More Lectures?

In addition to the class lectures and sections, I have for some reason gone to three additional lectures offered by LSE, but they were all pretty interesting. The first was a discussion between an economist from LSE and a psychologist from Cambridge about their book, Thrive, that talks about the fact that there is evidence showing that psychological based therapies are often successful, but why they still are not more accepted and common. Although it is not exactly the type of psychology and economics I am interested in, it was encouraging to learn about one way in which the two fields can overlap. The next two lectures dealt with the decline of the West economically in recent years. The first was a talk by Professor Andrew Gamble about the unraveling of Western prosperity. It was an ok talk, but didn't really make a strong point, and just seemed to be hating on the US. The next one, however, was a debate between Danny Quah and Mick Cox, two LSE professors. Danny argued, with empirical evidence that the balance of the world economy was shifting distinctly eastward, and that China in particular has or will soon replace the US as the distinctive world power. Professor Cox fired back that there are major problems with this argument, and that the US still dominates the world, economically, as well as culturally, as seen in the attractiveness of US universities for students and professors alike to do their study and research. Professor Cox in particular is a great speaker and was really fun to listen too, cracking jokes while simultaneously making some very good points. He also mentioned/poked fun at his friend, Paul Kennedy several times, and inspired me to take his class, Military History of the West, at Yale. Overall, it was very interesting to listen to these discussions about the US from the perspective of another country and culture, and find out how they view us, and he best part was that after the lectures there was a reception to talk more with the speakers and meet other LSE students, and enjoy the free nibbles and wine!