Prime Reading

Preparation for work that may affect the fate of humanity requires not just technical studies, but a broad, general background in many fields, and certain basic skills, to provide a social, philosophic, and historical perspective.

To place order for the book from Amazon.com, click on the A link beside it.

Basic skills

A Norman Lewis, How to Read Better and Faster, New York: Crowell, 1958, 1990.
A Rudolf F. Flesch, How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively, New York: Harper, 1960, 1994.
A Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972, 1997.
A William Strunk & E.B. White, Elements of Style, New York: Macmillan, 1979, 1995.
A Joseph D. Novak & D. Bob Gowin, Learning How to Learn, New York: Cambridge, 1984.
A Wayne A. Wickelgren, How to Solve Problems, San Francisco: Freeman, 1974.
A David R. Beasley, How to Use a Research Library, New York: Oxford, 1988.
A Jean Dane, How to Use a Law Library, Sweet & Maxwell.
A Robert A. Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1988.

The Classics

Read most of the works in the set, A Great Books of the Western World, in order. See document "How to Read the Great Books of the Western World", which also has additional works by the same authors.

Philosophy and Religion

A The Comparative Study Bible, Grand Rapids: Zonderan, 1984.
A Willis Barnstone, The Other Bible, New York: Harpercollins, 1984.
A Al-Qur'an (Koran), tr. Ahmed Ali, Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1984.
A Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945.
A E.D. Klemke, R. Hollinger & A.D. Kline eds, Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Buffalo: Prometheus, 1988.
A S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978, 1991.
A A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, New York: Dover, 1952; Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, New York: St. Martins, 1969.
A Otto Neurath (Ed.), Rudolf Carnap (Ed.), Charles F. W. Morris (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1955.
A Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1952.
A D.T. Suzuki, Manual of Zen Buddhism, New York: Grove, 1960.

History, Biography and Futurics

A A Arnold Toynbee, Study of History, Vol. 1-10 abr. D.C. Somervell, New York: Oxford, 1947-57.
A Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Frontier, Austin: U. Tex. Press, 1964.
A Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1954, 1989.
Bertrand de Jouvenel, The Art of Conjecture, New York: Basic Books, 1967.

Ecology and Arcology

A Paul & Anne Ehrlich, The Population Explosion, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
A Donella Meadows et al., Limits to Growth, New York: Universe Press, 1972, 1977.
A Garrett De Bell ed, The New Environmental Handbook, San Francisco: Friends of the Earth, 1980.
A George Dantzig & Thomas Saaty, Compact City, San Francisco: Freeman, 1973.
A Paolo Soleri, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.
A C.R. Chapman & D. Morrison, Cosmic Catastrophes, New York: Plenum, 1989.
A E.O. Wilson ed, Biodiversity, Washington, DC: Nat. Acad. Press, 1988.

Government, Law and International Relations

Clarence Streit, Atlantic Union Now, Washington, DC: Freedom & Union, 1962.
A Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, New York: Knopf, 1967.
A Ephraim London ed, World of Law, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.

Mathematics and Logic

A George Polya, How to Solve It, Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1945, 1988.
A Rudolf Carnap, Foundations of Logic and Mathematics, Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1939.
Stephen C. Kleene, Mathematical Logic, New York: John Wiley, 1967.
A Martin Davis, Computability and Unsolvability, New York: Dover, 1982.
A Paul Halmos, Naive Set Theory, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1974, 1987, and A Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1974.
A William R. Scott, Group Theory, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
A Saunders MacLane & Garrett Birkhoff, Algebra, New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Steven A. Gaal, Point-Set Topology, New York: Academic, 1964.
A Michel Gondran & Michel Minoux, Graphs and Algorithms, New York: Wiley, 1984.
A M.M. Rao, Probability Theory with Applications, New York: Academic, 1984.
A Robert D. Luce, Games and Decisions, New York: Wiley, 1957.
A David E. Goldberg, Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning, Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1989.
Trenchard More, collected papers on array theory, Cambridge: IBM, 1978-87. Book hopefully being written.
A Donald Gross & Carl M. Harris, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, New York: Wiley, 1974.
A Wayne Lee, Experimental Design and Analysis, San Francisco: Freeman, 1975.

Cybernetics and Information Theory

A John R. Pierce, An Introduction to Information Theory, New York: Dover, 1980.
A Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.
A Bernard P. Zeigler, Theory of Modeling and Simulation, New York: Wiley, 1976.
A Ernest Davis, Representations of Commonsense Knowledge, San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1990.
A Patrick Winston, Artificial Intelligence, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1984, 1992.
A E. Goles, Neural and Automata Networks, Boston: Kluwer Acad., 1990.
A Judea Pearl, Heuristics: Intelligent Search Strategies for Computer Problem-Solving, Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1984.

Physics, Cosmology and Electronics

A H.A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski & H. Weyl, The Principle of Relativity, New York: Dover, 1950.
A Richard Feynman, The Theory of Fundamental Processes, New York: Addison-Wesley, 1961.
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu & Franck Laloë, Quantum Mechanics, A Vol. 1, A Vol. 2, New York: Wiley, 1977.
A H.P. Robertson & Thomas W. Noonan, Relativity and Cosmology, Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1969.
A C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne & J.A. Wheeler, Gravitation, San Francisco: Freeman, 1973.
Stephen W. Hawking & G.F.R. Ellis, The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time, New York: Cambridge, 1973.
A M.B. Green, J.H. Schwarz & E. Witten, Superstring Theory, New York: Cambridge, Vol 1&2 1987, Vol 3 1990.
A Richard E. Sonntag, Introduction to Thermodynamics: Classical and Statistical, New York: Wiley, 1982.
A D.K. Arrowsmith & C.M. Place, An Introduction to Dynamical Systems, New York: Cambridge, 1990.
A David Pines, The Many-Body Problem, New York: W.A. Benjamin, 1962.
A Vladimir Z. Kresin, Fundamentals of Superconductivity, New York: Plenum, 1990.

Molecular Physics, Chemistry and Biology

A Theodore Buyana, Molecular Physics, New York: World Scientific, 1992.
Geoffrey C. Maitland et al., Intermolecular Forces, New York: Oxford, 1981.
Forrest Carter ed, Molecular Electronic Devices, New York: Marcel Dekker, A I 1982, A II 1987.
A David L. Beveridge & William L. Jorgensen eds, Computer Simulation of Chemical and Biomolecular Systems, New York: NY Acad. Sci., 1986.
A Reed & Kirk ed, Nanostructure Physics and Fabrication, New York: Academic, 1989.
F.D. Warner et al., Cell Movement, A Vol. 1, A Vol. 2, New York: Wiley-Liss, 1989.
Heinrich, Bauer & Kuchar ed, Physics and Technology of Submicron Structures, New York: Springer, 1988.

Technology and Space

A K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1986.
A Gerard K. O'Neill, The High Frontier, New York: Morrow, 1977, 1989.

Economics, Management, Society and Cognition

A Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, New York: Free Press, 1983.
A Leo Schneiderman, The Psychology of Social Change, New York: Human Sci. Press, 1988.
A Fred Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth, Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1976.
A Paul Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1983.
A Nicholas Georgescu-Roegan, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1971, 1978.
A Michael I. Posner, Foundations of Cognitive Science, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989.