Sunday, September 04, 2005

More reading

John Dewey's The Public and Its Problems

Raymond Geuss' History and Illusion in Politics

The UN produced The Future of Values, edited by Jerome Binde

Jonathan Glover's Humanity

Peter Singer's One World

Thompson and Hilde's The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism, especially the chapters by Paul Thompson and James Campbell on Jefferson and Franklin respectively.

Mark Danner's Torture and Truth

Michael Walzer's On Toleration

Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire Trilogy

Alfonso Lingis' The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common and his book Trust

Machiavelli -- and I mean really read him, not just cite him unread as a talking point like the vast majority of DC wonkheads

John J. McDermott's Streams of Experience

Maxim Gorky's Lost Souls

Go back and read Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke in conjunction.

Reevaluate Adam Smith through reading Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom

Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities

...

In other words, there's a lot of contemporay tripe in Barnes and Noble land that debates the particulars of the status quo. Wer're lost if the debate is circumscribed in those terms. The above, however, are some books from a much larger list that should stir us thinking in better directions that directly or indirectly challenge the stultifying paradigm of political life, development, and intellectual frameworks in which we presently live. We have work to do and these books can help.

Oh, and ps -- forget dopes like Thomas Friedman, however high his best-selling readership. His work is insipid. Flat Earth, because us rich folks gain from international trade where production is done by poor folks who have a brief gain in income. Brilliant use of feudalistic serfdom. But a trite bastardation of the realities of global affairs from his perspective from the finest hotels and golf courses of the world. If that's your world, take comfort and turn a blind eye. If it's not, forget about the idiot.

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