Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Harm's Way
Posts: 557

Post your list of "must read" political books and why.

The books that have influenced your political views the most and why.

Books that you would have EVERYONE read and why.

Especially pertaining to US foreign and domestic affairs.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

Welcome back, Jack! Stick around a while.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 24747

I never read that one, Chips. Who wrote it?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

*sigh* All right, then. "Parliament of Whores" by PJ O'Rourke. Happy now?

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: NJ
Posts: 2300

1984 is a very important political book. It contains great finger-pointing phrases, and we all know that the words "Big Brother" immediately win any discussion on any issue.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

Emery Reves (1945) "The Anatomy of Peace" is probably the single most influential book in shaping my world view.

Cheers

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Harm's Way
Posts: 557

Ok thank you for listing titles but don't just list titles: the question is WHY do you recommend the book/s?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

reading the Reves book will make all these things evident

he accurately oulines the processes by which political entities arrive at a state of conflict, and how such processes can be altered to the benefit of everyone.

A great synthesis of how Law, War, political deliniation and personal freedom interact.

Cheers

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Harm's Way
Posts: 557

How dated is it, being from 1945? How well do his theories hold up to whats going on now, with more emphasis on economics and technology?

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 5027

his Ideas are very much highly applicable still.

I showed the book to a professor of cultural Anthropology a year ago, and he has since then incorporated sections of Reves book into his lectures.

Cheers

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9454

It's not a book but an article by Robert Kaplan, Was Democracy just a moment?. His book The Coming Anarchy is pretty good too.

The Durant's Lessons of History isn't a political book per se, but it's very relevant and VERY good. It is also very short and very easy to read.

But the most important book today I would recommend is Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World. It isn't about Islamic Jihad really, even though the publishers make you think that at first. Barber uses the term jihad to refer to anti-modern conservative movements aimed at protecting, retaining, or enhancing local community customs and history, be it nationalistic expressions, fundamentalist politics, or terrorism. The book argues that both paths are components of the other in many ways and that both are great threats to democracy, be it the commodification of culture and loss of spiritual community attachments and cultural capital in the globalizing world or the backward trajectories of insular movements. It's very relevant.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 7920

Never listen to nutrimedia.
He's like candy. Rots your teeth.

Movies are the thing. Aliens was my favorite. (Put that whole cross border, acid for blood issue into perspective. Some people say I have acid for blood. Snakes! Getem OFF! @&*YDSUITdj)

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18142

I like the pamphlet on Marx that phil sent me for reasons I cannot discuss.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9454

Blowback by Chalmers Johnson is pretty relevant right now too. That ought to be taught in High Schools.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 3063

damn, with a reason like that ...

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 2573

Animal farm because its the only political satire i've ever read. (it was good though and had some fairly good points.)

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