[The Volokh Conspiracy] Review of my latest book strongCreative Destruction/strong:
Paul Cantor of the University of Virginia offers a very favorable review of my latest book, Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures. Paul summarizes the book better than I ever could, he is an excellent writer on culture and economics. Although he is an English professor he also was once a student of Ludwig Mises, when he was a teenager, I am told. --Posted by Tyler Cowen to The Volokh Conspiracy at 10/2/2003 10:37:33 AMPowered by Blogger Pro
[The Volokh Conspiracy] Review:
A while back I recommended a book in which I've got a chapter-- Patten and Kymlicka, eds., Language Rights and Political Theory. Over at Pedantry, Scott has posted the first part of what promises to be an epic three-part review essay. It's interesting stuff. I'll note that it's perfectly true that the volume does not have any contributions from linguists or sociolinguists other than Stephen May. The purpose of the book is, quite explicitly, to introduce normative political theoretical analysis to a topic that is, after all, very widely written about by linguists and sociolinguists. Joshua Fishman and his students have been at it for a very long time, and they know many things we don't. They've also been known to throw around some pretty sloppy normative-policy claims, and to ally uncritically with language preservationism as a cause with little attention to either what its costs are or to the surrounding structure of ethnic politics. By contrast, the normative-theory literature on ethnicity and multiculturalism hasn't yet paid much attention to language as a distinct phenomenon. The book is an introductory attempt to remedy both problems. It's certainly not meant as a replacement for the study of sociolinguistics. I'm looking forward to seeing parts 2 and 3... --Posted by Jacob Levy to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/18/2003 10:49:17 AMPowered by Blogger Pro
[The Volokh Conspiracy] Review:
A while back I recommended a book in which I've got a chapter-- Patten and Kymlicka, eds., Language Rights and Political Theory. Over at Pedantry, Scott has posted the first part of what promises to be an epic three-part review essay. It's interesting stuff. I'll note that it's perfectly true that the volume does not have any contributions from linguists or sociolinguists other than Stephen May. The purpose of the book is, quite explicitly, to introduce normative political theoretical analysis to a topic that is, after all, very widely written about by linguists and sociolinguists. Joshua Fishman and his students have been at it for a very long time, and they know many things we don't. They've also been known to throw around some pretty sloppy normative-policy claims, and to ally uncritically with language preservationism as a cause with little attention to either what its costs are or to the surrounding structure of ethnic politics. By contrast, the normative-theory literature on ethnicity and multiculturalism hasn't yet paid much attention to language as a distinct phenomenon. The book is an introductory attempt to remedy both problems. It's certainly not meant as a replacement for the study of sociolinguistics. I'm looking forward to seeing parts 2 and 3... --Posted by Jacob Levy to The Volokh Conspiracy at 8/18/2003 10:49:17 AMPowered by Blogger Pro
