Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
These are posts about books from the blog Base and Superstructure. Occasionally I’ll read a book worth talking about, and write some thoughts on it. These cover a wide range of topics from the blog.
And so, we have the third reading list of 2022! We’re at that point where spring might be coming, but we’re not sure. Do we catch up on the end of those winter readings? Or do we move along to something a bit warmer and sunnier?
I think I did a bit of both here. Continue on to see what I’ve been reading lately. I’ve even thrown in a couple of TV shows as a bonus! And let me know what you’re reading!
This rather weighty tome from David Graeber and David Wengrow – The Dawn of Everything – got lots of attention upon its late 2021 release. I’ll call them the Davids. Some of the attention arrived due to the untimely death of David Graeber. He brought us a number of modern anarchist-leaning leftist classics. Topics range from ‘bullshit jobs’ to rules and debt.
But this book also arrived in a timely way. Insofar as the public hears grand historical narratives, they come from sources like Jared Diamond or Steven Pinker. Diamond and Pinker present a certain ‘standard narrative’ of history. For them, history proceeds in stages: from simplicity to complexity, from agriculture to industry, from ‘primitive stateless society’ to empire, and so on.
The Davids question all this in The Dawn of Everything. And they do some other things. Let’s see how it works out for them.
Welcome to the second reading list post of 2022! While this is still mostly a ‘reading list,’ I’ll also be including some TV shows and movies in the upcoming months. This month features four books and one movie. Read on below for the list, and let me know what you’ve been reading (or watching) lately!
I’m a sci-fi fan, in general, and an Isaac Asimov fan, in particular. I’ve written about him before, both for the good and the bad. Since there’s a TV show out on his Foundation Series, I wanted to re-read some of the Foundation books.
While reading Prelude to Foundation, a brief chapter on a character named Davan captured my interest. I’ll call him Davan the Communist. He collects some themes of organizing on the left.
Welcome to the first reading post of the new year! Follow along for some of the things I’ve been reading lately. Hopefully you find something of interest, and let me know what you’ve been reading lately!
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