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What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 12:00 am
by Chris OConnor
What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Please use this thread to suggest non-fiction books and it is always helpful if you include a link and maybe a few words about why you're suggesting the book.

Authors, please do not suggest your own books in this thread. We have forums specifically for authors to promote their books. Thank you!

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 1:54 am
by Robert Tulip
Why We Sleep - an amazing 2017 popular neuroscience book that will make you rue all your missed slumber.

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 6:21 pm
by Dexter
Here's a book that I'm planning to read:

Martin Gurri, The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age government, political parties, the media.
The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.

Originally published in 2014, this updated edition of The Revolt of the Public includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump's improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit and concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process, and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.

"All over the world, elite institutions from governments to media to academia are losing their authority and monopoly control of information to dynamic amateurs and the broader public. This book, until now only in samizdat (and Kindle) form, has been my #1 handout for the last several years to anyone seeking to understand this unfolding shift in power from hierarchies to networks in the age of the Internet." --Marc Andreessen, co-founder, Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
https://www.amazon.com/Revolt-Public-Cr ... 732265143/

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 10:34 pm
by DWill
Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, by Pietra Rivoli. Good for its detective-like tailing of a common t-shirt from birth to disposal. Rivoli sheds light on free and unfree markets, Asian "sweatshop" labor, environmental problems in the clothing industry, and other issues. About 200 pages and available as a PDF.

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:30 pm
by Chris OConnor
I'll create a poll thread...

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:43 pm
by Dexter
I would read the T-shirt book, I think the sleep book is probably very useful, but maybe not the best for discussion. I listened to some of the author's interview on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 1:06 am
by Chris OConnor
Mere Morality
by Dan Barker

What drives us to be good? How do we even know how to be good? Philosophers and theologians have dealt with such questions for millennia, but Dan Barker thinks the answers are not so complicated. In Mere Morality, he argues there's no need to appeal to supernatural commandments or the fear of some higher power when considering morality. Stripping “good" and "evil” down to the basics, he offers a simple compass for navigating life's most difficult moral and ethical dilemmas.

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 1:21 am
by Chris OConnor
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
by James W. Loewen

A new edition of the national bestseller and American Book Award winner, with a new preface by the author

Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has become one of the most important—and successful—history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book also won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship and was heralded on the front page of the New York Times in the summer of 2006.

For this new edition, Loewen has added a new preface that shows how inadequate history courses in high school help produce adult Americans who think Donald Trump can solve their problems, and calls out academic historians for abandoning the concept of truth in a misguided effort to be “objective.”

What started out as a survey of the twelve leading American history textbooks has ended up being what the San Francisco Chronicle calls “an extremely convincing plea for truth in education.” In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen brings history alive in all its complexity and ambiguity. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should—and could—be taught to American students.

Re: What NON-FICTION book should we read and discuss in February, March and April?

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2019 11:42 pm
by Chris OConnor
I'm creating the poll right now so this thread is being locked. ;-)