Here are 100 books that The Invention of Tradition fans have personally recommended if you like
The Invention of Tradition.
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Since 2008, I have conducted research on themes related to International Political Economy. I am currently the co-chair of the research committee on this topic at the International Political Science Association (IPSA) and am passionate about making sense of the interplay between material and symbolic factors that shape capitalism and globalisation. Being based in Brazil, I was stuck when the country—which did not have salient identity cleavages in politics—came to be, after 2008, a hotspot of religious-based right-wing populism associated with the defence of trade liberalisation as globalisation started to face meaningful backlash from White-majority constituencies who are relatively losers of the post-Cold War order in the advanced industrialised democracies.
I love Anderson’s narrative about the formation of nations in the 19th Century and what he calls print capitalism, promoted through books and newspapers. A market organised around the same language fosters both the economy and the very much-needed feeling of community required to organise the state and foster industrial capitalism.
More than four decades after its publication, the book remains thought-provoking as it makes me ask whether a single language suffices to hold nations and markets together.
What are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transformed by populist movements in nineteenth-century Europe. It became the rallying cry for anti-Imperialism as well as the abiding explanation for colonialism. In this scintillating, groundbreaking work of intellectual history Anderson explores how ideas are formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, and the way that they can make people do extraordinary things. In the twenty-first century, these…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I love stories, and as a child I found that some of the best and most powerful stories I ever heard were those that people told about the past. When I grew up, I pursued a career as an academic archaeologist and historian, and I am now Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. But while I am of course interested in the past, in recent years I have been increasingly thinking about the politics of the past as well. Why do we choose to celebrate some stories about the past and not others? I have found these books all useful in helping me to think through this.
This book really brought it home to me how classics (that is, the study of ancient Greece and Rome) was implicated in the politics of the past, and specifically in the ideology of the British Empire. It has been quite influential within the discipline of classics, and there is now a whole subfield that considers the political uses of classics.
This extraordinary book provides a detailed account of the relationship between classical antiquity and the British colonial presence in India. It examines some of the great figures of the colonial period such as Gandhi, Nehru, Macaulay, Jowett, and William Jones, and covers a range of different disciplines as it sweeps from the eighteenth century to the end of the British Raj in the twentieth.
Using a variety of materials, including archival documents and familiar texts, Vasunia shows how classical culture pervaded the thoughts and minds of the British colonizers. His book highlights the many Indian receptions of Greco-Roman antiquity and…
I love stories, and as a child I found that some of the best and most powerful stories I ever heard were those that people told about the past. When I grew up, I pursued a career as an academic archaeologist and historian, and I am now Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. But while I am of course interested in the past, in recent years I have been increasingly thinking about the politics of the past as well. Why do we choose to celebrate some stories about the past and not others? I have found these books all useful in helping me to think through this.
This more recent book focuses specifically on archaeology, which is my own area of expertise, and so I rushed to buy it when it first came out.
I don’t agree with absolutely everything in it, but it’s the mark of a good book if you come away with a head full of questions and exciting thoughts, which I definitely did with this one!
Archaeology, Nation, and Race is a must-read book for students of archaeology and adjacent fields. It demonstrates how archaeology and concepts of antiquity have shaped, and have been shaped by colonialism, race, and nationalism. Structured as a lucid and lively dialogue between two leading scholars, the volume compares modern Greece and modern Israel - two prototypical and influential cases - where archaeology sits at the very heart of the modern national imagination. Exchanging views on the foundational myths, moral economies, and racial prejudices in the field of archaeology and beyond, Hamilakis and Greenberg explore topics such as the colonial origins…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I love stories, and as a child I found that some of the best and most powerful stories I ever heard were those that people told about the past. When I grew up, I pursued a career as an academic archaeologist and historian, and I am now Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. But while I am of course interested in the past, in recent years I have been increasingly thinking about the politics of the past as well. Why do we choose to celebrate some stories about the past and not others? I have found these books all useful in helping me to think through this.
This is an absolutely stonker of a book. Elegant and erudite, and yet tackling one of the hottest and most debated questions surrounding history right now.
It doesn’t only consider how we remember the British Empire (this issue is a bit of a political hot potato right now), but also reflects more broadly on the role of the historian. I am still digesting it!
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NEW STATESMAN AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE
'In this searing book, Priya Satia demonstrates, yet again, that she is one of our most brilliant and original historians' Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly Waters
For generations, the history of the British empire was written by its victors. British historians' accounts of conquest guided the consolidation of imperial rule in India, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. Their narratives of the development of imperial governance licensed the brutal suppression of colonial rebellion. Their reimagining of empire during the two world wars compromised the force…
I have been a doctor, psychiatrist, and brain researcher for nearly 50 years. I have treated thousands of patients, written over a thousand scientific articles, and given a similar number of lectures to medical and neuroscience students and to the general public. I have held many leadership positions in this field for academic groups both in UK and Europe and in 2009 I set up the charity Drug Science, to tell the truth about drugs and addiction.
Veronica is a professor of psychiatry with a special interest in psychosis such as schizophrenia and especially those that are seen in women after childbirth. These states of altered consciousness and the memories they produce give us insights into the nature of mental illness and the making of memories. The book develops as a series of case studies that are gently described in relation to the different brain regions that are involved in the experiences with a simple-to-understand diagram. Bringing together her clinical insights with beautiful perspectives from prose and poetry as well as from philosophers especially Henri Bergson, she makes a compelling case for memories being the core of what we as humans are.
'Vivid, unforgettable . . . a fascinating, instructive, wise and compassionate book' John Banville
A leading psychiatrist shows how the mysteries of the brain are illuminated at the extremes of human experience
A twinge of sadness, a rush of love, a knot of loss, a whiff of regret. Memories have the power to move us, often when we least expect it, a sign of the complex neural process that continues in the background of our everyday lives. A process that shapes us: filtering the world around us, informing our behaviour and feeding our…
I have taught a broad array of humanities and social sciences courses over the years, sometimes employing case studies from the realm of law, most notably stories about undocumented migrants, refugees, or homeless people. I’ve also had occasion to teach in law schools, usually in ways that bridge the gap between the legality of forced displacement, and the lived experiences of those who have done it. I won a Rockefeller Foundation grant to write my newest book, Clamouring for Legal Protection, in which I considered the idea that we can learn a lot about refugees and vulnerable migrants with references to people we know well: Ulysses, Dante, Satan, and even Alice in Wonderland.
This book assesses the value of liberal education, and the importance of (re) reading the so-called ‘classics,’ rather than resorting to short snippets of articles, YouTube videos, or chapters which make short and pointed arguments about specific issues. The great classics have changed Roosevelt Montás’s life in ways that are to me familiar, since I’ve enjoyed watching the fruits of liberal education as they transformed his life of my own students over the years.
A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life-and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds
What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montas tells…
A wind sorcerer. A dark spirit. An unsolved murder.
On the haunted Draakensky Windmill Estate, sketch artist Charlotte Knight arrives to live on the property, hired to illustrate the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke—a bright and lucrative opportunity to boost her struggling art career.
I’ve been interested in medicine and how stories influence the decisions that people make for as long as I can remember. Watching family and friends make choices about their own healthcare was always fascinated to me and I was always curious as to why some narratives had more staying power than others. After getting my BA in history, I was lucky enough to talk to someone who suggested that I study folklore. I ended up with both a MA and PhD in folklore and became a professor who studies the intersection of folklore and how it affects the medical decisions we all make in our own lives and the lives of others.
Women’s voices are often trivialized in healthcare and I’m willing to bet that most women have experienced some form of medicalized sexism while receiving healthcare (I know I have).
Anika Wilson does an amazing job of listening to women’s voices and their experiences in this book, highlighting how important rumors, legend, and gossip are to healthcare.
Informal folk narrative genres such as gossip, advice, rumor, and urban legends provide a unique lens through which to discern popular formations of gender conflict and AIDS beliefs. This is the first book on AIDS and gender in Africa to draw primarily on such narratives. By exploring tales of love medicine, gossip about romantic rivalries, rumors of mysterious new diseases, marital advice, and stories of rape, among others, it provides rich, personally grounded insights into the everyday struggles of people living in an era marked by social upheaval.
What is my passion? Why sociology? I love sociology for several reasons: first, because you study everything, and I mean everything can be “the sociology of….” Second, because it uncovers the layers of deceit, image, and make-up that cover the surface; third, because it deals with deviance and deviant behavior (see my other Five Best on Deviance); and fourth, it explains social conflict. I’m always learning something new, and I love to impart that love of the unknown and the everyday to my thousands of students.
I also knew Merton, and he praised my book The Jew as Outsider, which I based on his essay Insiders and Outsiders.
He was an assimilated Jew; few knew he was Jewish; this tall, elegant man looked more like a WASP from Philadelphia but no one aside from Mills introduced more terms into sociology that have become common parlance: anticipatory socializations, dysfunctional roles, manifest and latent function, theories of the middle range, The Mathew Effect (from the Bible—“those who get, get more, and those who don’t get, get less; in short, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer).
Containing the most systematic statement of the theoretical foundations and framework of functional sociology, the essays included in this edition provide an authoritative approach to the functional analysis of social structures.
Featuring two new chapters that form an introduction to the three essays publishing in part one of Social Theory and Social Structure, Robert K. Merton reflects on some of the most important thinking in contemporary sociology.
On Theoretical Sociology presents a clear and precise overview of basic concepts and serves as an introduction to the unique intellectual achievements of one of America's foremost scholars.
I was attracted to the study of interest groups for two main reasons. First, not too many scholars study interest groups and lobbying. This means I might have something to contribute. Second, interest groups are fascinating. Almost every interest you can think of has an interest group trying to affect (or retard) change. Every year, for example, I get to regale my students with stories about little-known interest groups such as the American Frozen Food Institute, the Pink Pistols (a pro-gun LGBTQ group), the California Prune Board, and Declassify UAP (an anti-UFO secrecy group). Talking and learning about interest groups is fun.
There has been more “grassroots” advocacy in the last 25 years than during any 25-year period in U.S. history. The Black Lives Matter, pro-Trump, anti-Trump, New Christian Right, and Tea Party movements are some of the biggest mass movements in our history.
When most people hear the word “grassroots,” they think of ordinary citizens mobilizing, marching, or protesting on important issues. But in this book, sociologist Edward Walker shows us that behind many instances of seemingly “grassroots” advocacy are legions of political consultants who sell their ability to mobilize ordinary citizens to their wealthy clients, including giant corporations and business-oriented interest groups.
This book is epiphanic. Most of us realize on some level that political consulting is a big business. But most of us—and I mean regular people and people like me who study politics for a living—assume that political consultants advise political parties and candidates for office on the…
Although 'grassroots' conjures up images of independent citizen organizing, much mass participation today is sponsored by elite consultants working for corporations and powerful interest groups. This book pulls back the curtain to reveal a lucrative industry of consulting firms that incentivize public activism as a marketable service. Edward Walker illustrates how, spurred by the post-sixties advocacy explosion and rising business political engagement, elite consultants have deployed new technologies to commercialize mass participation. Using evidence from interviews, surveys and public records, Grassroots for Hire paints a detailed portrait of these consultants and their clients. Today, Fortune 500 firms hire them to…
The epic saga continues. Jarnland is in a frenzy of excitement. After the eccentric demise of Old King Wyllard, his co-Majesty, young Queen Esmeralda, announces a Royal Tournament to celebrate the return of our heroes from their perilous quest. The Main Event will be a duel between the legendary warrior…
I’m a climate scientist at Harvard and an environmental activist. In my day job, I use satellite, aircraft, and surface observations of the environment to correct supercomputer models of the atmosphere. What I’ve learned has made me feel that I can’t just stay in the lab—I need to get out in the world and fight for a future that’s just and ecologically stable for everyone. My writing and activism imagines how humanity can democratically govern itself in an age of environmental crisis.
This is the book I wish I could have given my younger self when I first noticed that the ecological world around me was deteriorating. Species were going extinct as the world heated up. In my education as a scientist, I learned that the physical causes of the environmental crisis are simple (burning fossil fuels, converting land to pasture, and so on), but no one seemed to have the power to do anything to fix it.
In this book, Mau brilliantly shows why we feel so unable to change the world. Everyone, including CEOs, are constrained by capitalism. People might personally care about the environment, but if the money doesn’t work out, they are forced to act otherwise. This isn’t an exclusively environmental book, but it offers a powerful perspective on the forces behind the crisis.
Despite insoluble contradictions, intense volatility and fierce resistance, the crisis-ridden capitalism of the 21st century lingers on. To understand capital's paradoxical expansion and entrenchment amidst crisis and unrest, Mute Compulsionoffers a novel theory of the historically unique forms of abstract and impersonal power set in motion by the subjection of social life to the profit imperative. Building on a critical reconstruction of Karl Marx's unfinished critique of political economy and a wide range of contemporary Marxist theory, philosopher Soren Mau sets out to explain how the logic of capital tightens its stranglehold on the life of society by constantly remoulding…
