I figure that I’m going to need to refresh my memory on a bunch of topics in the next couple months or so, so I’ll just post what I’m going to be catching up on and let people recommend books. You can safely assume that I already have a basic working knowledge about everything on the list below: what I’m looking for are books that will let me touch up my existing knowledge base. Also, I know what I’m not looking for: I’ll go over that in the list.
- Basic breakdown of Islamic religious sects. Nothing written after 2000. Nothing that thinks that Islam is ZOMG the Greatest Thing Ever. Nothing that requires the existence of a global Muslim conspiracy/Islamic hive minds in order to support the thesis. Nothing that has a variant of the word ‘dhimmi’ in the title.
- Political shenanigans in US Presidential elections. NOTHING WRITTEN AFTER 1999.
- Post-Marx, pre-Lenin Communist thinkers. Nothing written by a Marxist. Nothing written by a person who takes Marxism seriously as an economic/political theory. Nothing boring as hell (which is always a problem when it comes to Marxism).
- A general survey of dystopian fiction. …I can’t think of anything besides “Nothing boring as hell.”
That should do it.