Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans by David Stoll (1999). The professor taught this in the context of being wary of intellectual decisions which lead to exchanging one set of facts for another.
An Area of Darkness by VS Naipaul (1964) modeled for me the tensions of a life lived as a skeptic and cosmopolitan.
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Phillip Tetlock (2015)--how I appear to be concise and accurate at work.
Testosterone: A Man's Guide by Nelson Vergel. Many editions but very good layman's review of literature. Probably the deepest grooves here and it is the least "intellectual" in this list.
Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. Basically destroys most western cuisine cookbooks with math and written by an author of them.
Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Not the first barbell programming book but the clearest and most humorous.
James Scott's 'Seeing Like A State' has had a significant impact on how I look at the world and my work. I came away more deeply aware of the difference between the name of something and the knowing of it.
Like China, Africa is a very large place with a very long history. Unlike China, however, it's records and monuments are sparse. John Reader's 'Africa: A Biography of the Continent' did a great deal to get my head around the size and depth of the 'cradle of humanity'.
William McNeill was my introduction to thinking about history. He wrote from the 1950s to early 1970s, and can be dated and superficial in some areas, but his method of considering the material substrate (geography, agricultural practices, disease) and his curiosity about historical patterns often taken for granted is a great introduction to topics that more recent writers may have brought more rigor to. Shape of European History – good short introduction. Plagues and Peoples – first work to seriously look at dynamic of infectious disease and history. Pursuit of Power – very good on early modern military revolution.
Francis Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order is the best summary I’ve seen on how society and political systems cohere or not. His second volume has less focus but is still worthwhile.
Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism and Columbian Exchange show how “biological globalization” worked. To me, Guns, Germs and Steel was largely a rewrite of these books.
It’s easy to overlook that the central story of the 20th century was how its great emancipatory dream turned into a nightmarish dead end. Much of the ideological ennui of today is the aftermath of that disaster. Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror, Victor Serge’s “insider” account in his Memoirs and novels, and Yuri Slezkine’s recent House of Government tell that story. House of Government is long, but absolutely worth it.
I disagree with much of what the American Marxist Mike Davis writes, but he always provokes thought. The essays in Ecology of Fear are the best example. Anyone who lives in California should read “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn”.
Recently, Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter. Discusses the pattern by which societies add complexity to solve problems but the additional complexity consumes too many resources and the society collapses. Very relevant for contemporary America.
Razib, you may also enjoy The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World). This is right up your economics / class / education / ethnicity niche.
Currently reading Fukuyama’s two volume magnus opus work on history of political development, political order and decay. Covers the West, China, India civilisations and more. Simply magisterial can’t recommend it enough. Has a lot to say about how our past informs the contemporary political environment in both China and the US.
He also has another book on identity politics which I’ve not gotten around to reading but listen to a couple of podcasts he’s been on and think quite relevant to today.
Also currently reading ‘Network Origins of the Global Economy’ by GMU economist Hilton Root which uses network theory as an explanation for the Great Divergence between the West and China. In latter part discuss implication of rise of China for the future of the global order. Similar to Fukuyama draws on history of institutional development of both West and China to explain contemporary events. The book can be a bit in inconsistent but enough nuggets that have changed my perspective on things.
One claim he made that blew my mind (though haven’t verified) is no one in Europe claimed royal title outside of the original families of founding houses of kingdoms until Napoleon. Contrast to imperial China where established dynasties followed hereditary succession, founders of dynasty could be aristocrats, officials or even commoners.
In chapter 7 also claims the lack of ‘social trust’ and high prevalence of malfeasance can be attributed to the great migration of rural migrants from villages where behaviour governed by dense social ties to one where ppl live in cities of strangers but without the accompanying ‘rule of law’ infrastructure that u see in the West that governs behaviour in the West. Implication being without independent judiciary and other civic institutions CCP has to rely on totalitarian measures to maintain order. Interesting argument which I find quite plausible. Ties up with the Qin dynasty and their penchant for the Legalism totalitarian regime.
I've read 2/15 - not too bad - and I've read other books by several of the authors listed.
While not completely life-changing, The Son Also Rises by Gregory Clark still shaped my outlook in terms of showing just how deep-rooted social class is in heredity.
I never see anything by Brian Christian on these lists but I always enjoy his stuff. His books are on computing/AI/machine learning topics but popularized for the (relative) masses and he's on par with Dawkins at his best in terms of making complex topics accessible. I read The Alignment Problem last month while isolated with COVID and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Trade Wars are Class Wars, capital in the twenty-first century, Reaganland, Religion Explained, Prius or Pickup, Break It Up, Operation paperclip, Empire of Liberty, A Thousand Small Sanities, The Elegant Universe, Bad Samaritans, the lost history of liberalism, the ends of the World, the captured economy, the rise and fall of American growth, american amnesia, America in the gilded age and progressive era.
Sorry that's ridiculously long but those all had a big impact on how I think.
I've enjoyed Blackburn. But it was also interesting to read about him in Neven Sesardic's _Making Sense of Heritability_; apparently Blackburn goes out of his way to say some misleading stuff about IQ, twin studies, and nature vs nurture. E.g. his entry for 'Intelligence' in the Oxford dictionary of Philosophy:
> Most generally, the capacity to deal flexibly and effectively with practical and theoretical problems. Since peoples' capacities to do this vary with the problem, it may be doubted whether there is a useful level of abstraction at which one thing, intelligence, can be thought of as equally manifested in whatever logical, theoretical, practical, mathematical, linguistic, etc. successes we achieve. Nor is there much confidence left that intelligence tests measure any such general capacity, as opposed to measuring the subject's capacity to take intelligence tests, often of very specific and culturally peculiar kinds. For the question whether humans alone possess intelligence, see animal thought, instinct.
"Who We Are and How We Got Here" is a phenomenal summary of what ancient DNA hath wrought.
"Ecological Imperialism" is an epic, beautifully told, and haunting work of history that argues most of the explanation for European domination of the Americas comes back to biology, specifically diseases acquired from thousands of years of higher population density and proximity to animals. Terrific writing as well.
"Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans" is a bit dated but well-written and engrossing history of Texas. He does a great job making you sympathetic for Texan settlers, Mexican generals, fierce Comanche raiders, and practically every side of every conflict. It can get a bit tiresome to hear about yet another battle, but he really gives a sense of the broad forces driving victory/defeat for different factions.
To add some fiction, from authors described in Dawn to Decadence. Virgin Soil and On the Eve by Turgenev pushed me to act rather than just think and talk about things. The Red and the Black by Stendhal, which showed that idealistic people can end up being destructive and self-destructive. And Middlemarch by George Eliot showed how people more than 100 years ago still had vocational crises.
Straw Dogs by John Gray and The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart tempered my enthusiasm for a linearly rational understanding of the world and for our attempts to change it.
Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. The basis for Turchin’s structural–demographic theory of social change. More ‘historical’ ie less formal modeling than Turchin, but still data based. The best example of structural analysis of historical change that I know of. Still fresh and relevant, with uncanny historical parallels to today.
The Geography of Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler, was revelatory to me in that it articulated in a way I never could the unease I had with e.g. suburban subdivisions. But it was also a sort of heterodox awakening for me, in that it (and Kunstler's later writings) explained why the canonical lefty-protest themes of "save the <green space>", "stop the <building>", parks=good, new buildings=bad were often counterproductive if one had broader environmental goals in mind.
From Kunstler I went to Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Which is fantastic.
But the other book I was led to from Kunstler is Christopher Alexander's, A Pattern Language, which is a monumental approach to the design of the built environment. It covers scales from the organization of towns and cities in the landscape down to the arrangement of furniture in a room, and everything in between. It is described as 253 Design Patterns, each deeply researched, informed by psychology, and motivated to produce a good life for all.
Defenders of the Truth enthrallingly documents how easily, academics can abandon science for ideology, while self-righteously congratulaing themselves for doing it.
Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans by David Stoll (1999). The professor taught this in the context of being wary of intellectual decisions which lead to exchanging one set of facts for another.
An Area of Darkness by VS Naipaul (1964) modeled for me the tensions of a life lived as a skeptic and cosmopolitan.
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Phillip Tetlock (2015)--how I appear to be concise and accurate at work.
Testosterone: A Man's Guide by Nelson Vergel. Many editions but very good layman's review of literature. Probably the deepest grooves here and it is the least "intellectual" in this list.
Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. Basically destroys most western cuisine cookbooks with math and written by an author of them.
Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Not the first barbell programming book but the clearest and most humorous.
James Scott's 'Seeing Like A State' has had a significant impact on how I look at the world and my work. I came away more deeply aware of the difference between the name of something and the knowing of it.
Like China, Africa is a very large place with a very long history. Unlike China, however, it's records and monuments are sparse. John Reader's 'Africa: A Biography of the Continent' did a great deal to get my head around the size and depth of the 'cradle of humanity'.
William McNeill was my introduction to thinking about history. He wrote from the 1950s to early 1970s, and can be dated and superficial in some areas, but his method of considering the material substrate (geography, agricultural practices, disease) and his curiosity about historical patterns often taken for granted is a great introduction to topics that more recent writers may have brought more rigor to. Shape of European History – good short introduction. Plagues and Peoples – first work to seriously look at dynamic of infectious disease and history. Pursuit of Power – very good on early modern military revolution.
Francis Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order is the best summary I’ve seen on how society and political systems cohere or not. His second volume has less focus but is still worthwhile.
Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism and Columbian Exchange show how “biological globalization” worked. To me, Guns, Germs and Steel was largely a rewrite of these books.
It’s easy to overlook that the central story of the 20th century was how its great emancipatory dream turned into a nightmarish dead end. Much of the ideological ennui of today is the aftermath of that disaster. Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror, Victor Serge’s “insider” account in his Memoirs and novels, and Yuri Slezkine’s recent House of Government tell that story. House of Government is long, but absolutely worth it.
I disagree with much of what the American Marxist Mike Davis writes, but he always provokes thought. The essays in Ecology of Fear are the best example. Anyone who lives in California should read “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn”.
Recently, Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter. Discusses the pattern by which societies add complexity to solve problems but the additional complexity consumes too many resources and the society collapses. Very relevant for contemporary America.
Razib, you may also enjoy The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World). This is right up your economics / class / education / ethnicity niche.
Currently reading Fukuyama’s two volume magnus opus work on history of political development, political order and decay. Covers the West, China, India civilisations and more. Simply magisterial can’t recommend it enough. Has a lot to say about how our past informs the contemporary political environment in both China and the US.
He also has another book on identity politics which I’ve not gotten around to reading but listen to a couple of podcasts he’s been on and think quite relevant to today.
Also currently reading ‘Network Origins of the Global Economy’ by GMU economist Hilton Root which uses network theory as an explanation for the Great Divergence between the West and China. In latter part discuss implication of rise of China for the future of the global order. Similar to Fukuyama draws on history of institutional development of both West and China to explain contemporary events. The book can be a bit in inconsistent but enough nuggets that have changed my perspective on things.
One claim he made that blew my mind (though haven’t verified) is no one in Europe claimed royal title outside of the original families of founding houses of kingdoms until Napoleon. Contrast to imperial China where established dynasties followed hereditary succession, founders of dynasty could be aristocrats, officials or even commoners.
In chapter 7 also claims the lack of ‘social trust’ and high prevalence of malfeasance can be attributed to the great migration of rural migrants from villages where behaviour governed by dense social ties to one where ppl live in cities of strangers but without the accompanying ‘rule of law’ infrastructure that u see in the West that governs behaviour in the West. Implication being without independent judiciary and other civic institutions CCP has to rely on totalitarian measures to maintain order. Interesting argument which I find quite plausible. Ties up with the Qin dynasty and their penchant for the Legalism totalitarian regime.
I've read 2/15 - not too bad - and I've read other books by several of the authors listed.
While not completely life-changing, The Son Also Rises by Gregory Clark still shaped my outlook in terms of showing just how deep-rooted social class is in heredity.
I never see anything by Brian Christian on these lists but I always enjoy his stuff. His books are on computing/AI/machine learning topics but popularized for the (relative) masses and he's on par with Dawkins at his best in terms of making complex topics accessible. I read The Alignment Problem last month while isolated with COVID and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Great list, thanks!
Trade Wars are Class Wars, capital in the twenty-first century, Reaganland, Religion Explained, Prius or Pickup, Break It Up, Operation paperclip, Empire of Liberty, A Thousand Small Sanities, The Elegant Universe, Bad Samaritans, the lost history of liberalism, the ends of the World, the captured economy, the rise and fall of American growth, american amnesia, America in the gilded age and progressive era.
Sorry that's ridiculously long but those all had a big impact on how I think.
I've enjoyed Blackburn. But it was also interesting to read about him in Neven Sesardic's _Making Sense of Heritability_; apparently Blackburn goes out of his way to say some misleading stuff about IQ, twin studies, and nature vs nurture. E.g. his entry for 'Intelligence' in the Oxford dictionary of Philosophy:
> Most generally, the capacity to deal flexibly and effectively with practical and theoretical problems. Since peoples' capacities to do this vary with the problem, it may be doubted whether there is a useful level of abstraction at which one thing, intelligence, can be thought of as equally manifested in whatever logical, theoretical, practical, mathematical, linguistic, etc. successes we achieve. Nor is there much confidence left that intelligence tests measure any such general capacity, as opposed to measuring the subject's capacity to take intelligence tests, often of very specific and culturally peculiar kinds. For the question whether humans alone possess intelligence, see animal thought, instinct.
Purchased From Dawn to Decadence @abebooks. Thank you for the recommendations!
"Who We Are and How We Got Here" is a phenomenal summary of what ancient DNA hath wrought.
"Ecological Imperialism" is an epic, beautifully told, and haunting work of history that argues most of the explanation for European domination of the Americas comes back to biology, specifically diseases acquired from thousands of years of higher population density and proximity to animals. Terrific writing as well.
"Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans" is a bit dated but well-written and engrossing history of Texas. He does a great job making you sympathetic for Texan settlers, Mexican generals, fierce Comanche raiders, and practically every side of every conflict. It can get a bit tiresome to hear about yet another battle, but he really gives a sense of the broad forces driving victory/defeat for different factions.
To add some fiction, from authors described in Dawn to Decadence. Virgin Soil and On the Eve by Turgenev pushed me to act rather than just think and talk about things. The Red and the Black by Stendhal, which showed that idealistic people can end up being destructive and self-destructive. And Middlemarch by George Eliot showed how people more than 100 years ago still had vocational crises.
Straw Dogs by John Gray and The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart tempered my enthusiasm for a linearly rational understanding of the world and for our attempts to change it.
Razib,
Which ones of them do you think would be good as audiobooks? Probably Pinker? who else?
Thank you in advance
Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. The basis for Turchin’s structural–demographic theory of social change. More ‘historical’ ie less formal modeling than Turchin, but still data based. The best example of structural analysis of historical change that I know of. Still fresh and relevant, with uncanny historical parallels to today.
The Geography of Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler, was revelatory to me in that it articulated in a way I never could the unease I had with e.g. suburban subdivisions. But it was also a sort of heterodox awakening for me, in that it (and Kunstler's later writings) explained why the canonical lefty-protest themes of "save the <green space>", "stop the <building>", parks=good, new buildings=bad were often counterproductive if one had broader environmental goals in mind.
From Kunstler I went to Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Which is fantastic.
But the other book I was led to from Kunstler is Christopher Alexander's, A Pattern Language, which is a monumental approach to the design of the built environment. It covers scales from the organization of towns and cities in the landscape down to the arrangement of furniture in a room, and everything in between. It is described as 253 Design Patterns, each deeply researched, informed by psychology, and motivated to produce a good life for all.
Defenders of the Truth enthrallingly documents how easily, academics can abandon science for ideology, while self-righteously congratulaing themselves for doing it.