Reading recommendations for books with a contested thesis
The books in this category are of an "applied" nature. They draw on ideas across many fields to advocate for a case. The cases made in these books may be controversial among scholars. Readers of the books should not blindly accept the arguments put forth by the authors, but should use the books to obtain a richer understanding of the ideas being discussed. For a richer understanding, readers are encouraged to look for online reviews, debates, and discussions surrounding the books and the theses presented in them.
Readers often require a strong interdisciplinary grasp in order to be able to form independent informed evaluations of the arguments presented in the books. Readers without such a grasp should be particularly wary of accepting statements made by the authors at face value without verifying them against independent sources.
Global trends
Explaining the past
| Book | Author | ISBN and purchase links | What it's about |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined | Steven Pinker | Amazon Kindle | The book presents numerous arguments to argue that violence has declined, and offers as well as rejects numerous explanations for the phenomenon. |
| The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics | William Easterly | Amazon paperback | Easterly argues that development economists have had a decidedly mixed record in helping kickstart economic growth around the world. |
| Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World | Deirdre McCloskey | Amazon Kindle | McCloskey's book is an attempt to answer the question of why standards of living did not improve much until the 18th century, and then improved dramatically between the 18th and the 20th century. McCloskey considers numerous hypotheses proposed by others, and offers rebuttals to each. She then offers her own thesis and attempts to justify it. The book is part of a lengthy series. |
Predicting the future
| Book | Author | ISBN and purchase links | What it's about |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Rational Optimist | Matt Ridley | Amazon Kindle | Ridley argues for an optimistic vision of the future. He considers a number of concerns people currently have about the future. |
| Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation | Tyler Cowen | Amazon Kindle | Cowen offers up his predictions of how the American and world economy will look in the future. (Wikipedia page) |
| Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era | James Barrat | Amazon Kindle | ? |
Applied ethics
The books in this category are of an "applied" nature. They draw on ideas across many fields to advocate for a case. The cases made in these books may be controversial among scholars. Readers of the books should not blindly accept the arguments put forth by the authors, but should use the books to obtain a richer understanding of the ideas being discussed. For a richer understanding, readers are encouraged to look for online reviews, debates, and discussions surrounding the books and the theses presented in them.
| Book | Author | ISBN and purchase links | What it's about |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty | Peter Singer | Amazon Kindle | Singer makes the case that people should do more to end world poverty, and can do so feasibly at minimal cost to themselves. |
| The Ethics of Voting | Jason Brennan | Amazon Kindle | Brennan argues against the consensus embodied in civics education that people have a moral obligation to vote. |