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August 17, 2017 1:18 PM Subscribe
What are your favorite long magazine features (or books) on topics related to psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology? Looking for work that blends serious reporting with excellent writing.
Three anthropological classics from Natural History magazine, very often reprinted in readers for undergrads:
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:05 PM on August 17, 2017
- Laura Bohannan, "Shakespeare in the Bush"
- Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Death Without Weeping"
- Melvyn C. Goldstein, "When Brothers Share a Wife"
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:05 PM on August 17, 2017
Are long book-books okay, or are you looking specifically for something that has a journalistic feel?
posted by clawsoon at 4:28 PM on August 17, 2017
posted by clawsoon at 4:28 PM on August 17, 2017
Seeing Like A State by James Scott is one of the best books about society I've ever read.
posted by escabeche at 7:16 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by escabeche at 7:16 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Psychology: Remembering the Murder You Didn't Commit (New Yorker)
Economics: What I Learned from Losing $200 Million (Nautilus)
Sociology: Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and the Spectacles of Female Power and Pain. (The Believer)
Sociology/Psychology: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II (Smithsonian Mag)
posted by triggerfinger at 10:25 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Economics: What I Learned from Losing $200 Million (Nautilus)
Sociology: Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and the Spectacles of Female Power and Pain. (The Believer)
Sociology/Psychology: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II (Smithsonian Mag)
posted by triggerfinger at 10:25 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Clawsoon, book books are good, too!
posted by Mystical Listicle at 7:58 AM on August 19, 2017
posted by Mystical Listicle at 7:58 AM on August 19, 2017
You might enjoy some of the stuff in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series, though much of it isn't exactly in the areas you've mentioned.
For anthropology+economics, Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years is great. It's not the final word on anything, but it's a fascinating journey.
More anthropology: Chen Village under Mao and Deng (newer version: Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization) is solid, though I don't remember it being quite as gripping as Fanshen and Shenfan.
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York was a can't-put-down book written by a great reporter who's trying to dig into how political power actually functions, which might slip in at the very edge of sociology or anthropology. It's biography, though, really.
Economics+sociology: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a classic about class.
Economics: Marx's Capital is a snooze right up until he starts talking about primitive accumulation, at which point the book lights up. All of his work has been argued about endlessly, of course, but in those chapters you see the combination of research and outrage and rhetoric that fired him. "...the capitalised blood of children..."
There's a lot of shitty evolutionary psychology out there. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is worth reading as an antidote. Pick a book, any book, though I can vouch for Mother Nature and Mothers and Others. The research is solid, and the writing is excellent. Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow also has some fascinating stuff in it, though I found it uneven; parts of it zipped along, and parts of it were a slog.
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 PM on August 19, 2017
For anthropology+economics, Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years is great. It's not the final word on anything, but it's a fascinating journey.
More anthropology: Chen Village under Mao and Deng (newer version: Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization) is solid, though I don't remember it being quite as gripping as Fanshen and Shenfan.
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York was a can't-put-down book written by a great reporter who's trying to dig into how political power actually functions, which might slip in at the very edge of sociology or anthropology. It's biography, though, really.
Economics+sociology: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a classic about class.
Economics: Marx's Capital is a snooze right up until he starts talking about primitive accumulation, at which point the book lights up. All of his work has been argued about endlessly, of course, but in those chapters you see the combination of research and outrage and rhetoric that fired him. "...the capitalised blood of children..."
There's a lot of shitty evolutionary psychology out there. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is worth reading as an antidote. Pick a book, any book, though I can vouch for Mother Nature and Mothers and Others. The research is solid, and the writing is excellent. Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow also has some fascinating stuff in it, though I found it uneven; parts of it zipped along, and parts of it were a slog.
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 PM on August 19, 2017
Oh, and anything by Oliver Sacks, but that goes without saying.
posted by clawsoon at 8:21 PM on August 19, 2017
posted by clawsoon at 8:21 PM on August 19, 2017
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posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:30 PM on August 17, 2017