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Books for the Global Citizen Reading List

From the Archives

Posted on September 7, 2005
Previously filed under: Book and Film Reviews
This is a list of both fiction and nonfiction writing that provides a fascinating historical backdrop to current debates about globalization.

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General Globalization

John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea

Russell D. Roberts, The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism




Africa

Howard W. French (Senior NY Times Writer), A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa

Antjie Krog, Country of My Scull

Michela Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo

Ken Wiwa, In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand his Father's Legacy

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost

Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela



Robert Guest, The Shackled Continent: Power, Corruption, and African Lives

George Packer, The Village of Waiting

Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda



Michael Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide: The UN and Rwanda



Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa






Asia

Andrew X. Pham, Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Pascal Khoo Thwe, From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey

James L. Watson, Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia



Sumantra Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace

Jon Swain, River of Time

James Sullivan, Over the Moat: Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam

Peter Hessler, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

Robert Templer, Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam

Andrew Marshall, The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire

Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution

Ian Johnson, Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China




Middle East

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books




Europe

Jonathan Tonge, Northern Ireland: Conflict and Change

John Conroy, Belfast Diary: War as a Way of Life




Latin America and the Caribbean

Kathie Klarreich, Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou and Civil Strife in Haiti

Beatriz Manz, Aryeh Neier, Paradise in Ashes : A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope

Paul Blustein, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina




Faith

Yann Martel, The Life of Pi

Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness




Humanitarian Aid

David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat?: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action

Medecins Sans Frontieres, In the Shadow of "Just Wars": Violence, Politics, and Humanitarian Action

Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business




Biography

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Scott Anderson, The Man Who Tried to Save the World : The Dangerous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of an American Hero

Anthony Loyd, My War Gone By, I Miss It So




International Health

Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor

Jonathan Kaplan, The Dressing Station: A Surgeon's Chronicle of War and Medicine




Conflict Studies

Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

Chris Hedges, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning




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