The Traveler IQ Challenge is a website that tests how well you know the world. There are 12 levels--starting from easy world cities and capitals to harder ones.

For my first try, I got a final score of 187595, level 6, and a 93 traveler IQ. Give it a try! Have fun!

Conversations with History is a website that contains video interviews of:

distinguished men and women from all over the world that talk about their lives and their work. Guests include diplomats, statesmen, and soldiers; economists and political analysts; scientists and historians; writers and foreign correspondents; activists and artists. The interviews span the globe and include discussion of political, economic, military, legal, cultural, and social issues shaping our world. At the heart of each interview is a focus on individuals and ideas that make a difference.

It is produced at the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley.

Besides the video interviews, it also provides the text versions. So, I find it pretty useful in getting to know the background and the learning experience of the most distinguished scholars of my field of study--IR, IPE, and Economics. For example, I've found Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, Kenneth N. Waltz, Samuel P. Huntington, John J. Mearsheimer, etc, in it's interviews.

Before watching the interviews, these names, although showing up numerously in textbooks or papers, were just names for me. But after watching each interview, the theories and the person connect. The implicit meanings and logics of their theories are clearer(for me) than ever. Furthermore, they talk about the tools, virtues, and advices that are beneficial for students that are interested in their field of study.

I find it quite useful. Therefore, I'll try to introduce some of the academics in the following weeks by order of the top 25 IR scholar list I mentioned before. Basically, I'll point out some interesting background or milestones of the scholars, and make some excerpts from the interviews.

I'll start out with Robert O. Keohane.

Greg Mankiw's Blog: NPR looks at the Carbon Tax

Christine Y. Chen talks about this survey released by the Committee of 100. I find it rather interesting.

• 60% of Chinese have a favorable impression of the U.S. and 26% have a negative impression. 52% of Americans have a favorable impression of China, with 45% looking at the Middle Kingdom unfavorably.

• 82% of Chinese believe that bilateral trade benefits both countries. 72% of Americans feel the same.

• Chinese respondents say that the U.S. is their country's most important global partner, with Russia second. American respondents believe that the United Kingdom and Japan are their two most important relationships. China comes in at #3.
  

Her explanation:

But maybe the reason the Chinese like the Americans so much is because they're not worried. The most interesting data looks at projected superpower status. Twenty years from now, only 49% of Americans and a mere 20% of Chinese think that the U.S. will be the world's leading power, whereas 55% of Chinese and 23% of Americans think that China will lead.

The complete survey is here.

In IR, we learn how "mirror images" shape perceptions between adversaries. Considering the source of the survey, maybe it's another signal released by Beijing to support and convince Washington to believe in China's "peaceful rise to the world."

World food price rises set to hit consumers

Carbon tax should replace carbon trading to curb climate change, says US mayor Blooberg

The carbon cap-and-trade industry is prone to "special interests, corruption, and inefficiencies." However, carbon taxes are "a very difficult political lift." So, what do you think? Inviting comments.

Greg Mankiw gives his advice:

1. Take as many math and statistics courses as you can stomach.

2. Choose your economics courses from professors who are passionate about the field and care about teaching. Ignore the particular topics covered when choosing courses. All parts of economics can be made interesting, or deadly dull, depending on the instructor.

3. Use your summers to experience economics from different perspectives. Spend one working as a research assistant for a professor, one working in a policy job in government, and one working in the private sector.

4. Read economics for fun in your spare time. To get you started, here is a list of recommended readings.

5. Follow economics news. The best weekly is The Economist. The best daily is the Wall Street Journal.

6. If you are at a research university, attend the economic research seminars at your school about once a week. You may not understand the discussions at first, because they may seem too technical, but you will pick up more than you know, and eventually you'll be giving the seminar yourself.

In addition, he offers a fun and interesting reading list, and also outsources the task of offering Advice for Grad Students to his colleagues.

Some Advice from A Yale Professor:
Chris Blattman's Blog: How to get a PhD *and* save the world

I was surfing through some blogs and found this interesting list in Roger A. Payne's blog (Under the title Most influential IR scholars) that identifies "the top 25 scholars with the greatest impact on the discipline over the past 20 years".

For the top 10, he included listing of the scholar's most influential IR publication (and date published):

1. Robert O. Keohane (1941), Princeton, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (1984)
2. Kenneth N. Waltz (1924), Emeritus California-Berkeley and Columbia, Theory of International Politics (1979)
3. Alexander Wendt (1958), Ohio State, Social Theory of International Politics (1999).
4. Samuel P. Huntington (1927), Harvard, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1998).
5. John J. Mearsheimer (1947), University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001)
6. Joseph S. Nye (1941), Harvard, coauthor (with Keohane) of Power and Interdependence: world politics in transition (1977).
7. Robert Jervis (1940), Columbia, The Logic of Images in International Relations (1970).
8. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (1946), New York University and Stanford's Hoover Institution, The War Trap (1981)
9. Bruce M. Russett (1935), Yale, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (1994).
10. Robert Gilpin (1930), Emeritus Princeton, The Political Economy of International Relations(1987).

Following are the 11~25(with 3 ranking 23):

11. Peter J. Katzenstein (1945), Cornell
12. Stephen D. Krasner (1942), Stanford
13. James N. Rosenau, George Washington
14. John Ruggie (1944), Harvard
15. Michael Doyle (1948), Columbia
16. James D. Fearon, Stanford
17. Immanuel Wallerstein (1930), Yale
18. Robert Cox (1926), Emeritus York (Toronto)
19. Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980), Chicago
20. Francis Fukuyama (1952), Johns Hopkins SAIS
21. J. David Singer (1925), Michigan
22. Stephen Walt (1955), Harvard
23. Jack L. Snyder, Columbia
23. Robert Axelrod (1943), Michigan
23. Stanley Hoffman (1928), Harvard

Keohane, Waltz, Wendt, Huntington, Nye, and Gilpin are the names I know of in the top ten list. Of the listed publications, I have only partially read Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order". Right now, I'm reading Gilpin's "Global Political Economy: Understanding the international economic order", and I'm half way through it. It's a great book for students with both political science and economic backgrounds. It guides you through the strengths and weakness of both fields, and suggests an alternative approach which is the studies of International Political Economy(IPE).

Krasner, Rosenau, Cox, Morgenthau, Fukuyama, Walt, Snyder, Axelrod, and Hoffman are the names I know in the following list. In fact, I saw Rosenau last year when he came to NCCU to give a speech, and I even had the chance to ask him a question during the conference. He was an old fellow who could barely walk by himself, but you can still see the glare that flashes in his eyes when talks about his intellectual findings.

I'm specifically interested in Gilpin and Waltz's publications. So here's a book or two to add to my "winter reading list".

Greg Mankiw gave an interesting reading list on his blog:

A student emails me asking for a summer reading list. Here are ten very different books I like that are fun enough that you would not be embarrassed (well, not too embarrassed) reading them at the beach:

1. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
2. Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers
3. Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity
4. Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist
5. P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich
6. Burton Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street
7. Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically
8. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics
9. John McMillan, Reinventing the Bazaar
10. William Breit and Barry T. Hirsch, Lives of the Laureates

Of the ten books listed I have only read Steven Levitt's Freakonomics. So maybe I should pick out another book and spend sometime reading it during this winter vacation.