Here are 100 books that On the Universal fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been a soldier, designer, educator, farmer, and remain a philosopher and writer. I defy the classification of being either practical or theoretic. I have worked on environmental issues for over thirty years, including urban, post-conflict, and climate change projects in Australia, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have written over twenty books on design, cities, conflict, and politics. I am driven to understand the complexity of the world in which I live and, thereafter, act based on the knowledge gained–my book list reflects this passion for knowledge, and my life evidences a commitment to act.
In what I do and how I feel, I cannot avoid confronting the times we all live, called the “end times.” What they name is the end of an epoch of total planetary domination by Homo sapiens.
A moment of nemesis has arrived. What has been discovered, if unevenly, is that our collective world-making has revealed itself to be an unmaking. The history and the future of climate change, literally and metaphorically, stand for this moment.
The Brazilian anthropologists Deborah and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro powerfully capture not just the causes of this planetary crisis but, in my view, present ways of thinking and working toward affirmative futures.
The end of the world is a seemingly interminable topic D at least, of course, until it happens. Environmental catastrophe and planetary apocalypse are subjects of enduring fascination and, as ethnographic studies show, human cultures have approached them in very different ways. Indeed, in the face of the growing perception of the dire effects of global warming, some of these visions have been given a new lease on life. Information and analyses concerning the human causes and the catastrophic consequences of the planetary 'crisis' have been accumulating at an ever-increasing rate, mobilising popular opinion as well as academic reflection.
I’ve been a soldier, designer, educator, farmer, and remain a philosopher and writer. I defy the classification of being either practical or theoretic. I have worked on environmental issues for over thirty years, including urban, post-conflict, and climate change projects in Australia, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have written over twenty books on design, cities, conflict, and politics. I am driven to understand the complexity of the world in which I live and, thereafter, act based on the knowledge gained–my book list reflects this passion for knowledge, and my life evidences a commitment to act.
Two important messages underscoring this fascinating anarchist history of Southeast Asia's uplands are coming from the past and arriving from an uncertain future. The first message began 12,000 years ago when human settlements were established.
Slowly, friction emerged between lowlands people, who settled and started to acquire property, and nomadic people of the highlands. The more settlements developed, the more nomads were deemed a threat and destroyed. These conflicts are elemental to the history of war.
The current data on climate impacts I’ve read indicate that a significant percentage of the global population will be displaced in the coming decades. By becoming nomadic, they will again be deemed a threat to urban dwellers–hence the message: there’s another danger of war to avoid!
From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm's length from any organized state society
For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them-slavery, conscription, taxes, corvee labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an "anarchist history," is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates…
I’ve been a soldier, designer, educator, farmer, and remain a philosopher and writer. I defy the classification of being either practical or theoretic. I have worked on environmental issues for over thirty years, including urban, post-conflict, and climate change projects in Australia, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have written over twenty books on design, cities, conflict, and politics. I am driven to understand the complexity of the world in which I live and, thereafter, act based on the knowledge gained–my book list reflects this passion for knowledge, and my life evidences a commitment to act.
As one of my favorite novels, I find something unexpected every time I read this book. It takes you to a dystopic world, not so much as what it would look like, but how it would feel. I find it affirmative in its negativity. It takes me to what I value and wants to protect, cherish, and continue to experience. It has been part of a lesson I learned long ago and have lived by.
If you want things to be better, what is bad has to be confronted without turning away and surmounted by overcoming, adaptation, or acceptance.
Paul Auster's dystopian future from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: 'a literary voice for the ages' (Guardian)
'That is how it works in the City. Every time you think you know the answer to a question, you discover that the question makes no sense . . .'
This is the story of Anna Blume and her journey to find her lost brother, William, in the unnamed City. Like the City itself, however, it is a journey that is doomed, and so all that is left is Anna's unwritten account of what happened.
I’ve been a soldier, designer, educator, farmer, and remain a philosopher and writer. I defy the classification of being either practical or theoretic. I have worked on environmental issues for over thirty years, including urban, post-conflict, and climate change projects in Australia, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have written over twenty books on design, cities, conflict, and politics. I am driven to understand the complexity of the world in which I live and, thereafter, act based on the knowledge gained–my book list reflects this passion for knowledge, and my life evidences a commitment to act.
For me, Bernard Stiegler was one of the most influential thinkers of technology of the modern age. I like books that bring my own thinking into question. His book does this for me by providing an interesting and unfamiliar way of understanding the relation between technology and consumerism.
He describes consumerism as damaging our psychic sphere and destroying our desires–replacing them with ones formed and met by marketed commodities. What I found insightful was how he showed “reason” being transformed by philosophy into an object of faith.
The result: reason now travels with the unreason of an unchecked rationalization of power of technological creation, but with little sense of the consequences, over time, of what has been created (think AI!).
In 1944 Horkheimer and Adorno warned that industrial society turns reason into rationalization, and Polanyi warned of the dangers of the self-regulating market, but today, argues Stiegler, this regression of reason has led to societies dominated by unreason, stupidity and madness. However, philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century abandoned the critique of political economy, and poststructuralism left its heirs helpless and disarmed in face of the reign of stupidity and an economic crisis of global proportions.
New theories and concepts are required today to think through these issues. The thinkers of poststructuralism Lyotard, Deleuze, Derrida must be…
James M. Jasper has written a number of books and articles on politics and social movements since the 1980s, trying to get inside them to see what participants feel and think. In recent years he has examined the many emotions, good and bad, involved in political engagement. He summarizes what he has learned in this short book, The Emotions of Protest, taking the reader step by step through the emotions that generate actions, to those that link us to groups, down to the emotional and moral impacts of social movements. The book is hopeful and inspiring but at the same time also clear-eyed about the limitations of protest politics.
Meetings are one of the main activities of social movements, and plenty of misunderstandings occur based on the way people talk due to different backgrounds. This amusing book focuses on the effects of social class, which both activists and scholars have tended to forget about in recent years. If nothing else, it will give you something to think about during your next meeting.
Many activists worry about the same few problems in their groups: low turnout, inactive members, conflicting views on racism, overtalking, and offensive violations of group norms. But in searching for solutions to these predictable and intractable troubles, progressive social movement groups overlook class culture differences. Missing Class looks through a class lens and discovers that members with different class life experiences tend to approach these problems differently. Using this class lens enables readers to envision new solutions, solutions that draw on the strengths of all class cultures to form the basis of stronger cross-class and multiracial movements.
I don’t have a passion for the diversity, equity, and inclusion topic. I have an obligation. When I didn’t see or understand the horrific injustice of systemic oppression, I couldn’t do anything about it. Now that I see it, I cannot ignore it. I’ve become an expert through my work in organizational development. I work with technology, healthcare, financial services and educational services clients around the globe, and in 2016 I founded GAR (Gender, Age, Race) Diversity Consulting. Prior to GAR, I was a director in the National Diversity and Inclusion office at Kaiser Permanente, and I worked for many years as a global management and technology consultant with American Management Systems, Inc (now CGI).
Workplaces are increasing in diversity, making it essential for workers to understand the nuances of cross-cultural relationships. This book delves into those nuances in a way that is practical, insightful, and fun. The author begins by introducing the four stages of cultural awareness, then builds by providing workbook opportunities for the reader to develop often profound insight. The author remarkably shows no bias toward one culture over another, which heightens the book's value. It’s also a terrific read for global travelers to gain an understanding and appreciation of places and people visited.
Here is the ultimate, self-instructional cross-cultural training manual. Craig Storti, author of The Art of Crossing Cultures, The Art of Coming Home, Incident at Bitter Creek and Cross-Cultural Dialogues, brings his wealth of knowledge and his creative mind to this exceptional new resource.
Figuring Foreigners Out is designed for anyone who wants to help in "figuring out" the behavior of someone from another culture. Educators, trainers and individuals will profit from this user-friendly workbook. readers can work through exercises which are vintage Storti - on their own, or in a training group.
Concepts at the heart of intercultural communication are…
I study culture. Ever since I was little, I’ve been fascinated by what people think, feel, believe, have, and do. I’ve always wondered why people need things to be meaningful. Why do people need an explanation for why things happen that puts the meaning outside their own minds? I wanted to get beyond the need for things to be meaningful by themselves, so I began looking into meaning-making as a thing we do. Once I realized the process was infinitely more interesting and valuable, I read books like those on my list. I hope they spark you as much as they have me.
I love this book because Tsing walks me through an increasingly complex, increasingly comprehensive understanding of how people think, feel, and make meaning and how that process is fundamental to understanding who we are as a species.
Each chapter gives me a basic yet profound bit of insight into people as meaning makers, and each chapter flows from the one(s) previous, all building toward the sort of “holy crap, I get it!” culmination that leaves me wanting to go back and read it again and again.
Tsing makes the complicated understandable and the obscure accessible.
A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. In both cases, it is friction that produces movement, action, effect. Challenging the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a "clash" of cultures, anthropologist Anna Tsing here develops friction in its place as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world. She focuses on one particular "zone of awkward engagement"--the rainforests of Indonesia--where in the 1980s and the…
I’ve been fascinated by different cultures since I was 14 years old growing up in inner-city Chicago. My passion has given me a curious quest to travel the world and learn about different cultures. My friends have a tagline for me which is ‘From the Hood to Hanoi and All the Stops In Between’ because of my international teaching in Vietnam. As an adult who is now an international professor, sought-out global trainer, and cultural subject matter expert, my passion has increased for bringing an awareness to a broader audience about the beauty of diverse friendships.
This book ties in so closely with what I believe about the beauty of diverse friendships if we allow ourselves to come out of our comfort zones to truly connect with people heart-to-heart.
When I read this book it really affirms what I believe, that it is really possible to heal racial divides through humility, listening, and a willingness to connect with a person from a diverse background that we would have never thought possible.
We can heal our communities--one friendship at a time.
Everyone wants to do something to improve race relations, but many of us don't know where to start. In Life-Changing Cross-Cultural Friendships, lifelong friends Gary Chapman and Clarence Shuler will show you how. Through important lessons they have learned, you will learn how to begin and grow authentic friendships across racial and ethnic barriers.
Each chapter will guide you toward deeper understanding of what it takes to foster cross-cultural friendships. These powerful lessons include:
How to overcome the fear of developing cross-cultural friendships
How to differentiate true friends from mere acquaintances…
I have been writing books about France and the French for two decades. The adventure began when I moved to Quebec in my early 20s and married a Quebecker. He became my life partner and co-author. I learned his language, immersed myself in Canada’s French-language culture and began writing articles in French. In 1999 we moved to France for three years to study the French. Three books later, we returned to Paris with our daughters to try to demystify French conversation. The result is The Bonjour Effect. I am grateful to the authors on my list for helping me refine my understanding of France, the French and their language.
Polly Platt was the first author to write about the frustrating features of French in a way that would help foreigners deal with them. In this classic, first published in 1994, she delves into their intense relationship to food, explains how to handle rudeness in stores, how to deal with the French bureaucracy, how their idea of time can drive foreigners crazy and much more. Platt’s observations were eye-opening for me when I first moved to France and are still relevant 25 years later.
As an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, one of my great joys is recommending books to others. I was able to indulge this joy consistently while teaching at a university, introducing students to authors and books and topics they otherwise might never have encountered. I find this same excitement in my own writing, searching for ways to reveal to others the magnificent wealth I find in modern poetry and in the brilliant concepts of poetic thinking.
A renowned teacher of expository writing, Perl is invited to Austria to offer a course on how to teach the Holocaust. Although her mother warned her that as a Jew she should never enter a German-speaking country, Perl decides to accept.
She writes with brutal honesty about the troubled and often profound relationships she establishes with her Austrian students. Her explorations of difficult and sometimes excruciating issues are conducted with a spirit of love and openness toward her students and herself. This is the most ethically engaged book I have read about the profession of teaching.
An award-winning teacher takes a journey into alien territory: Austria, Hitler's birthplace, and the territory of her own hatred. A teaching memoir that offers a pedagogy of hope.
