Here are 100 books that Making History fans have personally recommended if you like
Making History.
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I would like to consider myself an experienced and successful designer, researcher, and educator. I'm an Associate Professor in Communication Design and the Head of Education for the School of Design at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, where I've taught and researched for the last twenty years so I'm super passionate about this subject and love explaining how design works. Before joining academia, I worked internationally as a designer and creative director for numerous prestigious design and media organizations, including Philips, Time-Warner, Windmill Lane Pictures, and WPP in the UK, Ireland, USA, and Southeast Asia. Working in these different businesses and locations gave me a broad perspective on the role and importance of design.
There is so much understandable suspicion about how organisations use or misuse your personal data that it's hard to see the many potential benefits of data sharing. This book restores a little faith in technology and those who develop it for public benefit.
It is a compelling read, learning how data can be used for good and bad, with many references to the author’s personal journey, from working in customer services to being an internet entrepreneur before becoming a researcher.
'An essential read' Diane Coyle, University of Cambridge
'We are currently living in a moment of extreme pessimism about data. This book will change your mind.'
It's impossible to escape digital technology. And with that comes fear. But whatever the news has told you about data and technology, think again. Data expert and tech insider turned Cambridge researcher Sam Gilbert shows that, actually, this data revolution could be the best thing that ever happened to us.
Good Data examines the incredible new ways this information explosion is already helping us - whether that's…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
My name is Carl Rhodes, and I am a Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Technology Sydney. Like many others, in recent years I have become increasingly concerned, sometimes angry even, about how the organization of business and the economy is creating massive economic injustice. I am convinced that the economic system that has billionaires at its apex is deeply unfair, creating hardship, pain, and even death for too many people around the world. I am also convinced that we do not have to accept this gross injustice as being inevitable.
How do billionaires become so rich? One story is that it is all about hard work, initiative, and special talents. If you believe that story, then you might conclude that billionaires deserve their extreme wealth. What I found especially insightful about Chuck Collins book is that he painstakingly shows that this story is bogus.
Collins delves into the realities of what he calls the ‘agents of inequality’–the accountants and lawyers who ensure that the world’s richest people maintain and extend their wealth over generations. This fascinating book lifts the veil on how the rich use everything from cash hoarding to tax evasion to trust funds to ensure that the world’s economic system remains unequal.
For decades, a secret army of tax attorneys, accountants and wealth managers has been developing into the shadowy Wealth Defence Industry. These 'agents of inequality' are paid millions to hide trillions for the richest 0.01%.
In this book, inequality expert Chuck Collins, who himself inherited a fortune, interviews the leading players and gives a unique insider account of how this industry is doing everything it can to create and entrench hereditary dynasties of wealth and power. He exposes the inner workings of these "agents of inequality", showing how they deploy anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts, opaque trusts, and…
I’m a professor in international politics, having written widely on ethical issues in international politics. Much of my previous work has considered the ethical questions that arise when there is a relatively stable, liberal international order, dominated by liberal democracies. But I’m increasingly concerned that, as the global order changes, many of our previous ethical understandings appear anachronistic, with fewer resources to deal with issues, more challenges, and fewer actors willing to act. I’m now trying to better understand what are the implications of rising global authoritarianism and geopolitical shifts mean for states’ global responsibilities and what this means for remaining liberal actors.
We often think about intervention as questions of states intervening against other states, violating their legitimate sovereign claims.
This book complicates this picture. It focuses on less violent and risky types of intervention, by a variety of actors, showing how intervention can vary in how much it opposes institutions and how coercive it is.
One example Rafanelli gives is of Tostan (an international NGO that runs community empowerment programs in Western Africa) that works against practices such as female genital cutting and child marriage.
This significantly complicates the simplistic picture of intervention, often proposed by those wanting to reject measures to tackle human rights abuses. Such forms of intervention might be required to help protect democracy globally.
Global political actors, from states and NGOs to activist groups and individuals, exert influence in societies beyond their own in myriad ways--including via public criticism, consumer boycotts, divestment campaigns, sanctions, and forceful intervention. Often, they do so in the name of justice-promotion. While attempts to promote justice in other societies can do good, they are also often subject to moral criticism and raise several serious moral questions. For example, are there ways to promote one's own ideas about justice in another society while still treating its members tolerantly? Are there ways to do so without disrespecting their legitimate political institutions…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
The best fiction explores complex relationships between friends and lovers. I’ve been fascinated by this for as long as I can remember because love and friendship are the cornerstones of human existence. As concepts, they give life meaning yet can also take it away. They bring us together but can also leave us estranged. The sun-soaked cities of Europe have for so long been playgrounds for young lovers and friends, enjoying both the best of life and the most melancholy. I love traveling Europe–the grandeur, the romance, the happy-sad sentiment of it all. It embodies the topic and makes for the most beautiful setting.
Fitzgerald’s mastery of the English language is beautiful to behold. This book is one of the most eloquent expositions of the control of his prose while at the same time confronting his greatest weakness in life: an inability to find happiness and true love that loves him back. Set on the French Riviera, Tender is the Night is honest and painful. It’s an insight into Fitzgerald’s melancholy world of excess.
This is both fantastic to be a part of and tragic. The tragedy and the beauty are juxtaposed in the most fantastic way–this makes this book one of my favorite romances. I read this book for pure enjoyment. Each sentence makes me smile with its beauty and its profundity.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a friend's copy of Tender Is the Night, "If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God's sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith." Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, Tender Is the Night is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver; the bewitching, wealthy, and dangerously unstable mental patient, Nicole, who becomes his wife; and the beautiful, harrowing ten-year pas de deux they act out along the border between sanity and madness. In Tender Is…
As an Arab American woman who grew up in Nashville in an evangelical church, I’ve always maintained complex understandings of myself as both an Arab and a woman. My experiences coupled with my love for reading led me to become a journalist where I could explore stories about Arab women in hopes of learning more about myself. After 9/11, watching my family face racism and hate from a country we're so proud to be a part of, I wanted to change the narrative. I got a Ph.D. in Media Sociology from the University of Missouri and started writing critical analyses of media’s poor representation of Arab women and how we can help change the game.
This is hands down the best book on transnational feminism that I’ve ever read!
I have recommended this book to so many people that I’m planning on hosting a book club. Zakaria opens the book with her own experience attending a happy hour with a group of white women that ends on a particularly awkward note.
Zakaria is not only challenging white feminists, but she is also calling out all people who subscribe to white feminism and how it does more harm than good. What is white feminism you ask? Pick up this book and let Zakaria tell you.
Upper-middle-class white women have long been heralded as "experts" on feminism. They have presided over multinational feminist organizations and written much of what we consider the feminist canon, espousing sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity, all while branding the language of the movement itself in whiteness and speaking over Black and Brown women in an effort to uphold privilege and perceived cultural superiority. An American Muslim woman, attorney, and political philosopher, Rafia Zakaria champions a reconstruction of feminism in Against White Feminism, centering women of color in this transformative overview and counter-manifesto to white feminism's global, long-standing…
I grew up in Los Angeles, California, which is frequently imagined as well as experienced. As a child, we lived by the beach and in the foothills of Angeles National Forest. The leaps of faith you make in this landscape were always clear: earthquakes, wildfires, and mudslides occur regularly. The question asked often about the Arctic: “why on earth do people live there?” applies also to California: life in beautiful landscapes and seascapes is risky. Then, I made my first trip to Iceland alone in 1995, and have now been to Iceland ten times, Greenland twice, and Nayan Mar, above the Russian Arctic Circle, each time with fascination.
What would you do if you were taken by force from your home as a child and placed in a museum for strangers to look at you and touch you? And if two-thirds of the adults with you died almost immediately from this treatment? And if the man who did this to you was acclaimed as a hero?
This is the story of a boy from the Arctic lost in New York City, and his struggle to return home.
A compelling biography of the Eskimo boy who was brought back to the U.S. by explorer Robert Peary recreates the twelve agonizing years little Minik spent living as an alien in New York City, an experience that culminates with the discovery that his father's body is on display at the Museum of Natural History. 25,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo. BOMC.
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I have been writing poetry for 60 years, often basing my poems on Greek myths and Hebrew stories. I have won various prizes for my work and now sit on the Advisory Board of The Society of Classical Poets in New York. In addition, I am a regular feature writer on culture, classics, and poetry for The Epoch Times. Thus, I live and breathe myth, epic, and poetry! Also, I have a First Class honors degree (aka: Summa Cum Laude) in English Literature alongside two post-graduate degrees, one with Distinction.
Just as my second recommendation by Neel Burton was written by a psychiatrist, so here we have a retelling by a French philosopher. And–typically–for a real philosopher, the question becomes a ‘meaning of life’ sort of question, and how do we live the good life?
Greek myths have much excellent advice to offer, and Ferry draws this out brilliantly. Thus, I love this particularly because whilst the myths remain the same in all the books I like, the telling of them, and drawing out their significance seems inexhaustible and varied.
More than 100,000 copies sold in France A fascinating new journey through Greek mythology that explains the myths' timeless lessons and meaning Heroes, gods, and mortals. The Greek myths are the founding narratives of Western civilization: to understand them is to know the origins of philosophy, literature, art, science, law, and more. Indeed, as Luc Ferry shows in this masterful book, they remain a great store of wisdom, as relevant to our lives today as ever before. No mere legends or cliches ("Herculean task," "Pandora's box," "Achilles heel," etc.), these classic stories offer profound and manifold lessons, providing the first…
I’m a Stanford professor who became fascinated
with oil and everything it does to for us and to us. For years I traveled the
world talking to the people who know petroleum: executives in the big oil companies,
politicians and activists, militants and victims, spies and tribal chiefs. Blood
Oil explains what I learned and how we can make our oil-cursed world better
for all of us.
If you love villains, you’ll love this book (plus all these villains are real).
Psychopathic dictators, Russian arms dealers, ultra-violent warlords, and corrupt French presidents all show the evil oil can inspire—and the ruin it can bring to a country. I had to put this book down a few times; the depravity around oil can shock even those of us who think we’ve heard it all.
Each week the oil and gas fields of sub-Saharan Africa produce over a billion dollars worth of oil yet this rising tide of money is not promoting stability or development but instead is causing violence, poverty and stagnation. "Poisoned Wells" exposes the root causes of this paradox of poverty from plenty, and explores the mechanisms by which oil causes grave instabilities and corruption around the globe. Shaxson's access as a journalist to the key players in African oil results in an explosive story.
I'm the author of several books on this topic and work on this topic as executive director of a nonprofit organization. I see war as one of the dumbest things that we could easily stop doing and as one of the most damaging things we do. It's the reason we are at risk of nuclear apocalypse, the leading cause of homelessness, a leading cause of death and injury, the justification for government secrecy, one of the most environmentally destructive activities, the major barrier to global cooperation on non-optional crises, and one of the main pits into which massive resources are diverted that we all desperately need for useful things.
This book makes a powerful case that humanitarian war no more exists than philanthropic child abuse or benevolent torture. I’m not sure the actual motivations of wars are limited to economic and strategic interests—which seems to forget the insane, power-mad, and sadistic motivations—but I am sure that no humanitarian war has ever benefitted humanity.
This book makes that very clear. It does not take the approach so widely recommended of watering down the truth so that the reader is only gently nudged in the right direction from where he or she is starting. There’s no getting 90% reassuringly wrong to make the 10% palatable here. This is a book for either people who have some general notion of what war is or people who aren’t traumatized by jumping into an unfamiliar perspective and thinking about it. Refreshing!
"Kovalik helps cut through the Orwellian lies and dissembling which make so-called 'humanitarian' intervention possible." -Oliver Stone
War is the fount of all the worst human rights violations including genocide and not its cure. This undeniable truth, which the framers of the UN Charter understood so well, is lost in today's obsession with the oxymoron known as "humanitarian" intervention.
No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests sets out to reclaim the original intent of the Charter founders to end the scourge of war on the heels of the…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I’m Tara Button, founder of Buy Me Once, a company dedicated to finding the longest-lasting, most sustainable products in every category. My obsession with durability started when I was given a cast iron frying pan that outlasted every cheap alternative I’d ever owned. Since then, I’ve been on a mission to help people escape the buy-throw-buy cycle and embrace mindful consumption. My book shares how to resist disposable culture and choose well-made, meaningful things that truly last. This list brings together the books that have shaped my philosophy and inspired my work in sustainable living.
This book peeled back the curtain on the hidden costs of the things we buy. Leonard explains where our stuff comes from, where it goes when we throw it away, and how the entire system is designed to keep us consuming.
It’s a deeply researched but incredibly engaging read that makes you rethink your everyday choices. If you’ve ever wondered why things aren’t made to last anymore, this book gives you the answers.
How our obsession with 'stuff' is trashing the planet
Annie Leonard, creator of the internet film sensation 'The Story of Stuff', viewed over 6 million times, offers an astonishing, galvanizing book that tells the story of all the 'stuff' we use every day - where our bottled water, mobile phones and jeans come from, how they're made and distributed, and where they really go when we throw them away.
Our out-of-control consumption habits are killing the planet and threatening our health, but Annie provides hope that change is within reach. Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring, The Story of…
