Person
Every book James Lindsay recommended on podcasts
Across 4 podcasts. Every show James Lindsay appears on, in one place — not just one.
James Lindsay’s most recommended books
- One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse
- White Fragility by Dr. Robin DiAngelo
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
- The Great Narrative by Klaus Schwab, Thierry Malleret
- Thought reform and the psychology of totalism by Robert Jay Lifton
- An Essay on Liberation by Herbert Marcuse
- Bible by Bible
- Covid-19: The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab
- Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
James Stephen Lindsay, known professionally as James A. Lindsay, or Conceptual James, is an American author and mathematician. In 2017 and 2018 he, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose submitted hoax articles to academic journals in order to test scholarship and rigor in several academic fields, an act which became known as the grievance studies affair. During his podcast appearances, Lindsay has discussed and analyzed several influential political and philosophical texts. He highlighted Bjørn Lomborg's How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place as a thoughtful strategy for resource allocation, and referenced Carl Schmitt's Political Theology to examine geopolitics and the friend-enemy distinction. Lindsay also discussed Patrick J. Deneen's Regime Change to explain the vision of the radical right, David Horowitz's Radical Son alongside Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's The Communist Manifesto to explore leftist tactics, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Andrzej Łobaczewski's Political Ponerology, and Josef Pieper's Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power.
Books recommended by James Lindsay
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One-Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse is a prominent 1964 socio-political critique examining how advanced industrial society controls human behavior and suppresses dissent through consumerism and technological rationality.
Discussed“So we go back to our neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse writing in 'One-Dimensional Man'... and what is he saying? What's his argument?”
Where to get it
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White Fragility
White Fragility by Dr.
Discussed“yeah it's like like this book now white fragility right Robin D'Angelo's book white fragility it's that's the one that Matt Taibbi destroyed”
Where to get it
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How to Be an Antiracist
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X.
Critiqued“sorry he's how is how to be an anti-racist i forgot to say that and that's where he says the only page 19 the only way the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination and the only revenue to present discrimination is future discrimination”
Where to get it
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Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is Adolf Hitler's notorious autobiographical manifesto detailing his political ideology and antisemitic worldview.
Discussed“So let's look through Hitler's autobiography, and political manifesto and see if we can find anything. So I'm reading this book for the first time in my life, and it's shockingly bad in all regards.”
Where to get it
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The Great Narrative
The Great Narrative by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret is a socio-economic policy book that proposes a collaborative global framework to address contemporary systemic crises and shape a new moral structure for society.
Discussed“So 'The Great Narrative,' his second book that he wrote… well, it's his fourth, really, but the second book he wrote in that series is much more poignant.”
Where to get it
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Thought reform and the psychology of totalism
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism by Robert Jay Lifton is a psychological study examining coercive persuasion, ideological control, and the methods used to reshape human belief systems through brainwashing and totalitarian environments.
Discussed“literally the title of his his book that he wrote off of this is called thought reform and the psychology of totalism a study of brainwashing in China”
Where to get it
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Bible
The Bible is a foundational anthology of sacred texts and scriptures central to both Judaism and Christianity, detailing narratives of creation, prophetic guidance, historical accounts, and moral teachings that have shaped Western civilization for millennia.
Discussed“and just as you know the poor Israelites you know go through this cycle dozens of times through the through the books of the Bible”
Where to get it
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Covid-19: The Great Reset
Covid-19: The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret is a socio-political book exploring global restructuring in the wake of the pandemic.
Discussed“he's got a book called coven 19 the great reset he's got a few books actually i've read some of some of his other ones but i read all of that one and it's just corporate gobbledygook”
Where to get it
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Stamped from the Beginning
Critiqued“he wrote two really kind of influential books one is stamped from the beginning which is what i was just saying america was stamped from the beginning in racism”
Where to get it
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The Critical Turn in Education
The Critical Turn in Education by Isaac Gottesman is a scholarly work that details the historical infiltration and ideological shifts within educational institutions through a critical Marxist framework.
Discussed“it's called the critical turn in education and i've been doing a podcast series on this book uh it's written by a guy named isaac gotzman”
Where to get it
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The Open Society and Its Enemies
The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper is a renowned philosophical defense of liberal democracy and critical rationalism against totalitarian ideologies.
Discussed“Carl popper wrote a book in 1945 called the open society and its enemies and so the open Society is what we've been taking for granted basically in the post World War II era”
Where to get it
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The phenomenology of spirit
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's foundational philosophical work explores the development of human consciousness and historical progress.
Discussed“in fact if we read phenomenology of spirit from Hegel 1807 a publication”
Where to get it
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How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place
How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place by Bjørn Lomborg is an analytical and pragmatic guide that evaluates global challenges and applies cost-benefit analysis to determine the most effective ways to allocate resources for maximum humanitarian and economic impact.
Recommended“Bjorn wrote a book a while back called 'How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place,' which is an intelligent approach to... I wouldn't say the polycrisis because that isn't how he frames it!”
Where to get it
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Abuse of language, abuse of power
Discussed“I read a very I think one of the most important essays in English which is Joseph Peeper's uh abuse of language abuse of power I don't know if you've heard of this Joseph Peeper was a Catholic and he had some he wrote this I don't know what else he did honestly I should probably look into it but”
Where to get it
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Capital
Capital by Karl Marx is a foundational critique of political economy that examines the mechanics of capitalist production, commodity fetishism, and the systemic exploitation of labor.
Discussed“if we focus on his economic analysis in capital we miss the entire picture”
Where to get it
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Cheiro's Book of Numbers
Discussed“and then you know Jordan was talking out of the Book of Numbers the other day I've taken the Book of Numbers very seriously this is wandering in the desert and they're very dissatisfied”
Where to get it
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Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic is an accessible introductory text outlining the core tenets and academic framework of critical race theory.
Discussed“this is quoting from another book which is a critical race theory and introduction in case we wonder if it's about critical race theory racism is the ordinary state of affairs in society not an aberration from them”
Where to get it
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Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Discussed“It's very, if you go back and you read the first page of Marx's "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," which sounds obscure, but that's the very famous, "religion is the opiate of the masses" page. It's just one page.”
Where to get it
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Das Kapital
Das Kapital by Karl Marx is a monumental three-volume economic and social analysis of capitalism, the commodification of labor, and the alienating effects of industrial modernization.
Discussed“If we focus on his economic analysis in 'Capital', we miss the entire picture.”
Where to get it
The other 22 books James Lindsay recommended or discussed, ranked
- Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer
- Faces at the Bottom of the Well by Derrick Bell
- Fashionable Nonsense by Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont
- Feeling Power by Megan Boler
- Good White People by Shannon Sullivan
- How Jews Became White Folks and what that Says about Race in America by Karen Brodkin
- Is Everyone Really Equal? by Ozlem Sensoy
- Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) by Andrzej M. Lobaczewski
- Political Theology by Carl Schmitt
- Race, racism, and American law by Derrick Bell
- Radical Son by David Horowitz
- Regime Change by Patrick J. Deneen
- Repressive Tolerance by Herbert Marcuse
- Stakeholder Capitalism by Klaus Schwab
- The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
- The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
- The Politics of Education by Paulo Freire
- The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard
- The Racial Contract by Charles Wade Mills
Books James Lindsay wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (15: passing, ad reads, own books)
“I wrote a book about the trans stuff it just came out on the 29th um called the queering of the American child to talk about how schools have been turned into like indoctrination centers”
“I just published a book y'all it's called the marxification of education really good you should pick it up”
“i wrote a book in february called race marxism that's about critical race theory so yeah”
“the title of the book is going to be the marxification of education and i'm aiming you know”
“but i just i just let a new book out called race marxism”
“and like right off the bat somebody said like i'm like my wikipedia said you know james lindsay portrays himself as a serious commentator he wrote a book how to have impossible conversations and yet he goes on twitter and makes your mom jokes”
“if you start informing these people this is like the hail mary then there's a way out of this where in fact it all can almost evaporate as i think helen put in cynical theories as like a puff of its own contradictions or something like that”
“If you start informing these people this is like the hail mary then there's a way out of this where in fact it all can almost evaporate as i think helen put in cynical theories as like a puff of its own contradictions or something like that”
“like all of a sudden it's like needful things it's like the whole town's going crazy because of demon possession”
“and anybody who's interested will be able to read this in great detail in the book I wrote with Helen which is due out in May called cynical theories by 2010 or so it had become just the phrase that is probably best used”
“and so this is why I did it ended up writing a best-selling New York Times bestselling book called fashionable nonsense talking about how these guys use these fashionable terms and just say the right political things”
“and I would I had just written this book or was in the process I don't remember exactly the date I'd written this book trying to look at the psychological motivations behind belief in God and what people mean by that”
“I think one of the most important things and this isn't our forthcoming book about how to have impossible conversations Peter and I just finished one of those important things is to learn to disavow the extremists on your side”
“that's a call everybody's wrong about God and it sounds like I'm just gonna go after religion but it's actually the culmination of my study of religious psychology”
“you know l ron hubbard was at Dianetics or whatever”