Weekend Reads, March 25: Mimesis & Bubbles

Mimesis & Bubbles Workshop Readings

Hello all,

I am in Austin, TX this weekend for our 1517 workshop Mimetic Bubbles and Manias facilitated by Byrne Hobart of The Diff, so few new readings for this week.

I’ve alluded to some of the readings for this workshop previously but I’ve shared them in their entirety below — kudos to Byrne for putting together this list:

Session 1: Intro to Mimesis

• George Soros, Alchemy of Finance, Ch1-Ch2

• Rene Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, Ch1-5

• Brian Timar, "Mimetic Traps" (lighter intro to the same ideas, more relatable, too)

Session 2: The Railway Bubble

• How we got up the Glenmutchkin Railway, and how we got out of it

• Collective hallucinations and inefficient markets: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s

Session 3: The Southeast Asia & Emerging Market Bubble (Or, How Harvard Lost Russia)

• Paul Blustein, The Chastening, Ch1-Ch5

Session 4: The Conglomerate Bubble

• D Magazine, “Jim Ling”

• John Brooks, The Go-Go Years, Ch6 & Ch10

Session 5: The Housing Bubble

• Bethany MacLean & Joe Nocera, All the Devils Are Here, Ch5, 6, 8 & 9

Session 6: Today

• How Playing the Long Game Made Elizabeth Holmes a Billionaire | Inc.com

• How Do You Like We Now - Bloomberg, First Section

• Ryan Breslow’s Twitter Thread: “The Mob Bosses of Silicon Valley”

• Hacker News responses to the above thread

Best,

Zak