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Thank you for visiting this list of what I’ve read and why I read it & what I haven’t read and why I haven’t read it. 

Introduction

These are some of the books and academic works that have helped better inform the conversations I have with my self.

I’ve read Plato and the dialogues, but it’s a rabbit hole and mental whack a mole. So, nah, not here. But… there is a Great Courses series on Plato I recommend.

Not a lot of fancy books here. I’m not bullshitting you so that you’ll be impressed by me so I’ll be impressed that you are impressed by me.

Here’s an example:

I read 1984 by George Orwell, great book, but it’s not on this list. Why? Because it’s great in some of its nooks and crannies but as a whole its a slog, boring and dull.

So if I want to read the things about 1984 that make it ‘great’:

  • Why slog thru 300 pages just to read about something that only lives in 20 or so of its pages?
  • Why not just read those parts in isolation?
  • And/Or read scholarly work about those parts?

I’m interested in the idea(s) of NEWSPEAK, yet in the book 1984, Newspeak is only discussed for a bit, much of which is in the “Appendix on Newspeak“. 

This is why my list also includes scholarly/academic work. I don’t list 1984 but I do list works about 1984. 

Notes:

  • I am not going to write a review of each book or item on the list. If it’s included here, it’s because it has been included here, and I hope that is good enough for you, and for me.
  • This list is going to take quite some time for me to complete, it’s a biggish project and whoever is on the other side of this list, please know that I’m chopping away at it.
  • The links in this are not ‘affiliate’. I ain’t doing this for the pay.   

The Great Courses, Dr. Kenneth Harl, The Peloponnesian War.

This course covers the book History of the Peloponnesian War
Book by Thucydides
but perhaps more importantly, it discusses everything else that was happening all around the war, the politics, cultures and the people.

The course goes deep into Pericles Funeral Oration, Mytilenean Debate, Melian dialog, Aclibiades and so on and so on.

Here is a brief excerpt from Thucydides History. It was written 2000 years ago. The present and future has happened before. Read…

Book 3, begins at 82.
(paragraph’ing is my own)

“For not long afterwards nearly the whole Hellenic world was in commotion; in every city the1 chiefs of the democracy and of the oligarchy were struggling, the one to bring in the Athenians, the other the Lacedaemonians. Now in time of peace, men would have had no excuse for introducing either, and no desire to do so; but, when they were at war the introduction of a foreign alliance on one side or the other to the hurt of their enemies and the advantage of themselves was easily effected by the dissatisfied party

And revolution brought upon the cities of Hellas many terrible calamities, such as have been and always will be while human nature remains the same, but which are more or less aggravated and differ in character with every new combination of circumstances.

In peace and prosperity both states and individuals are actuated by higher motives, because they do not fall under the dominion of imperious necessities; but war, which takes away the comfortable provision of daily life, is a hard master and tends to assimilate men’s characters to their conditions.

When troubles had once begun in the cities, those who followed carried the revolutionary4 spirit further and further, and determined to outdo the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges.

The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man.

A conspirator who wanted to be safe was a recreant in disguise. The lover of violence was always trusted, and his opponent suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a still greater master in craft was he who detected one. [5] On the other hand, he who plotted from the first to have nothing to do with plots was a breaker up of parties and a poltroon who was afraid of the enemy. In a word, he who could outstrip another in a bad action was applauded, and so was he who encouraged to evil one who had no idea of it. The tie of party was stronger than the tie of blood, because a partisan was more ready to dare without asking why.

For party associations are not based upon any established law, nor do they seek the public good; they are formed in defiance of the laws and from self-interest.

The seal of good faith was not divine law, but fellowship in crime. If an enemy when he was in the ascendant offered fair words, the opposite party received them not in a generous spirit5, but by a jealous watchfulness of his actions6.

Revenge was dearer than self-preservation. Any agreements sworn to by either party, when they could do nothing else, were binding as long as both were powerless. But he who on a favorable opportunity first took courage, and struck at his enemy when he saw him off his guard, had greater pleasure in a perfidious than he would have had in an open act of revenge; he congratulated himself that he had taken the safer course, and also that he had overreached his enemy and gained the prize of superior ability.

In general the dishonest more easily gain credit for cleverness than the simple for goodness; men take a pride in the one, but are ashamed of the other.

The cause of all these evils was the love of power, originating in avarice and ambition, and the party-spirit which is engendered by them when men are fairly embarked in a contest. For the leaders on either side used specious names, the one party professing to uphold the constitutional equality of the many, the other the wisdom of an aristocracy, while they made the public interests, to which in name they were devoted, in reality their prize.

Striving in every way to overcome each other, they committed the most monstrous crimes; yet even these were surpassed by the magnitude of their revenges which they pursued to the very utmost, neither party observing any definite limits either of justice or public expediency, but both alike making the caprice of the moment their law.

Either by the help of an unrighteous sentence, or grasping power with the strong hand, they were eager to satiate the impatience of party-spirit. Neither faction cared for religion; but any fair pretense which succeeded in effecting some odious purpose was greatly lauded. And the citizens who were of neither party fell a prey to both; either they were disliked because they held aloof, or men were jealous of their surviving.”

And so on…

Xenophon, Hellenica

Xenophon also wrote about the Peloponnesian war and his history begins precisely, almost to the day, that Thucydides abruptly ends.

Machiavelli

Machiavelli is my favorite political scientist. He is many of those things that I enjoy: Roman history, politics and their intrigues and the construction and administration of what I call a People Operating System. I don’t think it is possible to understand now if you don’t understand ‘then’.

He wrote three books fundamentally about ‘politics’, The Prince, The Florentine Histories, and my favorite – Discourses on Livy.

Discourses on Livy is a collection of political and military analyses. It’s his contemporary observations drawn from the histories of ancient Rome authored by Livy.

I quote from the book’s preface: “I shall be bold to speak freely all I think, both of old times and of new, in order that the minds of the young who happen to read these my writings, may be led to shun modern examples, and be prepared to follow those set by antiquity whenever chance affords the opportunity. For it is the duty of every good man to teach others those wholesome lessons which the malice of Time or of Fortune has not permitted him to put in practice; to the end, that out of many who have the knowledge, some one better loved by Heaven may be found able to carry them out.”

Perhaps the best start, or maybe finish, depending on how deep you want to go, is taking  The Great Courses – Machiavelli in Context instructed by the awesome Prof William Cook. You can get an entire understanding of all things Machiavelli, the Borgias, Medicis and lots of ancient Roman History in the course and you may find that it quenches your Machiavelli thirst.

I also highly recommend this book: Erica Benner, Machiavelli a New Reading

(note: I do not recommend her other books on the subject, such as ‘Be like the Fox’)

Hannah Arendt, book 3 on the Origins of Totalitarianism

The Origins of Totalitarianism was not written as one book, it is really 3 books and they are each distinct, no interconnectivity between them. All of what makes the book excellent is in book 3, books one and 2 are good. You can buy the books separately.

Here is a link to a free Book Three if you want it now → Part Three TOTALITARIANISM

Audio book → Origins of Totalitarianism

Some catchy quotes that’ll spin your mind:

“The disturbing factor in the success of totalitarianism is rather the true selflessness of its adherents: it may be understandable that a Nazi or Bolshevik will not be shaken in his conviction by crimes against people who do not belong to the movement or are even hostile to it; but the amazing fact is that neither is he likely to waver when the monster begins to devour its own children and not even if he becomes a victim of persecution himself, if he is framed and condemned, if he is purged from the party and sent to a forced-labor or a concentration camp. On the contrary, to the wonder of the whole civilized world, he may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if only his status as a member of the movement is not touched.”

Equality of condition among their subjects has been one of the foremost concerns of despotisms and tyrannies since ancient times, yet such equalization is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between the subjects, such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim seriously, it must come to the point where it has “to finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess,” that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever. The lovers of “chess for the sake of chess,” aptly compared by their liquidator with the lovers of “art for art’s sake,” are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass society whose completely heterogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of farmers for the sake of farming. Himmler quite aptly defined the SS member as the new type of man who under no circumstances will ever do “a thing for its own sake.”

Mass atomization in Soviet society was achieved by the skillful use of repeated purges which invariably precede actual group liquidation. In order to destroy all social and family ties, the purges are conducted in such a way as to threaten with the same fate the defendant and all his ordinary relations, from mere acquaintances up to his closest friends and relatives. The consequence of the simple and ingenious device of “guilt by association” is that as soon as a man is accused, his former friends are transformed immediately into his bitterest enemies; in order to save their own skins, they volunteer information and rush in with denunciations to corroborate the nonexistent evidence against him; this obviously is the only way to prove their own trustworthiness. Retrospectively, they will try to prove that their acquaintance or friendship with the accused was only a pretext for spying on him and revealing him as a saboteur, a Trotskyite, a foreign spy.”

Frankenstein

Here’s a change of tempo.

I think of this period as the ‘fastest roll-up of power in history’, and I knew years ago that we would have endless spectacles and the media would keep our minds in a state of disequilibrium and never stop, never give us an intermission that would allow people’s minds to restore to its natural state. I knew all of this was happening faster than the mind could comprehend. I had that awareness.

Later down this list I will include an amazing and very relevant lecture, but for now let’s stay here, with Frankenstein.

These last years have been such a whirlwind that it seems impossible to ‘explain it’ to others, because I could not coherently explain it to myself.

I bought the audiobook of Frankenstein because I was interested in its narrative devices and I thought that maybe it could be a winch that would let me lift these heavy mind weighing boulders.

From the first words the analytical part of my brain faded into the background and the enjoyment part lit up, it’s an amazing book. It really is a classic, the first Science Fiction book of its type, but so much more, is the monster good, or bad. Is its creator guilty of murders? There is so much there beyond its story.

I often read or listen to books before I go to sleep and I was so excited to finish the book that I couldn’t sleep and listened to its last 2 or so hours into the very early hours of the morning. 

Then, still hooked, for the next month or so I went on a Frankenstein YouTube kick, watching every scholarly panel and university lecture on it.

I listened to the full cast audiobook recording of it, I tried others and by far it’s my favorite. I love the voices and most of all, the voice of the monster, beautiful, haunting, poetic and masculine. 

Such artistry.

GET THIS ONE → audiobook → Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus

To be continued

 – as of July 12, 2022 – check back soon. I promise, I won’t let us down.