this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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Recently the only news about politics I don't find disgusting is done by political scientists. You you recommend a book on the topic for beginners?
A book about current events or a book about the study of politics? OP indicated they were political theory focused, so a lot of the theory was written by old dead guys; not exactly news about current events.
About the study of politics, like Plato, etc, but all in one for beginners
Plato has basically nothing to do with modern politics.
You're going to laugh, but I'm absolutely serious here: if your objective is to understand modern politics, I would start with The Prince and the Communist Manifesto.
Both of these are short, written by extremely influential figures, written for non-academic audiences, and have some amount of relevancy to current political operations. They absolutely do not explain modern politics, but they are important foundational texts. Spend 20 hours on the manifesto; 2 hours to read and 18 hours of commentary and related topics. Avoid going deeper into the communist rabbit holes. stop there. Spend 30 hours on the prince; look for college level lectures. You can spend more than 30 if you like, but don't go for the self help guru dipshits, obviously.
Just keep in mind the target audences and the potential bias the two authors bring to the table.
After those two, I want you to read On Liberty and read up on John Locke's social contract theory. Those four works will get you a lot of milage.
I've read a good part of Communist manifesto and found it interesting. The fascist Manifesto is very similar to it. I found very weird that communists are against fascists, given that their manifestos are so similar.
Depends on what you're wanting to focus on, but a great start would be Rules for Rulers by Arnold Meltsner, Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner, CIA: legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins are some that I started early.
CGP Grey did a great job synthesizing Rules for Rulers on YouTube as well.
Also a big think video Why Sociopaths Rise to Power
Also Veritasium has a great video on game theory
Hope that helps!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
CGP Grey did a great job synthesizing Rules for Rulers on YouTube as well.
Why Sociopaths Rise to Power
Veritasium has a great video on game theory
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Economic hit man I read already and it's good. Another nice one that I've read was "Silk roads" from Peter Frankopan