Good reads in tandem? Kim Sterelny鈥檚 Thought in a Hostile World (Blackwell, 2003) considers how human cognition attained its subtlety through evolution in a dangerous and deceitful environment, and he says Chris Bayly鈥檚 The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Blackwell) is a superb history of how the 18th and 19th centuries brought us globalisation long before the term was coined.
Fiction? 鈥淚鈥檝e recently read a clutch of excellent novels.鈥� Alessandro Baricco鈥檚 Silk (Vintage, 1997) is 鈥渁 tiny, sensual and poetic gem, which has reverberated in my mind ever since鈥�. Seabright says that he misremembers Donna Tartt鈥檚 The Little Friend (Bloomsbury, 2002) unfairly as 鈥淒onna Friend鈥檚 The Little Tart鈥�, but he reckons Tartt captures the chilling way friends and family may simply ignore each other鈥檚 misery in the solipsism needed to get through the day, as few others do.