Joseph Stieb (Author of The Regime Change Consensus)

Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (Politics and Culture) by William A. Galston	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This was solid. At this point I have read a lot of book on this topic and they are starting to blur together. Galston makes a good case for a sort of social democracy to counter the rising tide of populism, and he has an excellent chapter on French p ...more
Sep 05, 2025 08:36AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Anti-Pluralism by William A. Galston. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Anti-Pluralism by William A. Galston <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it Commonwealth by Ann Patchett	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I liked this! It didn't blow me away, but it's a sensitive, well-written, largely sweet story about intergenerational family conflict and the responsibilities we have to each other. I thought parts of it were great, but the ending petered out a bit. ...more
Sep 04, 2025 09:55AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Commonwealth by Ann Patchett <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Excellent book! The title oversells a bit, as there isn't an Afghan equivalent to the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers. But Whitlock uses interviews, declassified docs, and other sources to show the long trend of American leaders and generals saying that ...more
Sep 03, 2025 08:30AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era) by Andrew F. Lang	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This was a really, really good and compelling history of the Civil War era. Lang argues that the Civil War is best defined as the culmination of a struggle over American identity and exceptionalism in the early American Republic. Each side in the Civ ...more
Sep 01, 2025 10:12AM · 3 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of A Contest of Civilizations by Andrew F. Lang. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — A Contest of Civilizations by Andrew F. Lang <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This was a good if not great true crime book that both my wife and I read. Fraser argues that the surge of serial killers in the US in the 70s and 80s was likely a result of increased pollution and toxicity in everyday life in the US then, but especi ...more
Aug 31, 2025 03:31PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Murderland by Caroline Fraser. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Murderland by Caroline Fraser <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" by Philippe Sands	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
After listening to a PHillippe Sands interview on the Ezra Klein podcast, I was very excited to read this book. However, I ended up feeling mildly let down. It is good and has some fascinating parts, but it also does a few things that annoy me as a r ...more
Aug 25, 2025 09:49AM · 6 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of East West Street by Philippe Sands. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — East West Street by Philippe Sands <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Interesting but too long. This is a true political and intellectual biography that probably could have had more impact if it had been 25% shorter. But it was a useful way to think about Madison, arguably the most important theorist/practitioner of co ...more
Aug 21, 2025 08:51AM · 4 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book liked it The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1) by Michael Crichton	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A bold concept for a book, this also had some genuinely chilling and compelling moments. I admire Crichton's commitment to research epidemiology and other technical subjects to tell his story. But I found the book to be very dry and overly procedural ...more
Aug 13, 2025 08:09AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico by Amy S. Greenberg	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I thought this was excellent. It's a well-paced, interesting, and revealing history of a largely forgotten conflict that transformed American history. AG tells more of a political and social history than a military one, although you get a sense of th ...more
Aug 10, 2025 12:52PM · 9 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of A Wicked War by Amy S. Greenberg. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — A Wicked War by Amy S. Greenberg <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture by Randall Kennedy	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Outstanding set of essays. RK provides a model on how to critique books, intellectuals, social issues, etc. I agreed with almost everything he wrote in here. I think we are both strong liberals who care deeply about ideas and careful attention to leg ...more
Aug 07, 2025 09:13AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Say It Loud! by Randall Kennedy. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Say It Loud! by Randall Kennedy <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it

Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (Politics and Culture)
by William A. Galston

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This was solid. At this point I have read a lot of book on this topic and they are starting to blur together. Galston makes a good case for a sort of social democracy to counter the rising tide of populism, and he has an excellent chapter on French p ...more

Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it

Commonwealth
by Ann Patchett

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I liked this! It didn't blow me away, but it's a sensitive, well-written, largely sweet story about intergenerational family conflict and the responsibilities we have to each other. I thought parts of it were great, but the ending petered out a bit. ...more

Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing

The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock

The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War
by Craig Whitlock

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Excellent book! The title oversells a bit, as there isn't an Afghan equivalent to the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers. But Whitlock uses interviews, declassified docs, and other sources to show the long trend of American leaders and generals saying that ...more

Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing

A Contest of Civilizations by Andrew F. Lang

A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)
by Andrew F. Lang

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This was a really, really good and compelling history of the Civil War era. Lang argues that the Civil War is best defined as the culmination of a struggle over American identity and exceptionalism in the early American Republic. Each side in the Civ This was a really, really good and compelling history of the Civil War era. Lang argues that the Civil War is best defined as the culmination of a struggle over American identity and exceptionalism in the early American Republic. Each side in the Civil War believed it was the true inheritor of the exceptional, providential mission of the US in the world. Each believed they were the soul of republican government, but they grew apart over time on what that meant. Northerners believed that slavery was ultimately incompatible with a republican society based in white free labor and hostility to aristocracy. Southerners believed that their slave system was a perfect hierarchy, rooted in biological fitness for certain roles, that enabled a selected class of people to live out republican government. Lang pays due attention to African-American intellectual history as well; black thinkers for the most part believed that America taking up its place as the world's bastion of republicanism required both racial egalitarianism and the destruction of slavery. These visions, as Lincoln and Seward argued, were basically incompatible, especially given the question of westward expansion.

The desire to save global republicanism provided the ideological fuel for saving the Union and fighting the Civil War, but Lang shows how it also constrained the North's willingness to remake the South. Government by military compulsion was anathema to republicanism, which made Reconstruction a temporary deviation that most Northerners rapidly lost patience with (although, obviously, not African-Americans). There are a lot of people now who argue that Reconstruction should have been pressed more aggressively or even permanently, but this really wasn't in the ideological cards at the time, at least among the people with enough power to make such decisions. This is ultimately a tragic outcome for a war that had to be fought.

This is an intellectual and political history primarily, so the lines between North and South are drawn a little more sharply than a social historian might (given, for example, the Unionists in the south and the difficulties in categorizing the border states). It is incredibly rich in its use of primary sources and its tracing of themes of republicanism throughout this time period.

A quick word to potential readers though: this book is very dense, and moves somewhat slowly. I think maybe 10% could have been weeded out . For example, there's a whole chapter on how a code of civilized warfare prevented the rise of a true "total war" during the Civil War. That felt like a separate article (which it is; it's another really good article by Lang), but it felt a little out of place. So it's not an easy book, but it's very rewarding and moving; I'm sure I'll use it often in my own teaching. ...more

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Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers
by Caroline Fraser

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This was a good if not great true crime book that both my wife and I read. Fraser argues that the surge of serial killers in the US in the 70s and 80s was likely a result of increased pollution and toxicity in everyday life in the US then, but especi ...more

Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it

East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
by Philippe Sands

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After listening to a PHillippe Sands interview on the Ezra Klein podcast, I was very excited to read this book. However, I ended up feeling mildly let down. It is good and has some fascinating parts, but it also does a few things that annoy me as a r After listening to a PHillippe Sands interview on the Ezra Klein podcast, I was very excited to read this book. However, I ended up feeling mildly let down. It is good and has some fascinating parts, but it also does a few things that annoy me as a reader. I'll start with the criticism. A lot of this book is about the author's search for his grandfather Leon, a Holocaust survivor; this felt like a separate narrative from the focus on the people who originated these two crucial concepts, and it took me out of the flow of the book (while making it pretty long as well. Second, this book had really, really short chapters that also interrupted the flow of things. So I found myself a little bored during parts of the book. FInally, there was too much about the city of Lviv for me to remain interested in; it's important to the story, but it felt like a fourth of the book.

It is, however, still fascinating to learn about Lauterpacht and Lemkin, two crucial figures in the history of international law. Both were Jews who lost most of their families in the Holocaust, but they each saw the problem of mass violence and modernity in different ways. Lemkin argued for the concept of genocide, which he saw as a process of stripping citizenship/nationality, removing rights, creating stigma, relocating, and finally killing. The whole process, he argued, was genocide, not simply the end result. That means people should be highly attentive to the process of dehumanization, creating non-citizens, etc, which creates massive potential for violence. For Lemkin, genocide was about killing individuals not because of anything they had done but merely because of their status in a group. That has stuck with most ordinary understandings of genocide to the present day.

Lauterpacht, however, believed that the genocide concept put too much emphasis on groups rather than individuals, which risked strengthening the kind of group identities that led to violence and hatred in the first place. He pioneered the idea of "crimes against humanity," which prosecuted a wider variety of crimes usually committed in the context of war. They are crimes because they are universally reviled acts that no culture tolerates. Lemkin's genocide concept, however, doesn't have to take place during war. Their definitions intermingled at the Nuremberg trials, where both concepts were mentioned in indictments, and in which they entered the mainstream of thinking about international law. But both thinkers found themselves somewhat disappointed by Nuremberg, where justice was limited to a small number of top leaders and where the focus was on aggressive war or "crimes against peace."

Either way, Lauterpacht and Lemkin helped change the world by defending the notion that state sovereignty does not mean you can do whatever you want within your own borders. Dozens of international conventions, laws, courts, etc have been built on the foundations they laid, and it's great that Sands tells their stories here. ...more

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The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman

The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President
by Noah Feldman

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Interesting but too long. This is a true political and intellectual biography that probably could have had more impact if it had been 25% shorter. But it was a useful way to think about Madison, arguably the most important theorist/practitioner of co Interesting but too long. This is a true political and intellectual biography that probably could have had more impact if it had been 25% shorter. But it was a useful way to think about Madison, arguably the most important theorist/practitioner of constitutionalism in American history.

NF argues that Madison's life had three stages and that his thought evolved as his roles and the context changed. Initially, he was the most profound theorist of the Founding era and a passionate defender of religious and republican liberty. He played a central role in orchestrating, writing, and defending the Constitution, especially in the Federalist papers and the Bill of Rights. He made a huge advance in republican theory by arguing that expanding the republic geographically would prevent tyrannizing majorities from forming and make it harder for small factions to take over the country. He devised a system based on divided powers: federal/state/local, executive/legislative/judicial, and, to some extent, the elite/the people. Cross-cutting divisions would make tyranny harder to form and, iin the words of Yuval Levin, encourage deliberation and consent in government. And yet he became a major advocate for the strengthening of the federal government (really, the creation of one) in response to the ineffectiveness of the Articles of Confederation.

Madison's second phase was as a partisan. He quickly became concerned that Hamilton was over-extended the power of the government, especially regarding the National Bank, which Madison did not believe was legal under the Constitution. He became a strong partisan figure who worked with Jefferson and other nascent Democratic Republicans to oppose Federalist plans without attacking the untouchable Washington directly. He was actually more politically sneaky than I expected, and he started to think of his political opponents as enemies. This was a big change from his more theoretical work, which is all about enabling people of different interests, classes, religions, etc to compete and work together within a constitutional order.

Madison's third stage was as President, where he struggled btw his predilection for republican idealism and the realities of power politics in that era. He initially hoped that he could keep the US out of war with France and/or Britain by using economic boycotts and sanctions, but this didn't really work. He ended up waging what I consider a second war for independence, the War of 1812, in response to British impressment of US sailors and other intimidation of the US. This war was relatively successful in asserting the US as a country not to be trifled with and setting the stage for US westward expansion.

This is a richly researched book that gave me a much better understanding of the endlessly fascinating and brilliant Madison. I just wish it had been shorter! ...more

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The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1)
by Michael Crichton

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A bold concept for a book, this also had some genuinely chilling and compelling moments. I admire Crichton's commitment to research epidemiology and other technical subjects to tell his story. But I found the book to be very dry and overly procedural ...more

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A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico
by Amy S. Greenberg

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I thought this was excellent. It's a well-paced, interesting, and revealing history of a largely forgotten conflict that transformed American history. AG tells more of a political and social history than a military one, although you get a sense of th I thought this was excellent. It's a well-paced, interesting, and revealing history of a largely forgotten conflict that transformed American history. AG tells more of a political and social history than a military one, although you get a sense of the war's course too. The main characters are Polk, Lincoln, Clay, Nicholas Trist, John Harden.

Polk was the true expansionist, the architect of an aggressive war that took about a third of Mexican territory, including the immensely valuable territory of California. He comes across as a cold, almost reptilian man in this book who rushed the country into this war with maniacal focus. Lincoln's worldview was reoriented by the Mexican War, which he opposed as a war of aggression and one which would expand slavery. He gravitated away from Whiggish economic issues and more toward a politics focused on slavery and free labor because of the Mexican War. Clay, Lincoln's hero, had been a rampant expansionist but also became probably the most stalwart opposition of Polk's war, for similar reasons as LIncoln, even though he was also a slaveholder. His prominent dissent helped turn much of the country against the war after it started, which put pressure on Polk to seek peace.

Harden was another prominent expansionist who actually beat Lincoln in an election for Congress in Illinois. But he soured on the war as a soldier, viewing the ugliness and dirtiness of this conflict, including significant abuses by US soldiers. He died and became a hero while also clearing the path for Lincoln first and only election to Congress. Lastly, Trist was the patrician southern diplomat who also became uneasy with this war and went rogue in Mexico, signing a deal that paid Mexico for its territorial losses and went against Polk's calls for even more concessions.

AG makes a good case that this might have been the first war in US history to generate a real opposition movement. She also works in the fascinating stories of these men's wives, showing the strong gender dynamics of expansionism in this period. If you are looking for a book on the Mexican War, I'd highly recommend this one. ...more

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Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture
by Randall Kennedy

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Outstanding set of essays. RK provides a model on how to critique books, intellectuals, social issues, etc. I agreed with almost everything he wrote in here. I think we are both strong liberals who care deeply about ideas and careful attention to leg ...more

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