The old guy, at least, would have found such philistinism shocking, I'm sure.
Otherwise, a great list. I'll get going on it tomorrow.
Best,
John
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 12:46:45 -0500 (EST)
> From: bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari)
> Subject: Re: Top 100 Non-fiction
>
> In an awesome list Sam included
>
> >Twain: King Leopold's Ghost
>
> That's King Leopold's Soliloquy, King Leopold's Ghost being by Adam
> Hochschild, no? Just thought I would suggest this correction because
> Twain's book had a tremendous impact on me--hope I have remembered its
> name.
>
> For popular science--that most important category--perhaps Lancelot
> Hogben's forgotten intros to maths and science? Martin Gardner's intro to
> logic and machines (Gardner would doubtless put Carnap's Philosophy of
> Science near the top)? Morris Kline's Math and Physical Science and End of
> Certainty books? Edna Kramer's History of Mathematics? Or Alexandrov's ,
> et al Mathematics: Its History, Meaning and Method?
>
> Couldn't leave out Einstein and Infeld's intro to relativity! (by the way,
> has anyone read Peter Galison's piece on Einstein's Clocks in the latest
> Critical Inquiry 2000)? Hans Reichenbach From Copernicus to Einstein?
> Richard Fenyman's Character of a Physical Law and the Easy and Not so Easy
> 7 pieces? (Bernal's Science in History is a great choice indeed, though I
> have only read quite selectively through them). Tony Hey's The Quantum
> Universe? Gerald Holton's Introduction to Concepts and Theories in the
> Physical Sciences? Gotta read all these myself.
>
> Would have to include Watson and Crick's The Double Helix, wouldn't we?!
>
> Agree with John Maynard Smith's Theory of Evolution, Sam; surpassed his
> teacher Haldane's Causes of Evolution (though if we are including textbooks
> Douglas Futuyma's 1998 3rd edition Evolutionary Biology is the most
> beautiful I have seen); do think JMS' Major Transitions in Evolution with
> Szathmary will be remembered as a revolutionary work.
>
> How about this sequence from teleology to reductionism to dialectics in the
> 20th century: Bergson Creative Evolution-Monod Chance and Necessity
> (include the superb circa 1975 Monod essay in the Ridley reader on
> evolution)-Lewontin and Levins Dialectical Biologist?
>
> Lewontin, Human Diversity (haven't read Cavalli Sforza's massive
> encylopaedia of human genetic history, only the popularisation on the human
> diaspora).
>
> Did like Enrico Coen's The Art of Genes: How Organisms Make themselves.
> Don't know the best popular intro to genetics or the historically crucial
> ones (of course Fisher, Kimura, and Lewontin--but things are changing
> quickly). Coen's is really only on developmental genetics.
>
> Something tells me that I should have read Erwin Schroediger's work on the
> orgins of greek science and the nature of life by now...
>
> And...Hubert Dreyfus' What Computers Still Can't Do (or does Pierre Levy's
> Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace point in
> another, more fruitful direction--won't bother with the cruder cyber hype
> of Ray Kurzweil)?
>
> For history and economic history in particular (Dobb's book belongs here
> indeed, along with Max Beer's History of Social Struggles and Socialism,
> as do the historical sections of Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital
> and the books decades later, by Eric Williams, Eduardo Galeano, Walter
> Rodney and Ramakrishna Mukherjee--these most important *first* steps to
> tell the global history of capital's expansion), how about Braudel's
> Perspective of the World and KN Chauduri's Asia Before Europe? Max Weber's
> sociology of agrarian civilizations and DD Kosambi's Ancient India? Karl
> Polanyi's Livilihood of Man? Moishe Finkelstein's, aka Moses Finley's,
> Ancient Economy?
>
> Abbott Usher's History of Mechanical Inventions? Chandler's Scale and
> Scope? Nathan Rosenberg How the West Grew Rich (I know I am alone on this
> one--so how about John Hicks A Theory of Economic History?).
>
> Not because I think it is truly a great book (it's hardly that) but because
> of the effort (so important in its and our time) to understand the problem
> in its *world historic* totality--The Great Crisis by Stalin's go to man
> Eugen Varga in the mid 1930s. And Wallerstein is surely one of the few
> persons to have seriously grappled with this, our problem in its historical
> unfolding.
>
> What about the massive (pernicious) impact of Wittfogel's Oriental
> Despotism? And then there's Lawrence Krader's Asiatic Mode of Production.
>
> John Dower's book on the US-Japanese war? Gar Alperowitz's book on the
> American use of atomic weapons of which I have inexcusably only read
> summaries. Shoah, though a movie.
>
> Some of my actual Marxian selections are, surprise!surprise!, Henryk
> Grossmann Law of Accumulation and the Catastrophe of the Capitalist System
> and Marx, Classical Economics and the Problems of Dynamics(1929, 1943--all
> dates approximate), EA Preobrazhensky's The Decline of Capitalism (1932?),
> Kirschheimer and Rusche, Punishment and Social Structure; Pashkunis, Law
> and Marxism; Leo Huberman Man's Worldly Goods (1936?) William J Blake
> Marxian Economic Theory and Its Criticism (1939), Franz Neumann's Behemoth:
> Structure and Practice of National Socialism (1944) and Paul Mattick Marx
> and Keynes: the limits of the mixed economy (1969) and Economic Crisis and
> Crisis Theory (1981); Poulantzas State, Power and Socialism (that should
> get a rise out of the Ellen Wood acolytes); agree with Braverman and in the
> same vein David Noble Forces of Production.
>
> CLR James and Martin Glaberman's critique of business unionism has proven
> its importance.
>
> In terms of Marxian philosophy, here's two antithetical choices: Karl
> Korsch's Karl Marx (1938)and TA Jackson's Dialectics (1936). And
> Kolakowsi's Main Currents of Marxism (ouch!). And I agree with Debord's
> society of the spectacle.
>
> Wouldn't include as Marxist Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of
> Enlightenment, Barthes' Mythologies, Foucault's Order of Thing but would
> include them.
>
> A few non Marxian economic works: how about Veblen's Theory of Business
> Enterprise and Schumpeter's Business Cycles? Alvin Hansen's intro book on
> business cycles. Adolph Lowe's Path of Economic Growth.
>
> Would have to include here Mao's Critique of Soviet Economics and
> Mahlanabosis' theory of planning for their historical impact at least, no?
>
> And of course Charles Kindelberger Manias, Panics and Crashes and Susan
> Strange's book on the history of sterling's rise and fall seem quite
> important--haven't read her that far back yet.
>
> Linguistics--wish I had read Sapir, Jakobsen, Zelig Harris and Noam Chomsky
> (to whom Neil Smith has written a seemingly very helpful introduction The
> Twittering Machine). Anthro: Levi Strauss (including the Marxian emendation
> by Maurice Godelier in Perspectives on Marxist Anthropology), Edmund Leach,
> Lawrence Krader?
>
> Of course Louis Dumont's book on Indian caste as the antithesis of Western
> society (to be read with the critical discussions in Sharma, ed.
> Contextualizing Caste).
>
> Where does Freud belong? Marinetti? Sorel? Spengler? Who has figured out
> money; Simmel, Keynes, or someone else?
>
> Fiction (two recommendations from the lit prof at home): Christa Wolf
> Patterns of Childhood, Roa Bastos Eye of the Supreme. Don't know if that's
> how they have been translated.
>
> Haven't seen Counterpunch's list yet. This is more my wish list of things
> to read or at least reread (since I probably didn't understand the first
> time around).
>
> best, rakesh
>