a proximity1 recommended reading list -appendable

by proximity1 Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 11:31:43 AM EST

The following list of recommended reading is a 'work-in-progress'. There are authors whose listed works I've read, or am reading or intend to read. Your corrections, comments and suggestions are welcome. I also hope, by this page which shall be available in the site's 'Wiki' archive, to encourage other ET participants to list their recommended reading under the "Arts & Culture" rubric for the benefit of the rest of us.

Though it should not be necessary, perhaps it would not hurt to remind the reader that the mere presence in the list of an author or a title should not be interpreted as necessarily an endorsement of the views of the author or of the arguments in the work listed. If I list Leo Strauss or Niccolo Machiavelli, for example, it's because I believe that they have important things to teach us--and this could be as much by what they got wrong in their work as what they got right. Indeed, it may be that authors' errors in their theory teach us more than works in which there is little with which to find fault.

Finally, we ought to assume that there are faults and weaknesses in every work and that our task as readers is to uncover the faults and profit by them. It is in recognizing the faults as well as the valid points that we can benefit from a writer's work--whether we happen to agree with his main thesis or not.

proximity1's Recommended Reading

Notes:
All titles are available (originally or translated) in english unless otherwise noted
ed: « edited by »

[ Many author's "dates" have yet to be looked up and added.]

Normand Baillargeon (19-- )

Petit cours d'autodéfense intellectuelle

Bernard Bailyn (1922- )

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967)

Georges Balandier (19--)

Julien Benda (1867-1956)

Carl Bernstein (1944-) and Bob Woodward (1943- )

All the President's Men

The Final Days

Raymond Boudon (1934 - )

The Analysis of Ideology [L'idéologie: ou l'origine des idées reçues]

The art of self-persuasion

Olive Ann Burns (1924-1990)

Cold Sassy Tree

Alain Caillé (19--)

(ed.) Quelle démocratie voulons
nous?: pièces pour un débat (2006) [F]

Robert Caro (1935- )

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Malcolm Cowley (1898 - 1989)

Exile's Return

--And I Worked at the Writer's Trade

The Dream of the Golden Mountains

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, [ William Shakespeare] (1550-1604)

Collected plays and poetry of William Shakespeare

Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939 )

Civilization and Its Discontents

Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

Peter Gay (1923 - )

The Enlightenment [in two volumes]

William Greider (19-- )

Who Will Tell the People?: The Betrayal of American Democracy

One World, Ready or Not:The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism

J.L. (John Lawrence) (1872-1949) and Barbara (Bradby) (1873-1961) Hammond

The Village Labourer

The Town Labourer

The SKilled Labourer

Eric Hobsbawm (1917- )

Age of Revolution

Age of Empire

Age of Capital

Age of Extremes

Richard Hofstadter (1916 - 1970)

The Age of Reform (1955)

Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963)

The American Political Tradition (1948)

Social Darwinsim in American Thought, 1860-1915 (1944)

The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)

David Hume (1711-1776)

A Treatise on Human Nature

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

A History of England

Raoul Marc Jennar (19--

Europe, la Trahison des élites

Matthew Josephson (

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)

Essays in Persuasion

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Victor Klemperer (1881-1960)

LTI [Lingua tertii imperii] : La langue du IIIè Reich

originally,

LTI - Notizbuch eines Philologen

and Lingua Tertii Imperii, Sprache des Dritten Reichs

I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1933-41

To the Bitter End: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1942-45 LRB review

Eugen Kogon (1903-1987)

The Theory and Practice of Hell

[orig.: Der SS Staat Das System der deutschen
Konzentrationslager]

Paul Krugman (1953- )

The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century(September 2003

Pop Internationalism (1996)

Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations (1995)

Christopher Lasch (1932-1994)

: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminished Expectations (1979)

The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times (1984)

The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy

Titus Lucretius Carus(circa 94 - 49 B.C.)

De Rerum Natura [On the Nature of Things]

Crawford Brough Macpherson (1911-1987)

The Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism

Pierre Manent (19--

La raison des nations: Réflexions
sur la démocratie en Europe

Karl Marx (1818-1883):

Marcel Mauss (1872-1950):

Editors of The New York Times (edited by)

Papers on the [Vietnam] War [The Pentagon Papers]

Charlton Ogburn (1911 - 1998)

The Mysterious William Shakespeare

George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903-1950)

A Collection of Essays

Homage to Catalonia

Animal Farm

Nineteen Eighty-four

Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters

vol. 1: An Age Like This: 1920-1940

vol. 2: My Country, Right or Left: 1940-1943

vol. 3: As I Please: 1943-1945

vol. 4: In Front of Your Nose: 1945-1950

Publius Ovidius [Ovid] Naso (43 B.C.-17 A.D.)

Metamorphoses

Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809 )

Collected Writings : The Crisis; The Rights of Man; (Oxford Classics)

Karl Polányi (1886-1964)

The Great Transformation

Karl Popper (1902-1994):

The Open Society and Its Enemies
The Poverty of Historicism
The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Ignacio Ramonet (19--

Geopolitics of Chaos [orig. Géopolitique du chaos], 1997, 1999

La Tyrannie de la communication, 1999 [F]

Propagandes silencieuses, 2000 [F]

Philip Roth (1933- )

American Pastoral

I Married a Communist

The Human Stain

The Plot Against America

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970):

A History of Western Philosophy

Political Ideals

Power

G. Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Collected Plays and Prefaces

Commonsense about the War

The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism

The Black Girl in Search of God

Everybody's Political What's What

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The Wealth of Nations

C. P. (Charles Percy) Snow (1905-1980)

The Strangers and Brothers series of novels

The Two Cultures

John Ralston Saul (19-- )

Voltaire's Bastards

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Democracy in America (I & II)

The Old Regime and the Revolution

Enzo Traverso (

Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, an overview of 14th Century medieval Europe

The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910)

Collected Short Stories

Tom Swayer

Huckelberry Finn

The Viking Portable Twain

Twain bibliography

Max Weber (1864 - 1920 )

The Protestant Ethic in the Spirit of Capitalism

Rebecca West (1892-1983)

Black Lamb, Grey Falcon

[that's what I have so far; hypertext links to be added ]

a proximity1 recommended reading list -appendable | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list -append (none / 1)

more possibilities:
J.K. Galbraith (many books)
Thorsten Veblen
Max Weber
Adam Smith and his successors
Charles Darwin

By the way there was a thread like this a few months ago, you might want to see what was proposed that time.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 01:31:35 PM EST

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list -append (none / 0)

rdf,

Yes! Those and others are coming soon to a list near you.

It'll take some time to put together my full list. Your rec's are already on it; thanks.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 09:22:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list -append (none / 0)

I should take a look at my shelves as well I guess.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 09:25:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Here are some more diaries about recommended reading.

We need to compile a bibliography....

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/2/9/23162/60871

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/3/24/164327/579

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/2/1/213130/2425

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

by p------- on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 02:20:42 PM EST

Agreed!!!

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 09:26:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

reading list -appendable (none / 1)

Because it's what I do, here are the established names of your authors:

Baillargeon, Normand, 1958-
Balandier, Georges.
Benda, Julien, 1867-1956.
Boudon, Raymond.
Caillé, Alain, 1944-
Jennar, Raoul Marc.
Josephson, Matthew, 1899-1978.
Klemperer, Victor, 1881-1960.
Kogon, Eugen, 1903-
Macpherson, Crawford Brough, 1911-
Manent, Pierre.
Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.
Mauss, Marcel, 1872-1950.
Orwell, George, 1903-1950.
Polanyi, Karl, 1886-1964.
Popper, Karl Raimund, Sir, 1902-1994.
Ramonet, Ignacio.
Russell, Bertrand, 1872-1970.
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859.
Traverso, Enzo.

Also: I do not think you need to hyperlink the names or titles. I assume we all know how to use Google, libraries and bookstores. And you don't need to specify the language because, let's face it, if you don't know what it is, you can't read it anyway. It is not a bibliographic necessity.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

by p------- on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 02:55:17 PM EST

Re: reading list -appendable (none / 0)

Thank you for those additional dates, poemless.

BTW, the Wikipedia.org (english) has a standing list of names for which it seeks dates of birth-- N. Baillargeon's name is on it; you could help a lot there! ;^)

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 09:29:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: reading list -appendable (none / 0)

PS: I know that in posting the names first-name followed by surname, I'm offending good bibliographic etiquette and, as you're a librarian / researcher, I suppose I'm also offending your sense of propriety. Though I do apologize for these offenses, the choice was a deliberate one--to list that way, not the offending of your professional sensibilities.

I decided that for the sake of ease of readability, that is, for aesthetic reasons, I preferred to place the authors' surnames last.

This also facilitates "cut-and-paste" citation use of the names in comments.

For your advice to drop the concerns about language and hypertext links, my hearty thanks. Though I may continue to add hypertext links to authors or titles when I think that there is a particularly useful site available.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 10:18:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (4.00 / 2)

Polyani wrote a marvelous book How to Solve It that should be in everyone's library. Amazon link.

The Essence of Chaos by Edward Lorenz - of butterfly fame - is a wonderful introduction to Chaos and, as a bonus, he appends his original paper regarding Chaotic butterflies. ;-)

Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs, despite being 40+ years old, despite her bias, is still an astonishing work. Be Warned! Jane is habit forming. I purchased her last :-( book, Dark Age Ahead and talked Ms. ATinNM, Ph.d., into reading it. Ms. ATinNM, Ph.d., has now gone critical: reading all the copies in my library, ordering the books I don't have, looking up journal articles, lecturing me on proper cityscape design, & etc. (BTW, I call her "Ms. ATinNM, Ph.d." because I know she will read this and it ... vexes ... her to be called "Ms. ATinNM, Ph.d." She's so cute when she gets ... vexed.)

An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg sounds like the most boring thing possible right?

Wrong, WRONG, WRONG!

From the blurb:

Scientists, engineers, organization leaders, managers, doctors, students, and thinkers of all disciplines can use this book to dispel the mental fog that clouds problem-solving. As author Gerald M. Weinberg writes in the new preface to the Silver Anniversary Edition, "I haven't changed my conviction that most people don't think nearly as well as they could had they been taught some principles of thinking."

And let us not forget Also Sprach Zarathustra by your pal, and mine, Freddy Nietzsche. I've been reading that damn book since 1967, off and on, in 4 different translations and now I'm going slogging through the German text (dictionary and grammar in hand.) I wish I'd done this 30 years ago. Fred needs to be read in German in order to 'get' wot he speaketh about. Example: tieltanzer is usually translated as "tight rope walker" - in English - when, in fact, it explictedly means "rope dancer." It would take a diary to explicate how different that difference makes but it makes a huge difference in how the reader interacts with the text (note the French.)

It makes me wonder what I've missed in Voltaire, Sarte, and Breton by not being able to read French.

Speaking of Voltaire ... anything by Voltaire.

Homage to Catalonia by George (Eric Blair) Orwell. There is a story behind that recommendation and sometime, when I am more drunk than I am now, I may even put it on the internet for all to read.

Mutal Aid by Kropotkin is a fundamental blast against the testerone deranged "Ugh, Me Tarzan. Me survive all by lonesome" crowd.

Written partly as a response to Social Darwinism and in particular to Thomas H. Huxley's own Nineteenth Century essay The Struggle for Existence, Kropotkin drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions during his time in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation in animal and human communities. After examining the evidence of cooperation among the animals, the "savages", the "barbarians", in the medieval city, and in modern times, he concludes that cooperation and mutual aid are as important in the evolution of the species as competition and mutual strife, if not more important.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Thu Jun 8th, 2006 at 10:31:38 PM EST

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 0)

AT,

Your Polyani of How to Solve It is Michael Polanyi rather than Karl, another, older Polanyi, and maybe related. I haven't checked that.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 09:31:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 1)

The two Polányis were brothers, from a Hungarian Jewish family.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 11:19:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 0)

Thank you, DoDo.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 12:06:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 0)

Oops. Thanks for the correction!

(I blame the booze! ;-)

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Sun Jun 11th, 2006 at 03:08:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 1)

Right now two of the books on my active reading list are

Gandhi's "The Essential Gandhi" an anthology of his writings and

Leo Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You" which was a major inspiration to Gandhi.

by Fran on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 12:56:48 PM EST

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 0)

I can see the consistent harmony in those. That's Mohandas, of course, not Indira.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 01:12:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: a proximity1 recommended reading list (none / 0)

Yes, of course Mohandas or Mahatma as he was called later. I always forget about Indira.

by Fran on Fri Jun 9th, 2006 at 01:29:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

a proximity1 recommended reading list -appendable | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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