Interbane, are you going to add your book suggestions here?

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

http://www.amazon.com/Bottom-Billion-Po ... 0195311450

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bottom_Billion
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It is a book by Professor Paul Collier exploring the reason why impoverished countries fail to progress despite international aid and support.

Collier argues that there are many countries whose residents have experienced little, if any, income growth over the 1980s and 1990s. On his reckoning, there are just under 60 such economies, home to almost 1 billion people. The book suggests that, whereas the majority of the 5-billion people in the "developing world" are getting richer at an unprecedented rate, a group of countries (mostly in Africa and Central Asia but with a smattering elsewhere) are stuck and that development assistance should be focused heavily on them. These countries typically suffer from one or more development traps:

The Conflict Trap - civil wars (which cost c $100bn each) or coups.
The Natural Resource Trap - excessive dependence on natural resources which can stifle other economic activity and lead to bad governance and coups/conflict.
Landlocked with Bad Neighbours - poor landlocked countries with poor neighbours find it almost impossible to tap into world economic growth.
Bad Governance in a Small Country - terrible governance and policies can destroy an economy with alarming speed
He suggests a number of relatively inexpensive but institutionally difficult changes:

Aid agencies should increasingly be concentrated in the most difficult environments, and accept more risk. Ordinary citizens should not support poorly informed vociferous lobbies whose efforts are counterproductive and severely constrain what the Aid agencies can do
Appropriate Military Interventions (such as the British in Sierra Leone) should be encouraged, especially to guarantee democratic governments against coups
International Charters are needed to encourage good governance and provide prototypes
Trade Policy needs to encourage free-trade and give preferential access to Bottom Billion exports. At present "Rich-country protectionism masquerades in alliance with antiglobalization romantics and third world crooks"

Bottom Billion Countries
The book does not include a list of bottom billion countries because Collier believes this might lead to a "self-fulfilling prophecy." However, he states that there are 58 such countries mentioned throughout the book.

The following is a rough list of countries he mentions that may be included:

NON-AFRICAN: Haiti, Bolivia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Yemen, Tajikistan,[12] Afghanistan[13], Kazakhstan, Uzbekestan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan,[14] Nepal[15], Tibet, Mongolia, Qinghai Province (CHINA), Xinjiang Province (CHINA),[16] East Timor[17], Solomon Islands[18]

AFRICAN: Somalia, Sierra Leone,[19] Ghana[20], Nigeria[21], Tanzania, Senegal, Burkina Faso,[22] Zimbabwe, Liberia,[23] Cote D’Ivoire[24], Togo[25], The Gambia[26], Niger[27], Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan,[28] Kenya[29], Burundi[30], Madagascar[31], Lesotho, Mozambique,[32], Ethiopia[33], Eritrea[34], Chad[35], Central African Republic[36], Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo[37] Angola[38], Equatorial Guinea[39], Malawi[40], Camaroon [41]


Reviews
Martin Wolf in the Financial Times called it "a splendid book" and "particularly enjoyed the attack on the misguided economics of many non-governmental organisations." He says that Collier sheds much light on how the world should tackle its biggest moral challenge. It shows, too, how far western governments and other external actors are from currently giving the sort of help these countries desperately need.
The Guardian called it an important book and suggested that citizens of G8 countries should fight for change along the lines he suggests
The Economist says it is "set to become a classic" and "should be compulsory reading for anyone embroiled in the hitherto thankless business of trying to pull people out of the pit of poverty where the “bottom billion” of the world's population of 6.6 billion seem irredeemably stuck"
Nicolas Kristof in the New York Times described it as "'The best book on international affairs so far this year"
William Easterly, influential American economist specialising in economic growth and foreign aid, critically assessed The Bottom Billion in The Lancet. He lambasts it for being an 'ivory tower analysis of real world poverty.

The Big Con


The author, a senior editor at the New Republic, is best known for declaring I hate President George W. Bush in 2003. This book traces the roots of his dislike back 30 years, when supply-side economics took over the Republican Party and made cutting taxes the GOP answer to all political and economic questions. American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, Chait declares, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. To which he adds, the Republicans' success at defeating the democratic process explains why it has been able to enact its agenda despite a lack of popular support. The rhetoric is inflammatory, but the case is laid out with clarity. Chait claims that traditional Republicans, religious people and social, fiscal and foreign policy conservatives have been cheated as much as liberals, and that unparalleled corruption and ruthless cynicism in Washington and the timidity of nonpartisan media allow the minority to rule. His analysis should appeal to anyone interested in politics, though many may find the style too irritating to endure. (Sept. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rational Mysticism by John Horgan

“In Rational Mysticism, acclaimed journalist John Horgan embarks on an adventure of discovery, investigating the ways in which scientists, theologians, and philosophers are attempting to formulate an empirical explanation of spiritual enlightenment. Horgan visits and interviews a fascinating Who's Who of experts, including theologian Huston Smith; Andrew Newberg, explorer of the brain's "God module"; Ken Wilber, a transpersonal psychologist and Buddhist; psychedelic pharmacologist Alexander Shulgin; Oxford-educated psychologist and Zen practitioner Susan Blackmore; and postmodern shaman Terence McKenna. Horgan also explores the effects of reputed enlightenment-inducing techniques such as fasting, meditation, prayer, sensory deprivation, and drug trips. In his lively and thought-provoking inquiry, Horgan finds surprising connections among seemingly disparate disciplines, not the least of which is a shared awe of the nature of the universe.”

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis

“Urban theorist Davis takes a global approach to documenting the astonishing depth of squalid poverty that dominates the lives of the planet's increasingly urban population, detailing poor urban communities from Cape Town and Caracas to Casablanca and Khartoum. Davis argues health, justice and social issues associated with gargantuan slums (the largest, in Mexico City, has an estimated population of 4 million) get overlooked in world politics: "The demonizing rhetorics of the various international 'wars' on terrorism, drugs, and crime are so much semantic apartheid: they construct epistemological walls around gecekondus, favelas, and chawls that disable any honest debate about the daily violence of economic exclusion." Though Davis focuses on individual communities, he presents statistics showing the skyrocketing population and number of "megaslums" (informally, "stinking mountains of shit" or, formally, "when shanty-towns and squatter communities merge in continuous belts of informal housing and poverty, usually on the urban periphery") since the 1960s. Layered over the hard numbers are a fascinating grid of specific area studies and sub-topics ranging from how the Olympics has spurred the forceful relocation of thousands (and, sometimes, hundreds of thousands) of the urban poor, to the conversion of formerly second world countries to third world status. Davis paints a bleak picture of the upward trend in urbanization and maintains a stark outlook for slum-dwellers' futures.”

The Fold Leibniz and the Baroque by Gilles Deleuze

“Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. He is a key figure in poststructuralism, and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. In "The Fold", Deleuze proposes a new and radical way of understanding philosophy and art. Leibniz drew on the art of the baroque period in his invention of the concept of the fold; Deleuze develops the concept further to present a new way of practising philosophy based upon the fold as the relationship of difference with itself.”

Echo Objects by Barbara Maria Stafford

“Barbara Maria Stafford is at the forefront of a growing movement that calls for the humanities to confront the brain’s material realities. In Echo Objects,she argues that humanists should seize upon the exciting neuroscientific discoveries that are illuminating the underpinnings of cultural objects. In turn, she contends, brain scientists could enrich their investigations of mental activity by incorporating phenomenological considerations—particularly the intricate ways that images focus intentional behavior and allow us to feel thought.
As a result, Echo Objectsis a stunningly broad exploration of how complex images—or patterns that compress space and time—make visible the invisible ordering of human consciousness. Stafford demonstrates, for example, how the compound formats of emblems, symbols, collage, and electronic media reveal the brain’s grappling to construct mental objects that are redoubled by prior associations. In contrast, she shows that findings in evolutionary biology and the neurosciences are providing profound opportunities for understanding aesthetic conundrums such as the human urge to imitate and the role of narrative and nonnarrative representation.
Ultimately, she makes an impassioned plea for a common purpose—for the acknowledgement that, at the most basic level, these separate projects belong to a single investigation. “Heroic. . . . The larger message of Stafford’s intense, propulsive prose is unassailable. If we are to get much further in the great puzzle of ‘binding’—how the perception of an image, the will to act on intention, or the forging of consciousness is assembled from the tens of thousands of neurons firing at any one moment in time—then there needs to be action on all fronts.”—Science”

Animal Minds Beyond Cognition to Consciousness by Donald R. Griffin

“In the intriguing Animal Minds : Beyond Cognition to Consciousness, Donald Griffin tackles that perennial question of psychologists and behaviourists, do animals think? According to Cartesian models of science that have long influenced the Western view of the natural world, they do not: they merely react to external stimuli, the responses to which they cannot control.
A different view has emerged in recent years, one that draws on findings from experimental psychology, biology, linguistics, and cognitive ethology. Writes Griffin, an associate at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, "Communicative behavior is not a human monopoly." Animal communication--from the dance language of the bees to the vocalisms of parrots and bonobos--suggests that there is more than a ghost in the machine. For underlying that communicative ability are other powers that humans have no easy way of gauging: a sense of time and futurity, a complex memory, an ability to lie, even consciousness itself.
Griffin examines recent studies that show that many species are able to discern and classify colours, shapes, materials, and "sameness", and that many other species are able to adapt their communications systems to account for novel situations. Warning that our understanding of animal minds is still ill formed and that much work remains to be done in the field before we can confidently answer that ancient question one way or the other, he argues that "animals are best viewed as actors who choose what to do rather than as objects totally dependent on outside influences." --Gregory McNamee”

I would also like to vote for Zizek’s Ontology and The Pivot of Civilization as possible selections.

Since I'm new here, is there a time period during which everyone votes for a book? Will there be a separate thread?

Thanks to those who reply!

Hi Boheme,

Yes, a new poll thread will be created where we all cast our votes. Right now we're seeking quality suggestions and feedback on suggestions.

Yeah where are all the people who voted for Dreams From My Father and The Name of the Rose anyway?

Good question.