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Books everyone should read

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  • 22-11-2011 5:16pm
    #1
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭


    I thought it'd be interesting to gather some book titles together on essential reading for the modern informed political person. If a book has a bias (i.e. Chomsky is leftish etc) then say it.


    The Ascent of Money: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money

    If you're going to talk about the banking system you'd better know a bit about its history and why things are they way they are. A fascinating book, very informative and relatively neutral in analysis. Will not be satisfying to any committed Marxists I think.


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    #2
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,798 ✭✭✭karma_


    Hopefully not too off topic, but all 6 episodes of the documentary version of Ascent of Money is on 4oD.


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    #3
    ILikeBananas
    Registered Users Posts: 785 ✭✭✭ILikeBananas


    Great thread idea.

    Here's my submission:

    300px-The_Great_War_for_Civilisation_-_Dust_Jacket_-_Robert_Fisk.jpg

    It's an absolute tome but I found it a very informative read. Fisk wouldn't be the biggest fan of the state of Israel or American foreign policy but there's a lot more to it than that angle. If nothing else this book will educate the reader about numerous conflicts, revolutions and tragedies throughout the Arab world as well as in Iran, Afghanistan, Israel and Turkey.


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    #4
    wiseguy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 370 ✭✭wiseguy


    The leftie members of the site [an especially the "occupy movement" extremists] could do with a read of Animal Farm, before proceeding to read 1984 followed by The Gulag Archipelago

    On the economic front
    False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World
    Is worth a read, here is an extract
    the coverage of Argentina and its defaults as well as protectionist causes are covered


    as for Niall Ferguson mentioned by op, read his latest
    Civilization: The West and the Rest
    Also available on 4od if you dont want to read.

    His Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals is quite good if you are interested in history but thats going offtopic


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    #5
    anymore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,672 ✭✭✭anymore


    The Bible - self explanatory,


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    #6
    matthew8
    Registered Users Posts: 9,599 ✭✭✭matthew8


    wiseguy wrote: »
    The leftie members of the site [an especially the "occupy movement" extremists] could do with a read of Animal Farm, before proceeding to read 1984 followed by The Gulag Archipelago

    I haven't read the Gulag one, but though I'm libertarian I cringe when people tell leftists to read some George Orwell. He was a leftist, a communist until after the Spanish civil war, when he was still left of left. His concerns were more based around the labour party than anything, as it was becoming rather authoritarian. The books are fiction, nothing more. Excellent reads though, I always felt that politics takes away from 1984 as a book as people don't appreciate it for what it is.


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    #7
    SamHarris
    Registered Users Posts: 1,633 ✭✭✭SamHarris


    The State of Africa - A History of 50 years of independance.

    Very good, an excellent overview of why Africa ended up the way it is. Especially important as we move out of the "Arab Spring".

    Jeruslaem: The Biography.

    It also deals with the surrounding area in some detail, from biblical times to present. Given the amount of outright lies so often laid out by people concerning the region it really is a must read. It gives an excellent basis for the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and really sheds a light on why the problems are so intractable.

    The Opium War, by Julia Lovele.

    Very good work for giving a basis on why the Chinese act as they do, and perceive the West as they do today.


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    #8
    Ostrom
    Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    Never understood why a reading of / appreciation for Marx should be synonymous with socialist leanings. Volume one of Capital is a classic (if only as historical oddity).

    One of the first ambitious attempts at generating a coherent theory of history, critical discussion of previous economic thought, histories of the institutions of capitalism, commentaries on everything from classical philosophy to Darwin to the role of white bread in urban wage depression. Initiated a critical discussion which arguably laid the basis for modern economics via. the neoclassical labour theory of value debates.


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    #9
    Sergeant
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,362 ✭✭✭Sergeant


    Postwar_book_tony_judt.jpg

    An absolute tome, but a fascinating and very readable account of Europe in the aftermath of the 2nd world war.


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    #10
    Lockstep
    Registered Users Posts: 9,029 ✭✭✭Lockstep


    +1 for 1984 and Animal Farm (although I say that as a Social Democrat ;))

    Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky
    Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
    Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
    The Return of Depression Economics by Krugman.
    Political Ideologies by Andrew Haywood
    The Communist Manifesto by Marx
    The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
    The Earth Shall Weep: cracking book on Native American History. A glossed over part of American history.
    Ditto for King Leopold's Ghost on BElgian colonialism.


    Teach Yourself Politics by Joyce was a great for me, something I often reccomend to people

    Politics in the Republic of Ireland by Coakley and Gallagher is excellent, encompassing everything from the court system to voting trends.


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    #11
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,798 ✭✭✭karma_


    A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

    Radical and controversial at the time, a great book that dispenses with the traditional method of detailing history.


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    #12
    Suryavarman
    Registered Users Posts: 2,583 ✭✭✭Suryavarman


    Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block. It is a great defense of the more "undesirable" members of our society such as the pimp, the blackmailer, the person that shouts fire in a crowded theater and many more. Available for free online here.

    Milton Friedman's Free to Choose. The book was made into a TV series which is available for free on Youtube here. The TV series did more to turn me into a libertarian than any other work.

    I'd also second the previous mentions of 1984 and Capitalism and Freedom.

    Finally I'll recommend the infamous Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. A survey once found that it was the most influential book behind the Bible. When it was first released it was widely panned by critics. A widely divisive book but one that I personally consider a masterpiece.


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    #13
    goose2005
    Registered Users Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭goose2005


    Collapse by Jared Diamond


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    #14
    Ellian
    Registered Users Posts: 301 ✭✭Ellian


    Pretty much anything by Thomas Paine.


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    #15
    PRAF
    Registered Users Posts: 1,801 ✭✭✭PRAF


    goose2005 wrote: »
    Collapse by Jared Diamond

    Read it, one of the best books I ever read. Reads a bit like a college manual but cracking content in it. Guns, Germs and Steel by the same author is similarly great.


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    #16
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    PRAF wrote: »
    Read it, one of the best books I ever read. Reads a bit like a college manual but cracking content in it. Guns, Germs and Steel by the same author is similarly great.

    Yeah, I'd second Guns, Germs and Steel.


    I'd also add Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate and his Angels or our better Nature as well as good preps on human nature in the first instance and the decline of violence in the second.


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    #17
    doomed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 491 ✭✭doomed


    Suryavarman wrote: »
    Finally I'll recommend the infamous Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. A survey once found that it was the most influential book behind the Bible. When it was first released it was widely panned by critics. A widely divisive book but one that I personally consider a masterpiece.


    I suspect that survey had a fair bit in common with the one that voted Ronnie O'Brien as Juventus player of the century.


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    #18
    Valmont
    Registered Users Posts: 5,856 ✭✭✭Valmont


    Great idea for a thread! I can think of a few I want to read already.

    It's a work of fiction but also a philosophical treatise and a meditation on the real nature of the engines of progress: rational self-interest, individual rights, and a free economy.

    AtlasShrugged.jpg


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    #19
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    The Road to 9/11: Peter Dale Scott

    Essential Chomsky


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    #20
    Kinski
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭Kinski


    matthew8 wrote: »
    The books are fiction, nothing more. Excellent reads though, I always felt that politics takes away from 1984 as a book as people don't appreciate it for what it is.

    1984 is a highly political novel by a highly political author; it's counter-intuitive to assert that discussing politics in relation to his work somehow detracts from our understanding of it.
    efla wrote: »
    Never understood why a reading of / appreciation for Marx should be synonymous with socialist leanings. Volume one of Capital is a classic (if only as historical oddity).

    One of the first ambitious attempts at generating a coherent theory of history, critical discussion of previous economic thought, histories of the institutions of capitalism, commentaries on everything from classical philosophy to Darwin to the role of white bread in urban wage depression. Initiated a critical discussion which arguably laid the basis for modern economics via. the neoclassical labour theory of value debates.

    How can you claim that it kicked off a "discussion which arguably laid the basis for modern economics", and yet also describe it is as an "historical oddity"?:confused:

    Though anyone who is interested in reading Capital: Volume One could view the videos of David Harvey's seminar course while reading the book; and if they are interested in following that up with a Marxist interpretation of the current crisis, they could also read Harvey's The Enigma of Capital.


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    #21
    pragmatic1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,573 ✭✭✭pragmatic1


    The 48 laws of power.


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    #22
    Ostrom
    Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    Kinski wrote: »
    How can you claim that it kicked off a "discussion which arguably laid the basis for modern economics", and yet also describe it is as an "historical oddity"?:confused:

    Because it did?

    The neoclassical turn came about primarily due to the marginal utility / labour theory of value debates around the turn of the century and later. Arguably one of the single most influential academic debates in human history which formed a new paradigmatic basis for later 'strong programme' quantitative economics.

    Harvey himself states as much in The Limits to Capital

    The 'historical oddity' comment is not my own view - it seemed a less threatening invitation to read :)


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    #23
    Kinski
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭Kinski


    efla wrote: »
    The 'historical oddity' comment is not my own view - it seemed a less threatening invitation to read :)

    That was all I was picking you up on. I'd consider a book like Ignatius L. Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antediluvian World to be an example of an "historical oddity"; it seemed a strange description to apply to such a famous and influential text, but I understand now why you used it!


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    #24
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #25
    latenia
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,997 ✭✭✭latenia


    The Great Crash,1929 by JK Galbraith. Accessible and readable for anyone and remarkably prescient when applied to Ireland. Almost every paragraph contains one beautifully written sentence that shines with insight and truth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Crash,_1929


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    #26
    Byron85
    Registered Users Posts: 1,443 ✭✭✭Byron85


    Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda - Lt. Gen Romeo Dallaire
    The New Rulers of the World - John Pilger
    The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
    Discipline and Punish - Micheal Foucault
    The Moral Landscape - Sam Harris (Not politics related per se, but the possible implications of what is discussed in it definitely applies to politics.)
    Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History - Norman Finkelstein

    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Would you be able to recommend any Friedman actually?


    Also, I read Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land not long ago. Great read!


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    #27
    Sergeant
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,362 ✭✭✭Sergeant


    Hayek: The Road to Serfdom. A compelling treatise that propagates the theory that socialism and fascism have/had common roots in their desire to have ultimate control over the individual. Doesn't really deal with social democracy, or how the early exponents envisaged it.

    Francis Spufford: Red Plenty. A wonderful and very eccentric book that details some of the economic policies of the Soviet Union under Khrushchev. It's fiction, but it's a book about economics at the same time. Told in a series of short stories. I highly recommend it, without being able to properly explain or elucidate what it's about.


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    #28
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    latenia wrote: »
    The Great Crash,1929 by JK Galbraith. Accessible and readable for anyone and remarkably prescient when applied to Ireland. Almost every paragraph contains one beautifully written sentence that shines with insight and truth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Crash,_1929

    Great book that one. Never more relevant.


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    #29
    Valmont
    Registered Users Posts: 5,856 ✭✭✭Valmont


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Reading this right now but the laughter is papering over the educational benefits I think...


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    #30
    Soldie
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 1,713 ✭✭✭Soldie


    Byron85 wrote: »
    Would you be able to recommend any Friedman actually?

    Capitalism and Freedom is an informative and concise book.


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    #31
    Byron85
    Registered Users Posts: 1,443 ✭✭✭Byron85


    Soldie wrote: »
    Capitalism and Freedom is an informative and concise book.


    Cheers. Will add it to the list of roughly 15 other books i've to through in the mean time. :D


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