Steve Silberman’s [amazon_link id=”0399185615″ target=”_blank” ]Neurotribes[/amazon_link] was the last of my holiday reading, just finished. It is as excellent as you’d expect from all the reviews and prizes. As well as being a fascinating account of the intellectual history of psychiatric/medical approaches to autism, including the dramatically changing approaches to diagnosis and treatment/support, it’s very well written. For instance, I liked the description of Leo Kanner, a central character, as having “the woebegone countenance of a sad beagle.” The book also has sections on the links between autism and the technology and sci-fi fan communities, dating back well before SIlicon Valley. The book quotes an expert on science fiction as describing the “subversive impulse at the heart of science fiction as an expression of ‘cognitive estrangement’ from the mainstream.

[amazon_image id=”1760113638″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ][amazon_image id=”1760293288″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently[/amazon_image]

I was frustrated to learn on page 375 that, throughout the disputes and discoveries in the US I’d been reading about so far, British researchers and doctors were “light years ahead of their American peers in their understanding of autism”; this is a highly US-centric book. British readers might also be surprised that Simon Baron-Cohen gets just two passing mentions. I’m certainly no expert but think he’s quite well known on this side of the Atlantic. The despicable Andrew Wakefield does get appropriately – ie. highly critically – described. My other frustration was that – given my lack of knowledge of the subject – there wasn’t more of a summary of the state of play at the end of the book. It’s clear enough that there is no ‘epidemic’, but rather a better understanding of the character of autism and much more diagnosis; and that the explanations are to be sought in genetics, not environmental factors. Still, I’d have liked a bit more.

Of course, wanting more of a 520 page book is a good sign. Interesting, compelling and important.

One of the joys of being on holiday is of course the extra reading time. Among the thrillers and novels, I read Jill Leovy’s [amazon_link id=”1784700762″ target=”_blank” ]Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America[/amazon_link]. It’s a brilliant piece of reportage about the many murders of young black men in southern Los Angeles, mainly killed by other young black men.

[amazon_image id=”1784700762″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Ghettoside: Investigating a Homicide Epidemic[/amazon_image]

The book mixes in a gripping narrative a few individual cases – the dead youths and their families, the immediate events, the detectives working on the case – along with a wider analysis of both the sorry history of the high murder rate and the structures of society and policing that (she argues) largely account for it. Leovy’s fundamental point is that the apparent lawlessness of the ghetto is in fact the law of the streets filling the vacuum left by the absence of ‘normal’ law, and the state’s abdication of its monopoly of violence in such territories. She, like her few heroic detectives working hard to solve every case like any other murder, sees the absence of genuine law enforcement as the root problem.

As she writes: “Gangs could seem pointlessly self destructive, but the reason they existed was no mystery. Boys and men always tend to group together for protection. They seek advantage in numbers. Unchecked by a state monopoly on violence, such groupings fight, commit crimes, and ascend to factional dominance as conditions permit. Fundamentally, gangs are a consequence of lawlessness, not a cause.”

One of the eye-opening aspects of the book lies in its descriptions of how little resource the homicide divisions in the south of LA have been allocated, compared to policing fads such as visibly patrolling streets, or preventive schemes. This extended to under-manning, overtime bans (on murder cases!), not allowing detectives to take their cars home, and even stationery shortages.

Interestingly, the epilogue describes a recent steep reduction in the murder rate, albeit remaining many times higher than other parts of the city and state. Leovy argues that there have been a number of contributory factors including demographic change (fewer blacks and more Hispanics in the city itself) but highlights in particular a significant increase in social security payments to poor black people, specially men, and especially to people coming out of prison. Supplemental Security Income payments give individuals a crucially different set of incentives: “Money translates to autonomy. Economic autonomy is like legal autonomy. It helps break apart homicidal enclaves by reducing interdependence and lowering the stakes in conflicts.” It is easier to walk away from the calling in of tit for tat favours by other gang members. Leovy suggests the Affordable Care Act will reinforce this autonomy. The section briefly notes the high rate of imprisonment too – David Skarbek’s [amazon_link id=”0199328501″ target=”_blank” ]The Social Order of the Underworld [/amazon_link]is a great complement to this book, looking specifically at the interactions between gangs and the US penal system.

Still, Leovy concludes, it is important not to lose sight of the key lesson that too little policing and enforcement of the law is corrosive. Every desperately sad story in this book underlines the message.

Yesterday – the morning after the Brexit vote – it was too painful to think about what had happened. I’m horrified by the outcome. At least for my train journal I had a completely absorbing book to read. It’s Rob Schmitz’s [amazon_link id=”1444791052″ target=”_blank” ]Street of Eternal Happiness: Big city dreams along a Shanghai road[/amazon_link]. Schmitz is the China correspondent for Marketplace, a speaker of Mandarin and has spent many years living in the country.

[amazon_image id=”1444791052″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road[/amazon_image]

The book uses stories about different characters living on or near the street to illustrate some broader themes. The owner of a not-very-successful sandwich bar opens up the aspirations and culture of young people whose life experience has been so different from that of their parents, who suffered the Cultural Revolution, grew up with siblings, above all conformed. A flower seller has lived the rural-urban migration to work in a factory story, before setting up her small business and bringing her sons to Shanghai. An elderly couple scraping by on pension and a street food stall are victims of a fraudulent pyramid scheme.

The themes are familiar, but here are woven into the fabric of everyday life, and made human. I’ve only been to China once (Beijing) & would love to return, although am not at all sure I’d want to live there as Rob Schmitz has. It’s pretty clear now that America is in its post-imperial decline, the European dream is disintegrating, and the next century will be the Chinese one. Anyway, I really enjoyed reading [amazon_link id=”1444791052″ target=”_blank” ]Street of Eternal Happiness[/amazon_link] and if it could keep me from brooding over the UK’s historical (not in a good way) decision, that’s real testament to how interesting it is.