2001-2010
November 14, 2011 Category: The Most Important Books of the Year2001
1 Religion Explained –Pascal Boyer
2 The Closing of the Western Mind –Charles Freeman
3 Nickel & Dimed –Barbara Ehrenreich
4 The Metaphysical Club –Louis Menand
5 The Trial of Henry Kissinger –Christopher Hitchens
6 Fast Food Nation – Eric Schlosser
7 My Day –Eleanor Roosevelt
8 Writings On An Ethical Life –Peter Singer
9 Theodore Rex –Edmund Morris
10 Justice As Fairness: A Restatement –John Rawls
Honorable Mentions:
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics – John Mearsheimer
Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century –Jonathan Glover
What Went Wrong? –Bernard Lewis
John Adams –David McCullough
A Universe of Consciousness –Edelman / Tononi
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee –Dee Brown
Constantine’s Sword –James Carroll
Arguing Comparative Politics –Alfred Stepan
On Nature & Language –Noam Chomsky
Radical Enlightenment –Jonathan Israel
The Future of Ideas –Lawrence Lessig
The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism & The Death of Democracy
–Noreena Hertz
The Future of Success –Robert Reich
Capitalism & Its Economics: A Critical History –Douglas Dowd (pub. 2000)
2002
1 War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning –Chris Hedges
2 Understanding Power –Noam Chomsky
3 Wealth & Democracy –Kevin Phillips
4 The Blank Slate – Steven Pinker
5 In Gods We Trust –Scott Atran
6 Israel / Palestine –Tanya Reinhart
7 Synaptic Self –Joseph LeDoux
8 Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace –Gore Vidal
9 The Mind & The Market – Jerry Z. Muller
10 Marx’s Revenge –Meghnad Desai
Honorable Mentions:
The Golden Ratio –Mario Livio
A New Kind of Science –Stephen Wolfram
Abraham –Bruce Feiler
Unequal Protection –Thom Hartmann (note: 2nd ed., 2010)
Globalization & Its Discontents –Joseph Stiglitz
LBJ: Master of the Senate –Robert A. Caro
The Problem of the Soul –Owen Flanagan
On Democracy & Education –Noam Chomsky
Darwin’s Cathedral –David Sloan Wilson
One World: The Ethics of Globalization –Peter Singer
The Tangled Wing –Melvin Konner
Secrets –Daniel Ellsberg
Understanding Capitalism –Douglas Dowd
A Problem From Hell –Samantha Power
2003
1 Lost Christianities – Bart Ehrman
2 Hegemony or Survival –Noam Chomsky
3 Killing Hope: 2003 edition –William Blum
4 The New Imperialism –David Harvey
5 Isaac Newton –James Gleick
6 Beyond Belief –Elain Pagels
7 The Soul of Capitalism –William Greider
8 The Future of Freedom – Fareed Zakaria
9 Sync –Steven Strogatz
10 Middle East Illusions –Noam Chomsky
Honorable Mentions:
A Devil’s Chaplain –Richard Dawkins
Under the Banner of Heaven –Jon Krakauer
Looking For Spinoza –Antonio DaMasio
The Crisis of Islam –Bernard Lewis
Nature Via Nurture –Matt Ridley
Objectivity & Liberal Scholarship –Noam Chomsky
Benjamin Franklin –Walter Isaacson
The Great Unraveling –Paul Krugman
The Peloponnesian War –Donald Kagan
All The Shah’s Men –Stephen Kinzer
Freedom Evolves –Daniel Dennett
Perfectly Legal –David Cay Johnston
In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror –Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski
Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power & the Disabling of Democracy –Ted Nace
2004
1 Freethinkers –Susan Jacoby
2 The Sorrows of Empire –Chalmers Johnson
3 The End of Faith –Sam Harris
4 What’s the Matter With Kansas? –Thomas Frank
5 The Science of Good & Evil –Michael Shermer
6 Fascists –Michael Mann
7 The Truth About The Drug Companies –Angell Marcia
8 Ghost Wars –Steve Coll
9 The Dark Side Of Democracy –Michael Mann
10 America Beyond Capitalism –Gar Alperovitz
Honorable Mentions:
The Wisdom of Crowds –James Surowiecki
Will In The World –Stephen Greenblatt
The Great Influenza –John M. Barry
The Fabric of the Cosmos –Brian Greene
The Ancestor’s Tail –Richard Dawkins
Free Culture –Lawrence Lessig
Alexander Hamilton –Ron Chernow
Saying What The Law Is –Charles Fried
His Excellency: George Washington –Joseph Ellis
Cataclysm: The First World War As Political Tragedy –David Stevenson
Reason & Value: Themes From the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz
The Problem Of The Media –Robert McChesney
American Empire –Andrew Bacevich (updated from the ’02 version)
American Dynasty —Kevin Phillips
The Corporation –Joel Bakan
The Limits To Growth –Donella H. Meadows
2005
1 A Brief History of Neoliberalism –David Harvey
2 Beyond Chutzpah –Norman Finkelstein (revised / expanded in 2008)
3 Generation Rx –Greg Crister
4 The Ethics of Identity –Anthony Appiah
5 The Rise of American Democracy –Sean Wilentz
6 The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth –Benjamin Friedman
7 Misquoting Jesus –Bart Ehrman
8 Active Liberty –Stephen Breyer
9 Restless Giant: The U.S. from Watergate To Bush v. Gore –James T. Paterson
10 Postwar –Tony Judt
Honorable Mentions:
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 –Robert Middlekauff
Team of Rivals –Doris Kearns Goodwin
A Man Without A Country –Kurt Vonnegut
The Impact of Inequality –Richard Wilkinson
Inequality & Prosperity –Jonas Pontusson
The Assassins’ Gate –George Packer
Universal Human Rights: In Theory & Practice –Jack Donnelly
The New American Militarism –Andrew Bacevich
The End of Poverty –Jeffrey Sachs
John Kenneth Galbraith –Richard Parker
The Ethical Brain –Michael Gazzaniga
The Great War For Civilization –Robert Fisk
Thomas Paine & The Promise of America –Harvey J Kaye
Strategies of Containment (2005 ed.) –John Lewis Gaddis
2006
1 House of War –James Carroll
2 Breaking The Spell –Daniel Dennett
3 The Israel Lobby –Mearsheimer / Walt
4 Thomas Paine –Craig Nelson
5 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine –Ilan Pappe
6 Fiasco –Thomas E. Ricks
7 Failed States –Noam Chomsky
8 Moral Minds –Marc Hauser
9 The Looming Tower –Lawrence Right
10 The God Delusion –Richard Dawkins
Honorable Mentions:
American Fascists –Chris Hedges
Conversations On Consciousness –Susan Blackmore
Enlightenment Contested –Jonathan Israel
Cosmopolitanism –Anthony Appiah
Is Democracy Possible Here? –Ronald Dworkin
A World Undone –G.J. Meyer
Imperial Life In The Emerald City –Rajiv Changrasekaran
The Varieties of Scientific Experience –Carl Sagan
The One Percent Doctrine –Ron Suskind
War In Human Civilization –Azar Gat
The Evolution of Morality –Richard Joyce
Primates & Philosophers –Frans de Waal
Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid –Jimmy Carter
An Inconvenient Truth –Al Gore
2007
1 The Shock Doctrine –Naomi Klein
2 The World Without Us –Alan Weisman
3 Legacy of Ashes –Tim Weiner
4 The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy –D.D. Raphael
5 The Black Swan –Nassem Taleb
6 Blackwater –Jeremy Scahill
7 God Is Not Great –Christopher Hitchens
8 Supercapitalism –Robert Reich
9 What Hath God Wrought: The Trans. of America, 1815-1845 –Daniel Walker Howe
10 Eisenhower: Soldier & President –Stephen E. Ambrose
Honorable Mentions:
I Am A Strange Loop –Douglas Hofstadter
The Stuff of Thought –Steven Pinker
Free Lunch –David Cay Johnston
Einstein –Walter Isaacson
The Chomsky Effect –Robert Barsky
Nemesis –Chalmers Johnson
Infidel –Ayaan Hirsi Ali
God: The Failed Hypothesis –Victor Stenger
The Conscience of a Liberal –Paul Krugman
The History of the Ancient World –Susan Wise Bauer
Conflict After The Cold War: 3rd Edition –Richard Betts
American Creation –Joseph Ellis
Modern Liberty –Charles Fried
Bad Samaritans –Ha-Joon Chang
Republic.com 2.0 –Cass Sunstein
The $3 Trillion War –Joseph Stiglitz
2008
1 The Age of Reagan –Sean Wilentz
2 Democracy Incorporated –Sheldon S. Wolin
3 The Limits of Power –Andrew Bacevich
4 The Way of the World –Ron Suskind
5 The Forever War –Dexter Filkins
6 The Invisible Constitution –Laurence Tribe
7 Thinking In Systems –Donella H. Meadows
8 Godless –Dan Barker
9 Bad Money –Kevin Phillips
10 Nixonland –Rick Perlstein
Honorable Mentions:
Palestine Inside Out –Saree Makdisi
How Judges Think –Richard Posner
Common Wealth –Jeffrey Sachs
The Post-American World –Fareed Zakaria
Unjust Deserts –Gar Alperovitz / Lew Daly
From Colony To Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 –George C. Herring
Experiments in Ethics –Anthony Appiah
American Lion –Jon Meacham
The Age of American Unreason –Susan Jacoby
The Dark Side –Jane Mayer
Here Comes Everybody –Clay Shirky
International Human Rights –Michael Haas
Superclass –David Rothkopf
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten 20th Century –Tony Judt
2009
- The Lords of Finance –Liaquat Ahamed
- Come Home, America –William Greider
- The Spirit Level –Wilkinson / Pickett
- The Greatest Show On Earth –Richard Dawkins
- The Invention of the Jewish People –Shlomo Sand
- The Idea of Justice –Amartya Sen
- The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors –Gordon Barass
- The Myth of the Rational Market –Justin Fox
- The Empathic Civilization –Jeremy Rifkin
- The Healing of America –T.R. Reid
Honorable Mentions:
How Rome Fell –Adrian Keith Goldsworthy
Lost To The West –Lars Brownworth
A Revolution of the Mind –Jonathan Israel
America’s Cold War –Campbell Craig
Keynes: Return of the Master –Robert Skidelsky
The Forty Years War: The Rise & Fall of the Neocons –Colodny / Shachtman
Zombie Capitalism –Chris Harman
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 –Gordon Wood
On Rumors –Cass Sunstein
How Markets Fail –John Cassidy
The Great Financial Crisis –John Bellamy Foster
Shadow Elite –Jenine R. Wedel
The Dark Side of Zionism –Baylis Thomas
The Dead Hand –David. E. Hoffman
Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet –Tim Jackson
Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics –Hetherington, Weiler
FDR: Traitor To His Class –H.W. Brands
2010
1 Freefall –Joseph Stiglitz
2 Ill Fares The Land –Tony Judt
3 Unequal Protection (Revised & Expanded edition) –Thom Hartmann
4 Winner-Take-All Politics –Paul Pierson / Hacker
5 Mis-measuring Our Lives –Joseph Stiglitz, et. al.
6 Washington Rules –Andrew Bacevich
7 The Enigma of Capital –David Harvey
8 Dismantling the Empire –Chalmers Johnson
9 Why The West Rules—For Now –Ian Morris
10 The Shallows –Nicholas Carr
Honorable Mentions:
Cultures of War –John Dower
Deadly Spin –Wendell Potter
Making Our Democracy Work –Stephen Breyer
The Betrayal of American Prosperity –Clyde Prestowitz
American Colossus –H.W. Brands
The Moral Landscape –Sam Harris
The Icarus Syndrome –Peter Beinart
The Living Constitution –David Strauss
The Emperor of All Maladies –Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Empire Has New Clothes –Paul Street
Cognitive Surplus –Clay Shirky
Economic Sentiments –Emma Rothschild
Griftopia –Matt Taibbi
Justice –Michael Sandel
Meanwhile…
The History of the Medieval World –Susan Wise Bauer
The Age Of Empathy –Frans de Waal
The Science of Liberty –Timothy Ferris
Eyes In Gaza –Mads Gilbert, Erik Fosse
The New Jim Crow –Michelle Alexander
This Time We Went Too Far –Norman Finkelstein
After-Shock –Robert Reich
All the Devils Are Here –McLean / Nocera
The Great American Stickup –Robert Scheer
Crisis Economics–Nouriel Roubini
Fault Lines –Raghuram Rajan
Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life –Nicholas Phillipson
Ratification –Pauline Maier
Bloodlands –Timothy Snyder
The World According To Monsanto –Marie-Monique Robin
Hopes & Prospects –Noam Chomsky
The Last Utopia: Human Rights In History –Samuel Moyn
What Technology Wants –Kevin Kelly
Death of the Liberal Class –Chris Hedges
War –Sebastian Junger
Quantum –Manjit Kumar
The Grand Design –Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow
The Warmth of Other Suns –Isabel Wilkerson
The Balfour Declaration –Jonathan Schneer
Where Good Ideas Come From –Steven Johnson
Magic & Mayhem–Derek Leebaert
The Irony of Manifest Destiny –William Pfaff
The American Way of War –Tom Engelhardt
A Companion To Marx’s Capital –David Harvey
The Long Divergence –Timur Kuran
The Death & Life of American Journalism –McChesney / Nichols
Science Is Culture –ed. Adam Bly
The Master Switch–Tim Wu
Manipulating Democracy: Democratic Theory, Poli Psych & Mass Media
Zombie Politics & Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism –Henry Giroux
The End of the Free Market –Ian Bremmer
From Eternity To Here –Sean Carroll
Eaarth –Bill Mckibben
Zombie Economics –John Quiggin
Washington: A Life –Ron Chernow
The Fiery Trial –Eric Foner
Colonel Roosevelt –Edmund Morris
Revolutionaries –Jack Rakove
Self Comes To Mind –Antonio Damasio
How To Live: Or A Life of Montaigne –Sarah Bakewell
The Marketplace of Ideas –Louis Menand
Toward A Truly Free Market –John C. Medaille
You Are Not A Gadget –Jaron Lanier
Every Man In This Village Is A Liar –Megan K. Stack
Galileo –John Heilbron
Prophets Of War –William D. Hartung
Irrational Security –Daniel Wirls
…are other notable books from 2010. The Big Short by Michael Lewis, Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot were interesting books that ended up being gigantic mega-sellers.
Having listed 72 noteworthy books from 2010 alone, it becomes apparent that—each year—there are many good books from which to choose. Tragically, most Americans choose either not to read good books, or—when they do choose to read something—end up picking pulp trash (“enticing reads” that are amusing or provocative, yet ultimately un-edifying). Such publications sometimes do more harm than good.
Note that, for 2010, only the last four books mentioned here were blockbusters; none of the 72 listed ended up being huge sellers. Meanwhile, the vast majority of 2010’s best sellers were—it is no exaggeration to say—pulp trash. What does this tell us about American reading habits?
It is surprising that more time isn’t spent (by society’s most erudite) compiling lists of worthwhile publications. If they were to do so, the rest of us could become more aware—when we have some time to devote to a full book—what our “reading time” is best spent on. Such a listing would seem to be one of the most fundamental resources for which the web could be usedBeyond these 72 titles, there are undoubtedly a few more books from the past year that are worthwhile—depending one one’s personal interests. However, if one were to survey, say, the 100 best-sellers of 2010, as with most other years, one would find that the vast majority are—to be blunt—garbage. The gargantuan amount of horrible books published each year should not make us forget the few GREAT books that are published. The sparse gems stand out all the more due to the mountains of trash-pulp on offer.
Alas, bookstores are filled with pulp published for the sole purpose of making money. Most imprints’ only standard for publication is the maximization of sales, not the credence of the work. (The right-wing political pundit industry, for example, is perhaps the most lucrative segment of book publishing.) Catering to the LCD seems to be the primary factor contributing to a book’s success. This does not bode well for the edification of the general public.
SUMMING UP THE DECADE
It is interesting to note that of the 100 “Top 10” books listed above, only two made its year’s Top 10 Bestseller list: The God Delusion was #7 in 2006 and God Is Not Great was #10 in 2007. The End of Faith and The Black Swan eventually went on to become huge hits. Hegemony or Survival, Fast Food Nation, The Black Swan, and Nickel & Dimed were also relatively big hits as time went on. The Shock Doctrine, What’s The Matter With Kansas? The Lords of Finance, Theodore Rex, The Looming Tower, Legacy of Ashes, and The Forever War eventually became moderately popular due to critical acclaim. Two of the “Honorable Mentions” were among their years’ top sellers: John Adams in 2001 and Team of Rivals in 2005.
16 Notable Books from 2000:
Founding Brothers –Joseph Ellis
Time, Love, Memory –Jonathan Weiner
Shrub –Molly Ivans
Rogue States –Noam Chomsky
A New Generation Draws the Line –Noam Chomsky
When Genius Failed –Roger Lowenstein
Arguments & Icons –Harvey Whitehouse
Blowback –Chalmers Johnson
Sovereign Virtue –Ronald Dworkin
Taliban –Ahmed Rashid
The Elegant Universe –Brian Greene
One Market Under God –Thomas Frank
W.E.B. Du Bois –David Levering Lewis
From Dawn To Decadence –Jacques Barzun
Meritocracy & Economic Inequality –Kenneth Arrow
Bowling Alone –Robert Putnam
Following are other notable books that didn’t quite make the cut during the first decade:
2001:
The Universe In A Nutshell –Stephan Hawking
Propaganda & The Public Mind –Noam Chomsky
Copyrights & Copywrongs –Siva Vaidhayanathan
The Divine Right of Capital –Marjorie Kelly
Wittgenstein’s Poker –Edmonds / Eidenow
Ethics –Spinoza, The Wordsworth edition
Carry Me Home –Diane McWhorter
Resource Wars –Michael T. Klare
Republic.com –Cass Sunstein
War In A Time of Peace –David Halberstam
2002:
James Madison –Garry Wills
Why Orwell Matters –Christopher Hitchens
American Law in the 20th Century / Law In America
–Lawrence M. Friedman
Nexus –Mark Buchanan
When Smoke Ran Like Water –Devra Davis
Seeing In The Dark –Timothy Ferris
Pirates & Emperors, Old & New (02 ed.) –Noam Chomsky
Power & Terror –Noam Chomsky
The Scientists –John Gribbon
Paris 1919 –Margaret MacMillan
The Oligarchs –David E. Hoffman
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy –Greg Palast
2003:
The Future of Life –E.O. Wilson
Linked –Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Gulag: A History –Anne Applebaum
Chomsky & His Critics
Noam Chomsky: The Generative Enterprise Revisited (03 ed.) –ed. Gruyter
The Imperial Tense –ed. Bacevich
A Brief History of Nearly Everything –Bill Bryson
Objectivity & Liberal Scholarship (03 ed.) –Noam Chomsky
Big Lies –Joe Conason
The Roaring 90’s –Joseph Stiglitz
Khrushchev: The Man & His Era –William Taubman
2004:
Collapse –Jared Diamond
The 9-11 Commission Report
The President of Good & Evil –Peter Singer
Rise of the Vulcans –James Mann
The Wisdom of Crowds –James Surowiecki
Confessions From An Economic Hit Man –John Perkins
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness –V.S. Ramachandran
Parallel Worlds –Michio Kaku
Einstein’s Cosmos –Michio Kaku
The Limits To Growth: A 30 Year Update –Meadows
The Politics of Truth –Joe Wilson
America Right Or Wrong –Anatol Lieven
Imperial America –Gore Vidal
A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples –Ilan Pappe
Al Qaeda –Jason Burke
Pathologies of Power –Paul Farmer
Growing Public (vol. I & II) –Peter H. Lindert
Growth Fetish –Clive Hamilton
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World –Francis Wheen
2005:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius –Leo Damrosch
The World Is Flat –Thomas Friedman
1776 –David McCullough
Imperial Ambitions –Noam Chomsky
Deep Simplicity –John Gribbin
Inner Presence: Consciousness as a Bio. Phen. –Antti Revonsuo
The Modern Middle East –Ilan Pappe
Why Social Justice Matters –Brian Barry
A World Without Time –Palle Yourgrali
Taming American Power –Stephen Walt
2006:
Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting It Right –Harry Frankfurt
American Theocracy –Kevin Phillips
Code & Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0 –Lawrence Lessig
Who Controls The Internet? –Goldsmith / Wu
Sailing From Byzantium –Colin Wells
Why Darwin Matters –Michael Shermer
Perilous Power –Noam Chomsky
The Creation –E.O. Wilson
Making Globalization Work –Joseph Stiglitz
Capitalism 3.0 –Peter Barnes
The Wealth of Networks –Yochai Benkler
The Conservative Nanny State –Dean Baker
Convergence Culture –Henry Jenkins
2007:
The New Golden Age –Ravi Batra
The Squandering Of America –Robert Kuttner
Interventions –Noam Chomsky
The Brain That Changes Itself –Norman Doidge
1967: Israel, The War, & The Year that Trans. the Middle East –Tom Segev
The Bottom Billion –Paul Collier
The Long War –Andrew Bacevich
Journals: 1952-2000 –Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Overtreated –Shannon Brownlee
The Revenge of Gaia –James Lovelock
Unruly Americans & The Origins of the Constitution –Woody Holton
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown –Charles Morris
2008:
The Future of the Internet—And How To Stop It –Jonathan Zittrain
The Great Derangement –Matt Taibbi
Angler –Barton Gellman
This Land Is Their Land –Barbara Ehrenreich
The Essential Chomsky
The Wrecking Crew –Thomas Frank
The Predator State –James Galbraith
Descent Into Chaos –Ahmed Rashid
Outliers –Malcolm Gladwell
The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes –Avraham Burg
The Return of Depression Economics –Paul Krugman
The Search For Al Qaeda –Bruce Riedel
Human –Michael Gazzaniga
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet –Michael T. Klare
The Symmetries of Things –Conway, Burgiel, Goodman-Strauss
A History of The Modern Middle East (4th Edition) –William Cleveland
This Republic of Suffering –Drew Gilpin Faust
Palestine Inside Out –Saree Makdisi
Capitalism Hits the Fan –Richard Wolff
The Liberal Hour –Robert Weisbrot
The Age of The Warrior –Robert Fisk
The Secular Conscience –Austin Dacey
Freedom & Resentment & Other Essays –P.F. Strawson
2009:
The Age of Wonder –Richard Holmes
Physics Of The Impossible –Michio Kaku
Power Rules –Leslie Gelb
The Arabs –Eugene Rogan
The Good Soldiers –David Finkel
The Ego Tunnel –Thomas Metzinger
Field Notes On Democracy –Arundhati Roy
Inequality & The Global Economic Crisis –Douglas Dowd
Bright-Sided –Barbara Ehrenreich
Breaking The Sound Barrier –Amy Goodman
Empire of Illusion –Chris Hedges
Republican Gomorrah –Max Blumenthal
Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? –Michael J. Sandel
The Nature of Technology –W. Brian Arthur
Judaism Does Not Equal Israel –Marc H. Ellis
How We Decide –Jonah Lehrer
Half The Sky –Kristof / WuDunn
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography –John Milton Cooper
Keynes: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Economist –Peter Clarke
This Time It’s Different –Kenneth Rogoff
Predictably Irrational –Dan Ariely
…as well as some worthwhile books by Martha Nussbaum, Bill Bryson, various investigative journalists, and renown scholars.
NOTE: Not counted are political pundit books—if for no other reason that they’re not works of scholarship so much as exercises in polemic. Polemic can be important as a didactic tool, but seems not to be appropriate for the present project. Books like Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, It Could Happen Here by Joe Conason, and The Mendacity of Hope by Roger Hodge are interesting reads, but are more rants than edifying treatises. Mere polemic (e.g. political punditry from the those like Al Frankin and Michael Moore) is not timeless, is not scholarly, and generally only serves as an echo chamber—preaching to the choir. Though interesting, these are not important books.
One can engage in an interesting thought experiment if one hypothesizes what our society would be like—and how vastly different our public discourse would look—if the books mentioned for each year were the best-selling books of that year. Imagine, for a moment, that THESE were the 10 books “everyone was reading” for year X.
Furthermore, we could speculate: If those listed above were the most widely-read books while people stopped reading pulp trash altogether. How drastically improved would our society be? It’s safe to say that a well-informed, more discerning electorate would yield a vastly different social order than we now experience.
A participatory, deliberative democracy (i.e. a genuine, functioning democratic society) is predicated on a well-educated citizenry—something we do not currently have. Not by a long shot. (One need only survey the pulp trash that currently clogs the displays at the front of the nation’s bookstores…or peek at the week’s best-seller lists…to note this disconcerting fact.) Many of the important things people could learn by reading any of the hundreds of books listed HERE are simply things most people across the country currently don’t know. Our society has suffered as a consequence of this short-coming.
A well-educated citizenry is, in part, based on a culture where edification and scholarship are valued and recognized (i.e. where reading great books is a way of life). Alas, in the current pop culture, people tend not to read great books—if / when they read books at all. The publications that sell the most tend to be alluring pulp trash—fodder designed for mass-market appeal and provocation. Many of these super-sellers are based on gimmicks (notably, “self-help”, tabloid fodder, and dogma-peddling).
There seems to be a catch-22 entailed here. At the same time that if more people read the MIBY books our society would be much better educated, if our society were much better educated more people would read the MIBY books. There is, indeed, a symbiosis involved. But which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Perhaps if more time was spent compiling lists like this, the current trends could change. After all, there seems to be no means by which the intellectually curious layman can ascertain which books are most worth his time. That’s why Mason Scott offers the MIBYs.
If more people read these books (and took something important away from the experience), the world would surely be a much better place. (Meanwhile, if one has not yet read many of these great works, it is safe to say that one is courting ignorance.) For those who are more ambitious, reading at least the top five MIBYs from each year is highly recommended. Degree of erudition regarding contemporary issues is influenced—in part—by how many MIBYs one has read.
We can hope that—for the next decade—the (objectively) most important books of the year turn out to be the most-read books of each year. The better educated the general populace is, the better our society will become. Reading worthy books—while not wasting any of one’s time on pulp trash—is a key part of that process.
