Books like To the Finland Station — picked by fans

This remarkable book, by one of the major anthropologists of the 20th century, intertwines two enterprises; it is both a fascinating account of his ethnographic work in Brazil in the 1930s and a penetrating reflection on what it’s like for a Parisian educated scholar to understand and convey what he later termed “the Savage Mind.”

Artfully written, this book exemplifies the best of social science and literary artistry—and serves as a model for all who want to write evocatively about their calling.

From early childhood, I was deeply involved with classical music. But I was never able to explain its power and appeal to others—nor, indeed, to myself. Despite chatter to the contrary, I was convinced that music was not simply about “emotions.” From Langer, I learned that the arts are more effectively described as capturing the forms and the juxtapositions of diverse feelings.

Langer also modeled how to integrate philosophical and psychological ways of thinking. That amalgam stimulated me to become a founding member of Project Zero (PZ) at Harvard University, the research organization with which I have been associated since 1967. PZ has been built on ideas about “the human use of symbols and symbol systems,” as detailed by Langer as well as her contemporary (and PZ founder), Nelson Goodman.

I was fascinated by Erikson’s theory of the eight stages of human life, from infancy to old age. At each stage, he says, we must solve a dilemma, starting with: “trust or distrust?” Our ability to mature properly depends on meeting the challenges of each stage, which then propels us to the next stage.

I was disturbed, however, by the implications of his theory: if we fail to succeed in any given stage, our future development is permanently compromised. In short, we never really fully grow up. 

A history and biography buff since my childhood, I learned from Hofstadter how one can humanize (without debunking) American political giants, from the founding fathers to Lincoln, to the two President Roosevelts. He provides social and cultural context and identifies concerns like democratic procedures and norms in which enduring national themes emerged and evolved.

It might seem hard to believe, but scholars of contemporary Chinese studies know quite a bit about Chinese history and Confucian thought but little of the history and thought of Marxism-Leninism. I begin my research from a very different perspective.

I had always thought, perversely as it turned out, that anyone working on a subject related to Chinese communism and its policing methods needed a solid grounding not just in Chinese history and thought but also in Marxism-Leninism. Admittedly, much of the post-Stalin discussion of Marxist law has been stolid, uninteresting, and repetitive, but Pashukanis breaks that mold.

His ideas on the withering away of law as capitalism is eviscerated during socialism breathes new life into Marxist debates about the transition stage, thereby offering new insights into the mass line of Mao.

This is the first study ever of Marx on communism/socialism, a topic that is often considered something he refrained from writing about. Hudis ingeniously marshals a huge body of writings – on Proudhon, Lassalle, and others – where Marx elaborates his own concept of socialism/communism in the course of critiquing what he sees as vastly inadequate concepts. In so doing, Hudis connects these issues to dialectics and to economics, and above all to the critique of both capital and the state, here not even sparing Lenin’s classic work, State and Revolution.

This book is a bible for people who care about changing the system, rather than just tinkering around the edges.

A soliologist and organiser, Erik Olin Wright manages to map out strategic exits from our exploitative economic, social, and political structures. He pulls together building blocks for a different world, shows them to us, and offers them for us to experiment with. Olin Wright was writing about things like universal basic income way before they were sexy and he writes with both passion and precision.

As someone who’s spent most of my life trying to get closer to the roots of our collective struggles, Olin Wright’s work is a huge support. It’s often difficult to feel like we’re making a difference, like everything’s sliding in the wrong direction no matter what we do.

Envisioning Real Utopias is a solid manual and a vital companion, covered with ink stains and pencil… show more.

First published in 1947, this iconic book of the “Frankfurt School” could not be a study of AI and 21st-century technologies per see.

Instead it is a phantasmic explainer of how the mistakes of the past impinge on our humanity and the prospects for a better future. "What we had set out to do," Adorno and Horkheimer famously wrote in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism."

With spectacular erudition, the authors clearly show how the terror regime of the Nazis was rooted in the nefarious legacies of enlightenment Europe and its obsession with racial purity. As such, Adorno and Horkheimer presaged why it is that our polluted history feeds into racist AI technologies: Bad data, Adorno and Horkheimer would agree, produces bad outcomes. 

Mircea Eliade is one of the foremost historians of religion, The Sacred and the Profane is probably his most readable book. It clearly describes what traditional (oral) religions are like and how they differ from global (book) religions. Traditional religions provide critical background for understanding some contemporary ritual practices, but most importantly for me, traditional religions provide a context for understanding the emergence of secret societies. This will be a good read for anyone interested in traditional religions, whether native American, Australian, African, or pre-Christian Europe. I highly recommend it.

In past and present narratives of the Marquesas, along with other Pacific paradises, writers tend toward sensational or romantic exaggeration. T. Walter Herbert sets the record straight, showing what Melville likely encountered during his sojourn to Nukuhiva. In Herbert’s book, Melville is one of three examples of visitors to the islands, along with ship’s captain David Porter, whose narrative describes his laying violent waste to villages in the interior, and missionary William Alexander. Herbert shows what these visitors misunderstood about people characterized as “savages” and “barbarians”—readings that continue to influence cultural attitudes today. No one writes with quite the controlled fury and keen insight of this author!