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Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:17 am
by Mockingbird
I searched this board but I can't seem to find this thread...although I kind of have the feeling that I started it already? Anyway, I've hardly read any non-fiction and I would like to.

Here are two that I would recommend to the highest degree:

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond. Jess, this is one for you, and anyone interested in race, history, anthropology, and the like. He covers all of human history from a scientific point of view and manages to keep it as entertaining as it is insightful.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down:A Hmong Child, her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, Anne Fadiman. It's a medical anthropological book, which sounds dry, but I actually cried at the end of it, it was so moving. I know people deplore the state of journalism these days, but this book is a model of what a good journalist can accomplish, if he or she has an equal degree of empathy and objectivity.

Any recommendations?

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 10:30 am
by Ian
An African In Greenland by Kpomassie Tete-Michel. I read it when it was recommend to me by Pullman and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:13 pm
by Bellerophon
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond. Jess, this is one for you, and anyone interested in race, history, anthropology, and the like. He covers all of human history from a scientific point of view and manages to keep it as entertaining as it is insightful.
For a competing perspective consider The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David S. Landes. In my opinion neither Landes nor Diamond convincingly dispels the argument of the other, so I think it's important for students to read both and form their own views.

**EDIT: My suggestion that Landes be read as a companion to Diamond was not intended as an endorsement of his argument. I'm happy to send a critical review of either book to anyone who contacts me by PM. (02/07/08)

**EDIT: Changed link to The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. (02/08/08)

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:42 pm
by Mockingbird
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond. Jess, this is one for you, and anyone interested in race, history, anthropology, and the like. He covers all of human history from a scientific point of view and manages to keep it as entertaining as it is insightful.
For a competing perspective consider The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David S. Landes. In my opinion neither Landes nor Diamond convincingly dispels the argument of the other, so I think it's important for students to read both and form their own views.
:x

I suspect we come from two different schools of thought, but I would think that you wouldn't need Diamond's argument to dispel the argument of the other. I agree, people should read them both, but if they can't see through Landes' prejudices, then they should carefully examine their own. (And don't say Diamond is prejudiced too. :P His book is an answer to the older prejudices of the field.)

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:19 pm
by Bellerophon
The 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century

That's a good place to start.

Several publications produced rival lists, and I've linked contributions from the über-liberal CounterPunch and the über-conservative National Review so we can celebrate diversity to the greatest extent possible. There are many excellent non-propaganda books on each, but others are, well, see number 100 on the National Review list:

CounterPunch: Best 20th Century Non-Fiction (English Only).

CounterPunch: Best 20th Century Non-Fiction in Translation (Translated).

National Review: Best 20th Century Non-Fiction

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:07 am
by Riali
Not a book, but I have just found this online collection of socio-political essays, which I am loving. It is entirely possible that this is one of those cultural phenomena which is new to me but everyone else already knows about. (That happens to me a lot.) It is very entertaining at any rate, and I wanted to share.

Oh, and a disclaimer I suppose... It contains material relating to and expressing opinions about issues regarding (but not limited to) sexuality, feminism, religion, racism, popular culture, patriotism and political correctness. Basically it is essays on a whole bunch of issues about which people tend to get their knickers in a knot. And most of it is not PG. Just so you know.

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:33 am
by aklebury
I very rarely read non-fictin stuff either, and when I do I have a tendancy to lean towards biologist-type autobiographys like:
Dian Fossey - Gorillas In The Mist
and Joy Adamson - Born Free

Re: Non-fiction Recommendations

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 2:02 am
by Aletheia Dolorosa
I would recommend any history book by Norman Davies. My two favourites are Europe: A History, which looks at European history from non-'Great Power' perspectives, and The Isles which is about Britain and Ireland but focuses a lot on Ireland, Wales and Scotland, rather than the usual focus on England.

I also love A Peace to End All Peace.

I like history books that read more like a story and could add many more to this list.