Being Interested: Amateur Reports on Books and Ideas

It is often the case that non-fiction books with apocalyptic titles turn out to be a ruse. When China Rules the World (2007, 2012) was a title that was attention-grabbing and scary, in addition to being untrue. Its author Martin Jacques had to at some point in the book make the qualifier that he didn’t mean that China would in a literal sense rule the world. His less dramatic thesis was that it would exercise more influence in the coming decades, tempered by the U.S. and the E.U. and other regional powers. Only in private moments at book tours would Jacques no doubt make the ‘Who Knew?’ confession that his publishers dreamt up the title. In The Death of Expertise: The Case Against Established and Why it Matters  (2017), the qualifier comes in the first few pages. Tom Nichols, former policy wonk in the U.S. Senate and a teacher at the U.S. Naval War College, reassures us that experts are still alive and well. But they are in dire straits. Like so many titles  beginning with ‘The De