<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@shriramk" class="u-url mention">@<span>shriramk</span></a></span> giving Vienna credit for von Neumann is a heck of a stretch.</p>

<p>8/ Still, if you can overlook that — as one must, with this genre — the result is still a fine, entertaining, and informative book. Certainly, I now have more places to visit when I&#39;m next in Vienna and even more context than my previous studies gave me. •</p>

<p>7/ This mars what could have been a great book: to show the outsize influence one small part of one city (and one university) had on the world&#39;s thinking, restoring to Vienna the reputation it squandered through Naziism and playing the victim. But Cockett pleads too hard. ↵</p>

<p>6/ Even to make his (improbable) case, Cockett has to take great liberties: essentially, if you did more than pass through Vienna, you count for his thesis. And of course, as the center of a major empire, many people did that… ↵</p>

<p>5/ Where I think Cockett goes wrong is this modern trend (for about 25 years now) of having to make X be the center of everything. Too many authors fall into this trap (probably generously nudged into it by their publishers). ↵</p>

<p>4/ What Cockett does well is show how influential the Viennese diaspora was. Some of the figures (like Hayek, Popper, and von Neumann [always &quot;Neumann&quot; here]) are well known. The influence on Hollywood and American advertising and sociology are probably less so. ↵</p>

<p>3/ Cockett documents all this well. He seems sufficiently versed in the topics, though some of his coverage can feel very superficial and secondary-sourced (and he&#39;s definitely not too clear on the math). But it does make for light, and enjoyable, reading. ↵</p>

<p>2/ It&#39;s unquestionable that for about 50 years starting in the late 1880s, Vienna was one of the great centers of intellect, and the consequences of its work are with us even today in numerous fields of life (from architecture to psychology to physics to…). ↵</p>

<p>New month, new book thread! </p><p>The first book I finished in 2025 was Dying To Know by Rae Cairns.</p><p>A bit predictable but the writing was absolutely gripping. I genuinely couldn’t put it down. </p><p>Full review: <a href="https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/93975fdb-ba66-4672-af50-c16b59d19ea9" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/</span><span class="invisible">93975fdb-ba66-4672-af50-c16b59d19ea9</span></a></p><p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/bookstodon" class="u-url mention">@<span>bookstodon</span></a></span> <a href="https://wandering.shop/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://wandering.shop/tags/crimethriller" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>crimethriller</span></a></p>