http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ Just another bbPress community en Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:21:02 +0000 http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/three-books-that-permanently-changed-the-way-i-view-the-world#post-31 Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:37:38 +0000 burt 31@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman: The degree to which capitalism and freedom are linked was an eye-opener for me.</p> <p>THE ROAD TO SERFDOM by F. A. Hayek: The collectivist ideal - giving government the means to production - leads inevitably, to totalitarianism.</p> <p>LINCOLN by David Herbert Donald: An amazing biography that demonstrates what one can achieve despite humble beginnings and almost overwhelming challenges. </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/three-books-that-permanently-changed-the-way-i-view-the-world#post-30 Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:07:59 +0000 fictiongirl 30@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>For me, it was one book - "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" by Judy Blume. I read this when I was 10 years old and it made me realize that no one has the answers. It's OK to be uncertain. And it also made me a book lover. </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/three-books-that-permanently-changed-the-way-i-view-the-world#post-10 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:33:22 +0000 fitler 10@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>Here are three books that fundamentally and permanently changed the way I view the world:</p> <p>* DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES by Jane Jacobs - I read this book in the early 70s and was still enamored by the Robert Moses, Ed Bacon school of city planning. Raze old "slum" neighborhoods and put in beautiful modern office skyscrapers or eight lane interstate highways. Jane Jacobs saw the sterility and inhumanity of those actions and she also saw the vibrancy, safety and humanity of those "slum" neighborhoods. I've never looked at cities the same way since.</p> <p>* ON HUMAN NATURE by E.O Wilson - The frightening idea that altruism may be an evolutionary adaption and not a human virtue.</p> <p>* DENIAL OF DEATH by Ernest Becker - Our fear of death may be the driving force in the development of civilization and particularly religious institutions. The ferocity of religious wars is because of how devastating the questioning of our religious world view is to our view of self.</p> <p>I'd be very interested in reading what three books others would choose. </p>