Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations

Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (Full Version)

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NeedToUseYou -> Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 5:58:39 PM)
I am buying some books, and my interests are Political, Religion, Economics, and Psychology. I'm wanting to buy books that have influenced thought, and would be considered classics or standards. I am logged into ebay, and will probably buy like ten books. I currently have bought. 1. Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged. 2. Communist Manifesto (Read part of it along time ago). 3. Machiavelli The Prince. Need suggestions. Thanks. Controversial, and preferable radical, or books that have effected thought in the area they cover.

littlewonder -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 6:34:36 PM)
Civil Disobedience by Thoreau The Bible

NeedToUseYou -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 6:50:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: littlewonder Civil Disobedience by Thoreau The Bible Ordered the Civil Disobedience one. I've read a good share of the bible already.

TheHeretic -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 6:53:02 PM)
The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

MrMister -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:09:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers Excellent choice. I'll try to add few choices you may possibly find helpful; For general reading - 1984 by George Orwell Economics- anything by Ludwig von Mises Religious classic - Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan (but I only recommend getting the version written in modern language) Or perhaps even a copy of the "Koran" or "Quotations from Chairman Mao (The Little Red Book)

Silence8 -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:13:46 PM)
anything by Slavoj Žižek -- I'd recommend 'Violence' and 'First Tragedy, Then Farce'. The National Review referred to him as the 'most dangerous political philosopher in the West'. Also, Howard Zinn just died -- have you read the 'people's history'?

MissCake -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:14:08 PM)
Anything by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky. The Prince by Nicollo Machiavelli Robert MacNamara's memoirs.

dcnovice -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:20:09 PM)
One book I've heard good things about and have been meaning to read for years is Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire. I'd also take a look at Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, which is quite political/economic in its way. Not surprisingly, it was a great favorite of FDR's.

samboct -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:21:26 PM)
How about some philosophy- other than Ayn Rand (yech...) Actually quite readable- Thus Spake Zarathustra- Nietzche. After reading this, the movie 2001 will finally make sense. I always liked Plato's Symposium- but like a lot of philosophy, reading massive tomes is often a waste of time. You have to rip this one apart line by line with a Greek dictionary (the names have meaning and humor- example- Eraxymychus- Burp Curer) to really get it. Kant- the Critique of Pure Reason is genius- and just about impossible to plow through. Kant figured out the layout of the brain through sheer deduction, but he's not easy to read. Freud- The Interpretation of Dreams- but perhaps a more modern take- Eric Palumbo- Dreaming and Memory. A well reviewed overview of psychoanalysis- readable- Listening to the Melody of the Mind - Rima Brauer Economics- Thorstein Veiblein- Theory of Conspicuous Consumption Anthropology (which has attributes of a lot of the above)- Guns, Germs and Steel- Jared Diamond HTH Sam

littlewonder -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:22:06 PM)
Common Sense by Robert Paine Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie Mein Kampf by Hitler The Anarchist's Cookbook Lolita by Nabakov

LadyAngelika -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:29:59 PM)
quote: I've read a good share of the bible already. You then might want to try The God delusion By Richard Dawkins - LA

Silence8 -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:30:51 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct Economics- Thorstein Veiblein- Theory of Conspicuous Consumption It's Thorstein Veblen - Theory of the Leisure Class -- but yeah, I'd double that recommend. Funny as hell, and extremely insightful. 'Theory of the Leisure Class' is the perfect antidote to any formal education -- Veblen enables the reader to reawaken those intuitions that an 'education' makes you forget.

samboct -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:35:31 PM)
Oops- shows you how good my memory is.....

Brain -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/2/2010 7:45:41 PM)
Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (Hardcover) In this compelling and important analysis of the triumph of capitalism and the decline of democracy, former labor secretary Reich urges us to rebalance the roles of business and government. Power, he writes, has shifted away from us in our capacities as citizens and toward us as consumers and investors. While praising the spread of global capitalism, he laments that supercapitalism has brought with it alienation from politics and community. The solution: to separate capitalism from democracy, and guard the border between them. Plainspoken and forceful, if somewhat repetitious, the book urges new and strengthened laws and regulations to restore authority to the citizens in us. Reich's proposals are anything but knee-jerk liberal: he calls for abolishing the corporate income tax and labels the corporate social responsibility movement distracting and even counterproductive. As in 2004's Reason, Reich exhibits perhaps too much confidence in Americans' ability to think and act in their own best interests. But he refuses to shift blame for corporations' dominance to the usual suspects, instead pointing a finger at consumers like you and me who want better deals, and from investors like us who want better returns, he writes. Provocatively argued, this book could help begin a necessary national conversation. (Sept. 6) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.amazon.com/Supercapitalism-Transformation-Business-Democracy-Everyday/dp/0307265617 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money By John Maynard Keynes http://books.google.ca/books?id=dQD9o31F1N4C&dq=John+Maynard+Keynes&printsec=frontcover&source=an&hl=en&ei=1O1oS7cvx5S2B8m80eUG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false Doris Goodwin, one of the best, take your pick http://books.google.ca/books?as_auth=Doris+Kearns+Goodwin&source=an&ei=4e9oS5aqFsWVtgfowvnnBg&sa=X&oi=book_group&ct=title&cad=author-navigational&resnum=10&ved=0CCgQsAMwCQ

NeedToUseYou -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/3/2010 2:25:37 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers I watched the series or at least I think I did or it had a very similar name. If so the series if I recall was rather long, is there substantially more to the book? As I work on the computer all day, so I've at listend to about every documentary several times over.

NeedToUseYou -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/3/2010 2:32:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MrMister quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers Excellent choice. I'll try to add few choices you may possibly find helpful; For general reading - 1984 by George Orwell read that one Economics- anything by Ludwig von Mises Anyone in particular. Religious classic - Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan (but I only recommend getting the version written in modern language) Or perhaps even a copy of the "Koran" or "Quotations from Chairman Mao (The Little Red Book) I think I'll skip the Koran for the time being, pure ancient religious text, bogs me down after awhile, same reason I haven't read the whole bible from end to end. The Chairman Mao book sounds interesting. LOL, I just bid on the Little Red Book, and the seller is from CHINA. Maybe it's subsidized by the state.

NeedToUseYou -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/3/2010 2:53:38 AM)
quote: anything by Slavoj Žižek -- I'd recommend 'Violence' and 'First Tragedy, Then Farce'. The National Review referred to him as the 'most dangerous political philosopher in the West'. Also, Howard Zinn just died -- have you read the 'people's history'? quote: ORIGINAL: MissCake Anything by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky. The Prince by Nicollo Machiavelli Robert MacNamara's memoirs. Bid on People's History since you both say he's good. Though the others sound interesting, I've watched Chomsky plenty, so, prefer to read some new viewpoints.

NeedToUseYou -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/3/2010 2:58:27 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct How about some philosophy- other than Ayn Rand (yech...) The reason I bought that first is I've noticed so many really, really don't like her, and I guess the only way to find out is to read it. Actually quite readable- Thus Spake Zarathustra- Nietzche. After reading this, the movie 2001 will finally make sense. I always liked Plato's Symposium- but like a lot of philosophy, reading massive tomes is often a waste of time. You have to rip this one apart line by line with a Greek dictionary (the names have meaning and humor- example- Eraxymychus- Burp Curer) to really get it. Kant- the Critique of Pure Reason is genius- and just about impossible to plow through. Kant figured out the layout of the brain through sheer deduction, but he's not easy to read. Freud- The Interpretation of Dreams- but perhaps a more modern take- Eric Palumbo- Dreaming and Memory. A well reviewed overview of psychoanalysis- readable- Listening to the Melody of the Mind - Rima Brauer Economics- Thorstein Veiblein- Theory of Conspicuous Consumption Anthropology (which has attributes of a lot of the above)- Guns, Germs and Steel- Jared Diamond HTH Sam Well, I'm going to stop updating on what books I've bid on (since it's getting to be alot), I just went through and selected one or more books from each post and put a bid on them. The ebay god, will decide which books gets to warp my brain. It'll take me a while to get through them all I'm sure.

Aynne88 -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/3/2010 3:13:02 AM)
Well I would skip Rand...most overrated writer ever. Howard Zinn already mentioned but brilliant as is Chomsky. I also second Satanic Verses. Voltaire's Candide...excellent.

Level -> RE: Need Political and or Controversial book recommendations (2/3/2010 3:13:19 AM)
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell The Essential Galbraith, by John Kenneth Galbraith Those two would give you a good sample of economic thought, Right to Left.

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