Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Books (Page 20 of 22)

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.

the caves of steel

The Caves of Steel

September 16, 2019 /

Isaac Asimov published his science fiction detective novel The Caves of Steel in 1954. One of the detectives was a robot. That’s the twist. Lots of sci-fi fans know Asimov for his robot stories, and Asimov invented the word ‘robotics‘. The Caves of Steel became Asimov’s best-selling book to that point in his career. Asimov followed up with the Robot Series: The Naked Sun (1957), The Robots of Dawn (1983), and Robots and Empire (1985).

But that’s just the history. It’s not what this post is about. The Caves of Steel is less a detective story, or a robot story, than a sociological story. Let’s talk about that.

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the pleasures and sorrows of work

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

August 5, 2019 /

About ten years ago, Alain de Botton wrote a book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. It’s a perfectly fine book, not a great book. From the great tradition of writing about working, I far prefer the live interviews of Studs Terkel. And so, I’d greatly recommend his book Working.

But there’s something I do find admirable about de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Especially insofar as it says something about working in a corporate office.

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The Socialist Manifesto

June 10, 2019 /

socialist manifesto

Jacobin founding editor Bhaskar Sunkara recently published his first book, The Socialist Manifesto.

He’s trying to do a lot with the book. But here’s the main goal as I see it. Sunkara wants to distinguish between social democracy and socialism. He draws this distinction primarily in terms of the political methods people use in their pursuit. And he argues that the best political vision for our times is one that helps us move from the former to the latter. He does this via a historical project, covering everything from the feudalist roots of capitalism to German and Swedish social democracy to the Soviet Union and China to the history of leftism in the United States. Again, quite a project.

I’ll lay out some of Sunkara’s key arguments in The Socialist Manifesto. And I’ll offer some agreement and criticism along the way.

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