<i>Voltaire's Bastards</i> by JR Saul is about all those things and many more. Absolutely amazing book, as are most of his others. Kind of a history of rationality since the 18th C, and how it went so wrong. Also a lot about technocrats, politics, etc etc. (About time I read it again!)<p>Oakeshott's <i>Rationalism in Politics</i> blew my mind. (He sees almost all modern political parties as dominated by this <i>rationalism</i>.) I was embarrassed how much I learnt from this long essay. Even a lot about piano teaching. Worth it for the ancient Chinese anecdote in the footnotes alone.<p>Richard Sennett <i>The Fall of Public Man</i> is a history of public spaces, living in cities, public politics, political charisma etc, since Paris in the 19th C.<p>Erving Goffman <i>Presentation of Self in Everyday Life</i> looks at (All these books are very hard to summarise!!) the stages, backstages, performances of life, actual stages, shops, hotels, ranks in organisations, these little worlds with rules and customs, how the rules are subverted, created, evolve.. full of fascinating stories.<p>EF Schumacher <i>Small is Beautiful</i> - definitely about government, money, society. <i>Economics as if people mattered</i>. When I first read this, I thought the survival of the planet depended on people reading it.<p>I found Mandeville's <i>Fable of the Bees</i> (1729) extremely funny and just as true. How everything depends on the sins of humanity. If we were all virtuous, economies would fall apart etc. Goes in detail into this argument and he's hard to argue with.<p>Susan Faludi's <i>STIFFED</i>. I learnt so much about modern work, life, society, and being a man from this. A must read.<p>p.s. and everything by JK Galbraith and C Wright Mills. Good luck!