_/ / some useful books :

_SOCIAL • ECONOMIC • POLITICAL • CULTURAL • MEDIA

• New Rulers of the World by John Pilger
One of the great tragedies of recent times is the death of quality journalism; so much of the press is given over to hype, scandal, trivia, or spin, so much of the press is owned and controlled by so few politically powerful magnates, there appears little room for investigative reporting or thorough analysis. There are a few, inspiring exceptions. John Pilger has an incisive writing style, a sharp focus, and apparently endless energy. For years, now, he has been castigating our political and economic masters, exposing the abuses of power and uses of corruption which dominate international relations and internal politics. In New Rulers of the World, Pilger shines his investigative light into areas the press is usually happy to abandon to darkness.

• Hidden Agenda's by John Pilger
Hidden Agenda's gathers together essays on a range of subjects including Burma, Fleet Street, East Timor, Vietnam today, the media, and UK politics, and this book is for anyone who is ever angry with the ways and workings of the society we live in and is so much more than a "fine piece of investigative journalism". Depression and frustration at events largely beyond one's control are hard to turn into direct action, but John Pilger holds the door to a more humane and democratic world firmly open. If more people read this book our society would change radically; it is not a question of whether you agree with none/some/all of the opinions Pilger expresses, the facts he has uncovered stare you directly in the face. Extensions of these hidden realities pervade all of our lives, no matter where on Earth the events that reveal them occur.

• Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman
Rejecting the common perception of the press as cantankerous, obstinate and ubiquitous in its search for truth, this book sets out to show that an underlying elite consensus largely structures all facets of the news. The authors dissect the way in which the marketplace and the economics of publishing shape the news, and how issues are framed and topics chosen. They contrast what they contend are double standards behind accounts of free elections, a free press and governmental repression between Nicaragua and El Salvador; between the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the American invasion of Vietnam; and between the genocide in Cambodia under a pro-American government and genocide under Pol Pot. The result is an account of the propagandist nature of the communications media, and of how they can be read, and their function interpreted, in a new way.

• Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update by Donella H. Meadows, et al
In 1972, The Limits to Growth shocked the world and forever changed the global agenda by demonstrating that unchecked growth on our finite planet was leading planet earth towards ecological 'overshoot' and pending disaster. Employing computer modeling and hard data the book went on to sell 13 million of copies and ignited a firestorm of controversy that burns hotter than ever in our days of soaring oil prices, wars for resources and human-induced climate change. This substantially revised, expanded and updated edition follows on from The Limits to Growth and its sequel Beyond the Limits, which raised the alarm that we have already over-shot the planet's carrying capacity. Marshaling a vast array of new data, more powerful computer modeling and incorporating the latest thinking on sustainability, ecological footprinting and limits, this new book presents future overshoot scenarios and makes an even more urgent case for a rapid readjustment of the global economy toward a sustainable path. This is compelling, essential and indeed necessary reading for all concerned with our common future.

• The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late by Thom Hartmann
An excellent introduction to the general reader who wishes to understand the problems we all now face on planet Earth. While everything appears to be collapsing around us -- eco-damage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, the end of cheap oil, water shortages, global famine, wars -- we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children’s children. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture’s blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem. Thom Hartmann’s comprehensive book, originally published in 1998, has become one of the fundamental handbooks of the environmental activist movement. Now, with fresh, updated material and a focus on political activism and its effect on corporate behavior, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight helps us understand--and heal--our relationship to the world, to each other, and to our natural resources.

• Free To Be Human: Intellectual Self-defense in an age of illusions by David Edwards
In Free to be Human, David Edwards shows how the mass media, controlled by powerful business interests, distort our understanding of many personal, ethical and spiritual issues, ensuring that we remain passive, conformist and uninformed - and willing to accept the irrational values of corporate consumerism. It is a powerful book that blows apart the myth that we are 'free' societies and brings a clarity and insight to the way we are manipulated by a captive media working to a self-policing paradigm. David Edwards implores us to join these two "wounds" of inner disillusionment and outward worldly suffering by asking the necessary compelling questions that are rooted in a real human relevance and to challenge our instinctive desire to avoid seeing uncomfortable truths when they threaten our short term escapism. The real secret of this book though is that by the end David Edwards has made a devastating case for looking beyond the illusionary comfort of this short term escapism and seeing instead the true happiness of a long term re-alignment to the business of our intrinsic humanity.

• Running On Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization by John Zerzan
A Hard-Hitting Collection of Essays from One of Today's Most Provocative Thinkers; John Zerzan is the most controversial political thinker of our time. Major newspapers in the US such as Time and Newsweek accuse him of being the chief ideologue behind today's revolutionary protests against technology and capitalist globalization. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have also called him the primary anarchist of our time. Though he is in his mid-50s, most of his supporters are quite young, like the Eugene Oregon anarchists whose turmoil put a halt to the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle. Running on Emptiness is a greatest hits volume of Zerzan's anti-technological essays including: Against Technology; Why I Hate Star Trek; Who is Chomsky? We All live in Waco; Whose Unabomber [ most of the essays contained within this book can be found on-line at www.insurgentdesire.org.uk ]

• Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism by Sharon Beder
This text reveals the sophisticated techniques being used around the world by powerful conservative forces to try to change the way the public and politicians think about the environment. The author show how large corporations are using their influence to reshape public opinion, to weaken gains made by environmentalists, and to turn politicians against increased environmental regulation. The corporations' techniques include employing specialized PR firms to set up front groups that promote the corporate agenda whilst posing as public-interest groups; creating "astroturf" - artificially created grassroots support for corporate causes; deterring public involvement by imposing SLAPPS (strategic lawsuits against public participation); getting corporate-based "environmental educational" materials into schools; and funding conservative think-tanks, which have persistently tried to cast doubt on the existence of environmental problems and to oppose stricter environmental regulations. In the media, corporate advertising and sponsorship are influencing news content, and industry-funded scientists are often treated as independent experts. This revised edition includes chapters about the business campaign to prevent action on global warming, and whether Greenpeace's ideals are being compromised by "greenwash".

• Radical Ecology: The search for a livable world by Caroline Merchant
Radical Ecology responds to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevails in this closing decade of the twentieth century. Carolyn Merchant examines the major philosophical, ethical, scientific and economic roots of environmental problems and identifies the ways in which radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life. Laws, regulations and scientific research alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore our dwindling resources. Merchant argues that in order to maintain a livable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific and spiritual approaches that will transform human relationships with nature. She analyses the revolutionary ideas of visionary ecologists, at the forefront of social change and assesses their efforts to bring environmental problems to the attention of the public.

• Ecopsychology - restoring the earth, healing the mind edited by Theodore Rozak
This book features writings from leading psychotherapists and eco-activists and brings together the fields of ecology and psychology to create a whole vision of health, which includes our relationship to the Earth, to our community and to ourselves. Western psychology has tended to focus on individual human growth as if we were separate both from one another and from the Earth.  In Ecopsychology, several contributors write about how they incorporate an awareness of close connections with the Earth, its natural rhythms and cycles, either within the individual psychotherapeutic relationship, or in wilderness experiences.

• The Way: An Ecological World-View  by Edward Goldsmith
In 'The Way: an ecological world view' one of the most informed and intellectually formidable minds of the environmental movement turns conventional thought on its head and demonstrates point by point how most of the fundamental mores and principles taken for granted by our modern society are fundamentally flawed and, as such, are leading us in the opposite direction of the healthy and happy life they promise. In contrast to this Edward Goldsmith calls for a revival of a way common to many societies prior to the industrial revolution and the influence of its reductionist world view. Although modern in its technical elucidation and method, The Way's carefully reasoned message is a call for a revival of most of what is rejected by our modern way of life. The Way is a call to instinct, intuition and aesthetics as much as to knowledge gathered by careful study and analysis. It is a call for the mythopoetic as much as for reason and sensory experience. Religion, art and myth figure prominently as means of interweaving our lives with the natural way. Emotion, faith, aliveness and natural creativity are all called upon as vital for the survival of the ancient, intelligent living processes that maintain our planet, our societies and our very selves. It calls upon the basic common sense that if one realizes one has made a serious mistake by turning the wrong way then it's not too late to turn back and recover the well trodden way once again. There is really no shame in rethinking the most fundamental assumptions of one's life, since now it has become a matter of general urgency. Yet such ways by their very nature cannot be imposed simplistically from on-high without ruining them. By and large these complex living processes require nurturing cooperatively from below, and this may prove to be the most uncomfortable challenge of all to our massively over-powered and rigidly controlled institutional structures.

• The Web of Life by Fritjoff Capra
In "Web of Life", Fritjof Capra presents his "new synthesis" of life - integrating his own exceptional vision with ideas from the works of such pre-eminent thinkers as Margulis, Lovelock, Maturana and Varela. The product of this ambitious endeavor is a truly remarkable, entertaining and most of all enlightening account of what life is, how it arose, and how it evolved and continues to evolve.

• The Global Brain Awakens: Our next evolutionary leap by Peter Russell
Presenting evidence that the Earth itself is a living being and every person upon it a cell in the planetary nervous system, Peter Russell combines scientific rationale with intuitive vision to show how technology is the catalyst for linking humanity into one planetary community.

_PSYCHOLOGY • SCIENCE • SELF-DEVELOPMENT • SPIRITUALITY

• Psychology of Happiness by Michael Argyle
What is happiness? Why are some people happier than others? This new edition of The Psychology of Happiness provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of research into the nature of happiness. Major research developments have occurred since publication of the first edition in 1987 - here they are brought together for the first time, often with surprising conclusions. Drawing on research from the disciplines of sociology, physiology and economics as well as psychology, Michael Argyle explores the nature of positive and negative emotions, and the psychological and cognitive processes involved in their generation. Accessible and wide-ranging coverage is provided on key issues such as: the measurement and study of happiness; the effect of friendship, marriage and other relationships on positive moods, happiness, mental and physical health; the effects of work, employment and leisure; and the effects of money, class and education. The importance of individual personality traits such as optimism, purpose in life, internal control and having the right kind of goals is also analyzed. New to this edition is additional material on national differences, the role of humor, money and the effect of religion. These are just some of the controversial questions addressed by the author along the way. Finally the book discusses the practical application of research in this area, such as how happiness can be enhanced, and the effects of happiness on health, altruism and sociability. This definitive and thought-provoking work will be compulsive reading for students, researchers and the interested general reader.

• Fear of Freedom by Eric Frommn
Erich Fromm sees right to the heart of our contradictory needs for community and for freedom like no other writer before or since. In Fear of Freedom, Fromm warns that the price of community is indeed high, and it is the individual who pays. Fascism and authoritarianism may seem like receding shadows for some, but are cruel realities for many. Erich Fromm leaves a valuable and original legacy to his readers - a vastly increased understanding of the human character in relation to society. At the beginning of the 21st century, it is more important than ever to be aware of his powerful message. Listen, and take heed.

• The Tao Of Physics by Fritjoff Capra
This is the book which is said to have turned the philosophy of scientific endeavors in academic communities on both sides of the Atlantic on its head. It is easy to see why. The first edition of this book appeared in 1975 - Quantum physics and Relativity theory were beginning to make more sense than earlier and finding favor with more and more young minds round that time. To be jolted with the idea of this "modern" science paralleling Eastern thought and mysticism was bound to have an impact. If you want to find how religion and eastern philosophy there tie in with modern science and the consequent "organic" world view - you would want to take a look at this book.

• Compassionate Revolution by David Edwards
This book provides a most readable and insightful critique of the present neo-liberal consensus. The author deals with the issues with intelligence and compassion. By bring together the insights of those such as Noam Chomsky, as well as those of Buddhist philosophy and psychology, compassion is felt not only for the victims of the present world order, but also for those responsible - for what state of mind must our rulers be in for them to feel indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow citizens? It's a refreshing change to see someone involved in radical politics to acknowledge that it is hatred and ignorance others' suffering that is the root of today's problems, for all too often, even the most sincere radicals have accepted hatred and suffering so long as it is directed towards their enemies. The result being that the cycle of suffering is maintained, no progress is made and even the most delicious dreams of how society could be like, turns sour.

• Way Of Zen by Alan Watts
"The Way of Zen" traces the origins of this non-religion/philosophy/ideology from ancient China and India, to its uptake in the rest of Asia (notably Japan). There's even a few chapters on Zen in the Arts, discussing the idea of haiku and how it aspires to be Zen-in-motion. Watts is lucid in his approach, and always takes the time to explain even the most perplexing concepts.

• Mindfulness Meditation by Jon Kabbat-Zinn
To Jon Kabat-Zinn, meditation is important because it brings about a state of "mindfulness," a condition of "being" rather than "doing" during which you pay attention to the moment rather than the past, the future, or the multitudinous distractions of modern life. In brief, rather poetic chapters, he describes different meditative practices and what they can do for the practitioner. The idea that meditation is "spiritual" is often confusing to people, Kabat-Zinn writes; he prefers to think of it as what you might call a workout for your consciousness. This book makes learning meditation remarkably easy (although practicing it is not). But it also makes it seem infinitely appealing.

• Hatha Yoga: The Yogi Philosophy Of Physical Well-Being by Yogi Ramacharaka
An excellent little book that attempts to demystify the Yogi practices. In very easy to understand terms it explains how Yogis achieve health and happiness. It starts at a basic level and, refreshingly, stays there making it an excellent read throughout. The book provides a detailed focus on healthy living, proper diet and hygiene, correct breathing and posture in daily life, etc. Some basic exercises and rules for relaxation are also taught, but nothing too advanced or complicated, so that everyone can do them. [ An on-line version of the book can be found at http://www.geocities.com/thehiddengate/Library/Yogi_R/hatha_yoga_toc.html ]

• Sacred Scriptures by Timothy Freke
Timothy Freke has pulled together a collection of spiritual writings and art organized into ten chapters. Each chapter includes, side by side, various religious writings dealing with such subjects as: The Supreme Being, The Self, and Fate and Free Will. If you are on a spiritual path uniquely your own, you will love this book. If you are a member a religion or tradition which believes that it alone is the path to 'salvation' or spiritual truth, then read this with an open heart and mind. It illustrates the fallacy and limitation of dogmatism and the beauty of the spiritual truth in all.