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Donna Dickenson's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Donna Dickenson recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Donna Dickenson's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Second Treatise of Government

The Second Treatise is one of the most important political treatises ever written and one of the most far-reaching in its influence.
In his provocative 15-page introduction to this edition, the late eminent political theorist C. B. Macpherson examines Locke's arguments for limited, conditional government, private property and right of revolution and suggests reasons for the appeal of these arguments in Locke's time and since.
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Recommended by Donna Dickenson, and 1 others.

Donna DickensonI am interested in the book mainly because it is where we find Locke putting across the now very familiar idea about the relationship between labour and property. (Source)

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2
Who owns your genetic information? Might it be the doctors who, in the course of removing your spleen, decode a few cells and turn them into a patented product? In 1990 the Supreme Court of California said yes, marking another milestone on the information superhighway. This extraordinary case is one of the many that James Boyle takes up in Shamans, Software, and Spleens, a timely look at the infinitely tricky problems posed by the information society. Discussing topics ranging from blackmail and insider trading to artificial intelligence (with good-humored stops in microeconomics,... more
Recommended by Donna Dickenson, and 1 others.

Donna DickensonThe most interesting part of the book for me is an analogy that James Boyle uses between the privatisation of the human genome and the privatisation of the agricultural commons. (Source)

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3
As new medical technologies are developed, more and more human tissues—such as skin, bones, heart valves, embryos, and stem cell lines—are stored and distributed for therapeutic and research purposes. The accelerating circulation of human tissue fragments raises profound social and ethical concerns related to who donates or sells bodily tissue, who receives it, and who profits—or does not—from the transaction. Catherine Waldby and Robert Mitchell survey the rapidly expanding economies of exchange in human tissue, explaining the complex questions raised and suggesting likely developments.... more
Recommended by Donna Dickenson, and 1 others.

Donna DickensonWaldby and Mitchell produce an account of the way that tissue taken from a body can become a commodity, and look at the problems associated with this. (Source)

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4
In her ground-breaking reporting from Iraq, Naomi Klein exposed how the trauma of invasion was being exploited to remake the country in the interest of foreign corporations. She called it "disaster capitalism." Covering Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment" losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free... more

George MonbiotThe Shock Doctrine explains some of the mechanisms by which patrimonial capital acquires power and enhances its wealth. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and one of those rare books that changes the way you perceive the world. (Source)

Mat WhitecrossIt starts with the theory that moments of crisis have been utilised by the right wing in the US and other countries to manipulate people into following their agenda. (Source)

Donna DickensonNaomi Klein’s argument is that capitalism actually requires deliberately engineered shocks to the economic systems. (Source)

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5

Walden

At Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau reflected on simpler living in the natural world. By removing himself from the distractions of materialism, Thoreau hoped to not only improve his spiritual life but also gain a better understanding of society through solitary introspection.

In Walden, Thoreau condenses his two-year, two-month, two-day stay into a single year, using the four seasons to symbolize human development—a cycle of life shared by both nature and man. A celebration of personal renewal through self-reliance, independence, and simplicity, composed for all of us living...
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Laura Dassow WallsThe book that we love as Walden began in the journal entries that he wrote starting with his first day at the pond. (Source)

Roman KrznaricIn 1845 the American naturalist went out to live in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Thoreau was one of the great masters of the art of simple living. (Source)

John KaagThere’s this idea that philosophy can blend into memoir and that, ideally, philosophy, at its best, is to help us through the business of living with people, within communities. This is a point that Thoreau’s Walden gave to me, as a writer, and why I consider it so valuable for today. (Source)

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