What We Are Reading Today: The Lives of Snakes

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Updated 20 August 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: The Lives of Snakes

Author: Chris Mattison

Descended from prehistoric lizards, snakes have been slithering across the earth for more than a hundred million years.

There are some 4,100 species known to exist, and many are venomous, but many more are not.

Snakes experience the world in unique ways, seeing in just two colors, smelling the air with their tongues, and relying on signs of movement for orientation.


What We Are Reading Today: A Capital’s Capital

Updated 16 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: A Capital’s Capital

Authors: Gilles  Postel-Vinay and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

Successful economies sustain capital accumulation across generations, and capital accumulation leads to large increases in private wealth. In this book, Gilles Postel-Vinay and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal map the fluctuations in wealth and its distribution in Paris between 1807 and 1977. 

Drawing on a unique dataset of the bequests of almost 800,000 Parisians, they show that real wealth per decedent varied immensely during this period while inequality began high and declined only slowly. 

Parisians’ portfolios document startling changes in the geography and types of wealth over time.

Postel-Vinay and Rosenthal’s account reveals the impact of economic factors (large shocks, technological changes, differential returns to wealth), political factors (changes in taxation), and demographic and social factors (age and gender) on wealth and inequality.

Before World War I, private wealth was highly predictive of other indicators of welfare, including different forms of human capital, age at death, and access to local public goods.