Greg Borenstein Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Greg Borenstein

7. Eichmann In Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt Read this year on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s remembered for “banality of evil” which doesn’t come until the last page. Arendt’s disillusionment with Israel and focus on the Judenrat make it more morally complex than its reputation.

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

63. The People’s Republic of Walmart by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski A look at how Amazon and Walmart achieved the kind of large-scale centralized planning that was supposed to make socialism impossible. Part history of political economy debates, part speculative futurism

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

65. City of Quartz by Mike Davis The classic social history of Los Angeles: union busting, real estate speculation, racial oppression, racial oppression through real estate development, union busting by the Catholic Church, and the globalization of real estate speculation.

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

2. Thinking the Twentieth Century by Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder Speaking of filling in historical gaps, I read Judt’s magisterial Postwar last year. This book is a kind of autobiography of Judt, written as a dialogue with @TimothyDSnyder while Judt was dying of ALS.

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

@andreeavr @AntonHand Two great books that get at different parts of this are @add_hawk’s Games: Agency as Art https://t.co/QDD9f2KGMj and Steve Swink’s Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation https://t.co/AaRBqnvA3P

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

50. In The Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1 by Eugene Thacker Thacker argues for horror as a philosophical response to the contemporary crises of humanism. To this end he builds a new canon of horror from the history of occultism, demonology, and mysticism.

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

61. Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase Explores a 2x2 of scenarios for the 21st century along the axes of scarcity-abundance and hierarchy-equality. I like that Fraze emphasizes that where we land is up to political choice rather than technological determinism https://t.co/NLIMnAlS8d

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

21. Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future by Kate Brown History of the Chernobyl cleanup and radiation mitigation efforts that acts as a portrait of late Soviet capacity and dysfunction. Full of vivid specifics from attentive oral, material, and archival methods.

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

13. The Way of Zen by Alan Watts I developed a lay interest in Buddhism 10 years ago after learning to meditate at the Dalai Lama Center at MIT. I started reading more seriously about it last year. Watts provides a beautiful (if dated and orientalizing) lens on the subject.

Add to Cart

Greg Borenstein

56. A Spectre, Haunting by China Mieville 57. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels Mieville writes an interesting intro to the Manifesto that’s equal parts stylistic appreciation and political call to arms.

Out of stock