What I'm reading

Inspired by Jim, I should let you guys in on what I've been reading lately.

• Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country by William Greider: anybody who wants to really understand the subtle nature of power in this country needs to read this book. I think it's a very fair treatment of the economic hegemony the financial elite exert over the otherwise innocent, productive masses. It poses the right questions and reads very easily and actually dovetails with Carson's book in several important ways, including his theory of overaccumulation. Throughout the book Greider builds a running metaphor of monetary policy as a religious endeavor, complete with priests, faith in mystery, and a curious "morality" which I found very engaging (Jim less so).
• New Libertarian Manifesto (PDF here) by Samuel Edward Konkin III: this is to agorism what the Communist Manifesto was the Marxists and the Port Huron Statement was to the New Left. While it seems like more of a breadth first survey of Konkin's new libertarianism (as does Agorist Class Theory - PDF here) it contains profound ideas about the full revolutionary and subversive potential of countereconomics. I get the feeling that Konkin fully intended to flesh this stuff out more than was previously done, and I'm keen to find his other writing.
• The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto: I've been reading this book online but the print edition is worth the money. In order to understand the predicament of today's schools and attempt an authentic reform, Gatto finds he must challenge the full historical orthodoxy of the managerial, centralized, corporatist state - along with the convenient culture they've semi-purposefully engineered over the past 150 years. By analyzing the people behind the scenes of the development of compulsory schooling, Gatto paints a picture that will shake your belief in America's founding principles to its very core. I will certainly be blogging more about this book in the future; it's implications are absolutely revolutionary.
• The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris: I just started reading this because I'm very interested in the climate that changed America from the agrarian, individualist, entrepreneurial nation it was into the consolidated corporatist state we now occupy. I've heard so many conflicting accounts of the late 19th century history concerning the "robber barons" that I really can't take anything for granted. I'd appreciate any other suggestions for reading on this period as well.