The Culture Gabfest “Gild This” Edition
Slate’s Culture Gabfest on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, and spring cleaning.
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On this week’s episode, the critics discuss the celebrity of French economist Thomas Piketty and the surging popularity of his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Is Piketty a modern-day Keynes or just a new name to drop at liberal cocktail parties? Next the gabbers turn to Last Week Tonight With John Oliver on HBO. Cheeky and uncensored, the British comedian of Daily Show fame brings a global perspective to late night. And finally, the critics welcome Slate assistant editor J. Bryan Lowder to discuss his recent series “Rethinking Spring Cleaning.” Is the annual ritual an outdated relic or the key to comfort at home?
Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:
- Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century
- John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
- Paul Krugman’s must-read review of Capital in the New York Review of Books
- Ezra Klein’s Vox.com
- Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com
- David Brooks responds to Piketty’s success among the cultural elite in the New York Times
- Krugman responds to Brooks on his New York Times blog
- Last Week Tonight With John Oliver on HBO
- The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
- The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson
- Vulture compiles the best of John Oliver on The Daily Show
- J. Bryan Lowder’s Slate series “Rethinking Spring Cleaning”
Endorsements:
Dana: The Great Divergence by Timothy Noah about the growth of American income inequality in the late 20th century.
Julia: Cheryl Mendelson’s Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, the single-greatest manual about how to keep your home clean and a work of philosophy in its own right.
Bryan: Showing a tourist around your city. It allows you to see your city with fresh eyes.
Steve: The Partially Examined Life, a great, nonbloviating philosophy podcast on which Steve was a guest last week.
Outro: “Spring Cleaning” by Fats Waller
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