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When Corporations Rule The World by David C. Korten (ISBN 1887208011)
If you understand instinctively that corporate globalization is a bad thing, but can't seem to articulate just why, this is the book for you. It explores the rise of the corporation, from the limited charters granted by monarchs of the 18th century, through the "personhood" property-rights debates of the 19th, the alliance with fascism in the 20th, and explores how the rapidly metastacizing power structure of today's stateless megacorporations have gained the ability to use the coercive power of government to undermine local sovereignty and economies, and are going on to swallow up entire national governments. It presents a truly frightening vision of just where this process is likely to end - and proposes ideas as to what needs to be done about it. Though the prescriptions are flawed, the diagnosis is spot on, and I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Recommended Recent Reads:
Moral Politics by George Lakoff (ISBN 022646805)
This book answers a troubling question - why it is that conservatives, who have a more coherent moral view than do liberals, are nevertheless steadily undermining the moral foundations of American culture, and why liberals, who have a powerful morality of their own, have failed to understand either their own morality or the conservative morality and as a result are allowing the conservatives to largely undo most of the moral progress of the last century in the name of advancing it. This book goes beyond that question to give the reader a truly comprehensive understanding of who conservatives are, why they believe what they do, and why they are so resistant to a change of mind. If you want to truly understand the conservatism versus liberalism dichotomy, this is the book to read.
Rogue State: Guide To The World's Only Superpower by William Blum (ISBN 1567511945)
This is the book that was recently recommended by Osama Bin Laden. Hey, with a recommendation from someone like that, you at least have to pay attention. I've had it in my library for years and had never read it. Until now. I can see why Osama likes it - it's well-documented, and lays out a thoroughly damning case against America's ruthless hegemonic power-seeking on behalf of rich elites and powerful corporations, while carefully keeping its citizens in the dark. In other words, it is enough to turn anyone who cares about social justice into an angry terrorist - hence Osama's endorsement. And it's enough to make even the most hard-core conservative nationalist think twice about what he has been supporting and voting for all these years.
The Real Terror Network by Edward S. Herman (ISBN 0671675567)
Written in 1982 in response to Claire Stirling's right-wing anti-communist screed, The Terror Network, this book is a lot more than a polemic about another polemic. It is, in fact, a classic that is essential to understanding how America's pursuit of the National Security Doctrine - the deliberate and purposeful installion and support of vicious and brutal right-wing dictators and fascist regimes around the world - and how the NSD has created the wholesale terror from which much of the retail terror against which the "war on terrorism" is ostensibly being conducted, and why U.S. foreign policy kills more people in a month than the retail terrorists the U.S. claims to be fighting, kill in a year. For material nearly a quarter century old, it is remarkably fresh, and I strongly recommend it to understand how U.S. foreign policy creates, often by design, the very evil it ostensibly - and very loudly - is fighting to end.
Secrets Of The Temple by William Greider (ISBN 0671675567)
This is William Greider's painstaking history of the Federal Reserve System and what led up to its creation, as well as the consequences of its management of the American money supply. Greider shows why, for example, the recession of 1981-1983 lasted far longer and was far more severe than necessary to choke off the inflation that was the goal. He also shows why the adoption of Milton Friedman's simplistic monetarism as an operating system led to huge swings in interest rates that led to wild swings in business activity - until the suffering it caused forced Paul Volker, then the chairman, to abandon monetarism for a more sensible and proven approach. Greider shows why the opacity of its decision-making process leads more to stability for the financial system than the economy as a whole, and why it is a far more political institution than it would have you believe. Fascinating read. Published in 1987, it is dated, but still worth a read if you lived through the era it describes.
Body Of Secrets By James Bamford (ISBN 0385499086)
Here is a documentary that reads like a great spy thriller - only it is all true. A history of the National Security Agency, as told by insiders, retirees and secretly obtained documents, it is rich in historical detail that answers a lot of questions you may have wondered about: Why was the U.S.S. Pueblo captured by the North Koreans in spite of being in international waters, and nothing was done to stop the capture? You may know that the Israelis brutally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty, but did you know why they were so concerned about it that they quite knowingly attacked the ship of their principal ally? And why is their explanation for the attack so implausible? This book answers those questions and much more. What did John F. Kennedy know during the Cuban Missle Crisis that the public didn't know? What was Operation Northwoods, and why would the Joint Chiefs Of Staff approve a terrorist operation against the American people? It is all there, and much more, in this brilliant and gripping piece of investigative journalism.
One World, Ready Or Not By William Greider (ISBN 0684835541)
This book is best summed up by this quote from page 12: "In this book, the central message takes the form of a reasoned warning: our wondrous [global economic] machine, withal (sic) its great power and creativity, appears to be running out of control toward some sort of abyss. Amid [economic] revolutionary fervor, such warnings may sound far-fetched and, as history tells us, usually go unheeded until one day, sometimes quite suddenly, they are confirmed by reality." This book is a warning about the effects of economic globalization - hardly the first time globalization has happened in world history - and shows how the consequences are likely to be similar to what has happened in the past, but with far more sinister and long-lasting consequences. Greider's style, as always, is an easy read, but full of philosophical and economic red meat that will get your intellectual digestive juices flowing.
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong By James W. Loewen (ISBN 0684818868)
This book should be a companion book to Howard Zinn's classic, A People's History Of The United States (see below). It's a detailed expose of what American history books routinely lie about, but more important, why they lie. It's a damning indictment of American history as it is taught generally, and even more damning of the people and institutions that demand that history be taught the way it is. It's a gripping read, written in a fluid, easy to read style, and couldn't be more recommended.
Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal Of American Democracy By William Grieder (ISBN 0671867407)
This book answers a nagging question that a lot of Americans have had: Why has American democracy failed in all but a facade, pretending to be a democracy, but denying access to the institutions of government by the governed? Why does it serve the interests of the elite few, in spite of the broad base of electoral participation? William Greider answers that question with a thoughtful analysis and history of the subversion of American politics by an elite determined to use the political process to preserve its own privilege, regardless of the consequences for the ordinary man. 464 pages.
A People's History Of The United States By Howard Zinn (ISBN 0060528370)
If you think that Christopher Columbus was nice to the Indians in Haiti, or that the Boston Tea Party was all about taxation without representation, you're in for a shock. Not only are these ideas and many other cherished myths of American history all wrong, but they're very wrong, and they're wrong for some very ideological reasons. This classic sets the record straight in some very important ways, and in some very significant details. It's the history book, which if you'd read it in high school, would have kept you on the edge of your seat, rather than sleeping in the back row. No wonder its the only history book ever written to sell more than a million copies. And for good reason.