This month's feature: Ayn Rand: "Atlas Shrugged" available from Amazon.com |
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Click on the title links to order the book at Amazon.com in the U.S.A.
or click on (Amazon.de)
to order the book at Amazon.de in Europe
or click on (Amazon.fr)
to order the book at Amazon.fr in France.
(Eventhough Amazon.de does not yet carry all US books available at Amazon.com,
I always added the corresponding link to Amazon.de for the case
that they will become available later.)
After you clicked at a direct link from this page which will take you
to Amazon, please come back to this page if you intend to check
out more books. Please use the direct links provided here
to purchase any book at Amazon. Thank you!
Jean-Francois Revel: "Democracy against itself", Free Press, Macmillan, New York, 1993. ISBN 0-02-926387-5. Translated by Roger Kaplan from the French edition (1992). Includes index. (Amazon.de) - (Amazon.fr).
Illuminating facts about democracy, history and post-communism. Some
quotes: "...taking for granted an imaginated future" (p10), "....there was never
anything democratic about communist regimes."(p23), "The more state, the less
law... 'democratorship.'"(p25), "Communism cannot be reformed; it can only be
replaced by something else."(p27), "Politics is not a deductive science"(p40),
"...to be a revolutionary is always to be a totalitarian...anarchy leads to
despotism... despotism leads to anarchy..."(p40).
Anthony de Jasay: "Against Politics -- on government, anarchy, and order", Routledge, 1997.
Quote: "Nine-tenths of practical politics is the making
of nonunanimous decisions by some, which hurt others", p71.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
José Ortega y Gasset: "The Revolt of the Masses"
(translated to English from the Spanish original Le Rebelión de las Masas), 1930, reissued 1993.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Quote from chapter 1 of The Revolt of the Masses:
"One important fact is the accession of the masses to complete social power.
As the masses, by definition, neither should nor can direct their own personal
existence, and still less rule society in general, this fact means that actually Europe is suffering from
the greatest crisis that afflict peoples, nations, and civilisation."
Milton Friedman: "Capitalism and Freedom". University of Chicago Press, Chicago and
London, 1962. 202 pages.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Winner of Nobel Price in Economics.
This book is about the relation between economic and political freedom,
the problems associated with centralised governments,
their control of money, fiscal policy, government controlled
education, monopolies, redistribution of income, social welfare,
and last but not least about alleviation of poverty.
Ayn Rand: For the New Intellectual, Signet (non-fiction), Penguin Books, New York, 1961. 192 pages, (Amazon.de) - (Amazon.fr), with excerpts of her other famous, bestseller books:
In this book Ayn Rand explains her philosophy of Objectivism. Here is a more detailed description of Ayn Rand's other books.
If you want to learn more about Russia, then read the new book entitled Russland in Aufruhr. Innenansichten aus einem rechtlosen Reich, Piper Verlag, 1993, (Amazon.de) - (Amazon.fr), written in German by Christian Schmidt-Häuer, living in Moscow and working for the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. The book is really up-to-date (Jun-1993).
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Frederic Bastiat: "The Law" , The Foundation for Economic Education,
Irvington-on-Hudson, NY, 10533 (USA), 1950 (18th printing 1994),
(Amazon.de)
(This edition might be out-of-print.)
This booklet (76 pages) was first published more than a hundred years ago
in 1850! And
it will still be read, when another century has passed. Really fundamental.
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Rose Wilder Lane: "Discovery of Freedom", 1943, reprinted by Fox & Wilkes, San Francisco, USA, 1993. ISBN 0-930073-00-2 or 0405004257, (Amazon.de) - (Amazon.fr).
A quote from Gramma Rose's book, selected by the editor of The ModulaTor, because of it's still reality in Europe, even 50 years after publication: "imagine that the currency changes at every State line, ... and that at any moment a Government decree may change the value of either kind... Go on imagining; you can not equal the European reality... Too much energy is subtracted from productive energy.", page 66).
How
I found Freedom in an unfree world - A handbook for personal liberty,
by Harry Brown, 1997 edition.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Quote from the book's cover: Freedom is living your own life
as you want to live it. You can have that freedom now,
without waiting to change the world or the people around you.
Harry Brown shows how to minimize the government's intrusions
in your life, how to reduce the demands others make upon your time
and resources and how to deal with people who call you
selfish when you don't give them what they selfishly want.
Most of all, he shows that you don't have to convince others
to let you be free. The decisions are entirely yours.
He explains how to make plans and set goals
that rely on your actions - that don't depend on others for their success.
Economics
in one Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt, 1978.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
In the best tradition of Frederic Bastiat, this book begins with
a broken window to explain an elementary fallacy,
why destruction does not improve the economy.
He shows how the price system works and what's wrong with tariffs,
minimum wages, unions, and government price fixing.
Hidden Order - How adaption builds complexity, by John Holland, 1995.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Quote from Murray Gell-Mann's comment on the book's cover:
... [John Holland] explains in a clear and entertaining manner
important properties of composite complex adaptive systems,
especially those based on computers. Along the way, he
provides invaluable insights into economics, ecology, biological evolution,
and thinking.
The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, 1976.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Quote from the cover notes:
The world of the selfish gene is one of savage competition,
ruthless exploitation, and deceit.
Dawkins shows that the
selfish gene is also a subtle gene. And he holds out the hope that our species
-alone on earth- has the power to rebel against the designs of the
selfish gene. This book is a call to arms. It is both
manual and manifesto, and it grips like a thriller.
Quote from the endnotes of chapter 11: We, that is our brains, are separate and independent
enough from our genes to rebel against them.
As already noted, we do so in a small way every time
we use contraception. There is no reason why we should not rebel
in a large way, too.
Complexity
by M. Mitchell Waldrop, Touchstone Book, 1992.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
In a world where nice guys often finish last, why do humans value trust and
cooperation? The science of complexity studies how single elements, such as
species, spontaneously organize into complicated structures like ecosystems
and economies, almost as if these systems were obeying a hidden yearning for
order. Mitchell Waldrop's groundbeaking, non-fiction bestseller takes the
readers into the hearts and minds of the scientists working at a think tank
called the Santa Fe Institute, to tell the story behind their
revolutionary discoveries.
Tom Peters: "Thriving on Chaos".
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Freely quoted:
"Nonresponsiveness is an especially virulent form of corruption [in todays public service].", p502 (ed. 1989)
The Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America
Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham
How To Think Like Benjamin Graham and Invest Like Warren Buffett
by Lawrence A. Cunningham
The Motley Fool Investment Guide
The Education of a Speculator, by Victor Niederhofer
More Personal Finance books
"The Sovereign Individual -- Mastering the transistion to the information age", by
James Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
This book is about economy, political philosophy, investing, technology, "microprocessing",
and megapolitics, with special considerations of human history.
The authors explain why they think that the contemporary human society will
itself transform into an information society much quicker and more violent than
the transition from hunting-and-gathering to farming happened.
Quote (page 15): "The death of Communism is merely the most striking
example. As we explore in detail, the collapse of morality and growing
corruption among leaders of Western governments are not random developments.
They are evidence that potential of the nation-state is exhausted."
Out of control (The new biology of
machines, social systems and the economic world), by
Kevin Kelly (executive editor of WIRED): Addison Wesley, Reading MA
(USA), 1994.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
A quote from Kevin's book: "Encryption always wins" (in chapter E-Money, p209).
The Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling, 1994.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Here is what the author writes in the preface of his book:
If you're a computer cop, a hacker, or an electronic civil liberties activist, you are the target audience for this book. I wrote this book because I wanted to help you, and help other people understand you and your unique, uhm, problems. I wrote this book to aid your activities, and to contribute to the public discussion of important political issues. In giving the text away in this fashion, I am directly contributing to the book's ultimate aim: to help civilize cyberspace.
Information wants to be free. And the information inside this
book longs for freedom with a peculiar intensity. I genuinely believe that
the natural habitat of this book is inside an electronic network. That may
not be the easiest direct method to generate revenue for the book's author,
but that doesn't matter; this is where this book belongs by its nature. I've
written other books -- plenty of other books -- and I'll write more and I am
writing more, but this one is special.
Ayn Rand: "Atlas Shrugged", Signet, Penguin Books, New York, 1957;
this is the latest edition with hardcover.
German translation of Atlas Shrugged: "Wer ist John Galt?", Gesellschaft für Erfahrungswissenschaft und Sozialforschung (GEWIS), Oct-1997. This book can be ordered at (Amazon.de)) - and maybe also at (Amazon.fr)) - (Amazon.com)).
Ayn Rand: "We the Living", 1936; 50th annviversary edition, 1996,
hardcover edition
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr)
or
paperback,
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Even after all major countries of Europe got socialist governments in 1998,
it is not too late to think about the implied consequences
for the society and their effects to the quality of life and morality.
Reading about politics is tiresome, except when written by the Russian
Radical: Ayn Rand grew up in Russia, emmigrated to America in 1926
and started this book, her debut, in 1930, when she was only twenty-five.
This fascinating fiction portrays Kira, Leo, and Andrei,
who demand the right to live their own lives and pursue their own happiness.
It tells of Kira's passionate love, held like a fortress
against the corrupting evil of a totalitarian state.
While not a story of politics,
the theme of this classic novel is the struggle of the individual
against the state, showing what the theory of socialism means in practice.
Ayn Rand's "We the Living" est aussi disponible en francais:
"Nous les vivants", roman. Tres triste; l'individu contre l'état,
les valeurs de la vie et contre l'état totalitarian, qui demande à l'individu de se sacrificer.
Ayn Rand: "The Fountainhead", 1943, 60th annviversary edition, 1993,
hardcover edition
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr)
or
paperback,
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Having read "We the Living" non-stop, you'll eagerly want
to continue reading Ayn Rand's second classic fiction.
The Fountainhead is about a young architect, his violent battle
against conventional standards, and his explosive love
with a beautifull woman who struggles to defeat him.
A story about a hero and about those who try to destroy him.
Eventhough this book has 704 pages, you'll struggle against reading
too fast, in order to avoid arriving at the end,
when she leaves you alone in her philosophical space called Objectivism.
|
Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" ist auch in deutsch erhältlich:
Der Ursprung (Der ewige Quell)
Dieses Buch aendert Ihre Sicht des Lebens, da Ayn Rand Ihnen erklaert, wie der Kollektivismus den Charakter der Menschen aendert. (Der Kollektivismus ist identisch mit Sozialismus und Kommunismus - es sind nur unterschiedliche Phasen der Entwicklung in der selben Ideologie; siehe dazu auch Jean-Francois Revel.) |
Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" est aussi disponible en francais: La source vive, roman
Ce livre changera votre facon de voir la vie, car Ayn Rand vous expliquera comment le collectivisme change l'ame et caractère des hommes. (Le collectivisme est la meme chose comme le socialisme et le communisme, que dans un autre stage de development dans la même ideologie; voir Jean-Francois Revel.) |
Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness (non-fiction)
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr)
- disponible aussi en francais:
"La vertu d'égoïsme"
The
Silicon Man by Charles Platt, Tafford Publishing, Houstan, Texas,
USA, 1993.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Lew Platt, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, wrote this fascinating, futuristic fiction
for "stubborn idealists in biology and computer science, searching
even now for ways to free us from the injustice of mortality."
This book is about hackers and the near future in cyberspace.
A person finds himself inside of a computer being manipulated from the outside.
Life can be eternal but death can be as instant as a power failure
or system crash. This computerized reality, populated with
"infomorphs", is described with unprecedented realism.
There are three mysterious science fiction books written by Robert A. Heinlein
(1) The Puppet Master,
about alien invaders, who did not get stopped by shooting fast,
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
(2) Double Star,
about the impersonation of a key statesman, who mysteriously disappeared,
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr) and
(3) The Door into Summer.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
Dream your troubles away. Someone cares
to invest your assets and you'd wake up rich in the future.
Yet it wasn't money that motivated Dan Davis, an electronics wizard;
it was the idea of coming back in 30 years, still young and strong,
to confront his old and wrinkled ex-lover, who
betrayed him with the partner he'd trusted. But the best-laid plans...
We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924(!), first published in
Russia only in 1988, translated by Clarencer Brown into English,
Penguin book, 1993.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
George Orwell acknowledged
his debt to Zamyatin, giving him the inspiration for his famous story "1984".
We
describes life under the regimented totalitarian society of OneState,
ruled over by the all-powerfull "Benefactor".
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
We
is the archetype of the modern dystopia or anti-Utopia:
a great prose poem detailing the fate that might befall us
all if we surrender our individual selves to some collective
dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price
for freedom.
(Amazon.de) -
(Amazon.fr).
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