Any books that you can recommend that I add to the sidebar? What I’ve got listed there is pretty stale?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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read the following in the past year and can recommend wholeheartedly:
John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars
Marc Newman, The Civil Rights Movement
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Journals 1952-2000
Gwen Ifill, The Breakthrough – Politics and Race in the Age of Obama
Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine – Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Emperor – Downfall of an Autocrat
Jamie Zeppa, Beyond the Sky and the Earth
The Nine was exceptional, wasn’t it?
Just finished The Science of Fear by Daniel Gardner. It’s not about politics directly, but it examines the psychology of why we fear the things we do, so easily believe things that aren’t true and how we humans seem to be hard wired to make intuitive decisions based not on fact, reasoning or logic, but by “gut” feeling.
I thought it was an easy and fascinating read on a subject that I find very interesting, especially in our current political climate.
That one looks interesting and I am putting it on my wish-list. You might also like some of the ones in my list on mass psychology. Individuals are susceptible to less-than-rational thinking but there are other factors that impact our desire/need to follow. You recommendation seemed to be a reasonable complement to those.
Anything by Gary Paul Nabhan, and I’m now reading his “Where Our Food Comes From” retracing Nikolay Vaviov’s Quest to End Famine.
Until I read this book I had no idea that Hitler was bent not on just pillaging the Hermitage but also the extraordinary Seed vaults in St. Petersberg and the efforts by a handful of heroic Russians who gave their lives to protect the seeds of our world gathered for perpetuity by Vaviov from all five continents.
his “Cross-Pollinations” the marriage of science and poetry is also great, published by Credo
Paul Starobin, After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age
Alun Anderson, After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New Arctic
Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto
Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Juliet B. Shor, Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth
And for background of South Carolina, any of Jack Bass’s books, the most recent being:
Jack Bass and W. Scott Poole, The Palmetto State: the Making of Modern South Carolina, a readable general history by the author of the investigative book The Orangeburg Massacre
There is not nearly so good an overview of North Carolina. Paul Luebke’s, North Carolina Politics: 2000 is obviously outdated.
The Promise by
Jon Alter
How about mine . . .
http://www.amazon.com/Bottom-Fox-Devotion-Cold-Blooded-Murder/dp/1451523610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s
=books&qid=1276282704&sr=1-1
Danke.
Looks interesting.
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Hawk and the Dove by Nicholas Thompson
Just getting ready to start The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain. I heard an interview a few weeks ago with Barbara Strauch and it sounded pretty interesting so I picked it up.
Does fiction count? I’ve taken to reading novels almost exclusively for the past year or so. The two that left the most lasting impressions out of the crowd are
— Salman Rushdie”s Shalimar the Clown. This massive epic left me with a closer understanding of the chronic Kashmir dispute that energizes so much of the current trouble in the world than I’ve gotten from the non-fiction accounts. It’s a long, hard slog that leaps about at all levels of society and far-flung geographic locations. At times it seems to have lost its way among all the parallel plots, but finally wraps them up with total coherence and breathtaking brilliance. Read this and you’ll never buy into the pundit/”news” feeds about “terrorism” again.
— Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker. Turns on a bizarre brain affliction that leaves the sufferer with all his memory intact except for believing that those who had been closest to him are malevolent strangers who took over the real loved ones’ identities in the service of some massive conspiracy. The protagonists are a Nebraska truck driver and an NYC neuropsychiatrist — not accidentally reminiscent of Oliver Sacks — who has to rethink his own beliefs and practices. This is a rare page-turner that’s also a complex philosophical exploration at the highest level. A novel with some real meat on its bones for those who want their summer reading to be something more than a veg-out opportunity.
I’m slowly working my way through everything Powers has written. Even when he makes a mess of the plot, as in Operation Wandering Soul, any lover of incredible writing will forgive him. From that lesser book, here’s a bit of what I mean, set in an east LA pediatrics ward where the city sends the leftovers to die:
Right now I’m at the start of Margaret Atwood’s apocalyptic The Year of the Flood. I think it will join the list of the unforgotten.
I don’t know if any of the above are still in print. If not, worth finding.
Also,
Eaarth by Bill McKibben (An easily understandable explanation of global warming)
Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane by Dave Niewert and John Amato (Forward by Digby)
Have you read it? The ads/talk looks very interesting. Do you think they provide new insights on the Obama Effect on the Reps and the teabaggers?
I’ve read parts of it. Niewert is so thorough in his research that I implicitly trust that the rest of the book will live up to what I’ve read so far.
I heard Glenn Beck’s new book is … ummmmm … rather interesting .. in a trainwreck kind of way
It’s always good to read that stuff to gain insights into its appeal to certain others. That often in turn leads one to try to better understand those others.
From years of listening to Right-Wing talk radio on a long commute during which there was no progressive alternative I took the most egregious or compelling general and anecdotal assertions and researched them later. I so often found blatant, unforgiveable exaggerations and mis-characterizations that those people have zero credibility to me.
Sure, I catch this on the left and feel the same way about it when I do but not nearly so much as on the right.
So I’ve just adopted a stance of calling bullshit wherever I might find it. The right keeps me busier though. Resistance to reasoning in light of new facts afflicts those on both the right and left.
Barbara Kingsolvers new book just won a huge prize.
It is an amazing novel The Lacuna
Strength in What Remains-Tracy Kidder
Fiction
Let the Great World Spin-McCann
A Reliable Wife-Goldrich
Cutting for Stone-Verghese
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders-Mueeenuddin-(short stories)-
Great Reads, All
All Art is Propaganda; George Orwell
Bad Money, Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and The Global Crisis of American Capitalism; Kevin Phillips
The Federalists, The Antifederalists and the American Political Tradition; Wilson Carey McWilliams & Michael T. Gibbons
The Audacity to Win; David Plouffe
Oh boy, do I! Here is my own personal booklist consisting of the favorites over a few years. I suppose you’re looking for more political ones so I’ll plug the most approapriate.
http://cid-31e12062d0015784.profile.live.com/Lists/cns!31E12062D0015784!141/
If any appeal to you I’d be happy to write extended and more in-depth descriptions of any length. But first a quick survey:
True Believer – good fundamental insights into mass movements and those susceptible to them. Hoffer is a unique individual. Barabara “Maha” Obrien quotes hi from time to time and that’s how I came across him. Have several other books by him that are waiting after this one which I’ve finished.
Small Is Beautiful – written in 70’s but as timely now as it ever was given “too-big-to-fail”. Is an economy there for certain individuals to make more money or to serve the citizens with gainful employment and a means of contributing? It poses fundamental questions regarding what the purpose of an economy is. Maybe some systematic redundancy and even inefficiency is worth it if it fulfills the purpose of eliminating unemployment…hardly socialism but in these times it will no doubt be called that as would be any form of societal tweaking or engineering — even those with sole intent to avert catastrophe of biblical proportion.
American Fascists — Chris Hedges (read his bio) is at it again, shining the light on the extreme religious right and its disstillation, the darkly apocalyptic, militaristicm, Christian Dominionist movement. He delves into the causes and what it might mean for us now that the religious right was let into government in what some might consider a deal with the devil during Bush’s terms of office. I’ve bought copies for family members who could not finish it, calling it far-fetched. The topic is not a sunny one but I was more impressed by the Hedges objective assessment and compassion towards those who turn to movements like these because they feel displaced. In this book and in other writing he outlines how we cannot afford to leave a large part of our country’s people on the outside of the affluence that seems increasingly less likely for a dwindling middle class. Hedge’s, in my opinion, nails the reasons why the extreme factions of the religious right are growing, the meaning of this for our country and what needs to be done to restore the faith of many in our social order.
First and Last Freedom – J. Krishnamurti states that “Truth is a Pathless Land” and opens with the following sentence: “To communicate with another, even if we know each other very well is extremely difficult.” …which sort of knocked my socks off. He discusses in the most basic terms the nature of the reality we find ourselves in and what people can do to become fully aware, actualized persons. There are an excess of books out there on spirituality but too many simply hold up a formula to be practiced by rote. Krishnamurti’s message is much more compelling as he encourages the read to know for themself, something rarely head within doctrinal, dogmatic Christianity.
The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts – Mark Twain at his best in my opinion. I’ve written ad nauseum about this one here: http://ppatt.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!31E12062D0015784!1463.entry but a shorter description might clearly do.
Guide for the Perplexed – I can’t say enough about this book. A must read for any inquisitive mind
The Nine – Insights into the makeup, personalities and interactions of those on our Supreme Court. No one will walk away without an understanding of the potential for appoinments to steer the course of our nation. In light of recent rulings which have been in the news it’s important for everyone to understand the threats to liberty posed by a new breed of Supreme Court Justice adhering to a psuedo-scholarly originalist doctrine by which they presume to discern unwritten intent of the founding fathers and to reject stare decisis or the precedent of law — all a means of dismissing hundreds of years of established law. This trend gives power to radicalism, is in no way conservative and is a looming concern that hangs over every presidential election given the current makeup of our Supreme Court. This is not a dull dry book as one might think.
Bush on the Couch – Justin Frank is a psychiatrist who undertakes en absentia analysis of George W. Bush. OK, I realize that Bush is gone but this is ingsightful and presents Bush and Bush family values in a somewhat different light than what many might hold as a good ol’ boy with whom it would be great to sit down and drink a beer. Forensic analysis is used on foreign leaders who would not willingly submit to a shrink’s couch so why not our own leader? A much different picture emerges of an ostensibly likeable, folksy man who under Frank’s scrutiny seems much different than anyone we might know and not “one of us.”
A couple more, Leadership and Self-Deception, oddly enough having an author of some institute. See :
http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-out-Box/dp/1576759776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&
;s=books&qid=1276361212&sr=1-1
This book constitutes the proverbial mirror that’s essential for a balanced person to gaze in occasionally. It effectively uses a narrative of a person in a corporate setting to understand the mechanisms by which they fall in the grip of self-betrayal, self-deception, denial and collusion. No less than 60% of the people I’ve bought this for or lent it to have declared it to have had a profound impact on their lives. Even for the self-aware who occasionally catch themselves making excuses or being less honest with themselves than they should be, the presentation is compelling and it has the potential to provoke thought, introspection and personal growth.
The Politics of Experience, The Self and Others by R.D. Laing. Some of his writing is reminiscent of Guide for the Perplexed since it touches on the limits of what a person can know and how easy it is to get mired in dysfunction. Though I carry his ideas with me I would have to browse to do a decent review. It has been a long time since I read these.
Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. He won a Nobel Prize in Literature for this book, the seminal book on mass psychology. Though much of the book takes an academicians sterile assessment of the causes for the assembly and dispersal of crowds in every possible way, ranging from sporting and religious events to wars, the better parts describe the process by which an entire nation would act almost as if of one mind and fall in line to kill and be killed. It’s hard to walk away from exposure to Canetti’s ideas without looking at mankind in a more primal way, motivated by both fear and bloodlust…and to understand the part in which each of us play in the larger whole. If you can make it through the drier, almost clinical parts of this tome there are some reall nuggets of gold to be mined.
=Most writing on my silly little blog site ( http://ppatt.spaces.live.com ) has been influenced by these books which are often quoted there. I’d suggest that any earnest attempt to understand politics will take most people on a journey that entails psychology and even some self-examination so in that sense these books outliine such a path I’ve followed.
Two books which never get stale – Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall. Each is eminently re-readable. The second shows us where on the slope we are today, the first keeps one from forever buying bubbles.
More recently, Barry Lynn’s Cornered.
In fiction, The Wind-up Girl and Jennifer Government are brill.