American Friends Service Committee, Speak Truth to Power. “A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence.”

Paul A. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth.

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. A nihilistic masterpiece.

J.D. Bernal, World Without War. An excellent book which describes vividly the benefits which all humanity could derive from a cessation of the war economy.

Albert Bigelow, The Voyage of the Golden Rule. Description of an attempt by pacifists to resist the lunatic preparations for annihilation by sailing into the atomic testing area.

Bertolt Brecht, Threepenny Opera.

Harrison Brown, The Challenge of Man’s Future. Examines the consequences of the waste of natural resources, and presents thesis that, should the world economy be disrupted by another war, man will not again be able to reconstruct technology, and thus will never again be able to maintain the large number of people, or the concentration of nonagricultural populations in cities, that are possible today.

Harrison Brown, James Real, Community of Fear. The destructive capacities of nuclear weapons. Indispensable reading, especially for “optimists” and for “shelter” addicts.

Albert Camus, The Stranger and The Plague. Two brilliant novels on the predicament of twentieth century European man, the first depicting the nihilism, the second the transcendence of nihilism through continuing involvement without belief or hope.

Albert Camus, The Rebel. A history of rebellion, as well as a presentation of Camus’ view that rebellion betrays itself when it negates human life and turns to violence. This is not Camus’ last position; before his death by automobile he seems to have rejected rebellion altogether. (See, for example, the later essays in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death.)

Josue de Castro, The Geography of Hunger. Unforgettable description of the misery, the hunger, the suffering and disease, that are a direct consequence of monoculture, plantations, one-crop economies—in short, of western colonial capitalism.

Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie. American epic of the unsuccessful capitalist.

Theodore Dreiser, The Financier.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’, Notes from the Underground.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. This novel on the “American dream” and on the content of American “culture,” gives part of the answer to the question “What do the rich do with their money?”

Waldo Frank, The Rediscovery of the Man. A reevaluation of Western history.

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, Man For Himself The Sane Society. A trilogy that develops a comprehensive view of the psychological consequences of life in capitalist society.

Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd.

Stuart Hughes, Consciousness and Society. A history and critique of the social ideas and philosophies of Europe from the 1890s.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.

Kenneth Ingram, History of the Cold War. A British view of the Cold War which controverts most of the dogmas pushed on Americans by their “avenues of truth.”

Paul Johnson, “The Plundered Continent,” New Statement (London), September 17, 1960. A brief description of North American colonialism in South America; a masterpiece of social analysis.

James Joyce, Ulysses. The grand entrance of nihilism into twentieth century literature.

Robert Jungk, Tomorrow is Already Here.

Robert Jungk, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns. A history of the making of the atomic bomb and the subsequent efforts of the initiating scientists to unmake their Great Gift to Humanity.

Franz Kafka, Amerika, The Trial, The Castle, Metamorphosis. Each a masterpiece of “truer than history” fiction. The situations which reduce the human being to a trapped insect, to a cipher, belie the propaganda about Human Dignity sold to the consumers of western “civilization.”

Eric Kahler, The Tower and the Abyss. Critical evaluation of the intellectual and literary content of twentieth century Europe and America.

Albert E. Kahn, The Game of Death: Effects of the Cold War on Our Children.

Harold P. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War. Vividly analyzes the manipulation of communication during World War I.

Liberation magazine. A pacifist monthly that generally contains thoughtful and timely articles on world affairs.

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain. Set in a sanatorium, this brilliant novel depicts in the form of loose allegory the wave of nihilism and unleashed violence sweeping across Europe early in the twentieth century.

Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus. Based on the original German Faustbuch, this somber masterpiece symbolically represents the history of German nihilism and its final eruption into lunacy, as they are embodied in the composer Adrian Leverkiihn.

Karl Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction.

C. Wright Mills. The Ponrer Elite. Undoubtedly the best analysis of mid-tw entieth century corporate capitalism.

C. W right Mills. iVhrte Collar. Sociological and psychological analysis of the roles and ways of life of the “new class” in capitalist society.

C. W right Mills, The Cause tfMHd War III. The war economy, the military posture of the government, and the abdication of responsibility by the public, the intellectuals, the scientists.

Monthly Rmr,~ magazine, “an independent socialist magazine.” In mv opinion the best commentary on contemporary history which differs from the official line of the American media of “communication.”

Lewis Mumford, The Transformations of Man, especially (with reference to this section) chapters 7 to 9, on “Post-Historic Man,” “World Culture,” and “Human Prospects.”

Lewis Mumford, In the Name of Sanity.

Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities. (I had not, unfortunately, read this book before setting out.)

Gunnar Myrdal, Rich Lands and Poor.

The Nation magazine. A Liberal weekly which, despite its tide, makes consistent pleas for international cooperation and understanding in its editorials, and occasionally carries excellent analyzes of world events

New Left Review magazine. A British journal which voices the present young generation’s desire to stay alive and create a w’orld where participation, creativity and originality are possible to every man.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The work from which twentieth century racism, barbarism, nihilism have taken many of their slogans, yet at the same time a w’ork in which a courageous it irresponsible thinker tries to transcend nihilism and barbarism.

Philip Noel-Baker, The Arms Race: A Program for World Disarmament.

F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West. An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding.

Harvey O’Connor, The Empire of Oil. A fascinating and highly documerited analysis of the workings of the gigantic oil corporations, from their wells around the world to their “clean rest rooms” in the local gas stations.

George Orwell, 1984. A vision of the world after a few more decades ofthe regimentation, centralization, and military metaphysic ofthe present day.

Linus Pauling, No More War. A chilling, and it is hoped sobering, description of the effects of nuclear fallout and the destructive potentialities of nuclear weapons.

Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Right You Are If You Think You Are. Moral relativism here makes its debut on the stage, and contributes to the making of some of nihilist Europe’s best drama.

John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making ofthe Modem Mind: A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age. Especially Book IV, on “Thought and Aspiration in the Last Hundred Years.”

David Riesman, Nathan Glaser, Reuel Denney, The Lonely Crowd. The different forms of resignation to the White Collar world.

Bertrand Russell, Co?nmon Sense and Nuclear Warfare.

George H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory, chapter 3 5 on “Fascism and National Socialism.”

B. Sansom, The Western World and Japan, especially the introduction entitled “Europe and Asia.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea and No Exit.

Frederick L. Schuman, The Commonwealth of Man: An Inquiry into Power Politics and World Government.

Roderick Seidenberg, Posthistoric Man.

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle. The classic on the Civilizing and Humanizing mission of American capitalism.

Pitirim Sorokin, The Crisis of Our Age.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. The greatest twentieth century American novel.

I.F. Stone’s Weekly. Newsletter of very high journalistic and intellectual quality, covering world events and presenting information that does not find its way into the big-circulation American press.

H.F. Stone, The Truman Era. Collection of Stone’s writings during the Truman administration, in which the origins of the Cold War are seen through an observer contemporary with the events it describes.

Henry David Thoreau, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.” (1849) One of the relevant answers to the question “What Should 1 Do?”

Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, especially, in this context, Part 9, on the “Contacts Between Civilizations,” and Part 12, on “The Prospects of Western Civilization.” Toynbee brings his views of Western Civilization up to date in Volume 12 of the same work.

Alfred Weber, Farewell to European History. A reevaluation of European history in the light of the eruption of Nazism and the Nazi war. Weber’s guiding concepts are the loss of what he calls transcendence, and the growth of nihilism.

Simone Weil, “Reflections on War,” in Politics, February 1945; appeared originally in November 1933 issue of La Critique Sociale (Paris). John Taylor had observed that usurpers gain nothing from each other. Weil observes that armies gain nothing from each other. In both cases, the victims are always the same; they are the majorty of the people.

Richard Wright, A Report on the Bandung Conference.

Richard Wright, White Man, Listen!