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Below are some of the books and other resources that I have found most valuable in contributing to my understanding of the world we live in. This bibliography is a work in progress - I'll be adding new material over time, so check back. If you have a book you'd like to recommend, use the link above to email me.
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The Most Important Books for Understanding Our Times
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The six books pictured above are, in my humble opinion, essential reading. Although George Orwell's 1984 is fiction, fiction can sometimes give you a better insight on truth than our usual "news" sources. Hint: This is not the truth you'll get by watching CNN, reading the New York Times or from any other corporate-owned "news" organization. Mike Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon is an extremely well researched and documented account of the truth behind 9/11 and the current "War on Terror." John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hitman is the (true) story of how institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have been designed to enrich the US while impoverishing developing nations. G. Edward Griffins The Creature from Jekyll Island tells the story of the modern Federal Reserve Bank, and how it has been set up to enrich the few at the expense of the many.
The fictional 1984, and the nonfiction Confessions, Rubicon and Jekyll Island are an excellent foundation for understanding the truth about the corruption in our government and how the minority power elite use our current system of corporatism for obscene riches at the expense of the working classes, both in the US and throughout the world. After reading the above books, you will most certainly be terribly depressed. But don't fear, for there is hope!
The late Peter Drucker's Post Capitalist Society, written in 1993, emphasizes that we are living through historic changes:
Every few hundred years in Western Civilization, there occurs a sharp transformation . . . Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself - its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world, and the people born can't even imagine the world in which their grandparents live and into which their own parents were born.
We are currently living through just such a transformation.
There is hope, because, as Drucker goes on to state:
Nothing "post" is permanent or even long-lived. Ours is a transition period. What the future society will look like, let alone whether it will indeed be the "knowledge society" some of us dare hope for, depends on how the developed countries respond to the challenges of this transition period, the post capitalist period -- their intellectual leaders, their business leaders, their political leaders, but above all each of us in our own work and life. Yet surely, this is a time to make the future -- precisely because everything is in flux. This is a time for action. [emphasis mine]
Bernard Lietaer's The Future of Money is hands down the most excellent book on the topic of money. If you have read The Mandrake Mechanism and Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People on this website, you realize that we will never have true equality as long as the current monetary regime exists. All of our fiat money is based on debt: Pay back all the debt, and there is no more money! Period. If you don't understand that, read the above two articles. Because of this fact, debt is encouraged in our society. Debt is an impediment to true wealth, the way to impoverishment, and a means of social control. "The borrower is servant to the lender." "Never a lender or borrower be." Banks use this method against American consumers as sure as institutions such as the IMF and World Bank use it against the Third World (see Confessions, above). Second, the printing of our money is handled by a private institution, the Federal Reserve Bank. Most people think it is part of the government, but it is not. It is a private institution. ( see Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People, as well as The Creature from Jekyll Island : A Second Look at the Federal Reserve) This means that the private bankers reap huge profits off of your back due to your ignorance about the nature of money. Banks create money from thin air, loan it to you, then charge you interest on it! It is crazy - so crazy that most people reading this will likely call me crazy! But it is true. Go do your homework.
The good news is that the current monetary regime is only one possible model, and there are many others to choose from. Money is NOT the root of evil, it is in fact the root of all possibility (!), as Lietar explains. But our current flawed monetary model favors the few, perpetuates inequality and encourages competition. Lietar gives examples of monetary systems that encourage community, cooperation, and working. Think about it - there is always work to do, but not always money to pay people with. This is due to the false sense of scarcity created by our current, centrally issued monetary regime. Money is a great motivator, but it is controlled by a select few. It does not have to be this way. Money is currency, and currents should flow. The global economic inequality we see today is the result of stagnation - of the rich having, hoarding and controllign too much while the poor have almost nothing. It is clear (at least to me) that in order to get back to a more equitable world, we're going to need a monetary system that encourages equality, and what we've got now just doesn't cut it. This book is extremely readable, enjoyable, insightful, and ultimately optimistic. I highly, highly recommend this book.
So there you have it - my top six choices for the Not Bull, and the Bull! of the most important books you can read. All is not lost - things may look grim, but it is always the darkest before the dawn. More of my favorites below:
Understanding Our World
Market Analysis and Trading
Edwards & Magee: Technical Analysis of Stock Trends [A Must Own Classic]
Alexander Elder: Trading for a Living
Ron Insana: The Message of the Markets
Edwin Lefevre: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Steve Nison: Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques [A Must Own Classic]
William O'Neil: How to Make Money Selling Stocks Short
Robert Prechter: Elliott Wave Principle - Key to Market Behavior[Another Must Own Classic]
Prechter, Editor: RN Elliott's Masterworks
Prechter, Editor: The Elliott Wave Writings of A.J. Frost and Richard Russell
Van Tharp: Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom
Jack Schwager: Market Wizards - I, II & III
Prechter, Editor: Market Analysis for the New Millennium
Economic History
John Kenneth Galbraith: The Great Crash 1929
G. Edward Griffin: The Creature from Jekyll Island : A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
Paul Kennedy: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
William E. Leuchtenburg: The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932
Robert Prechter: View from the Top of the Grand Supercycle
Carroll Quigley: Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in our Time
Potential Futures
Ed Ayres: God's Last Offer
Davidson & Rees-Mogg: The Sovereign Individual - Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
Samuel P. Huntingdon: The Clash of Civilizations and the Making of World Order
David Korten: When Corporations Rule the World
Martin & Schumann: The Global Trap - Globalization and the Assault on Democracy & Prosperity
Jeremy Rifkin: The End of Work
Preparing for the Second Great Depression
Richard Duncan: The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures
Jared Diamond: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Robert Prechter: At the Crest of the Tidal Wave: A Forecast for the Great Bear Market
Robert Prechter: Conquer The Crash
A Gary Schilling: Deflation: How to Survive & Thrive in the Coming Wave
Brighter Futures
Paul Hawken: The Ecology of Commerce
Marc Faber: Tomorrow's Gold
Sahar & Bobby Hashemi: Anyone Can Do It
Kevin Kelly: New Rules for the New Economy
Ray Kurzweil: The Age of Spiritual Machines : When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
Cultural Analysis
Joel Bakan: The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
Naomi Klein: No Logo
Kalle Lasn: Culture Jam - How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge
David Korten: The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism
Fiction
Thea Alexander: 2150 AD
Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game
Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum
Murakami Haruki: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Steven Millhauser: Martin Dressler - The Tale of an American Dreamer
George Orwell: Animal Farm
David Payne: Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street : A Chinese American Romance
Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Spirituality / Metaphysics
Richard Bach: Illusions
Kahlil Gibran: The Prophet
Herman Hesse: Siddhartha
Cheri Huber: The Key. And the name of the key is willingness
Cheri Huber: Suffering is Optional
Dan Millman: The Way of the Peaceful Warrior
James Redfield: The Celestine Prophecy
Shunryu Suzuki: Zen Mind, Beginners Mind
Paul Williams: Das Energi
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