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Ersarts' Book Shelf
The Web is a good source of quick information, but it is not enough. Neither are the film and telecommunications mediums sufficient. One needs a deeper understanding to begin to perceive where we are, how we got here and where we are going. For many, this deeper understanding can come only when you can slowly absorb a written word, a carefully crafted written argument, a thesis that is more complicated than a slogan or an image.
This is a basic list, a sort of starter kit of recommended reading. It is obviously not complete and is clearly deficient in many categories. For example, the list does not include many of the very good contemporary books that expose the meanness, deceit and cupidity of the current U.S. Administration. We consider its vices to be manifest. Rather, Ersarts' Book Shelf intends to offer a reading list that shows the intersections of history, sociology, art, science, religion, technology, peace and war. We are interested in revealing a Context and encouraging thought about the deeper structures of our society and culture. Hopefully, this will encourage thinking about new solutions and approaches to very old problems that Humankind has, as yet, proved unable to solve.
This list certainly does not encompass every book that Erarts likes or recommends. It naturally reflects the biases of the stewards of this website. It will undoubtedly expand over time with your suggestions and with the evolution of the site.
Our premise is that nothing stands in isolation and that, historically, all current and past events, all politics and culture stream seamlessly into one another.
Read carefully. Be thoughtful.
Care to submit additions and comments to the Ersart's Book Shelf? Contact Zbig@ersarts.com
HISTORY
- Day of Deceit (Robert B. Stinnet)
This is a very thoroughly researched analysis of the events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Mr. Stinnet is a decorated navy man well versed in cryptology. His conclusion is sobering and based on hard fact: the Roosevelt administration and the top Pentagon brass wanted to bait Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor so that the US would be drawn into the European theater of the Second World War. The highest echelons of government and the military knew the attack was coming, only Pearl Harbor itself was deliberately kept in the dark. 3,000 sailors' lives were sacrificed in 1941 because only a horrific 'sneak attack' that killed thousands of Americans would rouse the citizens from pacifism into a state of military preparedness. Hmmm. Why does this sound so familiar? Stinnet is not necessarily critical of Roosevelt's purpose; he simply wants to set the historical record straight and let the people draw their own conclusions.
- Revolution In Time (David S. Landes)
We take for granted the notion of the measured passage of time. It was revolutionary... at the time.
This is a remarkable, short history of a dedicated inventor who discovered a navigation tool that permitted England's maritime empire. It is also a story about how that empire screwed him.
- Thunder at Twilight/Vienna 1913/1914 (Frederic Morton)
Vienna on the eve of the First World War was the capitol of a stitched together empire filled with internal spies for the dying government, a bourgeois population oblivious to its own political decay and a smoldering lower class. Sound familiar?
- An Act of State (William Pepper)
Mr. Pepper was James Earl Ray's attorney. Although the book is sometimes difficult to read, you should read it anyway: it makes a convincing argument that Martin Luther King was not assassinated by Ray but by elements of one or more government agencies. Are you surprised?
This is sort of a lark, but it is fun to bust up one's image of the Western World 'discovering' and colonizing North America. Per Mr. Menzies excellent research, the Chinese were here first, in many places, with style, and in a very, very big way. A great book to pop a flag-waver's ethnocentric bubble.
- A People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn)
We don't need to say more about this book than others already have. The only issue is whether you read it first or after you have softened your mind with other reading.
- Revolutions of 1848 (Priscilla Robertson)
1848 was a watershed year in Europe, but most Americans do not know why. Revolutions and insurrections broke out everywhere, but they were either immature, ruthlessly quashed or just plain petered out. It was the year of Karl Marx, Bakunin, Wagner and many more. The legacy of these failed revolutions led to WWI then WWII then the Cold War then, well, you get the picture.
- The Spanish Republic and the Civil War (Gabriel Jackson)
One needs background on the tragedies of our modern times, and this was one of them. So where was America and our corporate interests while the fascists were beating the hell out of the defenders of the Spanish Republic? Do you really need to ask?
- The Great Game (Peter Hopkirk)
- Like Hidden Fire (Peter Hopkirk)
- Setting the East Ablaze (Peter Hopkirk)
So much is happening in the �Stans� these days. Peter Hopkirk has written these three books that are like a primer for novices to the Great Game. It is a bloody, awful business that continues with Uncle Sam as the latest player. These books are written journalistically and they are not meant to be treatises.
- The Hidden War (Artyom Borovik)
Now compare this Russian report of their war in Afghanistan with Mr. Hopkirk's books and our own Afghanistan and Iraq invasion experience. Pretty brutal stuff. Vietnam redux?
- The Siege of Vienna (John Stoye)
The ascendancy of the West is only a recent phenomena. The Ottoman Empire was expanding westward and stopped only at the gates of Vienna. History might have been different. This is only one of many books on this subject. You should be familiar with the event and read one or more books about this period of history. Include in your reading histories of the Moorish reign in Iberia that lasted more than five hundred years and the rise and fall of the Ottomans.
- The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy (Hans Mommsen)
The Weimar Republic was founded at the end of WWI and died with the burning of the Reichstag as the fascists seized power. Weimar was an incredibly exciting, liberal, dangerous, unstable and creative political entity. Out of it were born the neo-cons' patron saint, Leo Strauss, left writers like Bertolt Brecht, fiction writers like Thomas Mann, Bauhaus architecture, the somber etchings of Kathe Kollwitz, political ferment, political art, political street riots, and war like none had seen before.
- The Dark Valley (Piers Brendon)
And if Weimar was not enough, this fascinating book shows what was simultaneously happening around the world in the 1930s as fascist governments took power in many nations on many continents. Again, the parallels with our own times are striking.
- Revolutionary France 1770-1880 (Francois Furet)
What the American Revolution tentatively began, the French Revolution advanced in earnest. This sweeping study shows how the stage was set for the French Revolution and its aftermath right up through Napoleon and the Franco-Prussian War. A necessary study.
- Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire (Edward Gibbon)
Gibbons is a bigoted, egotistical, upper class historian, but he's a fun read, nevertheless. In any event, his sweeping chronicle of the demise of the Roman Empire, particularly the eastern Byzantine half of the Roman Empire, steeps you in a lot of historical personalities and events. The flow is the thing. Decline & Fall gives you a contextual foundation for today's events.
- The Cathars (Malcolm Lambert)
Who the Hell were the Cathars? The Cathars were a huge 'schismatic' sect that often encouraged vegetarianism, abstinence from sex and alcohol, and emphasized the artificiality of the material world. It grew so strongly in southern France and northern Italy that, between 1208 - 1228, the Vatican (who considered the Cathars one of its most serious threats of all time) undertook one of history's bloodiest, most ruthless campaigns of extirpation ever known, the Albigensian Crusade. So much for the Western tradition of tolerance. There are several books about this forgotten and blighted time in the medieval history section of your locally owned bookstores. Peruse them.
Simon Schama sometimes over-dramatizes history, but that's hard to do with the French Revolution. What this lacks in depth and insight, Schama makes up with pure good story telling. What the American colonists did in 1776 was duck soup compared to what the French revolutionists undertook. Again, this is merely one of many good books on the subject. Read any one of them. Better still, read them all.
- The Declaration of Independence, The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights
So, you haven't read them recently, like in the past 12 months? You'll be surprised how downright revolutionary are parts of the Declaration of Independence and the first ten amendments to the Constitution. In fact, the authors would undoubtedly be imprisoned as �terrorists� had they written them today. Sandwiched inbetween the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights is the Constitution - a rather peculiar 'property rights' document that enshrines slavery, among other things. The Constitution does, however, create a framework for checks and balances on the central government,but they are largely ignored these days. These documents display exhilerating, uplifting thoughts mixed with racist baggage. Read these documents now, before they are outlawed.
- In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz and I Didn't Do It For You (Michela Wrong)
Ms. Wrong writes with a disarming frankness mixed with light sarcasm. I like that touch, even though she sometimes glides too easily into the standard Western explanations for why Africa is/has been the way it is/was. Her two books - one about the Congo, the other about Eritrea - are good intros to Africa, focusing on two parts of the Congo that have been exploited and despoiled by the West. As the US begins to build more military bases in Africa and becomes more entangled in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and equatorial Africa, Michela Wrong gives her readers some insights to how good things went so badly. Read in conjunction with King Leopold's Ghost, below.
- King Leopold's Ghost (Adam Hochschild)
Mr. Hochschild has written a historical expose of the West's rape of the Congo. Millions and millions of Africans dies for the sake of colonialism, capitalism and the insatiable greed of the King of Belgium, Leopold II. The West tends to sweep history's crumbs under the carpet after it cannibalizes a country and a population. Mr. Hochschild does a nice job putting the bloody feast in the spotlight.
- The Plutonium Files (Eileen Welsome)
This is a hybrid history and horror story. Afraid that we are entering an age of nuclear war? Well, as ably documented by Ms. Welsome, we are already there: the US has already exploded over 1,000 nuclear devices (above and below ground) since WWII. The fallout has affected every plant, animal and human being world wide. The main thread of the story, however, is the secret radiation tests carried out by doctors, hospitals, researchers, universities and prisons, all around the United States; experiments conducted on unsuspecting human guinea pigs whose lives were destroyed without a clue what was done to them. You may never go to a doctor again.
ECONOMICS
- The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith)
If you cannot read it thoroughly, at least skim it. Interestingly, Smith was a moralist who despised corporations, finance chicanery and who would be appalled by the unbridled, unprincipled brand of 'capitalism' today's wealth-mongerers ascribe to him.
Sure, read this right after you finish reading Smith. Marx is tedious to read, but his insights into capitalism's workings are right on point. Skim the tendentious stuff. Marx did not create a viable alternative to capitalism, but his understanding of capitalism are as accurate today as in the 19th Century. Naturally, no one teaches Marx in the United States.
One of the best accounts of the crash of 1929. It is even well written. Not so much a study in economics, but a study in the personalties of the time.
- The Prize (Daniel Yergin)
This is the story of Oil, Big Business and Big Money. Very interesting and relevant.
- The Party's Over (Richard Heinberg)
The natural dessert to read after The Prize and Das Kapital. There's some 'hope' after all: the whole economic system is going to crash when we pass 'peak oil'.
- Super Imperialism (Michael Hudson)
Although this book is poorly written and edited, it is worth the struggle to read it. The author comprehensively describes the 'economic imperialism' that precedes, and perhaps, supercedes, the military imperialism of today's world. It is the history of economic chicanery and aggression that pervades the period from WWI to the present. A 'must read'.
- The Creature from Jekyll Island (G. Edward Griffin)
If you can overlook the stridency of this book, you will read one of the best histories of the Federal Reserve and central banking systems. Griffen sometimes lets his personal biases bleed into the pages, but if you can get past his rants, you will obtain a foundation for deeper understanding about the mysterious monetary system upon which our world stands.
LITERATURE
One of the scariest books ever written, but is it fiction? Some think this is actually Karl Rove's play book.
War is an exercise in death and futility. This, and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front, are made for pacifists.
- The Brothers Karamozov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
This is a heavy slog, as are most 19th Century Russian novels. Read it anyway; at least the story within the story, �The Grand Inquisitor�. It reflects the tormenting question of how (and whether) you can best serve the interests of humanity and what do you do with the paradox of free choice.
Right up there with 1984 in the �scary book� category. Once again, you ask yourself if this is fact or fiction? Remember the context of Kafka's world: the decaying days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire described above in Thunder At Twilight.
- A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
This is one of the best written works of fiction of all time. Unfortunately, Dickens was a royalty-loving Anglophile whose anti-revolutionary biases leak out of every page. Read it nevertheless. It shows you the nascent God-Is-An-Englishman mentality but it's a damn good read, anyway.
- Auto da Fe (Elias Canetti)
Canetti is one of the best 20th Century writers that most Americans have never heard about. Auto da Fe is downright weird, but intoxicating. It depicts an insane, corrupt, self-consuming, self-immolating society at the tail end of the Weimar Republic. Very unsettling.
- Cities of Salt (Abdelrahman Munif)
This is part of a trilogy. The novel takes place in a fictional Arab country that has oil. The author was banned in Saudi Arabia. Read it and gain an appreciation why Americans lose all the popularity polls in the Arab Middle East... and why the awful regimes we prop up are equally unloved. This book will also give you insight into why the Saudi regime propped up by the U.S. is crumbling. In order to fully appreciate the trilogy, you should also read the other two parts of the trilogy: Variations on Night and Day and The Trench. Each book has interlocking characters and stories although they are not necessarily sequenced chronologically
- It Can't happen Here (Sinclair Lewis)
Lewis wrote this apocalyptic anti-utopian novel in 1935. It is the story of an America that does not reelect Franklin Roosevelt and careers off the political cliff into a religio-corporatist fascism complete with concentration camps, summary imprisonment, foreign wars of conquest and media regimentation in the name of the Homeland. Although not as brutal as Orwell's 1984, It Can't Happen Here was written more than a decade earlier. You would swear it was written yesterday, so familiar are the scenes that Sinclair describes. Sinclair is an avowed "liberal" and "New Dealer". However, by book's end he practically morphs into a proselyte of armed revolution. Recently re-published after years out of print, this is a book you must read.
- On the Beach (Neville Shute)
Neville Shute's 1957 novel is probably the best anti-nuclear weapon novel ever written, even though the 1950s setting is slightly dated, as is the technology. Shute is one of those rare authors who actually knew how to write a good story.
- The Plague (Albert Camus)
This novel is rightly acclaimed as one of the best novels of all time. It is brief, composed in an unadorned, straight-forward style and forces the reader to look deeply inward while describing the worst type of social debacle: an unseen, ill-understood rat-borne pathogen that decimates a community. The essense of the book is, literally, the meaning of life and how each of us deals with the human condition and the challenge of friendship, personal and community stress. Camus' plague is obviously a metaphore as well as a disease, but the story can only heal you.
RELIGION AND SOCIOLOGY
- The Inferno (Dante Alighieri)
Dante wrote The Devine Comedy in the 14th Century. He cast into Hell (Book One of the trilogy) many of his contemporaries and he designed exquisite tortures suitable for each of their peculiar vices. Do you know of anyone from recent times who deserves his own little circle in Hell?
- The Epic of Gilgamesh (unknown)
Do not dismiss this one out of hand. This is one of the most profound religious works ever written, and one of the oldest. It deals with the core issue of death and our inability to conquer it. The story is written very flat, but that lack of affect is precisely what makes it so powerful and charming.
- Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity (Jonathon Irvine Israel)
If you want to understand the origins of the American Revolution and the makings of the Declaration of Independence, you need to understand the Enlightenment that evolved in Europe from 1650-1750. There were several "Enlightenments" in Europe. This definitive study is the history of the radical Enlightenment - the most shocking and liberating thought-revolution that occurred since the age of Constantine. The author primarily focuses on the wide philosophical swath cut by Benito Spinoza and he carefully demonstrates how hard and futilely the establishments of religion and state strove to undermine the emancipating logic of spinozism. This is a serious reader's book and understanding its premise will unlock many insights into our own society.
- Walden (Henry David Thoreau)
Thoreau's Walden and his essay Civil Disobedience are essential reading for understanding the better parts of the American psyche. Thoreau's unwavering personal stance against tyranny is a model for the 21st Century. He indicts the casual left-liberal: he who merely "votes' and gives lip service to justice, but who, nevertheless, does not withdraw from participating in, or contributing to, an unjust society and legal system. See Granular Resistance and indirect Actions (GRAINS) at this web site.
- Eichmann In Jerusalem. A Report On The Banality Of Evil (Hannah Arendt)
Some people love Hannah Arendt and some people hate her. I say that you simply must read what she has written. Unlike "fast" writers of our times, Arendt writes about BIG issues, and she is incredibly thoughtful. This book - originally written as a series of articles for the New Yorker Magazine - describes in painful analysis the capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann, kidnapped by Israel in Argentina and put on trial in 1962; then hung, for his role in coordinating the transportation of millions of Jews to Nazi death camps. Arendt, however, does not subscribe to simple myths. She peels back the history to reveal startling insights about human nature and all people of all religions, races, ethnicities. After reading this short book, track down and watch the French documentary "The Specialist", a three hour movie extracted from more than 300 hours of original video made in Jerusalem of the Eichmann trial.
- The Origins of Toralitarianism (Hannah Arendt)
As noted above, Arendt stands head and shoulders above contemporary philosophers and sociologists, regardless whether you choose to agree or disagree with her. Arendt's tome - a book that will take you at least a month to read and digest in bite-sized pieces - explores three related subjects: anti-semitism, imperialism and totalitarianism. Although she wrote with an eye on Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR, her observations ring just as clearly in the 21st Century. Be cautioned that this is one of those books that you will want to discuss with others when you are finished.
- What's My Name, Fool? (Dave Zirin)
This is much more than a book about sports - it's a book about the nexus between sports, politics and social consciousness. Even nerdy sports ignoramuses should study this quick read. It emphasizes the beauty of the body as well as of the mind but puts everything in the context of racism, class and economic exploitation. Very illuminating.
BIOGRAPHY
- Richard Wright (Hazel Rowley)
Richard Wright was one of the first Black Americans to write like a Black American about Black America. He was lauded... until he, like many others, felt compelled to leave the country. Well written biography. Note the curious way he died and who had him on their 'list' at the time.
- Huey Long (T. Harry Williams)
There are many biographies of The Kingfish. Read this one, or several of them. Long was a fascinating political animal who, if not assassinated, would have become President of the United States. Remember to read this in context with the strong populist, communist, Klan and fascist movements that were then current in the land.
- The Twelve Ceasars (Suetonius)
This is fun and ribald stuff. Is it accurate? Who knows. It is still good to read about the Emperors and their foibles from the perspective of one of their near-contemporaries. You might see some of our own times reflected in theirs.
Nicola Tesla was one of the quirkiest and most insightful inventors of our time. He is largely responsible for the modern electric power grid and, perhaps, radio. Three technologies have permitted our culture to develop the way it has: computers, cheap and available electricity and inexpensive petroleum. They are, of course, all related. Several biographies of Nicola Tesla are in print. We do not think the author of this one is connected to our august V.P., but read another one if the author's last name spooks you.
I recommend this biography as the companion text to Radical Enlightenment (see, Religion and Sociology, above).
- John Brown (W.E.B. Du Bois)
This is an excellent biography and a good vehicle to reopen your thinking about slavery, the United States and the Civil War. As you read the story, you have the sense of the modern. Where in the current political pastiche would John Brown fit in today? Not in your usual all-talk, no-action circles of passive protest. Was he a hero or a crackpot, a saint or a terrorist? It's worth reading to analyze in a modern context.
- Living My Life (Emma Goldman)
Emma Goldman's autobiography is an amazing tour of an amazing period in history. This extraordinary woman did almost everything possible in her time, lived enough for ten lives, and met nearly every significant player of her age from Lenin to Kropotkin to every labor, anarchist, socialist, syndicalist and revolutionary leader in the United States and Russia. Goldman's life story puts meaning into living the anarchist life, although one gets the sense that she was a closet romantic and slightly short on practical politics. You cannot understand the history of the lat 19th and early 20th Centuries without reading Goldman's two volume autobiography.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- The Hot Zone (Richard Preston)
Just when you thought it was safe to take off your bio-hazard suit! The problem is, this book is NOT fiction.
- Prisoners Dilemma (William Poundstone)
John Von Neumann is the father of the current military and economic mindset. This book explains the genesis and workings of 'game theory' and why it became such a powerful tool used by the wrong people. The more you understand Von Neumann and the Prisoners Dilemma, the more you understand this century.
- Fermat's Enigma (Simon Singh)
There is no political overlay to this work, but it is just a fine, well-written book. Better than that, the book gives you an excellent and eminently readable insight into the world of pure mathematics and gently explains why the pursuit of higher mathematics is the leading edge of discovering all fundamental truths.
- In Search of Schroedinger's Cat (John Gribbin)
Read something more scholarly if you are a quantum physicist. This book, however, is for the rest of us schmucks. A fun read and a good introduction to the sub-atomic quirkiness of quantum mechanics. If you have no explanation for why the world is the way it is, this will only cause more doubt and confusion. And that's why you should read it.
- The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins)
You do not have to subscribe to the theory, just read it anyway. Even if you push off against the author's premise that genes run our lives and our society, he presents a common, recurring theme that you need to understand one explanation why folks do what they do in Century Twenty-One.
- The Soul Of A New Machine (Tracy Kidder)
This book predates PCs? and Microsoft, but the excitement of creating a new computing machine is breathtaking. This is the spirit that spawned the technology age before it was corrupted by the bubble-mentality of stock options and unbridled greed.
- The Trouble With Physics (Lee Smolin)
If Smolin's dissection of string theory gives you a headache, just pass over those passages and go on with the story. The main thread of the book is busting the mythology of the university's ivory tower: it's politics as usual, even among the geniuses of theoretical physics. For those with a social conscience, this book helps to give us a bit of cosmological perspective and humility. Hey, if we don't understand what's happening in the world, consider how sobering it is that we may not understand even the most basic laws of physics, either.
- The Ancestor's Tale (Richard Dawkins)
I consider this to be Dawkins' best work. He takes an evolutionary pilgrimage backward in time. When finished reading, you will have a proper sense of the absolute insignificance of human existence. Global warming and the end of human civilization? As if nature could give a fig! She and the majority biomass of the ecosphere probably won't even notice our absence.
SCIENCE FICTION
- Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov)
Isaac Asimov was extremely insightful, and he leaned very left, politically. The premise of the trilogy is the evolution of humankind into something better and smarter and the effort to quash that positive evolution. It is also an essay about macro trends in history.
- The Futurological Congress (Stanislaw Lem)
Lem is a gem. The Futurological Congress is just a short intro to his work. Again, this could be sci-fi, or it could be near-fi.
- The Hitchkiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
Adams is very funny. This book, the first and best of a series written by Adams, justly deserves its quirky cult status. As in all good sci-fi, the social commentary lies beneath the story's surface.
POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY AND COMMENTARY
- The Clash of Fundamentalisms (Tariq Ali)
This is a primer on shredding all the myths about imperialist policies in the Middle East. Ali is also very good at showing the self-interest of the so-called governments of that region and how they are enmeshed in their own legacies of disgraceful behavior that favors the imperialists.
- Wealth and Democracy (Kevin Phillips)
Phillips can get a little wrapped up in his own statistics, but he nails the issue on the head. The U.S. has become corrupted by its own wealth and power, and Democracy's sliding downhill pretty damn fast.
- Disciplined Minds (Jeff Schmidt)
This is a pretty revolutionary book. It is directed primarily at scientists, engineers and technicians and poses the question 'why do you continue to work for the military/industrial interests that control virtually all scientific and engineering endeavors?' The author lost his job because he wrote this book. Read it.
- Unequal Protection (Thom Hartmann)
Thom Hartmann is a renaissance man of the 21st Century. This book is one of the best descriptions of how corporations morphed into �people� by mistake, misdirection and evil scheming. Hartmann also explains how pernicious is the lie that corporations have 'human rights' and how you can take steps to begin to rein them in.
- The Age of Reason (Thomas Paine)
- Common Sense (Thomas Paine)
- The Rights of Man (Thomas Paine)
Read anything by Thomas Paine and you will be smacked with the realization that the United States was truly borne of a Revolution. This man was quite edgy in his day and today. His works should be MANDATORY reading in all American high schools.
- The Power Elite (C. Wright Mills)
Professor Mills wrote this masterpiece in the late 1950s when the military-industrial complex was becoming apparent. Ignore the 'dated' references about where to draw the line that defines the upper class. Inflation has changed the value of the dollar, but not his thesis. Mills held that there is a natural collusion of interests among the elites and a process of co-option from above that dominates and directs our society. A formal 'conspiracy' is unnecessary because the effects of the natural identity of elite interests are the same. Your freedom and liberty are myths. Mills disses politicians as powerless porkbarrelers and, fifty years ago, pegged the military and the military-entwined corporate world as the true governors of America. This is very sobering stuff from a mainstream ivy league prof. Read it carefully and your world view will change... or be reinforced.
- The Prince (Nicolo Machiavelli)
Want to win friends and influence people? Well, how about how to just win? This book should be read only after life has kicked you around a bit. Very stark, very realistic. It could be the neo-cons' Bible.
- The Assassination of Julius Ceasar (Michael Parenti)
Parenti has done an excellent job deconstructing the commonly understood history of the assassination of Julius Ceasar. The main thrust of the book is that History, throughout History, has been written by a bunch of affluent, biased, upper class white snots, and everything you learned about History is certainly wrong. This is not Shakespear's history of Rome, but Lenin's. Read it in conjunction with Gibbon and anything by Howard Zinn.
- Democracy in America (Alexis De Tocqueville)
Alexis de Tocqueville nailed the American political culture when he wrote this monumental book. It's a very upbeat report. Unfortunately, he also foresaw the possibility that American style democracy could evolve into what it has become. Democracy in America is another one of those foundational books that you need to have read in order to make sense of the way Americans think and act. The original book and author are definitely not to be confused with the so-called 'Alexis de Tocqueville Institution' which is a Microsoft funded 'think tank', of sorts.
- Crowds and Power (Elias Canetti)
This is a peculiar study of crowds that does not fit into any particular category. The author is remarkably erudite in an off-handed way typical of the unfootnoted scholarship of the late 19th and early 20th Century. By cataloging and analyzing the many types of human crowds, Canetti offers some of the sharpest insights in human nature and politics. This will be one of the most unusual books you will read, but very rewarding.
- Free Culture (Lawrence Lessig)
Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford University. He is one of the most enlightened thinkers about the Commons and copyright law. If you think that this is a dry, purely legal topic that does not affect you, you are dead wrong. This book explains why the intentional rape of the commons and the obliteration of the Constitution's intentions regarding 'intellectual property' have, and have had, horrible consequences for everyone who writes, reads, creates art, buys art, makes or plays music or engages in any other type of creative activity. Lessig could have written a polemic, but he wrote, instead, a persuasive argument against our nakedly capitalistic approach to all creativity.
- The Grand Chessboard (Zbigniew Brzezinski)
Brzezinski is one arrogant fellow and his writing leaves a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, this 1997 book is important because it clearly was a bridge between the neo-liberal concept of the Pax Americana and the neo-conservative Pax America that we live with in the early 21st Century. The first and last chapters of this book, in particular, have echoes in the PNAC manifesto. This is a book that, if nothing else, will give you insight into how the neo-liberal power elite think. Knowledge is power, so grit your teeth and gain some insight. If possible, however, borrow and don't buy a copy of this book.
- The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan)
This is one of the most lyrical and informative books in the foodie categorie. Neither preachy nor hysterical, Pollan has done an excellent job laying out eating choices... and, like Babbett's Feast, wrapped the message in a culinary tour de force.
- How Nonviolence Protects The State (Peter Gelderloos)
Here's a tiny book - almost a pamphlet - that will turn your 'liberal' world upside down. Although I do not agree with Mr. Gelderloos 100%, he makes a convincing case for include violence in the activists quiver. Gelderloos's take on the "peace establishment" is scathing... and fairly accurate.
Care to submit additions and comments to the Ersart's Book Shelf?
- Contact Zbig@ersarts.com
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