Summer reading
Dr. Thomas Sowell has a list:
Paul Johnson''s A History of the American People, and Modern Times
Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom's America in Black and White
The Federalist
Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov's The Turning Point
Gurcharan Das's India Unbound
Peter Bauer's Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion
Joshua Muravchik's Heaven on Earth
John Stossel's Give Me a Break
and his own's Basic Economics, Applied Economics, and Ethnic America.
The Economist has a review of Dr. Sowell's Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study

Mr Sowell's insight is that regardless of the supposed moral basis for preferential policies, the results are often remarkably similar. Though such policies are supposed to help the poor, their beneficiaries tend to be quite well-off. The truly poor rarely apply to enter university or bid for public-works contracts, and so cannot take advantage of quotas. The better-off quickly learn how to play the system

Last week I finished reading Carlos M. N. Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, and highly recommend it. In fact, I even ordered two as gifts for a friend and a relative. Don't miss the author's interview at the end.