Further Reading

"History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme." - Attributed to Mark Twain

To build a state, you need more than theory and tactics. You need history, biography, political economy, and a sense for how technology and culture drive change at civilizational scale. The books below form a living curriculum - not just for startup societies, but for anyone seeking to understand how societies rise, fall, and can be rebuilt.

Macrohistory

• The Lessons of History - Will & Ariel Durant
• Unqualified Reservations - Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug)
• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
• The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
• Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America - David Hackett Fischer
• War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires - Peter Turchin
• Stalin's War: A New History of World War II - Sean McMeekin
• Energy and Civilization: A History - Vaclav Smil
• Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past - David Reich
• The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome - Fustel de Coulanges
• The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - William Strauss & Neil Howe
• The Grey Lady Winked: How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History - Ashley Rindsberg
• The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age - James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg

New Countries & State Formation

• Foundation - Isaac Asimov
• Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism - Benedict Anderson
• Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood - Joshua Keating
• The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution - Francis Fukuyama
• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States - Daniel Immerwahr
• The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution - Yuri Slezkine
• Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation - Charles Nordhoff
• The Significance of the Frontier in American History - Frederick Jackson Turner

Political Case Studies

• A New Idea of India: Individual Rights in a Civilisational State
• Harsh Madhusudan & Rajeev Mantri
• China's Political Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy - Daniel A. Bell
• Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed - James C. Scott
• Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy - Stephen Wertheim
• From Third World to First: The Singapore Story - Lee Kuan Yew
• When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany - Adam Fergusson
• Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China - Ezra F. Vogel
• Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union - Vladislav M. Zubok

Regulation and Power

• Where Is My Flying Car? - J. Storrs Hall
• Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent - Harvey Silverglate
• Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA - Daniel P. Carpenter
• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York - Robert A. Caro

Rebuilding and Innovation

• The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch - Lewis Dartnell
• How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom - Matt Ridley
• How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler - Ryan North
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
• Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail - Ray Dalio

Self-Improvement

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones - James Clear
• Tools for Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers - Tim Ferriss
• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness
• Eric Jorgenson, Naval Ravikant

Technology

• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers - Ben Horowitz
• High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People
• Elad Gil
• AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order - Kai-Fu Lee

Crypto

• The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking - Saifedean Ammous
• Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better - Lyn Alden
• The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything - Paul Vigna & Michael J. Casey
• Daemon - Daniel Suarez

How to Use This List

Begin with macrohistorical context to understand cycles of rise and fall, zoom into the specifics of political order and case studies of state formation, then move to the practicalities of rebuilding and technological progress. As you advance, focus both on which ideas you can use to make your network state successful. Every book here rewards deep reading and re-reading.