Purity and Danger – Mary Douglas – 1966 (Routledge & Kegan Paul)
A landmark anthropological study that explores how concepts of ‘dirt’ and ‘taboo’ function as symbolic tools to maintain social order and conceptual boundaries within human cultures.
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Rationality – Bryan Wilson – 2023
Bryan Wilson’s *Rationality* offers a practical guide to improving decision-making by identifying and mitigating cognitive biases. The book synthesizes research from cognitive psychology and behavioral economics into an accessible framework for enhancing rational thought.
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Psychological Types – Carl Jung – Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 6 (Bollingen Series XX)
A foundational study of human consciousness, exploring the attitudes of introversion and extraversion alongside the four psychological functions to understand individual differences in perception and judgment.
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Prey into Hunter – Maurice Bloch – 1982, Cambridge University Press
Maurice Bloch’s *Prey into Hunter* explores the dynamics of ritual, demonstrating how they invert and ultimately reinforce social hierarchies through controlled displays of power and vulnerability.
The book offers a materialist perspective on ritual action, focusing on its practical effects on social relations.
It remains a key work in anthropological studies of power, violence and social control. -
Primitive Time-Reckoning: A Study in the Origins and First Development of the Art of Counting Time among the Primitive and Early Culture Peoples – Martin P. Nilsson – 1920 (Gleerup, Lund)
A foundational study on how human societies first structured time using celestial and natural cycles, tracing the evolution from environmental cues to formal calendars.
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Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast – Jim Pojar, Andy MacKinnon – Revised Edition, 2004 (Lone Pine Publishing)
A comprehensive field guide that integrates botanical science with the deep ethnobotanical knowledge of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, revealing the forest as a site of historical memory and symbolic meaning.
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Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment – Herbert Simon – Originally published in Psychological Review, Vol. 63, No. 2, 1956.
A foundational text introducing bounded rationality and the concept of ‘satisficing,’ exploring how human decision-making is shaped by cognitive limits and environmental structures.
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Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought – Geoffrey Lloyd – Originally published by Cambridge University Press (1966).
A seminal study on the cognitive frameworks of early Greek philosophers, focusing on how binary opposites and metaphorical analogies shaped the foundations of Western logic and science.
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Public Opinion – Walter Lippmann – 1922, Harcourt, Brace and Company
Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion is a seminal work that explores the psychological and social forces shaping public belief in the modern age. It argues that public opinion is often based on stereotypes and secondhand information, rather than direct experience or rational thought.
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Psychology and Alchemy – Carl Jung – 1944, Routledge & Kegan Paul
This work explores the symbolic relationship between alchemy and the individuation process, presenting alchemical imagery as representations of psychological transformation.
It contextualizes alchemy as a pre-scientific psychological system.
Suitable for readers with an interest in Jungian psychology, symbolism, and the history of ideas.