I worked on the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer over the break. You will see my trust essay next Monday along with the very profound data. But I took advantage of the holidays to read three important books. Here is a summary of what I learned.
The Projects: A New History of Public Housing by Howard A. Husock
This is a tale of good intentions that turned sour. The massive public housing projects erected in U.S. cities from the time of the Great Depression through the early 60s were based on a European model for upgrading of slums and improving the lives of the poor. The Karl Marx project in Vienna in the 20s showed the possibility of using verticality, with only 20 percent of the ground floor space used for apartments, the balance for open air activities such as a playground or walking paths. Eleanor Roosevelt was a major proponent of this effort, working with Robert Moses, New York City’s master builder, in pioneering this concept in the U.S. The author describes the purpose of the projects as a launch pad for the lower middle class, with residents to stay for five years, then move into better housing. In fact, residents remained 40 years. The projects were to be self-financing, with rents to fund repairs or improvements. In fact, rents were fixed in the 60s at 25 percent of income, leading to shortfalls in revenue. The construction of the projects destroyed long-standing communities, which were mixtures of ethnicities and races. The projects became single race and heavily single parent families. I lived a mile from one of the much-touted projects, Cabrini-Green in Chicago. It has been demolished, along with Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and so many others because they deteriorated into unsafe, unsanitary environments marked by crime and neglect. The number of people living in public housing in the U.S. has decreased by one third over the past two decades, as residents use housing vouchers which subsidize their rentals in other neighborhoods.
Mexico: A 500-Year History by Paul Gillingham
This is a stunning journey from the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés to the present world power, 13th ranked among global economies. As I am married to Claudia, a proud Mexican, I have read other books on the history of the country, but this one gave me new insights. Did you know that Mexico had by far more millionaires as of 1800 than the U.S. (18 versus 2), based on mining and agriculture. Did you know that Mexico City was the New York City of the 1700s, with a diverse population, rapid economic growth and a bustling cultural scene, all driven by trade and immigration? Did you know that Mexico was the first nation to recover from the Great Depression because it was willing to do deficit spending and public works? Did you know that one half of the world’s money supply in the 1700s came from the silver mines of Mexico and Peru, with Mexican silver circulating in China and India as a primary coinage given the massive trade route between Acapulco and Manila? Did you know that the first nationalization of mineral resources was done by Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas in the 1930s, declaring that oil was a national asset? I learned that Mexican power radiates from the center, Mexico City, and that the states furthest from the center have always been more independent and self-governing. I gained even more respect for Benito Juárez, the first indigenous president of the country, who led his country twice, the second time ousting the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian in 1867. I am now friends with Prof. Gillingham; I wrote him a cold letter praising the book, which led to a dinner with my wife, Bret Stephens (who grew up in Mexico) and the Professor at a local taqueria.
Humboldt's Cosmos by Gerard Helferich
Humboldt's Cosmos is the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, naturalist and adventurer. Born in Prussia, Humboldt undertook a legendary journey over five years through Latin America. He began his travels in Cumana, Venezuela, founded in 1523, the oldest continuous Spanish settlement in the Americas (Venezuela is called Little Venice because of local inhabitants’ homes around Lake Maracaibo). Humboldt and his companion Aimé Bonpland, aimed to prove that the Orinoco River connected to the Amazon River through its tributaries. Before his departure, Humboldt witnessed the slave auction in Cumana (eight million Africans were brought to South America in the period 1525-1870 when slavery was abolished, the majority to non-Spanish nations in the Caribbean and Brazil), his first experience of slavery, revolting him thoroughly. During his travels, he recognized the domineering role played by missionaries. “By subjecting to invariable rules even the slightest actions of their domestic lives…their subsistence is more certain, but they show by their gloomy looks that they have not sacrificed their liberty without regret.” Humboldt made a critical discovery on his first ascent of the many mountains he would climb in the New World. Similar plants grow where the average temperature is comparable, so that latitude and height above sea level are key to finding similar species, yielding the key to climatology, isotherms. His journey in the Amazon rain forest provided an important paradox; although there is “unparalleled diversity of species, there is extremely low density of any particular species because there is not enough food to support identical individuals, so members of each species must fan out to survive.” A second leg of the journey was a trek from Cartegena, Colombia to Lima, Peru, tracing the spine of the Andes Mountains. Among his feats were scaling the active volcano Pichincha, rising nearly 16,000 feet in the air, with this unforgettable line from his memoir, “We saw bluish flames flicker in the depths and felt violent tremors every two or three minutes, shaking the rim of the crater.” His final segment was a trip through Mexico, from Acapulco to Mexico City then to mining town Guanajuato, which prompted him to write an important paper advocating the development of agriculture to replace mining. It is in that mining town where I first met Humboldt, whose statue graces the town square outside of the main cathedral.
I intend to keep up my reading habits in 2026. It is my source of greatest joy after my family and my work.
Richard Edelman is CEO.
