NationStates Jolt Archive

Chose that one to title cos itd get more intrest.

Basically the point of this thread is to give your opinion on books of questionable nature, and suggest one to add to the list.
Finally vote out of my originals which you think should be distributed to everyone in the world.

My Opinion.

Anarchists Cookbook.
Completely priceless, a great compendium of ways to wreak havoc.

Das Capital.
Good philosophy overall, needs some fine tuning.

Sun Tzu's The Art Of War.
Rubbish. Basics of warfare:
Pre-Guns.
Infantry fodder line up.
Cavalry hidden.
Cavalry charge.
Guttin.

Post-Guns.
Have better technology, or get VERY used to your surroundings and wear camoflague. If you cant do the above, suck up to a major power.

Dude, Wheres my country?
Excellent.


Your opinions?

Chose that one to title cos itd get more intrest.

Basically the point of this thread is to give your opinion on books of questionable nature, and suggest one to add to the list.
Finally vote out of my originals which you think should be distributed to everyone in the world.

My Opinion.

Anarchists Cookbook.
Completely priceless, a great compendium of ways to wreak havoc.


dunno about the others, but i don't like this one because i think it gave people the entirely wrong idea about anarchism, or at least reinforced people's vague notions of anarchism simply being about causing havoc and running riot. (anarchist cookbook is the one about making bombs and stuff right?)

Das Kapital? Rubbish. Read a modern economic textbook.

Sun Tzu's Art of War? Genius. Your summation is grossly misleading in both "pre" and "post guns."

Anarchist's Cookbook - meh. Get a life emo kids.

Dude, Where's My Country? Haven't read it.

The only book out of the four you mentioned which I have the slightest interest in is The Art of War. It does not assess any modern warfare strategies, but rather strikes at the psychological basis of warfare, which is infinitely more important and invaluable. It teaches not how to fight, but how to think. That's why it is still read to this day -- it teaches a man how to fish instead of giving a man a fish.

never read any of those...

do not however read Alexander’s the greats art of strategy is the most boring read of my life (and if were talking about distributing the books around the world wouldn’t Thomas the tank engine be better?)

Thomas is international. :) http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/about/thomas.htm


As for the Anarchist's Cookbook, I have heard it said that if one were to follow the recipes for bomb-making that are given, one would be risking life and limb in that they are intentionally booby-trapped. Dunno how true that is, though.

how about mein kampf? funniest book i have ever read.

Art of War is dreck. Not a thing in it is something anyone with half a brain wouldn't already know. Like not attacking when you are outnumbered. No shit.

Books of a questionable nature?

One for the British: Jordan's autobiography...(or anything written by Jeremy Clarkson, infinitely more scary than Mein Kampf)

OP: read better books.

The last thing we need every zitfaced urchin in the country doing is 'wreaking havoc,' anarchist vandal children should be caned like in Singapore.

Art of War is dreck. Not a thing in it is something anyone with half a brain wouldn't already know. Like not attacking when you are outnumbered. No shit.

And yet militaries around the world read it. Mayhap they know something you don't? The books were written almost 3000 years ago, at the very beginning of the development of true military planning and thought. The guy was way ahead of his time.

In general, the strategy for employing the military is this: If you strength is ten times theirs, surround them; if five, then attack them; if double, then divide your forces. If you are in strength equal to the enemy, you can engage him. If fewer, you can circumvent him. If outmatched, you can avoid him. Thus a small enemy that acts inflexibly will become the captives of a large enemy.

Sounds to me that he was advocating the use of some type of guerilla tactics when an army is too small for a conventional fight. Not attacking someone is not the same as avoiding them.

That particular 'Cookbook' is actually an three-letter Agency cookup to get potential threats to kill themselves in accidents.

For example, there is an example where mixing two chemicals would produce copious amounts of chlorine gas upon contact. Without going into the chemistry of it, chlorine on contact with wet sinuses (such as ears, eyes and throat) forms hydrochloric acid...you get the idea.

Anarchists Cookbook.
Completely priceless, a great compendium of ways to wreak havoc.
Completely useless, the recipes in the book will be more likely to harm the maker than the maker's target. The propaganda in it is :rolleyes:-able

Das Capital.
Good philosophy overall, needs some fine tuning.
Needs a LOT of fine tuning, will probably never have practical applications.

Sun Tzu's The Art Of War.
Rubbish.
False. It still has practical applications, and not just in the world of warfare.
Basics of warfare:
Pre-Guns.
Infantry fodder line up.
Cavalry hidden.
Cavalry charge.
Guttin.[QUOTE]
:rolleyes: See "pike wall".
[QUOTE]Post-Guns.
Have better technology, or get VERY used to your surroundings and wear camoflague. If you cant do the above, suck up to a major power.

Gee, that sounds much like The Art of War.

Dude, Wheres my country?
Excellent.
The guy's a hack.

Chose that one to title cos itd get more intrest.

Maybe you should concentrate on reading this book (http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Composition-John-Warriner/dp/0153118016/ref=ed_oe_h/002-4117365-7541600)?

Basically the point of this thread is to give your opinion on books of questionable nature,

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "books of a questionable" nature. Do you mean controversial, banned, poorly written, or something else. Three of those you list are controversial, at least one has been banned, and two are poorly written.

and suggest one to add to the list.

See above.

Finally vote out of my originals which you think should be distributed to everyone in the world.

None of the above.

Anarchists Cookbook.
Completely priceless, a great compendium of ways to wreak havoc.

Completely wrong. See below for more details.

Das Capital.
Good philosophy overall, needs some fine tuning.

Good read for understanding the context of modern political and economic thought, but full of bad ideas.

Sun Tzu's The Art Of War.
Rubbish. Basics of warfare:
Pre-Guns.
Infantry fodder line up.
Cavalry hidden.
Cavalry charge.
Guttin.

Post-Guns.
Have better technology, or get VERY used to your surroundings and wear camoflague. If you cant do the above, suck up to a major power.

Go read the book before criticizing it, please.

Dude, Wheres my country?
Excellent.

I'm not terribly interested in the left's Ann Coulter.

Das Kapital? Rubbish. Read a modern economic textbook.

Sun Tzu's Art of War? Genius. Your summation is grossly misleading in both "pre" and "post guns."

Anarchist's Cookbook - meh. Get a life emo kids.

Dude, Where's My Country? Haven't read it.

That's a pretty good summation.

Thomas is international. :) http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/about/thomas.htm

Yea, Thomas! :D

As for the Anarchist's Cookbook, I have heard it said that if one were to follow the recipes for bomb-making that are given, one would be risking life and limb in that they are intentionally booby-trapped. Dunno how true that is, though.

I've read it, and discussed it with my father, a PhD physical chemist with a good knowledge of explosives. I've also read some of the source material. It's largely useless.


Here's the authors comments from Amazon:
The Anarchist Cookbook was written during 1968 and part of 1969 soon after I graduated from high school. At the time, I was 19 years old and the Vietnam War and the so-called counter culture movement were at their height. I was involved in the anti-war movement and attended numerous peace rallies and demonstrations. The book, in many respects, was a misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in.

I conducted the research for the manuscript on my own, primarily at the New York City Public Library. Most of the contents were gleaned from Military and Special Forces Manuals. I was not member of any radical group of either a left or right wing persuasion.

I submitted the manuscript directly to a number of publishers without the help or advice of an agent. Ultimately, it was accepted by Lyle Stuart Inc. and was published verbatim without editingin early 1970.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0974458902

In otherwords it was written by a high school grad, with no experience in the area. Make your own conclusions from that.

(TM 31-210 (http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Handbook-Department-Defense/dp/0975900900/ref=pd_sim_b_4/002-4117365-7541600) and FM 5-31 (http://www.amazon.com/Boobytraps-Fm5-31-Department-Defense/dp/0975900935/ref=pd_sim_b_5/002-4117365-7541600) are much more reliable sources.)

Also, the book is not simply a bomb making manual. It has a large section dealing with illicit pharmacuticals. This section is equally suspect in nature. The section on firearms is marginally better, but again, the author has no real experience.

Art of War is dreck. Not a thing in it is something anyone with half a brain wouldn't already know. Like not attacking when you are outnumbered. No shit.

You either haven't read it, have read a poor translation, or didn't understand what you read. I suspect a combination of the latter two.

In otherwords it was written by a high school grad, with no experience in the area. Make your own conclusions from that.


I hadn't realized that it was that recent. I read parts of it when I was a teenager, don't remember a damned thing that was in it beyond a vague memory for the ingredients for a napalm-like substance involving gasoline and soap.

I have Ralph Sawyers translation of Art of War. The historical information at the beginning of my copy is excellent for putting Sun Tzu's ideas in to the proper context.

The best part about the Anarchist cookbook is the part about phreaking and hacking into IBM in the 70s. Or how to black out cities by using pay phones.

There is one thing I want to do: liquid nitrogen and shaving cream. Dip the cans, peel the metal, and you have a solid thing of shaving cream. Throw a few in a person's car. Next time they open it, the gases decompress and coat the inside in shaving cream, a bitch to get out of upholstery.

Sun Tzu is interesting, by I prefer On War by von Klausewitz. That is heavy reading, solid reading, and it is more detailed about the realms indirectly associated with war.

And yet militaries around the world read it.

You can't learn calculus without knowing basic arithmetic; you can't employ effective modern-day strategies without knowing the most basic of tactics and ideas. While The Art of War may be "outdated" from a military perspective, it still affords valuable insights into the very fundamentals of war, as they were set forth centuries ago. To gain a better appreciation of anything it would be wise to study the evolution of that subject, how it was revised since its earliest form, etc. To say that it is useless because it is old is to be ignorant of its true value.

The last thing we need every zitfaced urchin in the country doing is 'wreaking havoc,' anarchist vandal children should be caned like in Singapore.

Quoted for sheer amusement.

The Anarchist Cookbook is crap from what I hear. You'd be better off with Kropotkin's the Conquest of Bread or Berkman's ABCs of Anarchism or even The Ego and Its Own from what I hear.

The AC is garbage. There's one bit in there telling how to turn a shotshell into a slug. Anyone who has ever fired a shotgun before can tell you all it will do (at best) is foul the barrel or (at worst) cause it to explode.

Anyways, any real anarchist will figure out how to do stuff on their own, and won't need a book to tell them how to do it.

The AC is garbage. There's one bit in there telling how to turn a shotshell into a slug. Anyone who has ever fired a shotgun before can tell you all it will do (at best) is foul the barrel or (at worst) cause it to explode.

The conspiracy theory always was that the AC was put together by the CIA with deliberate mistakes in to hurt anybody who tried to use it.

The conspiracy theory always was that the AC was put together by the CIA with deliberate mistakes in to hurt anybody who tried to use it.

If it was put together by an intelligence agency, it would have been the FBI or one of the DOD Agencies, not the CIA. That's not it's role in the slightest, while doing something like this would indeed fit the role slightly better of one of the DOD agencies.

The Anarchist Cookbook is crap from what I hear. You'd be better off with Kropotkin's the Conquest of Bread or Berkman's ABCs of Anarchism or even The Ego and Its Own from what I hear.

The Anarchist's Cookbook has nothing to do with the political theory of anarchism...

Wow, the last time I heard of the Anarchist's Cookbook was when the militia movement was big in the 90s. I'd completely forgotten about it.

Best two books on the list are Sun Tzu's Art Of War and The Anarchist's Cookbook.

The Anarchist's Cookbook has nothing to do with the political theory of anarchism...
True if you want a decent look at anarchisim its probably one of the worse references.(though it probably provides a good laugh for ER staff).I liked the book 'The History of a Movement by Sam Mbah & I. E. Igariwey' purely for the movement in South Africa. For some reason I kinda liked the book 'Starship Troopers' mainly because of the incorpration of some of its ideas into modern military thinking.That and its always a good reason to invoke 'Godwins Law'.;)

True if you want a decent look at anarchisim its probably one of the worse references.(though it probably provides a good laugh for ER staff)

If you want any look at all at anarchism as a political philosphy it's a bad resource since it has about as much to do with anarchism as the instruction manual to my car does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchists_Cookbook

There's the link for anyone who thinks that it has the slightest thing to do with anarchism as a political philosophy.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War, along with Machiavelli's The Prince is the basis for most modern governments. Hugely influential books.

I frankly couldn't get through Capital. It was too dull (and largely inapplicable to the world). I can't stand Hegel - reading Marx is like Hegel doing economics.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War, along with Machiavelli's The Prince is the basis for most modern governments. Hugely influential books.

I frankly couldn't get through Capital. It was too dull (and largely inapplicable to the world). I can't stand Hegel - reading Marx is like Hegel doing economics.

Not nearly as much as you think, on the first counts.

The Prince is practically a satire, and should be read with the tongue firmly in the cheek.

No Macheavelli? (sp?)

Damned shame. Good book right there.

The Anarchist Cookbook is crap from what I hear. You'd be better off with Kropotkin's the Conquest of Bread or Berkman's ABCs of Anarchism or even The Ego and Its Own from what I hear.

It is, but not for that reason. It wasn't intended as a work on the Anarchism philosophy, but as a guide to counter-culture mischief. As has been pointed out, it's rather a misguide.

The AC is garbage. There's one bit in there telling how to turn a shotshell into a slug. Anyone who has ever fired a shotgun before can tell you all it will do (at best) is foul the barrel or (at worst) cause it to explode.

And then there's the whole "bananadine" bit.

The conspiracy theory always was that the AC was put together by the CIA with deliberate mistakes in to hurt anybody who tried to use it.

The authors version I posted above makes mores sense. I find it easier to believe that some teenager goes down to the library, flips through some FMs and TMs, reads a bunch of hippy "alternative press" stuff, writes it up, and gets it published; rather than the government that can't keep really important stuff secret has kept this secret.

Best two books on the list are Sun Tzu's Art Of War and The Anarchist's Cookbook.

Well, the Anarchist's Cookbook's more entertaining than the other two, but I wouldn't call it a I book.

along with Machiavelli's The Prince is the basis for most modern governments.

No Macheavelli? (sp?)

Silly person. See the post 3 and a half hours before yours.

Damned shame. Good book right there.

Good book? You do realise Machiavelli's a person and not a book, right?