In choosing books for this list I considered the importance of the information contained in them, the quality of the evidence the authors use to make their case, and how easy they were for me to read and understand and enjoy. I feel that my understanding of today’s world was improved a great deal as a result of reading each of the books that I describe in this post. They are discussed here in alphabetical order.


Chasing the Flame – Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World – by Samantha Power

This book describes the life and career of the Brazilian native, Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose career at the United Nations spanned 34 years, from 1969 until his untimely death in Iraq in 2003. Through much of his UN career, Vieira de Mello was considered to be a potential future Secretary-General. He might have eventually attained that post had he not died in a suicide bomber attack on his barely fortified UN Headquarters building in Baghdad in 2003.

Throughout his whole career, Vieira de Mello was steadfastly dedicated to the cause of peace, achieved through the application of international law, and much of that career was spent in peacekeeping missions. Some of his most important missions included: Senior political advisor to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (1981-1983); United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees’ special envoy for Cambodia (1991-1993); top UN official in Bosnia as part of the United Nations Protection Force (1993-1994); UN humanitarian coordinator for the Great Lakes region of Africa, in which he dealt with the Rwandan Hutu refugee problem (1996); Interim Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Kosovo (1999); Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UN transitional administrator in East Timor (1999-2002); Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Iraq (2003).

It should be clear from this resume that Vieira de Mello had as much or more first hand experience in dealing with genocidal killers as anyone on earth. In 1974 he earned a doctorate degree in philosophy, and he spent much of his career thinking about the philosophical and practical issues involved in attempting to attain peace. It became evident to him while on his Cambodia assignment that the values of peace and human rights often clashed with each other. The Khmer Rouge had been guilty of genocide on a large scale. Giving them a “seat at the table” sent the wrong message with respect to the issue of human rights. Yet, in the interest of peace, Vieira de Mello had to work with them intimately in order to solve the refugee problem.

But unlike various national leaders who have cozied up to repressive or genocidal regimes, Vieira de Mello’s work with them was not based on self-interest. In fact, he put his life in severe jeopardy by going to meet with them in person, unarmed and undefended, in circumstances that few national leaders would ever have considered exposing themselves to.

In Iraq, Vieira de Mello was outspoken about his opposition to the U.S. occupation. His death was quite unnecessary. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under L. Paul Bremer failed to provide anything but minimal security for UN Headquarters in Baghdad. On August 19, 2003, when Vieira de Mello was trapped in the rubble of the destroyed building, bleeding to death, the CPA rescue effort was virtually non-existent. They were much more interested in keeping people, including potential rescuers, away from the scene of the bombing than they were in rescuing the victims of the attack. It was just like everything else the Bush administration has done in Iraq.


The Dark Side -- The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals – by Jane Mayer

Of the many crimes of the Bush administration, none terrifies me more than how it treats its prisoners – Kidnapping them all over the world, throwing them into dungeons and labeling them as “illegal enemy combatants” with almost no concern for determining their guilt or innocence, keeping them there indefinitely with no opportunity to challenge their detention, stripping them of all human rights, and repeatedly torturing them. Hitler and Stalin come to mind.

I have often asked myself why the Bush administration feels the need to do this. Mayer’s book answers many questions surrounding that issue. Here are just two examples:

Why strip our prisoners of all legal and human rights?
The case of John Walker Lindh answers this question. Lindh was an American citizen who converted to Islam as a young man. As a Muslim, he felt it his duty to go to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban – at a time when the Taliban was considered an ally of our country. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Lindh turned himself in to the U.S. Army.

He was the first prosecution of our “War on Terror”. While in U.S. custody awaiting trial, Lindh was denied access to an attorney and consistently treated inhumanely, bordering or crossing the line into torture. Because of all the procedural misconduct, the Bush administration was unable to pursue the most serious charge against him, and it was embarrassed when his treatment became public. Mayer describes the lesson that the Bush administration learned from its first prosecution of its “War on Terror”:


Why all the torture?
One major clue to the purpose of the Bush detention and torture program is its use of a program called SERE, an acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. The theoretical purpose of the program was that by subjecting U.S. soldiers to near torture-like conditions, they could be programmed to resist breaking under torture by the enemy and revealing national security secrets. But in actual practice, the program was “reverse-engineered” to become a blueprint for torture of our prisoners. Mayer explains the significance of that:


In other words, the major purpose of Bush administration systematic torture of its prisoners was to obtain false confessions – as it did with Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who confessed to the non-existent close ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.


Henry Wallace, Harry Truman, and the Cold War – by Richard J. Walton

I bought this book for one penny (not including shipping and handling), through Amazon – which shows how much the seller wanted other people to read this book.

Henry Wallace was FDR’s Vice President before Truman, from January 1941 to January 1945. FDR kind of dumped him for Truman in 1944 (He actually told the convention to vote their conscience, but he put his weight behind Truman) because Wallace was too far left for the taste of a lot of Democrats.

Wallace’s biggest beef with Truman was his militancy towards Communism, which eventually led to the Cold War. Wallace felt strongly that we should take a much less militant stance towards Communism and Stalin’s USSR. He strongly believed that we could influence Communist tyrants more through diplomatic processes than through threatening them. And he warned our nation of the Military Industrial Complex long before President Eisenhower’s much more famous farewell address.

He was Truman’s Secretary of Commerce for about a year and a half. During his time in Truman’s cabinet he repeatedly tried to influence Truman towards a less militant stance towards Communism. Partly for that reason, he is still branded today as a Communist or a “fellow traveler”. He was neither.

He was fired from his cabinet position in 1946, due to irreconcilable differences of opinion with Truman. He then thought long and hard about forming his own party. Unable to sway Truman’s cold warrior attitudes, Wallace founded the Progressive Party to run against Truman in the 1948 Presidential election. My father voted for him.

Today’s political figure who most resembles him in my opinion is Dennis Kucinich. Like Kucinich, Wallace’s words were much more swayed by what he believed than by political considerations. As a contender for the Presidency, the forces of the status quo were arrayed against him, and he was barely more successful than Kucinich was.

With the onset of the Cold War, our war against socialism, which I’ve described in this post, hit full steam. Using the Soviet Union as an excuse, our CIA and military intervened in dozens of nations anywhere and everywhere in the world to overthrow the legally elected governments of other countries or to prevent them from being elected in the first place. This gave rise to repressive right wing governments all over the world and resulted in untold misery widely distributed throughout the world. Walton’s book describes the situation:


Much of Walton’s book describes how Henry Wallace unsuccessfully tried to prevent that from happening.


Moyers on Democracy – by Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers has long been one of my very favorite journalists – in a time when our nation is in great need of good journalists with integrity. His career in journalism spans more than four decades, following stints in government as Deputy Director of the Peace Corps in the Kennedy administration, and Special Assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration. This book is a collection of some of Bill Moyers’ best speeches. Here are some examples:

On the need for grass roots activism
Moyers gave this speech at a eulogy. It is so applicable to what we face today:


One the need for economic and social justice

On the need to hold our leaders accountable

The book is chock full of invaluable lessons for democracy. Moyers talks about how a de-regulated press, co-opted by money and a corrupt government brings us fascism. He talks of how money is choking our democracy to death. In “9/11 and the Sport of God”, he talks of the danger a phony type of Christianity (Moyers is a former Baptist minister), allied with the wealthy and the powerful, threaten our democracy. He even gave a speech to the U.S. Military Academy, emphasizing the need to disobey unlawful orders, while being careful to note “Before you assume that I’m calling for an insurrection…”


Pillars of the Earth – by Ken Follett

This is the only novel I’m including in this post. I don’t usually read novels, but I like to do so every once in a while. I’m including this book in my list because I have to admit that it was the book that I most enjoyed reading in 2008.

It takes place mostly in England during the so-called Medieval Period, from 1123 to 1174. Though the characters are mostly fictional, the background is historically based, and as far as I can tell, accurate.

The story begins with a 15 year old woman witnessing the public execution of her husband by hanging, for allegedly stealing some small item from one of the town’s elites. Much of the rest of the story dealers with her future encounters with her deceased husband’s accusers and her battles against them.

Many of the novel’s themes deals with the most important political problems that we face today: How justice systems are so heavily tilted in favor of the wealthy and the powerful; blatant religious and political hypocrisy in the cause of self-interest; and bombastic greed, arrogance and militarism, disguised as virtue.


Political Ponerology – A Science on the Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes - by Andrew Lobaczewski

For all of my life, one of my greatest interests has been to understand the nature of human evil. And I have always believed that it is one of the most important subjects that mankind needs to understand. This book was recommended to me by fellow DUer Larry Ogg.

Laura Knight-Jadczyk, in her Editor’s Preface to “Political Ponerology”, puts today’s world in perspective:


The woeful status of today’s world, as depicted in that brief but cogent summary, is due to human evil more than it is due to any other factor. Furthermore, humanity’s historical record in dealing with human evil has been abysmal.

So we need to do much better on that score. And that is the main reason for Lobaczewski’s book. For, as Knight-Jadczyk says in her Editor’s Preface, there is a lot that can be done to combat evil, and “the very first thing we can do is learn about it”.


The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder – by Vincent Bugliosi

Vincent Bugliosi is a very interesting character. Most important, he is the most high profile and reputable person in our country to call for the prosecution of George W. Bush for murder.

Alan Dershowitz has called him “as good a prosecutor as there ever was”. In his career at the LA County District Attorney’s office, he successfully prosecuted 105 of 106 felony jury trials, including 21 murder convictions, including that of mass murderer Charles Manson. So, if Bugliosi thinks that there exists a good case for murder against a sitting U.S. President, it would behoove people to listen to him.

Yet, his new book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”, has received woefully little attention in this country. No wonder. Our status quo loving corporate news media doesn’t want to rock the boat. And what could cause Americans to feel more nervous about the status of their country than the prosecution for murder of a sitting President – or even a convincing argument that a sitting President ought to be prosecuted for murder?

Vincent Bugliosi is no flaming liberal. Referring to the crimes for which the U.S. House Judiciary Committee drew up articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon in 1974, Bugliosi calls those acts “infinitely less serious crimes than what George Bush has done”.

In chapter 1 of his book, Bugliosi explains simply that most people fail to see what is directly in front of them and staring them in the face, simply because they either don’t expect to see it or because they don’t want to see it. What would the American people expect and want to see less than the case for murder against their sitting President?

In chapter 2, Bugliosi makes a superficial case (expanded upon in great detail later in the book) that George Bush took his country to war solely for reasons other than those he claimed before his country and Congress.

In chapter 3, Bugliosi explains his motivations for writing the book. He begins that chapter by describing the personal details of several Americans and Iraqis who died in George Bush’s war. He also discusses a good deal of evidence to the effect that George Bush does not take seriously the tremendous amount of death and destruction caused by the war that he dishonestly led us into. To the contrary, he doesn’t seem to be the least bit affected by it.

Bugliosi doesn’t pull any punches when he gets onto a subject that he feels emotional about. If George Bush ever does get prosecuted for his crimes, there’s a reasonable chance that Bugliosi may head the prosecution. He’s one person who wouldn’t shy away from that.


The Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism – by Naomi Klein

This is the only book on my 2008 list that I wrote about in my last year’s post, “My Ten Favorite Books I read in 2007. I rationalize doing that because I finished reading the book in 2008 and because it’s possibly the most important book I’ve ever read.

I believe that this book goes a very long way towards explaining why so much of the world’s population is impoverished today. It is no accident. Third World nations have to a very large extent been kept down by external human forces who seek to profit from the labors of the poor. To a very large extent today, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which are both very much under the control of the United States, are instruments which facilitate this process. They loan money to impoverished nations that are desperate for it, imposing conditions on those nations which work to keep the great majority of its inhabitants impoverished indefinitely. The process is something akin to loan sharking or indentured servitude. Since the governing elites of those nations usually profit from the deal, they have some motivation to play along with it.

The underpinning for the whole system is right wing economic ideology of the type first put forth by Milton Friedman. Since the rules of the game are so painful to the vast majority of a country’s inhabitants, various methods have had to be developed to keep the population in line. Sometimes that involves martial law and widespread kidnappings, executions, disappearances and torture, as under Pinochet in Chile. But many other methods have been developed as well, and often financial pressures or threats are enough to do the job. Taken as a whole, Klein terms these methods “shock therapy” – a therapy that is brutal enough to make a person or a population docile enough to go along with what they’re told to do. This is how she describes the beginnings of it in the introduction to her book:


It is also important to note here that Klein’s book exhibits an interesting parallel with two books written by John Perkins – “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and “The Secret History of the American Empire – Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption”. Klein and Perkins write about very much the same phenomenon and reach very similar conclusions. The difference is that while Perkins bases his account mainly on his personal experiences and observations, Klein takes a wider view of the situation and bases her conclusions on extensive research and investigation.


The Third Chimpanzee – The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal – by Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography, evolutionary biologist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He notes in the prologue to The Third Chimpanzee that our two unique qualities that now jeopardize our existence are our propensity to destroy each other and our environment. He also notes that the solutions to our predicament are clear in broad outline. They include:


Diamond notes that we already have the technical knowledge to solve these problems, but that we lack only the political will. He notes his reasons for writing his book:


Diamond describes the five parts of his book in the prologue:


Diamond concludes his book by noting that an environmental holocaust is already well underway and accelerating, and that “The only uncertainties are whether the resulting disaster would strike our children or our grandchildren, and whether we choose to adopt now the many obvious countermeasures”.


Torture Team – Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values – by Philippe Sands

This book overlaps Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side”, described above, to some degree. But the emphasis is very different. Sands’ book describes his meticulous investigation into the origins of the Bush administration’s torture program and plans for stripping our prisoners of all human rights. That investigation proves that these things originated and were driven by the very top levels of the Bush administration – specifically, Bush and Cheney.

There was much attempt by the top levels of the Bush administration to obscure the origins of their crimes by requiring lower level attorneys to write “legal opinions”. But the efforts of Bush administration attorneys to write legal opinions on these issues were driven and constrained above all by one salient fact: George Bush had already determined and made clear that the Geneva Conventions DO NOT APPLY to “illegal enemy combatants”. And who were “illegal enemy combatants”? Anyone who George W. Bush said is an “illegal enemy combatant”.

It really all boils down to that. Many Bush administration attorneys were flummoxed in trying to develop “legal opinions” with the constraint that the primary international and U.S. law pertaining to our foreign prisoners did not apply. Some, such as Alberto Gonzales, accepted that constraint eagerly. Others were frustrated with the constraints, but went ahead anyhow to develop “legal opinions” that accepted them. Still others rebelled, arguing that no proper legal opinion could leave out the applicability of the Geneva Conventions. Those attorneys tended not to last very long. In any event, Bush and Cheney elicited plenty of cover from enough of their attorneys to make the claim that their torture program was based upon the advice of legal experts. Sands also considers the legal culpability of those attorneys under the rules of the Nuremberg trials, under which, in 1946 we sentenced 12 Nazi war criminals to death and another 7 to long prison sentences.

If anyone ever gets to try Bush and Cheney (and others) for war crimes, all the evidence is right there in Sands’ meticulously documented book. Establishing the case shouldn’t take very long from there.