So, I'll often get into deep philosophical conversations with my older brother, ranging from politics, ethics, etc, and one we had the other day made me realize I really underestimate my own intelligence. I already knew my emotional intelligence was very high, as I've been told that since I was very young, but tbh, I always thought I was kind of stupid in other areas, but I'm really not. But there is just so much about the world, it's history, and it's philosophies that I don't know or understand enough about to speak on. So I want to change that. Are there any books (or documentaries if you feel so inclined) you'd recommend? (Btw, if it helps, I live in America and am very left)
by Jking11501
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Here’s one answer: [How the World Really Works](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56587388-how-the-world-really-works)
The Crimean War, by Orlando Fieges. It will serve a dual purpose of educating you deeply on a single, limited conflict, and giving you huge insights into the structure of the world that existed and led to, WW I. Which will help explain how that one led to WW II, and on to even what’s going on in Israel/Palestine today. Also, it’s a pretty good read.
A similar one is The Guns Of August by Barbara Tuchman, about WW I. It’s a classic, but that war was so encompassing, and the scholarship has been revisited and expanded so constantly, that it can’t be as definitive as Fieges. Still a great one, though, as are her others. I loved A Distant Mirror, about the middle ages.
Anything by David Graeber, anthropologist. He has one called Debt that’s totally fascinating as a look at how humanity has dealt with the concept of money and indebtedness across time and geography. Another called Bullshit Jobs about the systems that keep people in middle management positions that produce almost nothing and how that has shaped the recent US economy/work culture.
Edit: also a relatively easy read in my opinion. Can get very deep without using overly technical academic language
Second edit: oh very left?? Well Graeber was a well-known anarchist and activist. Truly a unique guy
The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward Fitzgerald. I am 80 years old and many of his verses resonate with me. “There was a door to which I had no key, there was a veil past which I could not see, Some talk a little while about me and thee, and then no more of thee, or me.”
And at my age, “Ah, fill the cup, what boots it to repeat that time is slipping underneath our feet? Unborn tomorrow, dead yesterday, why fret about them if today be sweet?”