Iraq Veterans Against the War: Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations
This book is hardcore, and I deeply respect the men and women of the military who have had the guts to tell the public what they saw and did. The Iraqi Veterans Against The War is an incredible organization, and they need all the support they can get.
Derrick Jensen: What We Leave Behind
A great book dealing with our culture's wastefulness and a passionate call for an industrial sabotage based revolution. It has a great chapter at the end on building a culture of resistance.
Derrick Jensen: Walking On Water: Reading, Writing And Revolution
One of Derricks calmer books. A great slam on the education system. Very easy to read and full of great things.
Lierre Keith: The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
Lierre is a tough writer, and a radical feminist activist. I learned so much from this book. A great slam on agri-business and a tough look at what a true sustainable culture would need to be. I'm not a vegetarian and I was constantly held by this book. This book will help you more understand the scope of the problem of our civilization from a subject that rarely gets attention: agriculture.
David Ray Griffin: The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11
I'm not a big 9-11 Truther, but I found this book to be very informative and well done. David does a great job at laying out unanswered questions about the events surrounding 9-11, instead of saying he knows the truth. It will make you at the very least understand that our government knew 9-11 was going to happen.
Derrick Jensen: The Culture of Make Believe
This book is harrowing to say the least, but is crucially important. It is an intimate exploration of racism, hate, genocide, and corporate power. Derrick is a beyond bold writer, and his exploration of atrocities begins at the root with a desire for a better world, nothing more.
Erich Fromm: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
This is one of the most fascinating and important books I have ever read. It proves human beings are not innately competitive, and that it is our conditioning and life experiences that make us destructive. It is a strong weapon against the "humans are innately evil and we are just fucked" crowd. Very hopeful work.
Derrick Jensen: Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests
An excellent work on Deforestation
James Hansen: Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
This book is a tremendous education on the science of climate change. And, as a NASA scientist, James Hansen has defended activism, and advocates some form of revolutionary change. I don't believe in his views on nuclear energy being the answer, but I do believe his heart is in the right place. This book is valuable.
Plundering Appalachia: The Tragedy of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
This book is absolutely magnificent. Incredible photographs of the devastation of mountaintop removal. Great pieces by environmental writers. Read it and weep.
William R. Catton: Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
This book was written in the late 1970's, and it is brilliant. Catton lays out very clearly how industrial civilization is based on the hyper-exploitation of limitless resources, and that this philosophy is killing the planet. He explains how the longer we ignore the problems, the worse things will get. This book is so important for laying out the foundation on which our culture needs to change.
Desmond Tutu: No Future Without Forgiveness
Desmond Tutu is one of the most bad ass Christians on the planet. In No Future Without Forgiveness, he writes of his experience being in charge of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. He makes a great case for how only understanding and honesty can heal the wounds of a terrible cultural past. This book preaches against violence from someone in the thick of it, someone who has watched his own people suffer despicable acts. A very powerful work
Erik Reece: Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation ofAppalachia
This is a great book and is really easy to read. If you don't know what mountaintop removal strip mining is, Lost Mountain will educate you. If you know what mountaintop removal is and need inspiration to fight it, Lost Mountain will get you there.
Derrick Jensen: How Shall I Live My Life?: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization (PM Press)
This book is amazing. It is a collection of interviews (Derrick as the interviewer) of some of the most bad ass people on the planet, working hard in their different ways to change the world. Get this book!
Derrick Jensen: Endgame, Vol. 2: Resistance
A passionate call for an industrial-sabotage based revolution. This book is full of inspiring and valuable information.
Derrick Jensen: Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization
This a very important work and deals with a very serious subject: that industrial civilization itself is unsustainable and has to stop. Derrick is an incredible researcher and is right the fuck on most of the time. He is rejected by the mainstream for saying that violence may be necessary to stop corporate empire, but from my point of view, he isn't preaching violence, he's truly trying to find a way to stop the destruction. I respect him.
John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
I really liked this book. It is written by a man who at the time believed in the system and realized he was participating in cruel global domination. I like books written from people inside the system. And it has an excellent and terrifying run-down of the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, and the corporate underpinnings behind it.
D. H. Lawrence: Complete Poems (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
"All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true."
D.H. Lawrence is my favorite poet, and some of his work is just magnificent. This is a large book and you have to weed through it to find his gems, but they are there, and they are incredible.
Dahr Jamail: Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
Dahr Jamail is a courageous human being, and his work as a journalist in Iraq is so important for telling the story of the Iraqi people. Get this book!
Derrick Jensen: As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial
This graphic novel is at times hilarious, sad, and tough. It is a great peg on the whole green revolution, and it has a beautiful respect of the natural world. This book is extremely worth getting.
Allan W. Eckert: A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh
Tecumseh was an incredibly tough warrior with great honor and integrity. This book is well written, and the story of Tecumseh inspired me to get my shit together and start working my ass off on what I want to accomplish. Read it!
Wulf Zendik: A Quest Among the Bewildered: The Early Autobiographical Novel by Wulf Zendik
"The great tragedy of course in human beings: seeing so much, so far, and able to reach so little of it... tears us apart." I like to describe this book as a beautiful emotional rant on society and life. It has a very free-flowing style, and I find Wulf to be a very tough, unique, and phenomenal writer.
Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)
Every american should read this book. Howard Zinn worked his ass off on this book for 12 years and it's just phenomenal. Brilliant and truthful run-downs on everything from Jamestown to Vietnam. It will shock you at times.
Derrick Jensen: A Language Older Than Words
I read this book 8 years ago and it profoundly affected me. Derrick is a tremendous writer and thinker, and now - 8 years later - I have read almost all of his books. Of all his books, this one is his most personal work, in my opinion. He has dedicated himself to understanding the philosophy of our destructive culture, and at the same time, is currently working to stop it. If you want to start reading Derrick, start with this one. It's a beautiful work.
and "the few brave people fighting insanity" get some sort of relief knowing we are NOT the insane ones! thank you. indeed, keep the fight going. have my support from brasil. with love and in fraternity among humans, patricia andrade varela.
Posted by: patricia andrade varela | 05/22/2010 at 04:34 AM
Hey Patricia,
Thank you for your words. Keep up your good work in Brasil.
Much love,
Peiro
Posted by: Peiro | 05/24/2010 at 05:08 PM