A reading list to prepare for the next four years
A conversation with a good friend after last week’s disaster inspired me to put together a reading list in preparation for the horrors that await us. Here are some recommended books for: understanding the morally-depraved nature of American society, how to organize and fight for human freedom and dignity, what possible futures could look like for our descendants, and how to cope and stay healthy in these dark times.
Books labelled * are those I have not read myself yet but have been meaning to for some time, and will be reading in the coming weeks to make sense of where to go from here.
I will add more texts as I come across them. Please send in recommendations to add to the list.
Historical context (why America is the way it is)
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (Foner) Possibly the most important book I’ve ever read, and far-and-away the single best text on American history ever written.
Black Reconstruction in America (Du Bois) The text that made Foner’s work possible, and itself an outstanding work of scholarship and incisive analysis.
Ages of American Capitalism (Levy) The most comprehensive history of America’s political economy I’ve read.
Race to the Bottom (Stephens-Dougan)
The History of White People (Painter) A general history of white supremacy and whiteness as ideologies in American culture.
Illiberal America: A History (Hahn)* One of my favorite historians for his book A Nation Under Our Feet, I planned to read this before the election and it’s become all the more timely. Picked up a copy from the library earlier today.
Democracy for Realists (Achen, Bartels)* Picked up a copy from the library earlier today.
How Democracies Die (Levitsky, Ziblatt)*
Organizing and fighting for Human dignity
Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook, Revised Edition (Luttwak)
Storming Caesar’s Palace (Orleck) One of the best histories of community organizing I read in college, inspiring on what is possible yet clear on the challenges ahead.
The Sum of Us (McGhee)*
No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age (McAlevey)* I've meant to read this book for years, from one of the leading labor and social organizers of this era. She recently passed away, and hopefully her strategies will help us and those living long after us. Picked up a copy from the library earlier today.
Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto (Hersey)*
On Tyranny (Snyder)
Vanguard (Jones)*
Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (Skocpol)*
[article] Resisting Mass Deportation Under Donald Trump (https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/resist-mass-deportation-ice-trump/)
Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT Up New York (Schulman)*
Possibilities for a new society
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (Graeber, Wengrow) One of the best books on any subject (and this text covers many) I’ve ever read. Human societies have had innumerable forms over the last hundred thousand years, and human existences completely unimaginable or not imagined by people today have successfully existed and, if we avoid global catastrophes, can exist in the future.
Ten Thousand Years of Inequality (Kohler, Smith)*
How to cope in dark times
Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything (Frankl)* Picked up a copy from the library earlier today.