What We Are Reading Today: Firefighting; The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons

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Updated 27 September 2021
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What We Are Reading Today: Firefighting; The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons

Edited by Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner and Henry M. Paulson Jr.

From the three primary architects of the American policy response to the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, a magnificent big-picture synthesis — from why it happened to where we are now, according to a review on goodreads.com.

In 2018, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and Hank Paulson came together to reflect on the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis ten years on. Recognizing that, as Ben put it, “the enemy is forgetting,” they examine the causes of the crisis, why it was so damaging, and what it ultimately took to prevent a second Great Depression. And they provide to their successors in the United States and the finance ministers and central bank governors of other countries a valuable playbook for reducing the damage from future financial crises.

Firefighting provides a candid and powerful account of the choices they and their teams made during the crisis, working under two presidents and with the leaders of Congress.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Pedantry’ by Arnoud S. Q. Visser

Updated 13 January 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Pedantry’ by Arnoud S. Q. Visser

Intellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downright aggression. Many learned individuals have cast such hostility as a badge of honor, a sign of envy, or a form of resistance to inconvenient truths.

“On Pedantry” offers an altogether different perspective, revealing how the excessive use of learning has been a vice in Western culture since the days of Socrates.

Taking readers  from the academies of ancient Greece to today’s culture wars, Arnoud Visser explains why pretentious and punctilious learning has always annoyed us.