Weird Book List

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:22 am

I'm making a book list for an Army program. What I want is 10-15 books that, when read, will make people think, challenge their assumptions and hopefully teach them critical thinking. This is a preparation program for higher ranks and also Sociology classes that my commanding officer wants to run. So far I have:

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Communism

I'd like some more sociology books and some psychology ones. Maybe some ethics. I'll also include some Popular Science and even obviously military history/philosophy. Mostly introductory though suggestions for the advanced program are welcome.

Thank you for your time.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:29 am

The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. I've just started it but I'm already completely sold by his thesis. Philosophical, which economics on the side. Taleb is the guy who called out the sub-prime crisis back in 2003 (i think)

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:54 am

Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky. A nice look at american political and military policy over the last few decades that doesn't jive with the regular patriotic lines.

Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett. It's not technically in the lines you've given above, but it is a philosophical work on determinism versus freedom, and how you can play an interesting semantics game to get freedom out of determinism if the system is complicated enough.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:46 am

Nicomachean Ethics?

Edit: By Aristotle. It is short but insightful and highly relevant to military life.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:01 am

Cognition in the Wild, by Edwin Hutchins. It's a book on collaborative cognition using the example of naval navigation.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:57 am

Godel, Escher, Bach.
wikipedia entry
If not the entire book, perhaps selected chapters from it would be useful.

Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman!
amazon.com has reviews upon it
It's a fun read, and the guy certainly had non-standard ways of looking at problems which are somewhat relayed via anecdotes and stories.

The Alphabet of Manliness
A guilty pleasure. It may help female officers understand the abyss that is the male psyche.

Can you resist a book with helpful diagrams like this?

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:11 pm

Maybe you should try one of Tim Harford's books. The Logic of Life is most probably the best book for this kind of course, though The Undercover Economist does have a lot of interesting topics.

The author has made a bunch of Youtube videos that provide shallow coverage some of the topics, so I'm going to link them here.

There's also a set of Youtube videos of a quick (content light) lecture that he's done on the topics covered in The Undercover Economist.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 7:09 pm

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinkerton. Besids being quite amusing at times, it really helps explain the process of communication and language in general.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:48 pm

Blicero wrote:The Language Instinct by Steven Pinkerton. Besids being quite amusing at times, it really helps explain the process of communication and language in general.

Fucking Steve Pinkerton. (*￣m￣)

Absentminded_Wizard · Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:52 am

If you want a basic book to teach people critical thinking, Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World is a good start.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:00 am

That book was awesome. One of my DM's gave me that last year at CTCon. I'd recommend that book to anyone.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:56 am

What does the audience look like?

Are we talking guys being groomed for a staff Sargent job, or are we talking captains?

Makes a real big difference! As does branch of service in a way, a military intel captian and sargent will react more alike than more similar ranks in light infantry vs communications.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:18 am

The Lucifer Principle, by Howard Bloom. It makes a lot of correlations and observations across the subjects of psychology, philosophy, and history. Not only was it an interesting read, but I now get along with my step-mother (DC 50).

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:11 pm

I would seriously suggest sprinkling in Neal Stephenson fiction books in the middle. It's a little hard to read. But it's good to not just have hard non-fiction and stephenson's first three sets of books listed below have quite a bit of atleast actual factual info with non-info in there. Baroque Cycle deals with history and such. Cryptonomicon deals much with a silly side of WWII which might anger. Anathem is heavy into a lot of philosophy, science, and computer science but all of it is given different names and different ways of expression and this actual broadens reasoning skills. It has a glossary and an index and such. So it isn't hard to follow. Snowcrash and Diamond age are great books but I find them a lot more juvenile to be honest even though they are praised as ground breaking.

Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon, Anathem, maybe Snowcrash/Diamond Age

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:15 am

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:46 pm

I'd second Chomsky. It'd be an excellent head-rattle for the military crowd.

It's a little dense but I love "The Philosopher's Secret Fire" by Patrick Harpur. "Daimonic Reality" would also serve the same purpose. It's basically a dissertation on the role of imagination in one's mental world-construction. Also, alchemy. It's awesome and one of my favorites.

"Lo!" by Charles Fort. What an awesome mindbender of a book.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:59 pm

"A Different Mirror" by George Takaki. An examination of neglected multicultural elements of history and probably novel for any population as insular as a military one.