How is 'Breakdown of Nations' Wessex? I had it in my 'cart' but went with Guns, Germs, and Steel instead (which I highly recommend.)
Also, for what reasons did those books in particular have such an impact on your views or opinions.
The
Breakdown of Nations is excellent. It is basically a very good plea for a more decentralised world.
Quest for community is worth a read because it is an excellent setting out of the communitarian philosophy; the importance of multiple intermediate associations, such as family, local community, occupational associations, with enough strength and autonomy between the individual and the central state in maintaining freedom.
Fields, Factories and Workshops by the great anarchist Peter Kropotkin is a wonderful little book on decentralised production methods for agriculture and industry and what they could already achieve in the late 19th century, it is also includes sections on the need for more regional self-sufficiency, removing the barriers between rural and urban, agriculture and manufacturing and on the need for a more rounded, hands on form of education. It is a little out of date today but you can get a version with figures from the 70s edited by Colin Ward and is well worth a read, it is a good starting point for any forays into such a topic.
Technics and civilisation is the first in Mumford's four book long series
The Renewal of life. It is a work mainly on the machine and technology and its relationship with society and, to me at least, was quite mindblowing in its coverage and how it makes you think about these sorts of things. His main idea is that not only does the machine obviously shape society but also that society shapes the machine, it helps to pick the way technology is developed when their often quite a few choices. It is an excellent written work in my opinion.
And Burke's work is obviously just a classic defence of social conservatism and traditionalism in the face of the centralised, rapid and radical change of the Jacobins.
Edit: I just realised it was more you were asking the impacts on my views rather than a broad synopse, I didn't take in that bit, but the above will hopefully do for now.
