Books recommended by Peter Thiel from wsj.com

Jean-Michel Oughourlian

“For a fresh application of Mr. Girard's insights into power politics, that great international theater of irrationality.”

John Locke

“It was John Locke, in The Reasonableness of Christianity, said that Christ obviously had to mislead people, since if he had not done so, the authorities might have tried to kill him.”

René Girard

“There is no better way to think about human irrationality than to read Dostoevsky, and there is no better reader of Dostoevsky than Mr. Girard.”

Sonia Arrison

“First published in 2011, but its message is evergreen: how scientists are directly attacking the problem of aging and death.”

Timothy Snyder

“He tells how the Nazis and the Soviets drove each other to ever more murderous atrocities...Each victim was an individual whose life cannot be reduced to the violence that cut it short.”