Mar 3
The first student commentary produced for the Spring 2012 Rappaport Briefing is now available on rappaportbriefing.net. Written by Eva Shell, the commentary examines challenges in serving English language learners in Massachusetts. The commentaries are based on research papers written by students for my Law and Public Policy class in Fall 2011.
The March 2012 newsletter for Governance is now available.
Steve Coulter, Senior Economics and Business Analyst for BBC News, has just published a review of The Logic of Discipline. Says Coulter: “Roberts presents a clear and persuasive analysis of the technocratic turn in public policy since the 1990s. The Logic of Discipline provides a convincing and surprisingly readable assault on Public Choice economics.”
Wilson Quarterly has just posted a brief Q&A about America’s First Great Depression with assistant editor Cullen Nutt.
The History News Network has just published my article about political strife in Washington in the Winter and Spring of 1842 — the nadir of the First Great Depression, and coincidentally also the time of Charles Dickens’ only visit to the nation’s capital. President John Tyler seemed to be “at war with everyone,” Dickens wrote. In a few months Tyler would be threatened with impeachment because of controversies relating to the depression.
The Weekend Review of Dubai’s Gulf News has just published a review of my last book, The Logic of Discipline (Oxford University Press, 2010).
I enjoyed talking with Mason Fellows at Harvard Kennedy School this evening. The discussion was mainly about my forthcoming book, America’s First Great Depression, although I also talked a bit about Logic of Discipline. Thanks to Professor Matt Andrews for the invitation.
The Wall Street Journal has used the 200th anniversary of Dickens’ birth to pick up on America’s First Great Depression. WSJ calls it “an outstanding new book.”
New comments now in about forthcoming book:
“America’s First Great Depression is astute, compelling, concise, original, relevant, transatlantic, well-written, and witty. No ellipses and no exaggerations.”—Robert E. Wright, Nef Family Chair of Political Economy, Augustana College, South Dakota, author of One Nation Under Debt and Fubarnomics
“Alasdair Roberts tells a wide-ranging story of the depression that began in 1837 with lucidity, emphasizing the role of global financial markets and finding plenty of analogies to the economic problems of today.”—Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848
Sir John Gieve, formerly of Bank of England, speaks at Governance roundtable
The February newsletter for Governance is now posted. It features open access to more articles from our current special issue on the effect of the financial crisis on public governance. This includes an article by John Gieve (left) and Colin Provost of University College London on the role of ideas in triggering the crisis.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
