Top Hacker News Book Recommendations in Politics & Social Sciences (past 6 months)

All Time Past 6 Months

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book)

Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

4.7 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Anand Giridharadas

4.5 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century

Josh Rogin, Robert Petkoff, et al.

4.5 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Robert A. Caro

4.7 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Intellectuals and Society

Thomas Sowell

4.9 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Don Quixote: Translated by Edith Grossman

Miguel de Cervantes, George Guidall, et al.

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time

Brad Aronson

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon , Richard Philcox , et al.

4.8 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch

4.7 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

Matthew B. Crawford

4.3 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

Mark Fisher

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

Irresistible Revolution: Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military

Matthew Lohmeier

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War

Louis Menand

4.4 on Amazon

1 HN comments

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss

4.7 on Amazon

1 HN comments

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thescriptkiddieonApr 26, 2021

I'm not denying or excusing that historical atrocities occurred under socialist governments, but for perspective one should also look at the myriad atrocities that were and continue to be committed under capitalist governments. That doesn't excuse such actions, but neither side is innocent. I suggest reading The Wretched of the Earth* Chapter 1, "On Violence".

Here are a few examples off the top of my head:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality_in_the_United...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

* Though I will object that it is unfair to attribute the actions of the Khmer Rouge to socialism. Like the Nazis they were socialist in name only, and in fact were supported by the United States in their war against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

eat_veggiesonMay 17, 2021

“we must above all rid ourselves of the very Western, very bourgeois and therefore contemptuous attitude that the masses are incapable of governing themselves. In fact, experience proves that the masses understand perfectly the most complicated problems. [...] the masses are quick to seize every shade of meaning and to learn all the tricks of the trade. If recourse is had to technical language, this signifies that it has been decided to consider the masses as uninitiated. [...] Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that you really want them to understand.”

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1961, pp. 188–189

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