This is an alphabetical version. For a subjective ranked version see: Ranked: To Cooperate Or To Defect?
The title is misleading. It's not whether to cooperate or to defect, but how to cooperate or to defect. There are many ways in which individuals or groups can cooperate or defect with each other. This list of books describes why there is a choice to either cooperate or defect, and the how to go about it.
The Basic Premise
- The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
- The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
- Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the U.S. House of Representatives by Juliet Eilperin
- Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom
- Individualism and Economic Order by Friedrich A. Hayek
- Inquisition by Edward Peters
- Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua D. Greene
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
- Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations by Amy Chua
- Race And Culture: A World View by Thomas Sowell
- Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals that Direct Our Lives by Michele Gelfand
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
- The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
The How
- Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
- Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
- Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us by Brian Klaas
- Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler
- From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000 by Lee Kuan Yew
- The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 3]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Hot Buttons: How to Resolve Conflict and Cool Everyone Down by Sybil Evans, Sherry Suib Cohen
- I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
- Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation by Elizabeth Pisani
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
- On Obligations by Marcus Tullius Cicero
- The Politics by Aristotle
- The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter by Joseph Henrich
- Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics by Joseph S. Nye
- Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
Cooperation
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
- Development and Connection in the Time of COVID-19: Corona’s Call for Conscious Choices by Cornelia C. Walther
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
Defection
- Boss Tweed: The Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York by Kenneth D. Ackerman
- Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump by Joseph E. Stiglitz
- In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Jeanne Nemeth
- October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville
- Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
- Tibet on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule by Tsering Woeser
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
A Choice
- Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong
- The New Farm: Our Ten Years on the Front Lines of the Good Food Revolution by Brent Preston
- The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World by Stewart Patrick
- The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire by Tore Skeie
Fiction
- The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
