The most recommended books on altruism

I am tempted to say: Because Frank is a delightful writer and leave it at that.

This book reiterates similar themes in discussing how a variety of supposedly non-economic factors affect economic decisions.

In this book Frank discusses how noble human tendencies (moral sentiments) may have not only survived the pressures of the material world, but actually have been nurtured by them. The title is a play on the David Hume quote that “Reason is, and ought to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

To those interested, I also recommend any of Frank’s other books including Choosing the Right Pond, The Winner Take All Society, and The Darwin Economy. 

There has lately been an unfortunate tendency among educational observers and policymakers to reduce the value proposition of higher ed to purely measurable metrics: money spent; time spent; money earned. In this sort of analysis, the hard-nosed science and technology subjects tend to come out on top. Those who would speak for the humanities and arts, meanwhile, make the valid but sometimes unsatisfying point that there are benefits—perhaps less readily measurable but still very real and of significant personal and social value—to softer-edged subjects. The goal of The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs is simple: to correct this asymmetry by measuring what was previously obscure. By the end of this book, readers will be convinced of the true and lasting value of the liberal arts tradition in higher education.

My coauthor Gloria Russo-Wassell introduced me to the wonderful world of Dr. Kazdin. I was skeptical at first about his all positive rewards, no negative punishment techniques, but the more I read, the more I realize he is right on the mark. When you associate positive rewards, praise, and feelings with specific children’s behaviors they will remember those events much more than the memories of being punished. We need to move past punishment as a cornerstone of parenting and discipline, and consider Dr. Kazdin’s ABC method.

The gene’s-eye view of evolution emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Arguing that biologists are better off thinking about evolution in terms of genes rather than organisms was controversial, but still quickly gained popularity. An important reason for this was that it helped make sense of old, long-standing problems in the field. Two of those were sexual selection (how extravagant traits like the peacocks tail can evolve) and altruism (like the sterile worker ant devoting its life to the queen). In The Ant and the Peacock, Helena Cronin shows how the gene’s-eye view provides a powerful way to solve these puzzles. 

Mouse is a master thief who is given a job to free Lord Garron, the son of a powerful duke, arrested on trumped-up charges in a rival duchy.

It’s nothing he hasn’t done before, but how would he know this mission would change his life? We follow Mouse’s mission and his escape with Garron along with their inevitable falling in love with each other.

Admittedly, it took some time for Lord Mouse to warm up to me, but once it did, I couldn’t let go of the book. It’s one of those books, you read in one go and can’t stop until you get your happy ending.

Mouse was a sweetheart and Garron was his perfect partner to compliment his flaws and virtues. Another captivating opposites-attract kind of couple, you’d love to follow from beginning to end.

For more than three decades now, we’ve seen corporations, nonprofits, and governments go under because one or more of their executive leaders proved emotionally unstable. Those leaders were either narcissistic, paranoid, bipolar, impulsive, or immature (temper tantrums, poor coping skills, crying, withdrawing, pouting).

Without self-awareness—and the awareness to identify emotional instability in others—leaders cannot hope to connect genuinely and build personal influence and loyalty among colleagues and staffers.

I love this book because of its research and real-life case studies. With almost every chapter, you’ll say, “Oh, I know that guy or gal!”

Better: You learn how to cope with them (or maybe more importantly, you learn if it will be impossible to ever cope with them).

For almost four centuries, many philosophers, politicians, and social scientists have considered Thomas Hobbes as having provided great insight into human nature with his “thought experiment” imagining the state of nature as a state of war.  After more than one century, Darwin’s contrary insight in The Descent of Man (1877:125) is finally being given the attention it deserves: the “social instinct” is a more powerful influence on human behavior than “the base principal of selfishness.”  In Moral Origins, one of the best books in this genre, cultural anthropologist Christopher Boehm argues that higher levels of group support increased the survival of hunter gatherer bands and so favored evolution of more altruistic individuals.  Group culture that included gossip, expulsion and other forms of collective social control became ubiquitous as means to suppress free riders and egoistic bullies in human societies.

Set at the end of the Georgian period in England (1790s), ‘Bet’ or Elizabeth is a reluctant rebel. Although she is fifty years before the suffragette movement, she resists the norms of her day, even disguising herself as a man to avoid an unwanted marriage. Although she is an anachronism, I found her character believable, a mixture of practicality and altruism. Her devoted friend, William, shows an understanding that many men of our day would do well to have. And it is no wonder they grow in affection for each other as she faces one hurdle after another in a “Man’s” world. This is a feel-good read. 

The award-winning journalists team tells dozens of inspiring stories of individuals who have created organizations, implemented simple solutions, stopped destruction, and made a difference through often simple interventions.

The stories are inspiring but so are the very practical descriptions of what you can do and the organizations offering resources. I keep this book on my shelf as a regular resource.

Anathema is a 1910 Russian play about a man who inherits great wealth and is haunted by a manipulative spirit called Anathema.

Although David’s intention of using his wealth to help others is altruistic, Anathema gradually leads him down a path of damnation. This play makes you think deeply about the meaning behind each character’s dialogue. You don’t necessarily trust what is said because some characters have hidden motives.

The lurking terror is not, as you might think, the antagonizing Anathema. Instead, the play possesses a uniquely impending sense of doom as David’s life comes to its end and Anathema is the one begging for truth, leaving us wondering how many souls he will mislead in his search for the inverse of damnation.