Raymond Aron's The Opium of the Intellectuals is a must-read for anyone with a background in the liberal arts. I also recommend this book to people in physics, engineering, mathematics, and the general STEM fields. The book was published in the 1950s, a time when the US was promoting free-market capitalism and the East promoted state-centralized communism, while Europe, particularly France, remained undecided about its own destiny. I found it poignant, as I see the global theater today perfor...