A recommended list of books and papers on the EI’s subject areas.
For my thoughts on what I’ve read, check the Reviews section of the Writings page. Of course, posting reviews requires that I actually write them, and so far I just haven’t gotten there. Until then, a brief guide my rating system:
√s indicate books that I’ve read (less clumsy than the strike-through), → denote recommended books, ! is for books that I would name drop to total strangers and lend copies of to friends just so they will read them already! and a title preceded by a ß means drop everything RIGHT NOW and get thee to a bookstore!
The List
The List is a shared reading list encompassing the entirety of human civilizations in 20 years.
Introduction and Year 1 of the List
A Reassessment and rough outline of Year 2
The Africa Reading Challenge
A challenge proposed by Dave at siphoning off a few thoughts:
Participants commit to read – in the course of [the year] – six books that either were written by African writers, take place in Africa, or deal significantly with Africans and African issues.
More information and instructions are available here.
Good Books on Africa
Chris Blattman’s Africa reading list: Part 1, Part 2
Columbia U’s Africa’s Best 100 Books of the 20th C
siphoning off a few thoughts’ Informative Books about Africa that Aren’t Slow Reading
Highly Recommended (mostly !s. Anything truly necessary is marked with a ß)
Africa
ß Beasts of No Nation – Uzodinma Iweala (I cried. I don’t do that often over books)
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carre
ß Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
King Leopold’s Ghost – Adam Hochschild
Modernity and Its Malcontents:Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa – Jean and John Comaroff, eds.
On the Postcolony – Achille Mbembe
States and Power in Africa – Jeffrey Herbst (here is a review essay (pdf) since it is a little dense (but fun!))
ß Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Tropical Gangsters – Robert Klitgaard
Acheson – James Chace
Chasing the Flame – Samantha Powers
ß The Bottom Billion – Paul Collier
Foreign Aid – Carol Lancaster (a bit dense and not the most thrilling read (for other people) but it is a concise and solid history of development aid and its politics)
The J Curve – Ian Bremmer
ß The White Man’s Burden – William Easterly
The Anatomy of Peace – Emory Reves (it is out of print, otherwise it would be an automatic ß. However, WFI/CGS has the Reader’s Digest version online)
Diplomacy – Henry Kissenger
The Sovereignty Revolution – Alan Cranston, ed. Kim Cranston
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Tale
The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization – Peter M. Senge
Other People’s Lists
Chris Blattman’s What to Read in Development
Dani Rodrik’s and Rohine Pande’s Economic Development: Theory, Policy and Evidence Syllabus
IGIER Papers
Marginal Revolution Readers’ Good Books on Trade Policy
[...] Books [...]