*The Great U75 Politics Reading List Thread.

[Giles]

The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars 1760-1914 (Papermac)

by Harry Hopkins

 

[The Black Hand]

The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars 1760-1914 (Papermac)

by Harry Hopkins

Thanks for that, I think I have already mentioned it though. I would appreciate your description of why you like it though.

 

[In Bloom]

The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870-2033 by Micheal Young

Absolutely essential and prescient satire, not to mention compelling reading. Its written in the form of a sociological essay written in 2034 (actually written in late 1950s) set in a future society where individuals are judged from birth based on the formula "I(ntelligence)+E(ffort)=M(erit)".

 

[rednblack]

"the breakdown of nations" by leopold kohr a non anarchist look at creating smaller political and economic units as the solution to a lot of our problems

 

[Gumbert]

He's also dead.

this is true and good riddance too..

Currently reading Marx's economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 (again).

Absolutely essential for understanding the alienating effects that private property has on human labour. And you get the added bonus of Marx showing up the weaknesses of Adam Smith, David Ricardo et al and the way they put the economics of the market before humankind. Plus some insights into his developing of theory of dialectical materialism...

 

[sihhi]

started reading malatesta life and ideas, edited by vernon richards, it's hard going but i'm doing it

Blimey rednblack

I'd big up:

George Rude's Europe in the eighteenth century.

He's was friend of tankie Eric Hobsbawm, but writes very well and is very convincing in explaining why revolution happened in France and not elsewhere.
And it's so clear to understand bar a few terms like corvee labour that I'd recommend it to anyone.

 

[Giles]

Thanks for that, I think I have already mentioned it though. I would appreciate your description of why you like it though.

I liked it because it opened my eyes to what life was like for rural poor people and how vicious and savage were the punishments for poaching.

I'd never understood the sheer desperation that drove people to poach, and the amount of effort and resource spent my the landowners to prevent it.

Giles..

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

Don't know if its already been mentioned but Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man is very interesting.
Also Wilhelm Reich's mass psychology of fascism has some challenging concepts regarding why people support fascist movements.

 

[cogg]

From a completely different angle, most of Paul Mattick's writings are worth looking at.
Some of them are here:
www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/
Just edited to say that Mattick was an anti-bolshevik communist who published a magazine called "Living Marxism" that had no relation to anything by the same name published in the 1980s in Britain.

Edited again to correct my appalling spelling...

 

[dogroughzine]

i havent read all the posts so not sure if these have been mentioned...

Communist Manifesto - marx and engels
Introducing Trotsky and Marxism (library )
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser

Could anyone recommend some more anarchist based stuff of interest?

 

[General Ludd]

Also Wilhelm Reich's mass psychology of fascism has some challenging concepts regarding why people support fascist movements.

Have you seen http://www.notbored.org/reich.html

Could anyone recommend some more anarchist based stuff of interest?

Maybe you should read all the posts on this thread then...


Just finishing Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992 published by Midnight Notes which is very good. Although I would like an updated postscript, especially about the wildcats in Appalachian coalfields.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I spent the last couple of months reading Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. both here and I'm incredibly impressed at how relevant his thinking is to the present day. I'd read Mutual Aid decades ago, but hadn't really understood him until I read the works cited above.

 

[The Black Hand]

#

 

[pilchardman]

I spent the last couple of months reading Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. both here and I'm incredibly impressed at how relevant his thinking is to the present day. I'd read Mutual Aid decades ago, but hadn't really understood him until I read the works cited above.

I'd say Fields, Factories and Workshops most influenced my anarchism. I have three different editions, with notes by different people. These can be useful, but the original stands alone pretty well even today. (He revised it himself, and in my view his unrevised version is better).

 

[rednblack]

started on guns germs and steel by jared diamond about why different continents have developed at different speeds

good stuff

 

[catch]

just finished P. Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement (Freedom Press).

Written in 1921 covering events from 1918-1921, the author was part of the movement itself. Not much about the Makhnovschina elsewhere and it's a well written account that doesn't stop short of criticising mistakes and failures.

 

[The Black Hand]

Well to be honest my perseption of most of the books on this thread are shite with a capital S,so mundane & sad,why bother reading anything at all if that the books on this thread is all that people can come up with.

A loud of four eyed spotty so called @ists reading big books doesnt really impress me in the slightest

 

[parallelepipete]

Russell, Bertrand. The scientific outlook. London: Routledge, 2001
Originally published in 1931, a brilliant dissection of the nature and the benefits and problems of scientific progress.

Dobson, Andrew. Green political thought [3rd ed.]. London: Routledge, 2000
Quite simply the best-constructed book on Green politics around, by an academic at the OU (formerly Keele).

Bakan, Joel. The corporation. London: Constable and Robinson, 2004
The corporation is a legally-sanctioned psychopath... no, really.

 

[treelover]

The London Hanged: Peter Linebaugh'

an excellent academic book on the how for many centuries, the gallows were an indispensable tool in inculcating the primary lesson-"Respect Private Property"-of a modern capitalist economy

much more interesting that that though

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521457580/002-5950313-2764022

 

[cfz]

Enoch Powell by Paul Foot

I think it's out of print.
It illustrates how Powell - a once-firm believer in UK citizenship for all members of the empire suddenly flipped 180 degrees from saying: 'I have set and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origin' to his speech about foreseeing rivers of blood as a result of immigration

interesting link:
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr217/foot.htm

 

[1minutesilence]

Lots to list so i'll put five I really like:

Shibboleth: My Revolting Life- a bio by Crass's ex-drummer with some of his stories in it.

We are Everywhere- a great, big, collection of stories, images, journalist features on anti-capitalism since 1994.

The fear of Freedom- a great book by Fromm on why people fear politics of liberation.

The Pianist- good film to!

Understanding Power: The Indespensible Chomsky- a great collection of interviews, short writings from one of the most influential modern political thinkers.

And most of the stuff of marxists.org , one of the best net sites ever!!

And a book that isn't in any way my fav but one that is very influential and dangerous is Mein Kempf, read it (or sections of it) if only to see how much influence a man with such distorted views can have.

Thats about it, I have lots more I like, but their all textbook type studies of countries or anarchy (bloody students!).

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Who Owns Britain - Kevin Cahill: Eye-opening book on the land-owning aristocracy, traces the history of land-ownership from Roman times through the land enclosures act to the present and argues for land reform - particularly relevant as we approach another housing crash.

 

[Raisin D'etre]

And "If Women Counted - a new feminist economics" by Marilyn Waring. Top book.

 

[undesirable]

Vaneigem-the revolution of everyday life
-because its very quotable

Mark Steel-Reasons to be cheerful
-he's a comic genius and actually makes the lefty milieu a funny read

George Orwell-1984
-great beginners lesson in the means of public manipulation

Ken Knabb-The Situationist Anthology
-pretty much the complete works of debord et al, starts off with some very well written and seminal texts, wains towards the end

Harry Cleaver-Reading capital politically
-brilliant, makes capital easily understandable and relates it to everyday struggle, makes dialectics relevant, its a must read

 

[butchersapron]

Ah, good wo/man, reminded me to do an update. The Knabb anthology is nothing like complete though - there is just as much still untranslated...people are at work atm though...Good choices as well...

 

[Stavrogin]

Black Garden by Thomas de Waal

A good book in but you should read it with one eye on the context in which is was written and consider what this means for 'international' (cross-cultural/cross continental) scholarship and why the book is almost useless by itself.

 

[Cook1e]

Point of departure - Robin Cook
Only just got round to reading this one. Apart from painting Prescot et al. as nice people, he does seem to have got a way of letting you into the workings (or non workings) of parliament. He predicted the state the Iraq war would be in now and DOES clearly state that Blair lied to him about the 45 min claim.

 

[Batley]

Well to be honest my perseption of most of the books on this thread are shite with a capital S,so mundane & sad,why bother reading anything at all if that the books on this thread is all that people can come up with.

A loud of four eyed spotty so called @ists reading big books doesnt really impress me in the slightest

Fuck off and watch Trisha then.

 

[Batley]

Francis wheen - 'How Mumbo-Jumbo came to rule the world' is brilliant in destroying all the pre-enlightenment pseudo-shite that people are so fascinated by nowadays - hororscopes, crystals, fundamentalist religious thinking etc etc - all the absolute mince that the world seems to prefer to hard science. A great laugh as well.

 

[dirtycrustie]

Chrisso and Odeteo's BARBARIANS -availiable online at the killing king abacus website, an excellent critique of Negri's EMPIRE.

Nihilist Communism by Monsieur Dupont -an interesting critique of class consiousness available from AK press.

also most texts on anti-politics.net are worth a read.