Kind of sort of a follow-up to the previous book list.
Big History and “Deep Determinants” (published since 2000)
Books in archaeology, anthropology, prehistory, psychology, evolution, etc. which are relevant to economic history and social change in general. My thinking has been altered by all of the following books:
- Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
- Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do {ok, originally published in 1998, but reissued in 2009!}
- Norenzayan, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict
- Wilson, Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others
- Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
- Jones, Hive Mind: How Your Nation’s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own
- Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
- Cochran & Harpending, The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution
- Wilson, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
- Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, as well as Boehm, Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame
- Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia
- Flannery, The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire
- Ensminger & Henrich, ed., Experimenting with Social Norms: Fairness and Punishment in Cross-Cultural Perspective, which I blogged about here; also the earlier book, Henrich et al., Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence from Fifteen Small-Scale Societies
- Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
- Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion
I must thank Razib Khan for blogging about Atran so often, because otherwise I don’t think I would have finished reading it. But sticking with it definitely pays off.
Stimulating econ history books: Honourable Mentions
In my previous post listing the 25 most stimulating or thought-provoking books in economic history published since 2000, I left out several items which I now list as honourable mentions.
- Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction { A masterpiece of brevity and parsimony which is still provocative, despite its inclusion in a series intended for beginners. But definitely a longer, fuller volume is needed. Apparently Jesús Fernández-Villaverde is working on one! }
- Boix, Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and their Consequences for Human Welfare
- Iyigun, War, Peace, and Prosperity in the Name of God: The Ottoman Role in Europe’s Socioeconomic Evolution
- Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld
- Bulliet, Cotton, Climate and Camels in Early Islamic Iran
Must-Read (but not yet read) Forthcoming or Recent Books
- Allen, The Industrial Revolution: A Very Short Introduction
- Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap
- Marquez, Non-Democratic Politics: Authoritarianism, Dictatorship and Democratization
- Mokyr, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy
- Bowles, The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens
- Colarelli & Arvey, ed., The Biological Foundations of Organizational Behavior
- Alston et al., Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change
- Schneider, New Order and Progress: Development and Democracy in Brazil
- Wrigley, The Path to Sustained Growth: England’s Transition from an Organic Economy to an Industrial Revolution
- Ashworth, The Industrial Revolution: The State, Knowledge and Global Trade
- Rubin, Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not
- O’Rourke & Williamson, ed. The Spread of Modern Industry to the Periphery since 1871
- Packard, A History of Global Health: Interventions into the Lives of Other Peoples
- Campbell, The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the Late Medieval World
- Fuller, Paper Tigers, Hidden Dragons: Firms and the Political Economy of China’s Technological Development
- Miller, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR
- Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
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