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Reading list

The books behind the essays.

Every essay stands on other people's work. Here are the 36 books they lean on — a reading list for anyone who wants to go further than a blog post can.

01

By essay

Read the essay first, then the books it argues with.

PhilosophyThe God of Philosophy Is Not the God of Religion
  • Blaise Pascal — Pensées
  • Baruch Spinoza — Ethics
  • Bertrand Russell — Why I Am Not a Christian
PsychologyHow Ordinary People Become Monsters
  • Stanley Milgram — Obedience to Authority
  • Hannah Arendt — Eichmann in Jerusalem
  • Christopher Browning — Ordinary Men
Society & CasteCaste Is Not a Past Tense
  • B. R. Ambedkar — Annihilation of Caste
  • Leon Festinger — A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
  • Isabel Wilkerson — Caste
RationalityWhy Smart People Believe Stupid Things
  • Keith Stanovich — The Bias That Divides Us
  • Julia Galef — The Scout Mindset
  • Daniel Kahneman — Thinking, Fast and Slow
Religion & BeliefWhat I Lost When I Stopped Believing
  • Bertrand Russell — The Conquest of Happiness
  • Albert Camus — The Myth of Sisyphus
  • Carl Sagan — The Demon-Haunted World
PoliticsI Have Voted for Everyone. Here’s What I Learned.
  • Christophe Jaffrelot — India's Silent Revolution
  • Robert A. Dahl — On Democracy
  • Albert O. Hirschman — Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
PsychologyYour Anxiety Might Be a Sane Response
  • Randolph Nesse — Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
  • Robert Sapolsky — Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
  • Johann Hari — Lost Connections
PhilosophyNyaya Solved a Problem the West Took 2,000 Years to Notice
  • Bimal Krishna Matilal — The Character of Logic in India
  • Jonardon Ganeri — Philosophy in Classical India
  • David Hume — An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Society & CasteThe Village That Taught Me What Merit Means
  • Michael Young — The Rise of the Meritocracy
  • Michael J. Sandel — The Tyranny of Merit
  • Amartya Sen — Development as Freedom
RationalityHow to Change Your Mind Without Losing Yourself
  • Julia Galef — The Scout Mindset
  • Adam Grant — Think Again
  • Paul Graham — “Keep Your Identity Small” (essay)
WritingWhy I Write in Three Languages
  • Ghalib — Diwan-e-Ghalib
  • Amrit Rai — A House Divided
  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o — Decolonising the Mind
Religion & BeliefFaith Is Not the Problem. Inherited Faith Is.
  • Immanuel Kant — An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
  • Walpola Rahula — What the Buddha Taught
  • Richard Dawkins — The God Delusion

Want the books written here?

Nine of them — fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

See the books Reading paths