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Atlas
Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
The
best book ever written. No debate. The miraculous thing about
Ayn Rand's fiction is that she focuses upon using plot to illustrate
the philosophical root of an idea. Rather than spending a novel
creating characters and trying to make them interact enough for
a plot to form, her characters are sort of "ideal beings", either
extreme versions of heroism or depravity or evil or apathy. You
can see, through her wonderful use of imagery and storytelling,
the ultimate cnsequence of a given philosophical standing. Her
story will lead you through encounters with a personification
of every type of flawed philosophy and subsequently debunk the
theory by showing its results when taken to its logical end. No
novel nor nonfiction work will ever match the splendor and grandeur
of this, Rand's ultimate masterpiece.
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The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs
Another of
the greatest books ver written. But that's coming from an urban
history geek. Jacobs gives one of the most comprehensive and
licid accounts of the mistakes made - both today and historically
- in city planning and urban development, which have resulted
in decades of sprawl-decline-renewal-decay roller-coaster cycles.
Unfortunately for the cities in which we live, most planners
and bureaucrats do not read this book before decending upon
an aging metropolis and wreaking incredible havoc. Would that
they were required to do at least that before obtaining
their positions. Would that they were abolished entirely...
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World Power Foresaken:
Political Culture, International Institutions, and
German Security Policy After Unification
by John S. Duffield
This was the primary inspiration for the direction
my graduate thesis took. The book is a thorough account of the
roots of German pacifism and docility in the Post-War era. Based
on its history, Germany's security policy couldn't have gone
any differently, is the basic arguement. With mere punishment
(as in the 1920s and 30s) determined to be insufficient, but
any form of neglect seen to be suicide, the only choice for
the Allies after the War was to tie Germany in every way to
the Alliance, through its military, consitution, and encouragement
of a very docile and dependence-oriented political culture.
This is a statement declaring that Germans would be unable to
assume the power expected of the third largest economy and fourth
most advanced military, due to their lack of a decicive sense
of security without the institutions to which they are interdependently
bound.
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Drawing
Blood
by Poppy Z. Brite
Romance,
horror, goth boys and a haunted house. This, I'd say, is Brite's
best book to date. Brite has a habit of making one focus on
her characters, rather than the plot. You not only identify
with and sympathise for her characters, you truly love them.
You want to "be" them, almost. Her literary style is focused
upon making the reader care about the characters so much so
that their fate drives the plot, rather than vice-versa. You
don't realy care what the actual outcome is, you just want to
know more and more about the very charismatic figures you're
reading about. In "Drawing Blood", Brite takes Trevor, a disturbed
orphan, back to his old house, where his Dad killed his entire
family when he was a boy. The ghosts of that slaying still cause
all manner of freakish delusions on Trevor's fragile psyche.
It's exacerbated by his sudden falling for Zach, a hacker on
the run.
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From Joy Division to New Order :
The True Story of Anthony H. Wilson and Factory Records
by Mick Middles
More a
series of antecdotes than a real "story". This book traces the
history of Factory Records specifically, and the Manchester
music scene in general. Tied into it all are the two bands upon
which the survival of Factory depended: New Order and Joy Divisions.
Two incarnations of what remains my favorite musical act to
this day. Few bands compare with the talent and versatility
displayed by them. It's doubful any ever will.
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The Ominous Parallels
by Leonard Peikoff
A very
coherent academic study linking politics to philosophy, with
particular emphasis upon the ideological revolution in Central
Europe which led to the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, and its
parallels in contemporary America. The author does not imply
that America is quickly headed for dictatorship, but rarther
that without a philosophical foundation, a free country is doomed,
and that America has been adrift without principles for decades.
One of the most engrossing books I've read, even if it was a
tough read due to the complex nature of the subject.
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Cafe Europa: Life After Communism
by Slavenka Drakulic
Draculic has
one of the most beautiful narrative styles. But this may explain
why she's one of the Former Yugoslavia's most gifted exports.
Reflecting upon her life growing up under Tito's communist dictatorship
and comparing it to life in Croatia today and her new life in
the West with her Swedish husband, Draculic provides a very
explicit and objective view with the knowledge and lucidness
of someone who has lived through what most of us only saw on
television throughout the '90s. From the war in Bosnia to the
annihilation of the Soviet sphere of influence to the emergence
of Western styles, ideals and products in the most backward
parts of Eastern Europe.
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Exquisite Corpse
by Poppy Z. Brite
Brite's characters
were truly addictive when I read Exquisite Corpse for
the first time. Naked necrophilic action in the slums of New
Orleans. Jeffry Dhamer meets Ted Bundy meets Hannibal Lechter.
In a queer bar in a decaying ghetto somewhere below the dikes
of the Mississippi. What is truly amazing here is that, despite
the horror of their actions and the squeamishness which fills
the stomach for months after reading the book, one cannot help
but identify with the emotions of a killer...
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Touching From a Distance:
Ian Curtis and Joy Division
by Deborah Curtis
The
story of the life and death of Ian Curtis. Unlike most books
on the Joy Division - New Order story, which tend to focus upon
the effect Curtis' death had on music and the band, his widow's
own account focuses upon the personal life of a suicide. The
signs were there, the drama was non-stop, the crying and fighting
was intense. A backstage look at the events of Curtis' life
and how it played out to his death, for his family and those
closest to him, including the band. Not a story of a musician,
but of a tormented man and what drove him mad.
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The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
As
far as works of literature, The Fountainhead is probably
the best example of how a novel should be written. Ayn Rand
was only a 15 year veteran of English when she took up this
project, but the result is probably one of the most perfect
products of proper English literature. From her command of form,
language, syntax and plot, one can immediately see how precise
and practiced the execution of this work had to be. Rand spent
years re-reading and perfecting this novel, and it shows in
its beauty. Rather than relying on the dubious fate of "inspiration"
often relied upon by traditional novelists, Ayn Rand set out
to portray a literary version of her ideal man, and did her
research and practiced her art to the fullest in order to arrive
at the production of this book. The story of an individualist
architect who, despite the growing resentment of a second-hander
society, manages to pull his own and succeed by his own mind
and his own power.
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Power and Interdependence
by Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye Jr.
The "mandatory
reading" for any student of International Relations. Keohane
and Nye were among the first to introduce the theory of Interdependence
as a modernization of the long-dominating Realism. In my own
gradate thesis, I applied Keohane and Nye's theories to the
post-unification German security order, and I think it showed
good results. Interdependence is the state that most industrialized
trading nations find themselves in today, and the theory argues
that nations in such a condition can no longer play the "power
politics" of the past, but instead must weigh their craving
for war against the devastation such action would reap upon
their economy and those of their trading partners and political
or ideological allies.
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Lost Souls
by Poppy Z. Brite
The first
novel by Poppy Z. Brite, and probably the first novel I ever
voluntarily read. Although I couldn't exactly identify with
the characters, I felt for them. Brite introduces her vampires
as a strage breed of social outcasts. Without families and living
forever, they are unable to blend in with human society or even
do anything other than feed off of it. The gothic gloom and
dark imagery were a prime motivator for some of my own aesthetic
tastes through most of my adolescence and even today...
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Germany Unified and Europe Transformed:
A Study in Statecraft
by Philip D. Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice
Written by President George Bush's own security
team from the era, this book traces the German reunification
from the mid-80s chaos to the eventual union from the perspective
of the diplomats that made it happen - both in public and behind
the scenes. The deals, arguments and mishaps that could have
resulted in many other fates for the German state than eventually
they did. The story is rather prophetic, tracing the eventual
powerlessness of the Soviet Union in the face of a West which
wanted Germany as its own in spite of its past.
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