In this final episode of 2020, we decided to do a retrospective episode about the best recently published books we had read this year. I am joined by Jamin Hübner, a friend, scholar, and voracious reader who has regularly writes book reviews for Faith & Economics. Over the course of our conversation, we take turns recommending books and talking about the big ideas in them. We cover over a dozen books in the hour, and all the titles are available here in the show notes.

I wanted to have this conversation with Jamin for a number of reasons, one of which is that he is an accomplished book reviewer. Despite his young age, he has written over 70 published book reviews. Perhaps more importantly, he comes from a different ideological position than I do, and reads different books. You will see in our conversation, sometimes he sounds like a libertarian and sometimes he sounds like a socialist, and his book choices reflect his decision to research socialism and historic social democratic movements.

Jamin’s background is interesting too. He has graduate degrees in Religion, Theology and applied economics, he has written multiple books, and has been, among other things, a professor of Christian studies, business, and economics, and the founding editor of the Christian Libertarian Review. Today he is a Research Fellow at the Center for Faith and Human Flourishing at LCC international university and is teaching at the University of the People and at Western Dakota Technical Institute.

Our list of books was too long to include all the links. A list with Amazon links can be found here. (http://christianeconomists.org/2020/12/31/end-of-the-year-book-recommendations-with-jamin-hubner/)

McMullen Picks:

Mary Hirschfeld, Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy

Ezra Klein, Why We're Polarized 

T.M. Scanlon, Why Does Inequality Matter? 

Michael Tanner, The Inclusive Economy: How to Bring Wealth to America’s Poor

Heather Boushey, Unbound: How Inequality Constricts our Economy and What we Can Do about It 

Jonathan Rothwell, Republic of Equals: A Manifesto for a Just Society

David Smith, Kara Sevensma, Marjorie Terpstra and Steven McMullen, Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools 

Brandon Sanderson, The Stormlight Archives

Hübner Picks:

Nomi Prins, Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World 

Yanis Varoufakis, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy, or, How Capitalism Works and How it Fails

Jeremy Courtney, Love Anyway: An Invitation Beyond a World that’s Scary as Hell 

Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard, The Making of a Democratic Economy

Gary Dorrien, Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism 

Richard Wolff, Understanding Socialism

Joseph Blasi et. al., The Citizen's Share: Reducing Inequality in the 21st Century 

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation 

John Restakis, Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital