Here are 100 books that The Three Languages of Politics fans have personally recommended if you like
The Three Languages of Politics.
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I’m a Penn State professor of sociology and demography who is interested in social inequality, demography, and public opinion. My family moved frequently when I was growing up—I lived in Colombia, Greece, and Mexico. I attended Brown University and worked at the U.S. Census Bureau as an analyst and Branch Chief for several years before returning to academia. My interest in inequality dates back to living in different countries with different cultures, politics, and standards of living. While I have long been interested in the demographics of poverty and inequality, in more recent years I’ve become interested in political polarization and why people disagree about a variety of social issues.
Pinker challenges the widely held belief that human beings are born as blank slates, shaped solely by their environment and experiences.
As a cognitive psychologist, he makes this case with a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence on evolutionary psychological adaptations. I especially appreciate how Pinker conveys a lot of complicated information so plainly. He argues that the belief in the “blank slate” has often led to misguided policies, such as in education and the criminal justice system.
A brilliant inquiry into the origins of human nature from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now.
"Sweeping, erudite, sharply argued, and fun to read..also highly persuasive." --Time
Updated with a new afterword
One of the world's leading experts on language and the mind explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits-a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century-denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses…
A philosophy professor, my central interest has always been something historical: what is going on in this strange modern world we live in? Addressing this required forty years of background work in the natural sciences, history, social sciences, and the variety of contemporary philosophical theories that try to put them all together. In the process, I taught philosophy courses on philosophical topics, social theory, and the sciences, wrote books, and produced video courses, mostly focused on that central interest. The books listed are some of my favorites to read and to teach. They are crucial steps on the journey to understand who we are in this unprecedented modern world.
Best recent book examining human morality from a scientific, psychological point of view.
Darwinians used to think humans had to be selfish and immoral. Contemporary evolution argues the opposite, that humans evolved moral limits on our selfishness in order to live together. Haidt’s is the best book presenting this new evolutionary psychology.
But it goes further to connect those scientific issues with contemporary politics, explaining why people from “red” and “blue” states cannot understand each other: they each embody a short list of human moral values, but different ones. This is a great book for thinking carefully about human morality and contemporary politics. Students love it, and so do I.
'A landmark contribution to humanity's understanding of itself' The New York Times
Why can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a different moral universe? Why do ideas such as 'fairness' and 'freedom' mean such different things to different people? Why is it so hard to see things from another viewpoint? Why do we come to blows over politics and religion?
Jonathan Haidt reveals that we often find it hard to get along because our minds are hardwired to be moralistic, judgemental and self-righteous. He explores how morality evolved to enable us to form communities, and…
I’m a Penn State professor of sociology and demography who is interested in social inequality, demography, and public opinion. My family moved frequently when I was growing up—I lived in Colombia, Greece, and Mexico. I attended Brown University and worked at the U.S. Census Bureau as an analyst and Branch Chief for several years before returning to academia. My interest in inequality dates back to living in different countries with different cultures, politics, and standards of living. While I have long been interested in the demographics of poverty and inequality, in more recent years I’ve become interested in political polarization and why people disagree about a variety of social issues.
Liberals and conservatives strongly disagree on the appropriate scope of government. No book has helped me understand why more than Thomas Sowell’s Conflict of Visions.
He describes how the ideological difference results from disagreements about the malleability of human nature. The unconstrained vision, typically associated with liberals, sees human nature as altruistic and perfectible. The government should be used expansively to promote social justice and equality to realize this vision.
In contrast, the constrained vision, typically associated with conservatives, sees human nature as limited, selfish, and imperfectible. The government should play a limited role in society, as elites cannot hope to restructure society without unintended destructive consequences.
In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the constrained" vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the unconstrained" vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. He describes how these two radically opposed views have manifested themselves in the political controversies of the past two centuries, including such contemporary issues as welfare reform, social justice, and crime. Updated to include sweeping political changes since its first publication in 1987, this revised edition of A Conflict of Visions offers a…
I’m a Penn State professor of sociology and demography who is interested in social inequality, demography, and public opinion. My family moved frequently when I was growing up—I lived in Colombia, Greece, and Mexico. I attended Brown University and worked at the U.S. Census Bureau as an analyst and Branch Chief for several years before returning to academia. My interest in inequality dates back to living in different countries with different cultures, politics, and standards of living. While I have long been interested in the demographics of poverty and inequality, in more recent years I’ve become interested in political polarization and why people disagree about a variety of social issues.
Have you wondered why there has been such a dramatic decline in trust in public institutions in recent years?
In The Revolt of the Public, Gurri argues that the rise of digital technology has allowed people to more easily share information and bypass traditional gatekeepers. Gone are the days from my own youth when most people relied on just a few established news sources. People today are more exposed to stories—either real or imagined—of corruption, incompetence, and misinformation from established institutions.
This has contributed to the rise of populism and political extremism, facilitated by social media where people can organize and coordinate their activities.
How insurgencies-enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere-have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.
In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world.
Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public…
I’ve been doing research on polarization for most of my career as an economist and have focused on affective polarization in US politics since 2015. As a behavioral economist, I’m interested in how false and biased beliefs contribute to affective polarization. As a microeconomist I’m also generally interested in economy—not “the economy,” but the efficient use of resources—and affective polarization leads to a lot of wasted time and resources. This happens in politics at all levels, and in relationships of all types—neighbors, colleagues, spouses, siblings—as we all know from experience. So, I’m hoping to try to understand this bias better and cut down on it where we can.
Preventing Polarization is, as the title implies, a guide for educators on how to reduce polarization in the next generation. So, it’s unlikely to lead to immediate progress with polarization—but who knows, maybe some adults in positions of power might take some lessons from it as well.
Anyway, I love the premise here as I do think that education is probably crucial for long-term progress with this difficult part of human nature. Just as we must teach our kids to be tolerant and kind toward those from different racial and religious backgrounds or are different from ourselves in any number of ways—we must teach our kids to not be excessively effective polarized!
Are you ready to break down conflict and build consensus on polarizing topics?
Ideally, education equips students to care about the world and helps them shape their futures. In an era that has become incredibly polarized, we can help our students learn how to come together despite differences.
Michelle Blanchet and Brian Deters show how all educators can equip our youth with skills to become active and engaged citizens. A one-off course on civics is not enough.
Preventing Polarization offers basic strategies that every teacher can use. You will create experiences to help students break down barriers through activities and…
I’ve been doing research on polarization for most of my career as an economist and have focused on affective polarization in US politics since 2015. As a behavioral economist, I’m interested in how false and biased beliefs contribute to affective polarization. As a microeconomist I’m also generally interested in economy—not “the economy,” but the efficient use of resources—and affective polarization leads to a lot of wasted time and resources. This happens in politics at all levels, and in relationships of all types—neighbors, colleagues, spouses, siblings—as we all know from experience. So, I’m hoping to try to understand this bias better and cut down on it where we can.
This book is quite different from the others on my list in that the author is a total outsider to politics: Elwood is a former professional poker player.
But it’s the book that resonates with me the most as it directly makes the case that affective polarization is bad for the country and is to a large extent misguided—and citizens across the spectrum should actively try to overcome and fight it. Elwood writes informally and engagingly while still referring to tons of academic research and tackling many thorny recent issues in detail.
If there was one book that I would ask my most polarized fellow Americans to read carefully this would probably be it. Poker champs tend to be astute observers of human psychology—think Annie Duke and Maria Konnikova—and Elwood maintains this tradition.
This is a book about our American divides by Zachary Elwood, host of the psychology podcast People Who Read People. Learn more about this book and its author at www.American-Anger.com.
"I can’t think of anyone I’ve seen who better practices what they preach, who better lives their ideals about depolarization. His book has an earnest, vulnerable, plainspoken style which parallels his speaking style in his podcast. He seems throughout to anticipate negative reactions from readers on both the left and the right..." - from a review by David Foster at KnowTheSystem.org
America is deeply divided. We don't just disagree on…
I am a scholar of African and African American literature with interests in the cultures, histories, and philosophies of Africa and the diaspora. Currently, I teach and research at Texas A&M University. The history of the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies are huge components of my current research; it is also the topic of my doctoral research which I completed in 2017 at The School of Oriental African Studies (SOAS), The University of London.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o is not just a celebrated writer, but a respected critic of African literature, known for his advocacy of African languages. In this book, wa Thiong'o provides an exploration of slavery’s effects on the historical, cultural, and literary lives of Africans. His focus is on the fragmentations that slavery created in African identities and how these play out in literature. The book advocates for a re-membering of fragments created by slavery. I think this book – and frankly any work by wa Thiong'o – is a necessary addition to the collection of any reader interested in African literature, particularly the legacy of slavery and colonialism in African writings.
Novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been a force in African literature for decades: Since the 1970s, when he gave up the English language to commit himself to writing in African languages, his foremost concern has been the critical importance of language to culture. In Something Torn and New , Ngugi explores Africa's historical, economic, and cultural fragmentation by slavery, colonialism, and globalization. Throughout this tragic history, a constant and irrepressible force was Europhonism: the replacement of native names, languages, and identities with European ones. The result was the dismemberment of African memory. Seeking to remember language in order to revitalize…
I’ll tell you a secret. I’m obsessed with money—not fast cars, designer labels, and McMansions, but the accumulation of capital: who has it, how they got it, and what lengths they’re willing to go to to keep it. So I’ve always loved novels about work. They cut right to the heart of a character’s true motivations, revealing what they’ll fight for and who they’ll love. Don’t show me what a person looks like, show me how they earn (or don’t earn) their living, and I’ll remember them forever.
Jess is a Black liberal from Nebraska starting her first post-college job at Goldman Sachs. Josh is her white, conservative coworker from Connecticut and former thorn in her side from undergrad.
Watching these two opposites attract during the Obama-Trump transition was the most fun I ever had (the banter is top-notch) and had me squirming with its hyper-realistic portrayal of America’s political polarization. Will Jess and Josh’s love survive, or will it suffer death by a thousand microaggressions? Everything’s Fine is a romance wrapped in an enigma.
For my psychology podcast, I’ve interviewed many political and psychology experts on the subject of political polarization and conflict resolution. That led to me writing my book Defusing American Anger. I believe extreme us-vs-them polarization is humanity’s biggest problem: I see it as an existential threat not just to specific nations, including America, but to humanity as a whole, especially as our weapons and technologies get more powerful. And I think we need more people working on reducing our seemingly natural tendency to always be fighting with each other.
This book is not about America, and not directly about politics or political polarization. It's a well-known conflict resolution book. I included it because I think it might help some people see our divides through a different and more healthy lens.
This book uses an engaging fictional premise to walk through some important points about resolving conflict. For example, it talks about how even when we're sure we're right in a conflict (as most people in conflicts tend to be), we may still be wrong in how we treat others. And it talks about how our animosity and contempt towards others can cause them to behave in the very ways that most upset us.
From the authors of Leadership and Self-Deception (over 2 million copies sold) comes a new edition of this bestseller that has been thoroughly revised to more effectively address the diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges that plague our communities and hinder our organizations.
What if conflicts at home, at work, and in the world stem from the same root cause? What if we systematically misunderstand that cause? And what if, as a result, we unwittingly perpetuate the very problems we think we are trying to solve?
The Anatomy of Peace uses a fictional story of an Arab and a Jew—both of…
I’m a professor of communication and political science who’s been researching and publishing on the effects of political media on democratic health for 25 years. More recently, I’ve been trying to understand the roots of inter-party hostility, the drop in trust in institutions, and the rise in Americans’ belief in breathtakingly false information. My hope is that through this selection of books, you’ll start to understand the synergistic dynamics between America’s complicated history with race, changes in America’s parties, media, and culture, and various social psychological processes, and maybe even start to see a way out of this mess.
I am a huge fan of people who can translate vast amounts of research findings in a way that’s engaging, accessible, and accurate. I’m also a fan of people who don’t waste our time by shying away from hard truths, like the fact that America’s polarization problem is largely about race or that our polarized politics get baked back into our institutions and make everything worse. Klein is a master at all of this.
When I read his book, I was deep in the academic literature about the psychology of misinformation beliefs. But his book made me zoom out to consider factors way upstream of misinformation beliefs (namely social identity), to start unpacking how these upstream factors are themselves shaped by our political and media institutions.
