Want to know what books Will Davies recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Will Davies's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, Gregory Elliott | 4.50
New edition of this major work examining the development of neoliberalism
In this major work, sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello go to the heart of the changes in contemporary capitalism. Via an unprecedented analysis of the latest management texts that have formed the thinking of employers in their reorganization of business, the authors trace the contours of a new spirit of capitalism. They argue that from the middle of the 1970s onwards, capitalism abandoned the hierarchical Fordist work structure and developed a new network-based form of organization that was... more New edition of this major work examining the development of neoliberalism
In this major work, sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello go to the heart of the changes in contemporary capitalism. Via an unprecedented analysis of the latest management texts that have formed the thinking of employers in their reorganization of business, the authors trace the contours of a new spirit of capitalism. They argue that from the middle of the 1970s onwards, capitalism abandoned the hierarchical Fordist work structure and developed a new network-based form of organization that was founded on employee initiative and autonomy in the workplace--a -freedom- that came at the cost of material and psychological security. The authors connect this new spirit with the children of the libertarian and romantic currents of the late 1960s (as epitomised by dressed-down, cool capitalists such as Bill Gates and -Ben and Jerry-) arguing that they practice a more successful and subtle-form of exploitation. Now a classic work charting the sociological structure of neoliberalism, Boltanski and Chiapello show how the new spirit triumphed thanks to a remarkable recuperation of the left's critique of the alienation of everyday life that simultaneously undermined their -social critique.-
In this new edition, the two author reflect on the reception of the book and the debates it has stimulated. less 
Will DaviesWhat’s very original about the book is that they show how capitalism develops these moral paradigms out of specific traditions of anti-capitalism. This is partly what makes capitalism so hard to overturn. It is a system that learns from its critics. (Source)
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2
Scan down a list of essential works in any introduction to anthropology course and you are likely to see to see Marcel Mauss’s masterpiece, Essay on the Gift. With this new translation, this crucial essay is returned to its original context, published alongside the profound works that framed its first publication in the 1923–24 issue of L’Année Sociologique. With a critical foreword by Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch, this is certain to become the standard English version of this important anthropological work.
Included alongside the “Essay on the Gift”... more Scan down a list of essential works in any introduction to anthropology course and you are likely to see to see Marcel Mauss’s masterpiece, Essay on the Gift. With this new translation, this crucial essay is returned to its original context, published alongside the profound works that framed its first publication in the 1923–24 issue of L’Année Sociologique. With a critical foreword by Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch, this is certain to become the standard English version of this important anthropological work.
Included alongside the “Essay on the Gift” are Mauss’s memorial accounts of the work of colleagues lost during World War I, as well as his scholarly reviews of influential contemporaries such as Franz Boas, James George Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, and others. Read in the context of these additional pieces, the “Essay on the Gift” is revealed as a complementary whole, a gesture of both personal and political generosity: his honor for his fallen colleagues; his aspiration for modern society’s recuperation of the gift as a mode of repair; and his own careful, yet critical, reading of his intellectual milieu. The result sets the scene for a whole new generation of readers to study this essay alongside pieces that exhibit the erudition, political commitment, and generous collegial exchange that first nourished it into life.
less Will DaviesA classic of economic anthropology. Its central argument is that gifts of all kinds require reciprocity and that this plays a fundamental role in how societies cohere. (Source)
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In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests--so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice--was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that is a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking.... more In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests--so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice--was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that is a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking. Among the insights presented here is the ironical finding that capitalism was originally supposed to accomplish exactly what was soon denounced as its worst feature: the repression of the passions in favor of the harmless, if one-dimensional, interests of commercial life. To portray this lengthy ideological change as an endogenous process, Hirschman draws on the writings of a large number of thinkers, including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith.
Featuring a new afterword by Jeremy Adelman and a foreword by Amartya Sen, this Princeton Classics edition of The Passions and the Interests sheds light on the intricate ideological transformation from which capitalism emerged triumphant, and reaffirms Hirschman's stature as one of our most influential and provocative thinkers. less 
Mark BlythThe notion in the whole book is that it is far better for man to lord it over his bank balance than it is over his fellow man. (Source)
Will DaviesThe core question in Hirschman’s book is actually in its subtitle: ‘Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph’. Like Weber, Hirschman realised that, first, there is nothing natural about capitalism. (Source)
Robert J ShillerWhen we reflect on some of the horrors of capitalism, we have to consider that things could have been much worse if we didn’t have this system. Our fights would have been on real battlefields, rather than economic battlefields. (Source)
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4
Before there was money, there was debt
Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long... more Before there was money, there was debt
Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy. less 
Seth GodinI recommend it in audio because David is sometimes repetitive and a little elliptical, but in audio it's all okay because you can just listen to it again. (Source)
David Heinemeier HanssonAfter a few false starts, I finally got going with this, and what a treat. It shoots down the common myth that prior to money, everyone just bartered shit. I give you a pig, you give me five pies and a hat. Evidence shows that just wasn’t at all how things went. Most societies were structured either rather communistic (take what you need, give what you can) or with a loose debt-ledger system (or... (Source)
Will DaviesWhat’s stunning about the book is how it brings an anthropological perspective to bear on such an expansive history and geography, bringing the story right up to the present day, at the precise moment when debt has become a hugely political, mobilizing and destabilizing issue. Its central argument is simple and easy to grasp, and has been seized by activists and critics of the financial sector. (Source)
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5
Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, R.H. Tawney | 3.85
The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged... more The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. less 
Liam MartinMax Weber Protestant Ethic, and Karl Marx's Capital had a huge impact on me. If you read Marx with a critical critique you can see that he's laid out a fantastic framework on how capitalism works, I do disagree with his core premise (capitalism being bad) so I took it as a great way to understand how I could operate inside of a capitalist economy. Weber on the other hand shows you exactly how to... (Source)
Will DaviesOne of the most famous and influential works of sociology ever written and one of the founding texts of economic sociology. I’ve always found it inspirational. (Source)
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