If Books Could Kill – Details, episodes & analysis

How do you tell the entire history of humanity in a single book? Whatever you do, do not open a browser window. 

Thanks to Dorsa Amir, Duncan Stibbard Hawkes and David Perry for help researching and fact-checking this episode!

Where to find us: 

• Our Patreon
• Our merch!
• Peter's newsletter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• A Response to Yuval Harari
• Yuval Noah Harari’s History of Everyone, Ever
• How Humankind Conquered the World
• The revolution that wasn't
• Advances In The Study Of The Origin Of Humanness
• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a banal and risible self-help book
• Are Human Rights Western? 
• Bonaparte in Egypt
• Ship of Fools
• The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari
• A Reductionist History of Humankind
• Harari, Sapiens and historical accuracy
• The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40
• The Neolithic Revolution in the Middle East
• Was the Agricultural Revolution a Terrible Mistake?
• The Darker Side of the "Original Affluent Society"
• Harari's world history
• Compassion with Justice: Harari’s Assault on Human Rights
• Reconsidering the link between past material culture and cognition 

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Live like Dale Carnegie, neg like Calvin Coolidge.

Where to find us: 

• Our Patreon
• Our merch!
• Peter's newsletter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Self-help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America
• The Positive Thinkers
• Age of industrial violence 1910-1915 : the activities and findings of the United States commission on industrial relations
• Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1914–1942 
• Dale Carnegie and the Problem of Sincerity
  New York Times review from 1937

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

To hear the rest of the episode, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

Are you a single lady struggling to find love with a man? Don't fret! A twice-divorced game show host who thinks conversation is for women is here to help.

Where to find us: 

• Peter's newsletter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Who's to blame for the crisis of American masculinity? On the right, politicians tell men that they being oppressed by feminists and must reassert their manhood by supporting an authoritarian regime. And on the left, users of social media are often very irritating to people who write airport books.  

Where to find us: 

• Peter's newsletter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Conscientiousness as a Predictor of the Gender Gap in Academic Achievement
• Gender Differences in Scholastic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis
• Early Childhood Behavior Problems and the Gender Gap in Educational Attainment in the United States
• Where The Boys Aren’t
• The gender achievement gap in grades and standardised tests
• The State of Gender Equality for U.S. Adolescents
• Highlights of women’s earnings in 2023
• The gender gap in educational outcomes in Norway
• Social Influences And The Gender Gap In Disruptive Behavior
• Family Disadvantage and the Gender Gap
• What might interrupt men's suicide?
• As Women Take Over a Male-Dominated Field, the Pay Drops
• The Cost of Caring
• Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten?
• Age of Entry to Kindergarten and Children’s Academic Achievement
• The Effect of Age at School Entry on Reading Achievement Scores 
• Beyond the Pros and Cons of Redshirting
• Self- Control and the Developing Brain
• Importance of Sex Differences in Impulse Control and Addictions
• It is a myth that boys lag behind in brain development

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Peter and Michael dissect Jen Sincero's "You are a Badass," a book that answers the question: What if "The Secret" was written in the painful, try-hard style of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck"? Featuring a surprise digression about Sincero's other, even worse books.

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Savy Writes Books
  
  

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

In 2004, historian Thomas Frank proposed a theory about the rightward drift of the white working class. Was he a prescient king whose work presaged the rise of Trump — or a bumbling fool with a broken thesis?  Unfortunately it turns out he is a secret third thing that takes one hour and six minutes to explain.

Special thanks to Julia Valdés for her help with this episode!

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• The Thesis That Drove American Politics Crazy: The Emerging Democratic Majority
• What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas?
• Class is Dismissed
• The White Working Class and the Democratic Party
• It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class.
• How the diploma divide came to dominate American politics
• The 'Diploma Divide': Does It Exist for Racial and Ethnic Minorities?
• Blind Retrospection: Why Shark Attacks Are Bad For Democracy
• Nationally poor, locally rich: Income and local context in the 2016 presidential election
• Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government
• Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America
• Political Landscapes of Donald Trump
• The White Working Class and the 2016 Election
• Partisanship by family income, home ownership, union membership and veteran status
• The Elites Had It Coming
• What Explains Educational Realignment Among White Americans?

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Peter and Michael discuss the book that launched the phenomenon of New Atheism and asked the question: What if we hated Muslims, but in a secular way?

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Views of Violence
• Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System
• The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over
• Does intuitive mindset influence belief in God? 
• Terrorism science: 5 insights into jihad in Europe
• Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief
• What Is "Islamophobia"?
• Essays In Defense of Profiling
• To Profile or Not to Profile
• Chapter 2 The Making of Jihadist Social Actors in Europe in
• Who are the new jihadis?
• Disbelief - Prometheus Books 
• God and the Ivory Tower
• Religion’s evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion
• The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate
• Talking to the Enemy

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

What should workers do when they get laid off? In 1998 a bleak, asinine bestseller told them to find another whey. 

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
• Downsizing in America
• Temp:  How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary
• The Disposable American
• Spencer Johnson, ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ Author, Dies at 78
• What was the New Economy?
• Boss, Employees Share Large Cheese Platter
• Tarpon's big cheese has aides reading
• Why doesn’t downsizing deliver?
• On the Battlefields of Business, Millions of Casualties
• Shareholder Value and Workforce Downsizing, 1981-2006
• Long-Term Earnings Losses Due to Job Separation During the 1982 Recession
• Does Employee Downsizing Really Work?
• Layoffs, Top Executive Pay, and Firm Performance
• Emerging Conceptions of Work, Management and the Labor Market
• A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Why Organizations Downsize
• Organizational Downsizing: Constraining, Cloning, Learning
• The Decline and Fall of the Conglomerate Firm in the 1980s

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

New York’s favorite criminal is in the news, so here is our episode about his ridiculous life.

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