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
- The Lessons of History by Will Durant, Ariel Durant
- 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
- World Cultures: Analyzing Pre-Industrial Societies In Africa, Asia, Europe, And the Americas by James T. Shea
The How
- The Battle of the Little Bighorn: A Good Day To Die by Francis Hayes
- 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
- The Heroine With 1,001 Faces by Maria Tatar
- 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
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
- Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
- When Women Ruled The World by Maureen Quilligan
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
- Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini
- The Wealth Of Nations by Adam Smith
Defection
- Boss Tweed: The Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York by Kenneth D. Ackerman
- Class Struggle Unionism by Joe Burns
- The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society by Debra Soh
- In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Jeanne Nemeth
- Genghis Khan: A Life From Beginning to End by Henry Freeman
- Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump by Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein
- 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
- The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good by Robert H. Frank
- Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz
- The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World by Marie Favereau
- 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 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
- The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World by Stewart Patrick
- Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter
- 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
- Berlin by Jason Lutes
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Elektra by Jennifer Saint
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- The Guest by Albert Camus (Exile and the Kingdom)
- Jonas, or The Artist at Work by Albert Camus (Exile and the Kingdom)
- The Renegade, or A Confused Mind by Albert Camus (Exile and the Kingdom)
- The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
- The Voiceless by Albert Camus (Exile and the Kingdom)
- A Voracious Grief by Lindsey Lamh
