Césaire, Aimé, Discourse on Colonialism, translated by Joan Pinkham, New York University Press, 2000.

This classic work on colonialism, originally published in France in 1955, helped influence education and activism on colonial issues in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The author exposes the falsehoods of Western notions of colonial life and gives an accurate depiction of what life was really like in the colonies, for both the colonizer and the colonized.

Devlin, Keith J., Mathematics: The Science of Patterns, Scientific American Library, 1997.

Devlin goes beyond the assumption many people have made that mathematics deals only with numbers and places it within its cultural and historical context. The book, which features very little mathematical instruction, is nevertheless a great introduction for those interested in learning more about mathematical concepts.

Hochschild, Adam, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Houghton...