An education is more than what happens in the classroom, it is more than what happens inside a building. The education of a student is way more than transference of comfortable and easy to get along with concepts. A student studying technology should be exposed to concepts and ideas from a variety of sources and places that agree, challenge, help, detour, and in many ways challenge the perceptions of the student.
The following are a list of books that I (sam) believe are a good basic reading list that students early in a technology program should read. The idea is to expand the concepts and knowledge of the student through familiarization of the relevant concepts and sometimes far flung ideas. Some of these books provide the foundation on which the entire discipline has been founded.
The book list is heavily tilted towards security topics as that is what my expertise is within. Like anything else on this website not all items are going to be politically correct (PC), and some of the content may not be safe for work (NSFW). The list itself will be updated as I see fit, and you may find that it grows over time extensively.
Books and articles all undergraduate students should read
Bryson, B. (2004). A short history of nearly everything. Broadway.
Levy, S. (1984). Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution. New York: Penguin Putnam.
Maconachy, W. V., Schou, C. D., Ragsdale, D., & Welch, D. (2001). A Model for Information Assurance: An Integrated Approach. Paper presented at the 2001 IEEE Workshop on Information Assurance and Security, US Military Academy, West Point, NY.
McCumber, J. (1991). Information Systems Security: A Comprehensive Model. Paper presented at the 14th National Computer Security Conference, National Institute of Standards and Technology. Baltimore, MD. October.
Mitnick, K. D., & Simon, W. (2002). The art of deception: Controlling the human element of security. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.
Robb, J. (2007). Brave new war: The next stage of terrorism and the end of globalization. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Safranski, M. (2008). The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating science, strategy, and war. Nimble Books LLC. Ann Arbor, MI.
Stoll, C. (1990). The cuckoo’s egg: Tracking a spy through the maze of computer espionage. New York: Pocket Books.
Verton, D. (2003). Black Ice: The invisible threat of cyber-terrorism. New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne.
Books and articles all graduate students should read
Arquilla, J., & Ronfeldt, D. (2001). Networks and netwars: The future of terror, crime, and militancy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Berkowitz, B. D. (2003). The new face of war: How war will be fought in the 21st century. New York: Free Press.
Diamond, J. (2005). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of human societies. W. W. Norton.
Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. Penguin
Hammes, T. X. (2004). The sling and the stone: On war in the 21st century. St. Paul, Mn: Zenith Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (Third ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Malinowski, B. (1992). Magic, science, and religion, and other essays. Long Grove, Il: Waveland Press.
McKeachie, W. & Svinicki, M. (2005). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (12th edition). Houghton Mifflin Company.
Popper, K. R. (2006). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York: Routledge New York.
Rogers, E. (2005). Diffusion of Innovations (4th Edition). Free Press
Safranski, M. (2008). The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating science, strategy, and war. Nimble Books LLC. Ann Arbor, MI.
Sageman, M. (2008). Leaderless jihad: Terror networks in the twenty-first century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Treverton, G. F. (2001). Reshaping national intelligence for an age of information. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.