What are you reading? Politics room verision

[swilly]

So i get tired of having to sort through the hundreds of pages in the other thread as I mostly just like reading about political and academic subjects anyways.

So here we were are then our own condensed thread for the politics room.

regards
Swilly

 

[swilly]

It's the Crude, Dude : War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet


By linda Mcquaig

quite good

 

[~atp~]

Just about to finish up (for the second time):

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

In the queue:

The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand

Whiteout by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

 

[Boss Hog]

I'm reading the same book swilly.

Mindblowing how retarded the press is for not seeing (or stating) the obvious leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Or now.


Whiteout is a great book atp. I'd like to find a copy but it's been out of print for a while.... read a borrowed one.

 

[judge wopner]

the freedom to choose- freidman
not sure what i think of this yet, it came highly recomended.

freakanomics,
cant remember authors name, but pretty interesting

foucault, an into to.
basis 101, i hear so much about hte dude i figure id check it out. very good so far.

 

[gak]

Originally posted by swilly
It's the Crude, Dude : War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet

By linda Mcquaig

quite good

I'm reading this too...good history of how our recent oil problems have come about...I really liked it when she went down to to visit Chavez (made me really like the guy...anyone who turns oil company headquarters into free universities is ok in my books)

 

[Boss Hog]

Hey Saddam had free universities and medicare before the US invasion.

There's a lot of educated Iraqis over there who aren't being employed to rebuild their own country.

 

[judge wopner]

Originally posted by Boss Hog
Hey Saddam had free universities and mediCare before the US InvaSion.

stop it!!!

 

[Ditto Much]

Currently I'm reading playboy

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by Boss Hog
Hey Saddam had free universities and medicare before the US invasion.

There's a lot of educated Iraqis over there who aren't being employed to rebuild their own country.

Hitler had healthcare and wealth redistribution to help mothers who couldn't afford to raise there children or purchase property.

 

[Boss Hog]

Wow guess he had that on Bush.

 

[atbell]

Debt and Development Crises In Latin America, The End of an Illusion. Stephany Griffith-Jones + Osvaldo Sunkel
-I am pesimistically currious about what lead up to the crisis in Argentina and disturbed by the similarities between current day US and "crisis" time Latin America

A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics. Hans Kung
-Another curiosity tied to my observations that trade, politics, and economics are gaining a new "ethical" component that is rarely discussed in main stream economic circles

Globalization and its Discontents. Joseph E. Stiglitz
-I haven't started this but have had it recommended by two people who I tend to pay attention to. Stiglitz is also quit good from what I have read of his.

Rescuing Canada's Right. Tasa Kheiriddin + Adam Daifallah
-Daifallah has spent time editing at the post and will most likely be back. I am interested in how someone writes a book with this title while claiming to be non-partisan.

Leviathan. Thomas Hobbs
-Who wouldn't want to know about someone so famous they get a cartoon tiger named after them.

I have heard good things about "Freakonomics" too

 

[2canplay]

Might pick up that Oil book. Sounds interesting. I need a departure from the Dan Brown books I've been reading lately.

 

[swilly]

Rogue state by

William Blum

Been pretty good so far

 

[swilly]

Hitler had healthcare and wealth redistribution to help mothers who couldn't afford to raise there children or purchase property.

I dont see the point of this post?

swilly

 

[deafplayer]

Saddam's bad, mkay?

Rogue state by

William Blum

Been pretty good so far

I have his "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. interventions since World War II", ...he manages to make it both disturbing and fun... 56 chapters, basically each dedicated to one intervention (still he doesnt cover them all)

 

[Colm]

Saint Augustine's Confessions

The Malaise of Modernity by Charles Taylor

Multiculturalism by Charles Taylor, K. Anthony Appiah & Jurgen Habermas

and for good measure,

Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of the Israeli National Tradtion by Yael Zerubavel

-------------------------

My friend is reading It's the Crude, Dude and likes it to some degree, but finds it uncompelling and too lenient on certain figures. Another friend is reading Guns, Steel & Germs (or whatever) and seems generally unimpressed with its anthropoligical/archaelogical reasoning.

 

[kittridge]

Where the Right Went Wrong by Pat Buchanan.

I only read right wing books now. I would actually vote for him.... maybe.

 

[atbell]

Another friend is reading Guns, Steel & Germs (or whatever) and seems generally unimpressed with its anthropoligical/archaelogical reasoning.

I found Guns, Germs & Steel quite good. I would be interested in hearing some of your friends complaints if you could post them. "Collapse", a follow up to GG&S is an interesting read to. It looks at how civilizations disappear and points heavily to environmental abuse / exploitation. I'm still in the middle of reading it though so I don't have a full description.

 

[~atp~]

My friend is reading It's the Crude, Dude and likes it to some degree, but finds it uncompelling and too lenient on certain figures. Another friend is reading Guns, Steel & Germs (or whatever) and seems generally unimpressed with its anthropoligical/archaelogical reasoning.

Actually, the anthropological reasoning is quite sound but the book is boring as shit once you discover his thesis on page 100 and then are subsequently forced into hearing the same thesis for each historical example, without providing more insight than what is proposed in the initial stages of the argument.

 

[Colm]

Actually, the anthropological reasoning is quite sound but the book is boring as shit once you discover his thesis on page 100 and then are subsequently forced into hearing the same thesis for each historical example, without providing more insight than what is proposed in the initial stages of the argument.

That's almost verbatim of what she said, but she rejects 'anthropological' reasoning in anycase because of its inherent incertitude.

 

[deafplayer]

this is all veyr vague so I dont what exactly youre referring to.... but I find its main points impressive in their inherently reliable certitude....
for example
without large, domesticatable animals to plow, you would have to do it with human labour - huge difference
and 'crop'-compatible, nutritious plants - without those, you have to gather (or small-scale agriculture), and get far less nutrition per human labour

If you happen to have large domesticatable beasts of burden, and plants you can use in large-scale agriculture that are highly nutritious and 'efficient' in terms of labour... Those are obviously ENORMOUS advantages, and granted by the environment, geography

I know of and have heard of no other way to produce so much food with such a small portion of society's resources, and no way of avoiding or dismissing the central importance of that factor in the development Diamond talks about (who conqeurs who)

Thats just the abstract theory....... real world history also happens to conform very nicely with the hypothesis

 

[Taro]

This. Short but interesting.

 

[Taro]

Manufactured Consent

 

[Taro]

Manufactured Consent

clearly should read,
Manufacturing