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Read these
This shelf is not so much about theory as it is about the thrill
of reading. |
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Before the dawn: recovering the lost ancestry of
our ancestors - and Descent of Man.
Nicholas Wade, a science journalist, took the time
to piece together the recent genetic evidence about the human past, starting
when our Homo sapiens forefathers left Africa - in one band, according to
genetic evidence. He makes use of all kinds of genetic data, among others
the information about paternal descent that can be found in Y genes and that
of maternal lines of descent that can be learned from mitochondrial DNA. He
combines it with all other data on our past that he could find and created a
book that I read evening by evening and wished I had written myself. Wade
begins each chapter with a passage from Charles Darwin's 'Descent of Man',
which I happened to have read last Christmas. Indeed, Wade's book read to me
like an extension of Darwin's book updated with genetic and linguistic
knowledge, and written in an easy-flowing contemporary style. If you read
the new 3rd edition of Cultures and Organizations (spring 2010) and like my
chapter 12, follow it up with these two books: Darwin's Descent of Man
(1874; also Penguin classics 2004), and Wade's Before the dawn (Penguin
2006). |
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l'élégance du hérisson (The elegance of the
hedgehog)
In France, society is still very much divided into
classes. French author Muriel Barbery, born in Casablanca in Morocco, wrote
this pearl of a story about a widow who is the concierge of a rich people's
apartment building in a chic quarter of Paris. She is highly smart and
cultured but tries to hide it so that she will not be shown to live beyond
her class. A (very French) preoccupation with correct grammar, and with
philosophizing, gives her secret pride. This
is how hierarchy looks from below. But a Japanese stranger, and a
razor-sharp twelve-year old girl, bring changes...
The book brought its shy author immense success,
enabling her to move to Japan where she lives a life as secretive as that of
her heroines. I personally liked the biological view on human life that the
heroines take. But most of all it is just a very intense, wise, beautiful
story. |
Samarcande (Samarkand)
This wonderful little book is by Amin Maalouf, a
Lebanese author who lives in Paris. He knows both the Muslim and the
Christian world, and he is not only a good historian but also an
accomplished novelist. This story is about Omar Khayyam, great poet and
mathematician who lived in Persia in the eleventh century, when Islam had
recently become a world religion. It is also about the late nineteenth
century, when Khayyam's amazing poems were rediscovered. Through the eyes of
an American citizen travelling through Persia and getting emmeshed in
trouble, the double story depicts life in a part of the world where
convictions and group membership are worth dying for. It is also about the
Titanic, and about love. I was enthralled by the book and it taught me a
great deal about Persian history too. Maalouf wrote it in 1988 but it is
just as relevant today. I read it in the original: French, and if you master
that language, go for the original. Or read his other story, Léon
l'Africain (Leo Africanus), a historical narrative set in the
Mediterranean in the times of the reconquista, about the
extraordinary life of Granada-born Hassan, later to become pope Leo's
adopted son. |
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The Floating Brothel
By Siân Rees. Anonymous, large cities are a recent phenomenon in
human history. In London around 1790, the city overflowed with poor people
who slept in cheap boarding houses and robbed one another for want of a
better means of living. The solution: transportation to "Parts Beyond the
Sea". With the USA independent, these parts were now Australia. But one
cannot keep sending only men. This is the story of a ship full of women sent
to Australia - pioneers of Australian culture. It's all true, and it's only
a few generations ago. |
Our Inner Ape
Frans de Waal
is a biologist who has spent thirty years studying the behaviour of great
apes, most of the time in the USA. Over the years he has written about
politics, male and female bonding, empathy, violence and reconciliation in
all great apes. In Our Inner Ape
(2005) he compares humans to our closest evolutionary relatives: chimpanzees
and bonobos. De Waal speaks to a U.S. audience, defending the idea that we
are not intrinsically depraved, but that we have both the violent and the
peaceful streaks of our relatives. I think he is entirely right in supposing
that we are still apes inside. Our empathy and our strong sense of quid
pro quo are apish. Every person who wishes to understand more about
power, fights, and settling disputes should read this and take it very
seriously. Says de Waal: "I think our societies probably work best if they
mimic as closely as possible the small-scale communities of our ancestors". |
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The English
Jeremy Paxman, famous BBC anchorman, sets out to
find out who the English are. He uses a lot of historical evidence and he
also includes recent developments. Circumstances have changed vastly, but
there is a constant cultural backdrop. Did you know that as late as 1884,
English men still publicly sold wives? Very well written and Paxman is no
fool. He compares between European cultures, e.g. (p. 251): "...while mass
protests are an accepted, expected part of the political process in France,
in England, street insurrection is less often to do with politics and
more to do with an innate readiness to trade punches." But I cannot keep
quoting - read it if you wish to learn more about the English (Penguin,
1998).
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The Kite Runner
This is a wonderful story by Afghan-born
Khaled
Hosseini. He is a medical doctor in
California, and this is his first novel. If you wonder about cultural
differences, are from the Anglo world, and would like to live a
collectivist, hierarchical, uncertainty avoiding, short-term oriented
culture from within, this is a chance. But above all it is a heartbreakingly
beautiful book about many things, among others guilt and redemption.
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