100 books like The American Monomyth

This country was settled primarily by Puritan extremists who imprinted their deep distrust of the body’s needs onto future generations. The Calvinist obsession with sin and predestination led to a uniquely American situation. As wealth became a sign of grace, poverty indicated moral failure.

Weber’s classic book describes the process in which a perspective that began in renunciation was transformed into the drive to work incessantly in the pursuit of worldly success and, eventually, conspicuous consumption. As the strictly religious fervor dissipated over time, the competitive quest for efficiency, productivity, wealth, and the self-validation they symbolized remained and became our most fundamental value.

What others would later call the “American Dream” endures because, like no other myth, it promises fulfillment both in this world and the next. This helped me understand our obsession with individualism and why America ignores or mistreats many of its children simply because their parents are… show more.

This Black sociologist demands that we take a deep look into the religious basis of American racism.

Of 5,000 cases of lynching reported between 1880 and 1930, at least 40% functioned as actual human sacrifices, very large communal rituals that identified certain individuals as the source of the community’s problems and eliminated them. The sacrifice created a compact between the people and their deities, expiating their sins and reinforcing their values.

"The victim mediated between the sacred and the profane...the burning cross distilled it all: sacrificed Negro joined by the torch with sacrificed Christ, burnt together and discarded...” Well into the 20th century, “The cross – Christianity’s central symbol of Christ’s sacrificial death – became identified with the crucifixion of the Negro.” Forced to carry all the projections of the white unconscious, the Black man became the American Dionysus.

Patterson observes that in recent generations the stereotype of America’s internal… show more.

This is the scariest book I have ever read. The authors, a communications professor and a psychologist (and veteran), argue that nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United States.

The doctrine that provides the central experience of Christian faith is the sacrifice of an irreplaceable son by an all-powerful father whose will it was that the son should die violently. In the modern world, and especially in America, nationalism has taken on and replicated this mythic function.

What keeps the group together and makes us feel unified is not the sacrifice of the enemy but the sacrifice of the very best of our own. Through successful sacrifice (when enough of our young men are killed), internal hostilities are discharged and the group is re-unified. Sacrifice restores the authority of the nation/god and reconsolidates the group.

This is why we die for the flag, commit our children to do… show more.

This journalist, screenwriter, and novelist is well-versed in psychology, mythology, history, and musicology. His essay in this book, Hear That Long Snake Moan, is the single best piece of non-fiction I have ever read, and it inspired me to write my book.

Our disease – the Western divorce of consciousness from flesh – appears as consumerism, environmental degradation, fundamentalism, perpetual war, genocide, and racism. Yet, mysteriously, it may be possible that the terrible uprooting and enslavement of some fifty million black people over three centuries actually initiated a great healing process.

For all its sorrows, the twentieth century saw periods when Dionysian madness seized the Apollonian mind in its flight from the body and brought it back to Earth. African-American music fundamentally altered America and began the slow process of cleaning out the festering wounds underlying puritanism, nationalism, and materialism. We have a long way to go, but Ventura has… show more.

I am a lifelong Stephen King fan. I was that potbellied kid, perpetually with a stack of books, who insisted that the librarian let me check out Skeleton Crew, even if she told me it would absolutely give me nightmares. One of many, and often. I read the classics like The Stand and It–and watched the TV and film adaptations of Uncle Stevie’s best. Stephen King’s love of pop culture (music, movies, comic books) is evident in most of what he writes, no less so than in his magnum opus: The Dark Tower series.

Want to see where Marvel Comics, Harry Potter, and Stephen King's other fictional characters start to clash and co-mingle? Well, I’m sure you do, because you know. By the time you get to Book V: The Wolves of the Calla–you are already along for the ride and you know how thin that… show more.

Paul Levitz was a writer, editor, editor in chief, publisher, and president of DC Comics for decades. This oversized coffee table book is a treasure trove of his insights, memories, and analysis. It’s the definitive history of DC, which only he could write. And it’s full of fun colorful images, making it interesting to younger readers as well as a perfect gift to any pop culture or comics lover.

Malcom Gladwell is undoubtedly the best translator of social science research writing these days. 

What the Dog Saw is a compendium of New Yorker essays penned by Gladwell, several of which have a direct link to managing people. Two of my favorites are “Late Bloomers” – an essay on the fallacy of inherent talent, and “Most Likely to Succeed”.

These essays say a lot about employee selection and development, challenging the assumptions held by too many managers that good staff are born, not made, and that selecting top talent is the key to competitive advantage. Gladwell goes with the evidence, but does so in a super-engaging manner. 

It’s hard for me to overstate the importance this book played in my understanding of college-aged American adolescents. I loved the clarity, organization, and simplicity of the writing here. Bringing in time-tested wisdom from philosophers, ancient faith systems, and cross-cultural perspectives gave me the sense that I was reading about principles and values that will endure far beyond our fleeting cultural moments.

I loved the contrast of wise maxims against trendy and misleading slogans that create a more brittle and distressed generation of young adults. I loved the mix of psychological research, historical anecdotes, and individual college students’ stories, all profiled seamlessly in the book. The sections that look back at historical forces that led to the helicopter and then bulldozer parenting were particularly fascinating.

I love that this book takes a compassionate look at the difficulty of Gen Z without being too harsh or alienating the young adults who… show more.

Even though it may be an exploration of modern Russia, this is a book that I enjoyed immensely as it gave me pause to reflect on the troubles and challenges that my own home country faces.

His lyrical and incisive writing captures the absurdity and unpredictability of life in Russia by presenting it through an eye-opening story exploring the impact of state-controlled media's manipulation of reality. It is simultaneously a fascinating and chilling read, which I highly recommend.

Ziad Fahmy’s book on the importance of popular culture in the history of modern Egypt and the anti-British revolution of 1919 was a real landmark. Bringing together songs, jokes, vaudeville plays, and more, he manages to draw out a story of Egyptian anti-colonial, nationalism that is not confined to elite circles or confined by bourgeois morality. This is history from the streets. Although it is an academic book, it is written with an engaging style that captures some of the excitement of this period. Published in 2011, Fahmy’s book opened up space for research and writing on the history of Arabic pop culture.