- political science
- economics
- international development
- social justice
- public policy
- tech and society
- AI and social good and social impact
- economic inequality
- politics
- DEMOCRACIES
- india!!
- film/ media and society
I think that “Thinking in Systems” is a really good recommendation, as is Ria Chopra’s upcoming book, “Never Logged Out”. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!!!!
by darkGrayAdventurer
10 Comments
To some extent, The Wandering Inn touches on most of these subjects. It’s fiction, though.
The Divide by Jason Hickel (economic inequality and international development)
Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley (economic inequality and international development)
Enshittification by Cory Doctorow (tech and society)
The Trading Game – Gary Stevenson (economics)
*The Color of Law*
Hannah Arendt: Between Past and Future, Six Exercises in Political Thought. She touches on most of your list here other than India, and AI (though I think her comments on mass media and automation apply with AI here.) It’s a classic for good reason–a lot of newer books crib from this.
Here’s a quote:
*The relatively new trouble with mass society is perhaps even more serious, but not because of the masses themselves, but because this society is essentially a consumers’ society where leisure time is used no longer for self-perfection or acquisition of more social status, but for more and more consumption and more and more entertainment…To believe that such a society will become more “cultured” as time goes on and education has done its work, is, I think, a fatal mistake. The point is that a consumers’ society cannot possibly know how to take care of a world and the things which belong exclusively to the space of worldly appearances, because its central attitude toward all objects, the attitude of consumption, spells ruin to everything it touches.*
She’s no socialist, but she does forsee a world where everything, including people, become consumer objects, meant to be used up and discarded, unless capitalism has an equally strong counter-force.
I’ve mostly only read political books on the U.S., but really enjoyed the Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis. This touches on the first Trump administration and offers some insight into the intricacies of federal government and the interesting responsibilities some agencies have.
Demon haunted world by Carl Sagan tangentially touches on a few of these but is primarily about how humans think, and why it’s important to think critically about things.
I don’t necessarily agree with all his conclusions (especially the one it’s named for), but Determined by Robert Sapolsky uses a bunch of evidence from a large number of bodies of science to make the case for the absence of free will, then explores the justice system with the absence of free will considered.
I tend to prefer Behave instead, but I do find the thought experiment of “how do we approach the justice system in a way that isn’t designed to be punitive because no one has agency” somewhat interesting, and it does provide an interesting perspective on justice regardless.
Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin
Roughly in order of your requested topics:
*War and revolution* by Domenico Losurdo
*Debt* by David Graeber
*The Jakarta method* by Vincent Bevins
*Red star over the third world* by Vijay Prashad
*What is antiracism and why it means anticapitalism* by Arun Kundnani
*How infrastructure works* by Deb Chachra
*The capital order* by Clara Mattei
*Capitalism* by Arundhati Roy
*Black Marxism* by Cedric Robinson
*Decolonial Marxism* by Walter Rodney
*India after Gandhi* by Ramachandra Guha
*Inglorious empire* by Shashi Tharoor
*Desperately seeking Shah Rukh* by Shrayana Battacharya
Basically any Kim Stanley Robinson for most of those. India is just featured in *Ministry for the Future* tough.