Recent reading (non-fiction edition)

[luzula]

Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom (read in Swedish)
My dad is a fan of Garrett Hardin (of tragedy-of-the-commons fame); thus I read Elinor Ostrom. I'm giving this to my dad for Christmas. This is a really good book! It looks at lots of case studies of people who successfully managed their commons, and tries to see what the common (heh) factors are. And then it looks at cases where people did not succeed to see what the factors are there. This book is the opposite of supposing that you can set up a general abstract thought experiment and draw general conclusions about people's actions from that--instead, it insists that things are always more complicated and that you have to look at the specific conditions. Recommended.

Heavenly Mathematics by Gert van Brummelen
I'm preparing to give half an evening course in the history of navigation; the other half is given by an astronomer. So I'm reading up on the history of the mathematics of navigation, and it's fascinating! This book dips into various historical spherical trigonometry methods related to navigation; it's well written and accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of plane trigonometry. Recommended. *restrains self from sharing various examples*

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Please, don't restrain yourself.

Although my brain no longer can handle much math, I adored learning trig -- because I was learning civil engineering drafting -- and actually drew maps from "old fashioned" transit survey data.

So, Dava Sovey's book, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time was catnip.

(How is it that I haven't fallen into a World of Sail vortex yet?)

[luzula]

Okay, now I have too much to do to write stuff down. But it's cool that you've actually worked with old-fashioned survey data!

Ha, yeah, Age of Sail stuff is very compelling. I don't know if you've read Patrick O'Brian or not, but if you don't have the fortitude for a 21-book series, you can always watch the movie.

[mergatrude]

The first sounds good - I will investigate. Thank you.

[luzula]

Do let me know what you think of it, if you read it! Also, it's the kind of book where you can dip into it and not read the whole thing, I think.