (The Disposition of the King’s Household). Emilie Amt and S. D. Church (trans.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.
FRONTO, Marcus Cornelius. Correspondence (Vol. I). C. R. Haines (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.
GAIRDNER, James (ed.). The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509 (Vol. I). London: Chatto and Windus, 1904.
GOW, Andrew Colin et al. (eds. and trans.). The Arras Witch Treatises. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016.
GUAZZO, Francesco Maria. Compendium Maleficarum. E. A. Ashwin (trans.). New York: Dover Publications, 1988.
HARTLIEB, Johannes and Ulrich MOLITORIS. Hazards of the Dark Arts: Advice for Medieval Princes on Witchcraft and Magic. Richard Kieckhefer (trans.). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.
HAYEK, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I: Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
HAYEK, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. II: The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
HAYEK, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. III: The Political Order of a Free People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
IRVING, Washington. History, Tales and Sketches. New York: Library of America, 1983.
KELLY, John. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
KIECKHEFER, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
KRAMER, Heinrich and James SPRENGER. Malleus Maleficarum. Montague Summers (trans.). New York: Dover Publications, 1971.
LUCIAN. Works (Vol. I). A. M. Harmon (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
MALORY, Sir Thomas. Caxton’s Malory: Le Morte Darthur. James Spisak and William Matthews (eds.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983.
McINERNEY, Jay. Bright Lights, Big City. New York: Vintage, 1984.
MONTESQUIEU, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de. The Persian Letters. George R. Healy (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999.
PALEY, William. The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2002.
PEPYS, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Vol. VI: 1665). Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
PIERCE, John R. An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise. New York: Dover Publications, 1980.
POPE, Alexander. An Essay on Man (Twickenham Edition, Vol .III-i). Maynard Mack (ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964.
RACKHAM, Oliver. The History of the Countryside. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.
RICHARDSON, Samuel. Clarissa (Vol. I). London: Dent, 1967.
ROBERT, Henry M. Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (11th edition). New York: Da Capo Press, 2011.
RUBENHOLD, Hallie (ed.). Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies: Sex in the City in Georgian Britain. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus, 2005.
SANDARS, N.K. (trans.). The Epic of Gilgamesh. London: Penguin Books, 1972.
SCOT, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. New York: Dover Publications, 1972.
SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. II). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001.
SMITH, Sir Thomas. De Republica Anglorum. The maner of Governement or policie of the Realme of England. London: Henrie Midleton, 1583 (facsimile, New York: Da Capo Press, 1970).
VOLTAIRE. Candide and Other Stories. Roger Pearson (trans.). New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.
WHICHCOTE, Benjamin. The Works of the Learned Benjamin Whichcote (Vol. II). Aberdeen: Alexander Thomson, 1751 (facsimile, New York: Garland, 1977).
WODEHOUSE, P. G. The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology. New York: Everyman’s Library, 2007.
