zeynep tufekci
Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology, science and more. @Columbia professor. @NYTimes columnist. My newsletter @insight https://t.co/6Ky01N9JwA
10+ Book Recommendations by zeynep tufekci
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Today is Holodomor remembrance day, commemorating the millions of Ukrainians who died during Stalin's forced famine in otherwise rich agricultural lands. Snyder's Bloodlands, which covers the era and the region, tops my list of doomreading books as alternative to doomscrolling. https://t.co/YZr6cEavvu
Bright-sided
Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich's New York Times bestselling Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism Americans are a "positive" people -- cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: This is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive is the key to getting success and prosperity. Or so we are told. In this utterly original debunking, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the false promises of positive thinking and shows its reach into every corner of American life, from Evangelical megachurches to the medical establishment, and, worst of all, to the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes--like mortgage defaults--contributed directly to the current economic disaster. With the myth-busting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of positive thinking: personal self-blame and national denial. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best--poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.Many will know of Ehrenreich's very succesful book, "Nickel and Dimed", but I was also very fond "Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermined America, her excellent book excoriating the shallow "just think-positive!" industrial-complex. Her voice will be missed. https://t.co/ChNCo4pN8Q
The Pied Piper (Bloodlands collection)
Harold Schechter
@canadian_desi @TimothyDSnyder It’s a great book, but not an easy read.
The Great Influenza
John M. Barry
An account of the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918, which took the lives of millions of people around the world, examines its causes, its impact on early twentieth-century society, and the lasting implications of the crisis.Tomorrow at 10 am ET, I'm joining a Twitter spaces discussion with John Barry! (The author of the book "The Great Influenza" about the 1918 pandemic). Looking forward to it especially since Barry is such an amazing historian. https://t.co/btOn8tkDni
Nuclear War Survival Skills
Cresson H Kearny
@jonst0kes I know the book. I know the specifics. I'm a lifelong reader/thinker of the catastrophes. I lived for years in a high-profile nuclear target, with bunkers and all. If you live in a target area, "prep" beyond tornado/hurricane basics, imo, is anxiety reduction. That's reality.
The Guns of August
Barbara W. Tuchman
All quiet on the Western Front : Through the eyes and mind of a German private, the reader shares life on the battlefield during World War I."Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman on the first month of WWI is another essential book, along with her other classic "March of Folly." Both are excellent to help to fight the temptation of looking at world history teleologically.
The March of Folly
Barbara W. Tuchman
Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest subject: the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government. Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display. Praise for The March of Folly “A glittering narrative . . . a moral [book] on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence.”—The New York Times Book Review “An admirable survey . . . I haven’t read a more relevant book in years.”—John Kenneth Galbraith, The Boston Sunday Globe “A superb chronicle . . . a masterly examination.”—Chicago Sun-Times"Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman on the first month of WWI is another essential book, along with her other classic "March of Folly." Both are excellent to help to fight the temptation of looking at world history teleologically.
Bloodlands
Timothy Snyder
From the bestselling author of On Tyranny, the definitive history of Hitler's and Stalin's wars against the civilians of Europe in World War Two Americans call the Second World War "The Good War."But before it even began, America's wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens--and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war's end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness. Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history. Bloodlands won twelve awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought. It has been translated into more than thirty languages, was named to twelve book-of-the-year lists, and was a bestseller in six countries."Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman on the first month of WWI is another essential book, along with her other classic "March of Folly." Both are excellent to help to fight the temptation of looking at world history teleologically.
How the Immune System Works (The How it Works Series)
Lauren M. Sompayrac
@hilzoy I’ve been recommended this—not completely “for dummies” so to speak, but could work especially after two years of pandemic learning through osmosis. https://t.co/tMkEoO31wq
Normal Accidents
Charles Perrow
The author argues that the conventional approach to ensuring safety - building in more warnings and safeguards - fails because it makes systems more complex and thus more likely to fail. For example, tests of a new safety system at Chernobyl nuclear power station helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire. By recognizing two dimensions of risk - complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling - this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.@marick It's a great book!
Women of the Klan
Kathleen M. Blee
Ignorant. Brutal. Male. One of these stereotypes of the Ku Klux Klan offers a misleading picture. In Women of the Klan, sociologist Kathleen M. Blee dismantles the popular notion that politically involved women are always inspired by pacifism, equality, and justice. In her new preface, Blee reflects on how recent scholarship on gender and right-wing extremism suggests new ways to understand women's place in the 1920s Klan's crusade for white and Christian supremacy.@Noahpinion @DKThomp I don't think we have a canonical study of the new white supremacists, yet, but historical studies show a lot of wanting to maintain supremacy for reasons of their own interests (as opposed to just fanatics with personal voids). Classic on this: https://t.co/pZtqPFc2T4
Normal Accidents
Charles Perrow
The author argues that the conventional approach to ensuring safety - building in more warnings and safeguards - fails because it makes systems more complex and thus more likely to fail. For example, tests of a new safety system at Chernobyl nuclear power station helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire. By recognizing two dimensions of risk - complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling - this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.@random_walker Did you ever encounter this book? https://t.co/jvCUFrS6ac (Also, you probably know them but a cool group in your neck of the woods: https://t.co/elVCZmI0OK)
Thick
Tressie McMillan Cottom
In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and statussignaling as means of survival for black womenLast book I read was Thick by @tressiemcphd but it was too good to not finish in one sitting. So need a new book!
Twitter and Tear Gas
Zeynep Tufekci
A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements' greatest strengths and frequent challenges To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti-Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today's social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests--how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul's Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture--and offer essential insights into the future of governance.My first book, Twitter and Tear Gas, is available in Japanese! *sniff* https://t.co/OCdb88TMIo