Reading List
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Philosopher and Author
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a philosopher at New York University, working on ethics, identity and the philosophy of language. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers argued for obligations that cross borders without requiring agreement; The Honor Code examined how moral revolutions actually happen, and found honour rather than argument doing much of the work in the ending of duelling, footbinding and the Atlantic slave trade.
He was born in London and raised in Kumasi, Ghana, which informs In My Father’s House and The Lies That Bind, his book on the identities of creed, country, colour, class and culture that people take to be fixed. Since 2015 he has written The Ethicist column for the New York Times Magazine.
The Duel
by Anton Chekhov
“It’s just so marvellous, the description of these professional-class Russians, far, far away from Moscow in the provinces, and their preoccupation with status and all that, and these two guys in a completely pointless duel. It’s not just Chekhov creating an interesting narrative moment; it really was so common with these duels that it was extremely difficult to say in a short paragraph exactly what they were about.” — via Interview, November 2012
Moral Capital
Foundations of British Abolitionism
by Christopher Leslie Brown
“This is another beautiful piece of scholarship by an eminent historian, but you don’t have to be an academic to read it. It’s about a really interesting subject that I think would interest anybody. It’s about the abolitionist movement in England in the late 18th century and at the turn of the 19th century, with people like Wilberforce, and it tries to explain why so many Englishmen got involved in anti-slavery.” — via Interview, November 2012
Honor
by Frank Henderson Stewart
“This is a very different kind of book. Frank Henderson Stewart is a very distinguished scholar, now retired, an expert on the ancient Near East, but he thought deeply about honour. He read ancient texts and legal documents because, as you know, honour is a legal concept in German law and you can seek to have your honour protected in various ways – it’s sort of what they have instead of libel.” — via Interview, November 2012
The Economy of Esteem
An Essay on Civil and Political Society
by Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit
“In New York City a lot of rich people give away a lot of money and, if you ask why, the natural explanation is that they get the reward of being esteemed. People think better of them, and it’s a striking fact that in New York where the richest people are a thousand times richer than the poorest people there is not a lot of resentment. That is because there is a tradition of the rich supporting the public good.” — Source
In the Name of Honor
A Memoir
by Mukhtar Mai
“She talked to her about how she became known around the world because of this episode where she was raped, essentially at the order of a village council in Pakistan because one of the local big families said her brother, who I don’t think was even a teenager, had allegedly assaulted one of their daughters. In fact, he had only been talking to her.” — Source