Less Snark, More Penetrating Insight

Lee Beck gives five stars to Heads in the Sand:

The jump from blog to book worked well for Yglesias. I get the sense that he was pushed toward a less snarky, slightly stilted style, but you essentially get the same tightly reasoned and witty passages you'd expect from his longer posts or magazine stuff. What's surprising (for a blogger) is that these passages actually thread together into one continuous and earnest argument, a case for traditional liberal internationalism.

Not, I hope, too earnest -- there is stuff in there about Darth Vader's theory of hegemonic stability (similar to Bush's, led to the breakdown of the polity he thought he was strengthening) and, of course, the right-wing's Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics. At any rate, buy the book. We can count both blog readership and book sales, you know, and when the numbers don't match up my feelings are hurt :-(

Comments

Desperation doesn't look pretty on anyone, Matt.

Posted by strasmangelo jones | April 29, 2008 2:22 PM

I bought the book on Sunday, and I'm just about finished reading it. It's a quick read.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 29, 2008 2:47 PM

Nah, this is pomo ironic desperation. Like how you meet this pretty girl at a party right after doing a round of bitching to your friends about how you're single and hating it, and then you realize she heard everything, and you want to be able to get to know her without having her constantly thinking that you're just trying to get into her pants, so you do this comedic exaggerated flirt with her and then drop it all at once so that it's done and you can move on? It's like that.

Posted by NBarnes | April 29, 2008 2:51 PM

Darth Vader was just the enforcer. It was Emperor Palpatine's theory of hegemony you meant, Matt.

/geek

Posted by Ron | April 29, 2008 2:52 PM

I've got to disagree with Mr. Jones. Actually, I think honest desperation of this sort is better than the too-cute-by-half approach of self-promotion masquerading as winking satire of self-promotion that you've been engaging in up to this point, Matt.

For me, at least, guilt is more powerful than irony.

Posted by lackluster | April 29, 2008 2:52 PM

Insofar as you used the word "insofar" far too much, so that if it may have became so much of a distraction, I think it's so much still a far-reaching book, so to speak.

So yeah, a little stilted here and there, but a terrific book nonetheless.

Posted by Chris | April 29, 2008 3:01 PM

I have some questions about some claims which I think are true but wouldn't have minded seeing a cite for (I'm thinking of stuff the Kerry and Dean chapter, mostly), but I think it's just because I'm trained in crazy Law Review style citation.

Posted by washerdreyer | April 29, 2008 3:07 PM

The real question is not whether MY's book has all the snark we've come to love by reading this blog but rather the typos we've come to expect and even to love about MY's blog.

;)

Mazal Tov on the book Matt!

Posted by DAS | April 29, 2008 3:14 PM

C'mon. It's Grand Moff Tarkin who was the brains behind that.

Posted by Wilson | April 29, 2008 3:15 PM

OK, you win Yglesias. I'll go buy your freakin' book this afternoon. Really though, I can't imagine your pleading on your blog does much for book sells. Out of all the people that end up buying your book, how many of them will actually know of you from your blog? And of the people that read your blog, how many of them are going to buy it only after you pleaded with them to? Well, aside from myself.

I generally prefer Sullivan's writing to yours, but that's probably attributable to the fact that Sullivan opines and shows a lot more of his personality than you do.

I would call your writing "concise" before I'd call it "tightly reasoned", but I think the phrase works. Hopefully it does carry over to your book. I shall see...

Posted by socctty | April 29, 2008 3:20 PM

Are you telling me I need to buy a copy for each computer I read your blog from?

Man I need to start using fewer computers...

Posted by Matt | April 29, 2008 3:23 PM

Er, I meant to add that although I prefer Sullivan's style to yours, I can't say that I've bought one of his books. I've sort of had the approach of "If I happen to see it, I'll pick it up." Maybe that's the difference with pleading.

Posted by socctty | April 29, 2008 3:24 PM

bought the book yesterday. I can say without fear of hyperbole that this book will do for liberal foreign policy what Guttenberg did for books.
Some of you may ask what did Steve Guttenberg ever do for books, and that would be a fair question.

Posted by theCoach | April 29, 2008 3:25 PM

OK, OK, I bought the damn book. I can't promise to try to read it, but I'll try to try.

Posted by Glenn | April 29, 2008 3:26 PM

Not so fast, socctty. Yglesias loses. I just decided that he's pushed the hard sell a post too far, and that I will never part with a red cent for so much as an Yglesias pamphlet. If he keeps up with this, I won't even check it out from the library. I know, nose/face and all that, but goddamn this is annoying.

Posted by foolishmortal | April 29, 2008 3:28 PM

I already bought the damn thing. It's making my bathroom time that much more interesting...though why it needs to be interesting I'm not sure. Meant to post it here, but your CAP do-dah went well. Little heavy on the "Old gray hairs" patting you on the back, but it was good all in all.

Posted by Skalite | April 29, 2008 3:31 PM

Nah, this is pomo ironic desperation.

NBarnes, that's called "kidding on the square."

Posted by strasmangelo jones | April 29, 2008 3:32 PM

I posted by initial reactions to the book in a comment on one of Ilan Goldenberg's posts over at Democracy Arsenal. The book has its virtues, but overall I found it disappointingly lightweight. I expected more from Matt.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 29, 2008 3:38 PM

The book has its virtues, but overall I found it disappointingly lightweight.

Back cover quote for the paperback!

Posted by drjimcooper | April 29, 2008 4:17 PM

Actually, the back cover has one of the book's most entertaining features, a blogospheric inside joke blurb from Ezra Klein:

A very serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 29, 2008 4:30 PM

Okay, Matthew -- You have beaten me into submission too. I will buy the book and I will read it. I'm utterly broke right now but come next Monday, I'll be flush for a day or so and will purchase the tome ... And, by the way, congratulations on its publication. You seem very much the proud papa and one hardly begrudge you that, eh, mate? Truly, kudos!

Posted by charlotte | April 29, 2008 7:50 PM

Honestly, Matt, I was never too likely to buy the book anyway, but the constant pushing on your blog has brought me to the point where I'd be ashamed of myself if I did. Like I'd given into the pressure, destroying my self-respect.

Posted by Kalkin | April 29, 2008 8:01 PM

I'll see you tomorrow at border's and I'll buy the book then.

PS-hope you're riding your new bike down to the reading!

Posted by Bloix | April 29, 2008 9:35 PM

Given Matt's irritating hard-sell tactics, I hope that his book does poorly so long as he continues his beheavior.

However, it's a collective action problem. I bought it.

In my defense, I actually had intended on just buying It's A Jungle Out There, by Amanda Marcotte. I didn't expect it to be in the store, but it was. That made me curious to see whether they hadd Heads in the Sand too. They did. I ended up buying it. I really had just intended on buying the Marcotte book, though. Amanda's handled things with far more class than Matt, both in not hawking her book with every other post and in dealing with a bit of a scandal that arose around it.

Posted by Julian Elson | April 29, 2008 11:51 PM

To clarify, I bought It's a Jungle Out There too.

Posted by Julian Elson | April 29, 2008 11:53 PM

alright, alright, i bought the book today, get off my back already!!! although, i gotta say i didn't expect to find it up here so soon in Canad-uh. now i just gotta find the right place for it in my stack of un-read books.

Posted by mitch | April 29, 2008 11:57 PM

"...but you essentially get the same tightly reasoned and witty passages you'd expect from his longer posts or magazine stuff."

See why I don't want to read the book? If it's the same as his blog posts, it's a frickin' disaster. At least there shouldn't be as many typos or grammar gaffes.

"Darth Vader was just the enforcer. It was Emperor Palpatine's theory of hegemony you meant, Matt."

This illustrates how little Matt really knows about foreign policy. So why would I read the book if he can't even get Star Wars right?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 30, 2008 4:24 AM