[/caption]The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds And The Laws Of Physics - Authored by physicist Roger Penrose, the book explores the feasibility of mankind's age-old enterprise to reconstruct the human mind with the machines he has at his disposal. Irrespective of how far technology has gone until now, the book lays the groundwork necessary to understand if, philosophically, we'll ever be able to get there. After all, when the mind exists in a Universe governed by the laws of physics and when the Universe exists because the mind is able to conceive it, where do we start?
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[/caption]The Virtue Of Selfishness - One of the most dominant philosophical standpoints to emerge in the industrial era is Ayn Rand's objectivism, which set forth selfishness as a veritable virtue and altruism as a Utopian, if not suicidal, construction. This book encapsulates all of Rand's positions on the subject while also ensuring that it maintains a position of fairness. To sum up: it is the ideological essence of her fictional works, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957).
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[/caption]The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich: A History Of Nazi Germany - I can't with precision say how my fascination with the Second World War came about, but it has sustained itself even in the absence of a constant influx of information and insight. Some of the historians who specialized in the affairs of Europe between 1933 and 1945 whose works I value greatly are Percy Ernst Schramm, Hugh Trevor-Roper and William Shirer. Shirer's book, as it so happens, has been the hardest to procure while also (unsurprisingly) being the most insightful.
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[/caption]M.A.S.H. - Wartime fiction I love! I don't quite recall when Heller wrote his Catch 22 but as revolutionary as the book was, one episode (of the show inspired by Richard Hooker's novel) contained all of that despondence and frustration while managing to lace the action with a black humor that, for me, placed the battlefield in the same arena as day-to-day life. Notwithstanding the moral position of a government that legitimizes mass-murder, the necessities of war ensure there is some attrition between the soldier's moral position and duties.
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[/caption]Madras: Tracing The Growth Of The City Since 1639 - I'm from Madras, and sometimes, I wonder how I've let myself know less about my home city than about cities that I don't even plan to visit in the future. When I saw this book (by K. R. A. Narasiah), then, it was no surprise why I immediately placed it then on the wishlist. You'd think that was whimsical, but then again, even bad books contribute to the construction of an opinion - sometimes better than the better books themselves.
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[/caption]Political Order In Changing Societies - Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man was well-argued with a fine balance struck between the technicality of sociological evaluation and the practicability of each of the contentious perspectives. In fact, the same can be said of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. Given that both these stalwarts have worked together to write a book that ambushes the innards of polity in today's "changing societies" for quite the (reputably) critical analysis, it was so hard to close the window without updating the wishlist first.
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[/caption]On War - I'm not one to indulge in hackneyed clichés and now say, "Last but not the least!"- no! On War by General Carl von Clausewitz is, at least amongst the books in this list and at most amongst the greatest historical classics, a masterpiece. Even though Sun Tzu steers clear of von Clausewitz's many romanticized notions, the Polish war-leader outclasses his Chinese peer when it comes to discussing the intricacies of strategic planning, political manoeuvrability, and in addressing the bigger picture in general - an essential adage to the action of war that is not properly considered in The Art of War. (I know I've spoken like I've read the book: what I know about the book is actually from reading excerpts from it.)
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