Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/neil-degrasse-tyson-suggests-books-intelligent-person-read.html

by kumarski • 13 years ago

113 95 13 years ago

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jtokoph• 13 years ago

It's good to see the bible on that list. I should get around to reading it.

mylittlepony• 13 years ago

Why is it good? Only Christians should read it (to become atheists). For anyone else, I think it's a waste of time.

russellallen2• 13 years ago

It is a collection of writings containing some of the oldest recorded human stories, poetry and philosophy, law, history, and myth. Reading it is no more a waste of time than reading the Iliad or Plato.

lolcraft• 13 years ago

The Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes are the shit, though.

But honestly, yeah, the Bible is the poorest written fiction I've ever not finished reading. It's not even worth the paper as a religious reference, surprisingly. Maybe reading something like Norman Cohn's "The Pursuit of the Millenium" would be more useful for someone wanting to understand (more deeper) christianity, though it's quite a heavyweight. And I understand Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity" is a classic, though I'm yet to read it.

jacques_chester4• 13 years ago

Whether you like it or not, if you intend to acquaint yourself with "the classics", you won't understand half of the allusions made without first reading the bible.

It's like watching Futurama without a pop science level of familiarity with physics, maths and so on.

msvan• 13 years ago

I'll go ahead and claim that most of these books are pretty dry these days. Historically significant, yes, and everyone should definitely know of them and what they're about. But reading them probably won't make much of a difference to your life. The same information can be found in other places these days, in forms that are more comfortable for the brain to digest.

passionfruit• 13 years ago

Reading large works like these may stimulate your thinking much more than getting the same information in a shorter format.

derrida4• 13 years ago

I think msvan may have been referring to books too. For instance: Origin of the Species spends a great deal of time presenting evidence for why evolution should be believed. At the time this was of course necessary to convince all of the skeptics. Now, it can be sort of dry. Dry as in "not stimulating". It's much more interesting to follow a book that deals with things that are controversial today. Reading Dawkins for instance is likely to push some buttons even in those who accept evolution. It's also arguable that this sort of thing isn't science, it's just philosophy (the idea of the Meme, for instance) and if it is philosophy, how can we separate the philosophical import of evolution from the science of evolution.

Yes, saying this is likely to rile up some Dawkins defenders, but then I've proven my point, the issues it discusses are not dry the way that pages and pages of evidence presented for an argument you already accept the conclusion of is.

But I shouldn't really speak, I barely read these days.

notahacker• 13 years ago

That depends on the individual work, and how you respond to authors tending to assume you have the same knowledge and interests in the subject matter as a typical expert, a century or five back.

If your reaction to reading The Prince, for example, is to go off and read other historical analysis of the many obscure conflicts he references, and discussions of the extent to which certain comments may have been intended as satire, then it might make a stimulating starting point for study. If you're simply looking to gain insight into the motivations of people in power, then you'd be better off reading an article-length summary of his key points and prioritising on to short-form content about Westphalian states and the limitations of democratic processes. Ultimately, you'll learn more relevant lessons from that than you would from Machiavellian observations on the castle of Milan causing more trouble for the Sforzas than it saves or the susceptibility of the Spaniards to cavalry and the Switzers to close combat.

If you want to learn about markets, capitalism and pricing, then economists of all stripes will agree that the Wealth of Nations is commendably broad and readable but very outdated in its examples; many of the features of modern capitalism and the entire theories behind modern anticapitalism simply hadn't been invented then. If you want to learn that "capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself", it's a strange, rather agrarian-focused introduction that won't give you any insight into modern debates about welfare or Wall Street.

calibraxis• 13 years ago

For some of them, I think it's better to first read works from knowledgeable dissidents. Then when reading those books, it's easier to spot the ideologies contained in them which you otherwise might have missed. (Since we have been trained since childhood to accept these ideologies without even noticing them.)

Take Wealth Of Nations' insidious creation myth of markets, downplaying government policy in favor of barter myths. To someone like Neal Degrasse Tyson, raised in that mythology, it seems plausible that such a human social arrangement is in fact a force of nature. But if you read Graeber's Debt: the First 5000 Years, or maybe even Chomsky's Understanding Power, the myths get deflated. (http://www.zcommunications.org/debt-slavery-and-our-idea-of-...)

(Though I suppose with capitalism's negative externalities which threaten to turn the Earth into another Venus, maybe there is no significant distinction between it and a force of nature...)

jacques_chester4• 13 years ago

Here's what amuses me about the idea of false consciousness.

On the one hand, there's a view that history and the world we live in is a monstrous construct, the brilliant triumph of an elaborate, ruthless and flawlessly clandestine scheme orchestrated by generation upon generation of secret master minds.

The alternative is that history is just one damn thing after the other. A complex system for which "it was caused by Secret Masters!" is a pisspoor explanation. Whether you blame it on the capitalist class, Ascended Masters or Jews, it's all the same. It's weak.

I take Chomsky about as seriously as I take any other species of conspiratard (Illuminutties, birthers, truthers, Adam Curtis ... all the same to me).

Good luck fighting the good fight, comrade. Workers of all countries, unite to read this tedious sophomoric drivel and march in pointless rent-a-crowd parades against vague notions!

tcskeptic• 13 years ago

What a ponderous, pretentious load. This strikes me very much as a list of "Books I want everyone to know that I think everyone should read" which is very different from the stated title. Is Origin Of Species really a better choice than almost anything on the topic by Dawkins or Gould for the general purpose of "[learning] of our kinship with all other life on Earth"?

Happyhippy• 13 years ago

They are selections for everyone, including 'beginners' which I assume is the reason he selected them. They would have very little quoting other sources with little explanations why.

Not a bad selection imo, though I would have thrown in the Torah/Koran as well as the bible to inform you of all the major religions and differences. And maybe remove Art of War for a maths primer like Euclid's Elements or somthing.

mikevm• 13 years ago

Sorry, but "Origin of Species" is not a good beginner's book on evolution theory. There are much better modern books on the subject, for example Neil Shubin's or Jerry Coyne's books.

LeafStorm• 13 years ago

Just a note: the Torah is a subset of the Tanakh, which is itself a subset of the Bible. (Christians refer to the Torah as the Pentateuch and the Tanakh as the Old Testament.)

MaggieL• 13 years ago

"You should read this, but I know you won't bother because you're a Yahoo. Don't worry, because I've told you what to think about it. Carry on."

Osmium• 13 years ago

You get an historical context by reading the original, "direct from the source", which you don't get from a more modern, easier to digest version. It also gives you a good reference point to be able to discuss the topic with other people, since the more popular text will've had far more commentary written about it and will have far more people having read it.

I think the historical context also has value just because I think, in our modern age, there's a tendency to dismiss the intellectual achievements of our forebearers. To think that humanity in the past made mistakes just because they were dumb. Which is dangerous, because these mistakes tend to repeat themselves. I think reading these older books can give you an appreciation for not just what's changed with humanity, but what's stayed the same too and I think that can be very valuable indeed.

So ponderous maybe, but I don't think it's a pretentious list. I think there's real value there.

ekianjo5• 13 years ago

"The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (eBook) – “to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself.”" : Someone must have had problems understanding Capitalism, it seems.

hackerboos3• 13 years ago

>Someone must have had problems understanding Capitalism, it seems

An obtuse comment considering he's a leading scientist.

To call capitalism an 'economy of greed' isn't without merit. After all raw capitalism is about survival of the fittest where only the strong survive and the weak perish, if it were not for the philanthropy of others.

I think the great thing about reading Adam Smith is how seriously misunderstood his works are. For example, people cite Adam Smith as one who believed in no social safety net, taxes and zero regulation.

This is simply not true and if you think it is you should go back and read the book that you clearly have not read.

ekianjo5• 13 years ago

Adam Smith is not the only person to read to understand Capitalism. No need to be pretentious.

> An obtuse comment considering he's a leading scientist.

So what? Since when being recognized in one field makes you competent in another? A widespread fallacy.

jacques_chester4• 13 years ago

Adam Smith said a lot of things -- he was a philosopher of morals before he wrote about what we today call economics.

While he recommended the necessity of basic state institutions, I think would be a reach to say that he would justify the whole of the modern state, as some people nowadays try to imply. He'd probably be considered thoroughly minimalist by today's standards.

Smith's most important contribution was popularising the observation that greed can lead to positive outcomes, so long as it is hedged with some carefully chosen rules. It's inevitable, so there's no much point getting upset about it. Why not turn it to largely positive ends?

He wasn't first. Bernard de Mandeville was well ahead of him with The Fable of the Bees.

I found Hayek enlightening to read: http://chester.id.au/2012/12/07/review-the-essence-of-hayek-...

Confusion• 13 years ago

His comment can be compared to stating "a hurricane is an air movement of destruction, a force of nature unto itself". Such a comment wouldn't be considered as disparaging hurricanes, as that would be silly.

Capitalism is fueled by the inclination of people to reduce uncertainty about the future by owning a lot privately. This inclination is so strong it can be compared to a force of nature. This has important consequences for how to deal with capitalism. See my more extensive comment here: http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/neil-degrasse-tyson-sug...

baby• 13 years ago

What is really awesome is that all those books are offered for free! Anyone has a better format to read "Newton's Principia : the mathematical principles of natural philosophy" ?

Someone• 13 years ago

To start with, I think he should have linked to http://archive.org/details/newtonspmathema00newtrich, not to their .txt link.

It also is on http://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Mathematical_Principl..., but 'not yet available in your country' for me, so I don't know whether that is good.

There is a free ePub on the iBookstore in the original Latin (also a paid one in English)

If you read anything by Newton, I would advise Opticks, by the way, to learn that, even for geniuses, it is all hard work to get there (TL;DR version: he did not order his lenses on the Internet and needed the sun (in England) for lots of his experiments)

derrida4• 13 years ago

I've read some of those books cover to cover (Art of War, the Prince) & other's I've glazed over because they were, well, boring & laborious & I don't believe anybody should be recommending them as things to read for enjoyment (Origin of the Species or The Bible, for instance). So here's my list of 8 for things that you'll probably never finish, but extract huge value from anyway.

-Richard Feynman Lectures on Physics - religion

-Donald Knuth Art of Computer Programming - I can fuck around with manuals, other text books, but when I come to read the explanation of a particular concept in TAOCP, I always realise "this is the path of least resistance to understanding X" & then that scares me, because there is so much to know & it's really hard to understand anything well.

-William James The Varieties of Religious Experience For those that deny the possibility of spiritual experience within a naturalistic world view. A lot of atheism that is public today misses empathy with religious experience.

-Martin Gardner's articles

-Douglas Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach & Le Ton Beau De Marot - for those that enjoy spending all day thinking about logic & languages (hello programmers) these two books are romantic pulp - you know you shouldn't be reading them, they are so hopelessly impractical, lofty & philosophical.

-Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science - because it will infuriate people who are adverse to the sort of thinking you see in the humanities and they deserve to be enraged by this book. If you have an ethical system, think you can tell good from bad, right from wrong, read this book. Acid for the normative.

- C.S.Peirce's notebooks - This hasn't been published in its completeness but deserves to be (I just hope saying this here doesn't mean I'll never be able to find a copy of some of his notes again). Another tragic of history that has been looked over in much the same manner as Tesla. Peirce figured out electrical gates could be used to implement boolean logic 50 years before Shannon, axiomatised the natural numbers before Peano, made the distinction of cardinal and ordinal before Cantor & nobody knows who he fucking was because he was a chemist. What else is in his books that we haven't managed to recognise the significance of yet?

kriro• 13 years ago

Thanks for suggesting that Peirce book. Interesting man indeed, ordered the book.

I can +1 GEB the stories sections are just brilliant (entire content is great of course)

phaus3• 13 years ago

For the most part, I like your list better, but I do think everyone should read the works of Thomas Paine.

In particular, I think that every single American should have to read Common Sense first in high school, and then annually as a part of registration process for voting (Along with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.)

I also happen to think that the Age of Reason is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing the world has ever seen.

cma3• 13 years ago

Don't forget Agrarian Justice.. really short, really insightful.

martinced2• 13 years ago

"For those that deny the possibility of spiritual experience within a naturalistic world view. A lot of atheism that is public today misses empathy with religious experience."

Aldous Huxley, "The doors of perception". Warning: it's debunking the experience. Just as modern science starts to explain (and reproduce) why/how people are seeing "the light at the end of a dark tunnel" when they have near-death experience.

Let say it puts many things into perspective.

Btw I'm not an atheist, I'm more of a militant agnostic in the: "I don't know, and you don't either" style ; )

Regarding atheists lacking empathy: for centuries atheists have been tracked down and exterminated and there are still religious people, today, calling them atheists "disciples of Satan" and calling for their extermination.

So at least give them some credit if they lack "empathy" with those that have relentlessly been purchasing them.

unalone6• 13 years ago

> Regarding atheists lacking empathy: for centuries atheists have been tracked down and exterminated and there are still religious people, today, calling them atheists "disciples of Satan" and calling for their extermination.

> So at least give them some credit if they lack "empathy" with those that have relentlessly been purchasing them.

For me, lack of empathy stems always from ignorance and a lack of understanding: it is literally when we look at somebody else and remain unaware that their life, their choices, their feelings, are exactly equally human to our own. For a long, long time, it was assumed that God was the only way to reach empathy or grace, and that atheists were directly rejecting humanity's only means of salvation. That was a gross failure on the part of the religious. Most religions teach humility and doubt as the fundamental values of humanity (and damn are those good values), so it's always funny when religious people seem incapable of doubting their own virtue.

So yeah. Atheistic criticisms of religious people come from a logical place. But I think what critics of the anti-theist movements point out is that to deny religion any value, to reduce it to something as simple as "invisible sky people" and "an excuse not to think for yourself" and then to assume that all religious people are brainwashed morons, is itself a gross misunderstanding of the origins of faith, of how deep a religion's teachings can go, of the purpose of theology in the first place.

It's well-known that many brilliant scientists and mathematicians in history were religious. Coincidence? Accident of religion being dominant at the times? Well, no; there have always been atheists, and a surprising number of them too if you've only heard modern rhetoric. Rather, religion (and theology) is the practice of understanding our place within something vast and enormous and, yes, uncaring. We are specks of dust within specks of dust – does this mean our lives have no value? Does this mean there is no such thing as morality, as kindness, as working at something greater? Every religion values an individual as important, tells you that yes, you do matter, even if only to yourself and your extended community, and then it tries to help you understand what it means that you're so small in such a large, chaotic world.

In researching the project I've been working on for the past two years, I found that at some point simply studying the subject matter directly wasn't yielding me very good results. I turned to a number of other fields to help me understand my material, but theological books were, surprisingly to me, among the most helpful. They spoke directly of the ways in which we relate to each other, and the reasons why our connecting to one another is more important when the world is so vast and enormous. It was a way of looking at the world that not even philosophers address quite so directly. So for that, I am incredibly grateful.

Plenty of religious people are hells of confused about what they believe. There's a lot of shit out there masquerading as holy. But the good parts of religion still remain, and people who find they need religion in their lives, or that they do believe in some kind of God, are not weak, are not fools. Some of the smartest people I know are religious, and their religion makes them more insightful. And seeing as you can hate religious ignorance or bigotry without hating religion as an institution, there's no reason to conflate the one with the other. Most of the atheists I know who truly think religion has no purpose whatsoever simply don't understand religion, and know they don't understand it, and are proud of not understanding it. That's a stupid way to be, and no amount of "atheists are persecuted" excuses such a lack of empathy.

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

> I'm more of a militant agnostic in the: "I don't know, and you don't either" style ; )

What an odd statement. Confidence levels are nearly never 100%. Taking the position that because one can never make a 100% claim, that all possibilities are of equal probability - that's sort of a useless position to have as it can apply to nearly any statement. See also: Russell's teapot, invisible pink unicorns.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

fnordfnordfnord• 13 years ago

The Bible, boring? I mean, it drones on with boring passages sometimes, but the stories are far from boring. I'd say terrifying, sickening, tragic at times.

I'll bump your Feynman Lectures (watch the videos), and add everything else (his books). Even laypersons can understand him.

Feynman wrote some lectures on computation too which has some gems in it. http://books.google.com/books/about/Feynman_Lectures_On_Comp...

I will try your William James The Varieties of Religious Experience. I feel it is one of the problems that works against a wider adoption or acceptance of atheism that there is no "community"

I keep trying to finish Pepy's Diary, but so far I've failed. http://www.pepysdiary.com/

With regard to The Prince, I was advised that there are many translations and most are not done well. YMMV. Unfortunately, I can't remember which one my philosopher friend recommended.

Lambdanaut2• 13 years ago

The "x begat y, and y begat z" chronologies that go on for hundreds of years can get pretty tedious.

The sub-books that involve lists of Jewish laws can be a little dull too, though some of the laws I'll admit are pretty funny.

pavel_lishin• 13 years ago

> The Bible, boring? I mean, it drones on with boring passages sometimes, but the stories are far from boring. I'd say terrifying, sickening, tragic at times.

It's like reading a Shakespearean play for me. The stories might be interesting, but a lot of the time it's hard to understand what is actually going on, and what's going through the actors' heads.

derrida4• 13 years ago

Hey, It's a week later, I think I will give the KJV bible a try again sometime. Have you gotten onto The Varieties of Religious Experience yet? Do you think I was warranted to recommend it to the audience I did?

gyardley4• 13 years ago

I wouldn't recommend the King James Version of the Bible for its religious content, not being a Christian and all, but it's essential for understanding half the allusions of English literature. If you haven't, try it.

The 1769 Authorized Version (what you'll surely get if you just buy a KJV Bible) is very readable, the language is beautiful (and, in my opinion, enjoyable) and you'll appreciate your books much more.

cma3• 13 years ago

If you are going to read it take note of the various mistranslations it makes. 'Hell' isn't actually a concept in the old testament, but the KJV engages in Whig History and uses it throughout.

Even the first words of the Bible "In the beginning" are a mistranslation (though that mistranslation occurred thousands of years before the KJV and was a result of written Hebrew omitting vowels or something).

derrida4• 13 years ago

Sure, I will give it a go! I had the Good News bible around when I was a child and haven't revisited it for a few years.

rdouble2• 13 years ago

Gulliver's Travels is boring and laborious, but TAOCP, William James, GEB, and axiomatised the natural numbers before Peano, made the distinction of cardinal and ordinal before Cantor ?

abootstrapper• 13 years ago

I'm ok with this list of books, but the whole "you should read this to learn X point of view" is obnoxious. How about I read it and derive my own point of view from the book!

russellallen2• 13 years ago

You too should read $classic-tome to learn $trite-lesson.

tossacct• 13 years ago

Just because it is trite doesn't mean it is not right: because even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

JulianWasTaken• 13 years ago

Blogspam.

I agree with most of the comments that this was a rather lackluster list, but the actual link is http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ngd5e/i_am_neil_degras...

aurelianito• 13 years ago

This "blogspam" has the added value of links pointing to ebooks, so you are able to read them now. I prefer it to the original reddit comment.

hexonexxon• 13 years ago

should've made it 9 books

Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston Saul a critical essay of how the age of reason was distorted to trample all over modern democracy

jacques_chester4• 13 years ago

Which sounds a bit like a riff off Hayek, who riffed off a long and illustrious line of skeptics of rationalism.

kyro• 13 years ago

Agree with other comments here. I've flipped through Wealth of Nations, Origin of Species and others and couldn't keep my focus tethered down.

So let me ask you this: What are the top 10 essential reads of today for helping one develop a critical mind and a better understanding of the world around them?

martinced2• 13 years ago

This thread is filled with the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy and it's sad, so I can see where your question is coming from.

I personally like to read books from people who predicted things before they happened and try to understand their mindset.

Understanding finance...

One may not like its writing style but Nicolas Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" helped me understand how finance was indeed the crumbs of capitalism that Buffet hates.

Understanding economy...

Another one I love --but it's in french-- is Charles Gave. That economist (definitely not mainstream) did write, in 1999, that the introduction of the common currency in Europe (the Euro) would lead to: "Too many houses in Spain, too many industries in Germany and too many public servants in France. That Spain was going to state default, followed by Greece".

So he got the order wrong about Greece (which already default a first time and which is going to default again) and Spain, but besides that he was spot on.

And you cannot say: "If you take enough economists, one of them is going to predict the future". Because here the prediction was way too precise to be sheer luck. He did explain the precise mechanisms that would lead to that situation (and he did bet his money accordingly and made millions).

Basically after reading that you understand how wrong the Keynes school is and how Krugman totally lost it (yeah, let's mill a $1 trillion coin... Why not mill 26 of them and be done with the public debt right!?).

There are going to be more state defaults in Europe (it's not even opened up for debate), starting with Greece which is going to default again. There's going to either severe inflation or partial state default in the U.S. too unless public spendings are dramatically brought down. No way out.

I'd suggest not to read from people explaining the past or the present. It's not interesting. It's more interesting to take out older writings explaining what's going to happen in the future and why. People able to do that are the most critical thinkers ever.

These writers often use an aggressive tone but you have to bear with it: these people are right and they know it and hardly anyone is listening to them.

yk2• 13 years ago

> Basically after reading that you understand how wrong the Keynes school is and how Krugman totally lost it (yeah, let's mill a $1 trillion coin... Why not mill 26 of them and be done with the public debt right!?).

I would suggest you read some Krugman ( or Keynes), the entire point of the $1 trillion as opposed to $26 trillion is, that the government owes roughly $1 trillion to itself. So you do not change anything, the coin is just to get around a law that is there to pretend that money is essentially the same stuff for a government as it is for a private citizen.

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

You say his predictions were "way to precise to be sheer luck", then point out he got some major points incorrect. It could still be a lucky prediction.

And the $1 trillion coin was a legal hack, nothing more.

loso• 13 years ago

If you read a book like "Lords of Finance" you get a good idea why the Keynes school of thought won out. Granted it focuses on the last big financial bust but when you read it you can see a lot of similarities to what happened recently. I read a lot of economic books on both schools of thought and this is one of the best I've ever read.

Love him or hate him Bernanke is a real student of that era and here is a quote (from wikipedia, didn't do a background check on accuracy) "On September 2, 2010, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke was asked by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission what books or academic papers he would recommend to understand the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The only book that Bernanke recommended was Lords of Finance."

rdouble2• 13 years ago

Eric Hoffer - The True Believer. Why people are seduced by mass movements, whether political or religious.

V.S. Naipaul - Among the Believers. A collection of vignettes about Islam in non-Arab countries.

Reza Aslan - No God But God, Beyond Fundamentalism. A non boring history of Islam. An explanation of the difference between jihadic and nationalistic movements in Islam.

Deer Hunting With Jesus - Joe Bageant. Why poor white Americans vote Republican.

Robert D. Kaplan - Imperial Grunts, Hog Pilots, Monsoon, Revenge of Geography. First two are a look into the current state of deployed US Military. Monsoon is about the importance of the Indian Ocean area, and Revenge of Geography is about the importance of geography in shaping geopolitics.

John McPhee - Annals of the Former World. History of North America from a geological perspective.

stcredzero• 13 years ago

> most of the time humans are Yahoos.

A human's relationship to being a yahoo is like a car's relationship to running off the road. Right now, deliberate steering is required. Also, it seems that one day soon, this will be automated.

Tichy• 13 years ago

Apart from what others said, I'd like to point art that The Art Of War is not really about killing, it clearly states that the best victory is the one won without fighting.

qznc• 13 years ago

I agree. Likewise, I learned very different lessons from those books. For example, Machiavelli's Prince is a set of anecdotes on how to acquire power. If that is for good or evil, is up for interpretation [0].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince#Interpretation_of_Th...

Allower2• 13 years ago

Neil DeGrasse Tyson has got to be the most artificial 'Smart' guy the media had put forward since Carl Sagan.

Allower2• 13 years ago

I should continue, Both Carl and Neil are delightful men, they inspire an interest in the world that surrounds us in a way that few are capable of. I simply see a degrade in their value once they attempt to push one dogma or another.

noblethrasher2• 13 years ago

Basically he's saying that everyone should have a history minor.

noblethrasher2• 13 years ago

The downvoting is suprising.

I have a history degree and that list more or less represents some of the required reading for an undergraduate history program.

dbecker• 13 years ago

The vast majority of comments here (and, I would guess most non-commenting readers) think this list is pretentious BS.

Though it's a tangent: I'm curious about why it has received this many upvotes?

unalone6• 13 years ago

Hacker News's upvote-only policy for stories means that unless a story is flagged so much mods remove it, it will hit the front page so long as a significant minority of users thinks it's interesting. There's no "critical" crowd control of users saying "No, this isn't worth my time, back down you go."

Sometimes this is good, and allows controversial opinions to hit the top of HN; other times we get the Reddit effect, and short, fluffy pieces rise to the top instead of longer posts that might take longer to read, assess, and upvote.

I find the set-up kind of ironic, because when I first joined HN I was a college freshman who posted some fairly fluff things I'd written in the hopes that people would read it and get to know me. Now that I'm working on more interesting things, I don't think I'll be bothering to submit them here, simply because I doubt they're quite easy enough to receive votes. All in all, I don't think it's that the system's broken – like I said, this allows controversial pieces to still hit the top – but it's a downside to the way HN handles voting that cannot easily be avoided.

yk2• 13 years ago

This is a horribly list to read, albeit a very nice list to put in to the front of a book shelf. Most importantly, if one reads only one book on any given subject, then one will only hear of one point of view. A problem that is made worse by selecting classics, which are usually written to make a point instead of summarizing the broader debate. The most obvious example from this list is probably Origin of Species, a work where Darwin did not talk about the evolution of man, because he did not wanted to be drawn into a theological debate.

Additionally the classics carry context, which may or may not be obvious. Here the most obvious example from the list is Adam Smith, who did not write about abstract global markets, as the term is used today, but he did write about a collection of market stalls. Similarly, his thought about government and regulation was informed by his times, the first edition appeared in 1776, the same year as the declaration of independence and thirteen years before the French revolution. So Adam Smith did never write about a modern nation, with formal representation and a process for the transition of power, but he did write about a late feudal society, in which the political power was held by an unchecked former warrior elite.

[ The above does not mean that I am against reading classics, in fact quite the opposite. The problem is just, that trying to get an important idea x, then you should probably read "A modern introduction to x," not the classical book where it first appeared, in an convoluted way embedded into some discussion at that time.]

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