A while back, Dr. Tom Barnett shared his reading bibliography for writing Book III. Since then, I’ve seen book posts by Brad at Potbanger’s, HistoryGuy99 at HG’s World and at The Strategist. All well worth taking a look at and moreover, they have all inspired me to set my newest additions into Slideshare, a picture being worth a thousand words.
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One of the pleasures of Christmas is that a majority of my friends and relatives with whom I exchange gifts save themselves trouble and get me something I can actually use, i.e. – gift cards for new books. That, coupled with accumulated Amazon gift certificates from the past year, means I will be on a book-buying bonanza next week. Huzzah!
Helpfully, Dr. Barnett has been on a reading marathon lately in preparation for writing the body of Book III and has published an extensive bilbiography of his effort with micro-reviews of most of the books. Worth checking out if you are a bibliophile like me:
ADDENDUM:
Ha! Could not wait, so I just ordered the following from Amazon:
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah by Olivier Roy
I’m very intrigued by Amazon’s new Kindle device:
Dave Davison, IT venture capitalist and visualization maven, is very high on the potential of Kindle:
“Amazon “kindles” a new fire in electronic book reading. This 6 minute video shows how you will use this new portable, 10.3ounce, paperback size device. Download your reading library via a wireless connection just like calling on your cell phone. This device and the kindle service will revolutionize the book, magazine,newspaper and blog publishing media space.”
Count me as an avid reader and collector of books but if Amazon has truly solved the ” reading online” problem that causes me to print out anything longer than a handful of pages, with a vision-friendly, virtual-paper screen, then I’d be keen to own a Kindle. Just putting all of my magazines on it to reduce clutter or using it to read on the treadmill instead of lugging books in my gym bag, would be worth it. I would also speculate that, if you buy an absurdly large number of books annually, as I do, a kindl could allow you to purchase strategically; some in dead-tree version and some virtual form, and accumulate a considerable cost savings.
I would also expect that, as a platform, the uses for Kindle are only going to grow.
Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz
A STROKE OF LUCK AND A MOMENT OF IRONY
Some of my older readers may be familiar with the late Mortimer J. Adler of the University of Chicago, a “popular” philosopher and lifelong advocate of “Great Books” and “Western Canon” programs of liberal education. One of Adler’s many efforts in this regard was his editorship of The Encyclopedia Britannica ‘s 53 volume “Great Books of the Western World” series, which the public could buy on subscription, one volume at a time.
It seems quaint now, in the Google age, to recall buying sets of encyclopedias or series like Great Books but as a product line, it had a definite market appeal for the GI generation that had suffered through depression and world war and only about half of whom had managed to graduate high school. I suspect they liked seeing the rows of “serious”, leather-bound books on a shelf and took some pride in the fact that their children, the Boomers, had access to them for school work ( though they were probably used with as little enthusiasm as encyclopedias are used by students now).
I mention this because earlier today, I picked up Adler’s entire 53 volume Great Books set from a library for free, saving it from the discard pile when the librarian was kind enough to let me cart them away. Between forty and fifty years old, aside from a little dust, they are essentially brand new books of the highest quality. Few of them were ever opened and they will look quite handsome on my shelf, as I’m sure they once did on someone else’s. Running from Homer to Freud they include about every “deep” book that we generally feel guilty that we never read yet. I’ve read quite a few ( though less than I imagined) and look forward to reading more and I am generally, quite pleased with myself for snagging them.
Part of me though, suspects that Adler would have been chagrined to learn that in 2007 a library had no room or interest in his beloved canon. Or that college students could conceivably graduate from a university without ever having read, cover to cover, any “great book” whatsoever. Times change of course but some things have a lasting value and the Net generation is missing out on some of them.
A BOOK REC FROM TOM
Tom Barnett pointed out this tome to me in the comment section of his blog:
As I have not read a new economics book since Freakonomics came out, I’ll grab this the next time I run over to Border’s ( despite Col. Frans Osinga’s Science, Strategy and War, sent courtesy of Shane, sitting there, staring me in the face, taunting me). Idoru needs to be finished too and…
So many books. So little time.
Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security,strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits.
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