100 books like Grassroots for Hire

Mancur Olson was one of the most influential social scientists of the 20th century. This slender (though at times dense) volume presents Olson’s thoughts on why shared interests are seldom enough to motivate people to join together in interest groups.

Beginning with the “rational economic man” assumption common in microeconomics, Olson demonstrates that people have powerful incentives not to support organizations that work to obtain collective goods they value.

Olson got a few things wrong, but his argument explains a lot of the political inaction and nonparticipation we see. If you have ever wondered, “Why don’t people join organizations that are working to help them?” or “Why do oppressed people not rise up against their oppressors?” this book is a good place to start.

Every time I start to get frustrated with what I view as political apathy, I go back to this book. I do this because the… show more.

I recommend this book because it is about lobbying and it is funny. “Lobbying” and “funny” are not usually words you see in the same sentence. I am pretty cynical, but not as cynical as the author of this book.

Our protagonist, Nick Naylor, is a tobacco lobbyist with no shame and a lot of money. His opponents, including a self-righteous anti-tobacco senator from Vermont, are not much better than Naylor, obsessed as they are with attention and power. Most lobbyists are not like Nick Naylor. But some are.

The book skewers platitudes about “freedom” and “personal choice,” which are familiar lobbyist tropes.

This is the preeminent academic study of interest group influence. The book is long, dense, and scholarly. The book is perhaps best known for its conclusion that money isn’t everything; groups with lots of money lose policy battles all the time.

Based on in-depth research on almost 100 issues before the federal government, the book's findings support my view that the answer to the question, “How influential are interest groups?” is, “It depends.” This conclusion is not satisfying to people who seek easy answers to complex questions. But it is undoubtedly true.

The late William Browne pioneered the study of interest group influence. His empirical studies noted that interest groups often get what they want from government because they ask for relatively small changes in policy to which no one objects.

In this book, he reflects on his work and that of others. He concludes that interest groups are an integral part of the American political system and that they seldom manage to strongarm the government into doing things that lots of ordinary Americans do not support.

This book is good because it is the rare academic piece that sings the praises of interest groups and acknowledges all the good they do. After all, most Americans, whether they believe it or not, identify with, support, or belong to some interest group.

And as Browne points out, interest groups have been integral to the adoption of some of the most important and beneficial… show more.

This book sheds light on a very important yet greatly understudied theme: how modern tax systems spread across the globe.

Modern taxes refer to the broad-based tax instruments such as income taxes and general consumption taxes that underpin the rise of big government taxes.

The volume introduces a new historical dataset that maps the adoption of these modern taxes, covering both sovereign and colonial states from the 18th to the 21st century.

It shows how the logic of modern tax introductions in non-sovereign states differed from those in sovereign ones. In doing so, this volume goes beyond the methodological nationalism prevalent in fiscal sociology and comparative political economy. 

Lawrence J Henderson was one of the first Americans to take Pareto’s writings seriously. He was a professor at Harvard during the 1930s, and this 1935 book was an outgrowth of his interest in understanding Pareto’s thought.

The subtitle "A Physiologist’s Interpretation" indicates that his approach to Pareto’s work differed from most because he was a natural scientist rather than a social scientist. As a physiologist, H. was able to recognize Pareto's engineering background with the recognition of universally valid laws, yet he was also able to see how Pareto was influenced as an economist where there are high degrees of regularity.

That makes him one of the best authorities on Pareto's "General sociology". Henderson could see generalities that most social scientists could neither understand nor appreciate. 

Professor Mann is the best macrohistorical social theorist I know.

The book is a clearly written analysis of the development of social formations from primitive societies, to the more developed societies in many parts of the world. As it combines a sophisticated conceptual homework with extensive empirical research the book will help the reader to grasp from where we are coming and where we are going.

I personally recommend the book. It is extremely valuable.

Sometimes I think people just don’t get smarter, or write smarter books, than Ehrenreich, so of course, in a 5 best list, I’m going to put one of hers up. The title of her book comes from obituaries – at a certain point, not entirely clear just when, a death does not have to be explained. When a 93-year-old dies, we don’t have to ask ‘of what?’ the way we do when a 47-year-old does. And yet – what about 73? We ask, and we blame: did they smoke? Not exercise?  Eat poorly? Not get screened early enough?  

While others have focused on the over-medicalization of dying, the repeated hospitalizations, the tubes, and wires, Ehrenreich is looking at the medicalization of living to be old – living from one wellness activity to the next, interspersed with medical testing.  In a world in which ‘health’ means medicine, health care means insurance… show more.

When I first read this book, even though I hold a Ph. D in sociology, it changed my whole view of the discipline. 

I was very disappointed in graduate school at first. Then I read some of Peter Berger’s works, who until his recent death, was the most well-known sociologist of religion. He wrote about making the case for a supernatural reality. This was something that was, and, still is, considered heretical in sociology. 

I met Peter a few years ago and told him how he changed my view of sociology. He smiled.

This superb book was one of the first to raise the issue of how poorly we’ve considered our waste and what to do with it, and it was a big inspiration for me.

It’s thoughtful and incredibly well-researched, packed full of amazing historical details, and provides a compelling case for how and why we should get our shit together—literally. I learned so much from this book, and it really encouraged me to keep digging and exploring how we might reimagine our human output. Just an excellent read and a compelling case for change.