Recommended Reading
A Consequential President
The Legacy of Barack Obama
by Michael D'Antonio
In A Consequential President, Michael D'Antonio tallies President Obama’s long record of achievement, recalling both his major successes and less-noticed ones that nevertheless contribute to his legacy.
Buy the Book:
A First-Class Catastrophe
The Road to Black Monday, the Worst Day in Wall Street History
by Diana Henriques
The definitive account of the crash of 1987, a cautionary tale of how the U.S. financial system nearly collapsed--from the bestselling author of The Wizard of Lies
Buy the Book:
All Hell Breaking Loose
The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change
by Michael Klare
All Hell Breaking Loose is an eye-opening examination of climate change from the perspective of the U.S. military.
Buy the Book:
America’s War for the Greater Middle East
A Military History
by Andrew Bacevich
Retired army colonel and New York Times bestselling author Andrew J. Bacevich provides a searing reassessment of U.S. military policy in the Middle East over the past four decades.
Buy the Book:
Bill Clinton
The American Presidents Series: The 42nd President, 1993-2001
by Michael Tomasky
The president of larger-than-life ambitions and appetites whose term defined America at the close of the twentieth century
Buy the Book:
Chosen Country
A Rebellion in the West
by James Pogue
An extraordinary inside look at America’s militia movement that shows a country at the crossroads of class, culture, and insurrection.
Buy the Book:
Consequence
A Memoir
by Eric Fair
A man questions everything--his faith, his morality, his country--as he recounts his experience as an interrogator in Iraq; an unprecedented memoir and "an act of incredible bravery" (Phil Klay)
Buy the Book:
Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone
by Astra Taylor
What is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist? Astra Taylor, hailed as a “New Civil Rights Leader” (LA Times), provides surprising answers.
Buy the Book:
Falter
Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
by Bill McKibben
Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out.
Buy the Book:
Fire and Fury
Inside the Trump White House
by Michael Wolff
With extraordinary access to the West Wing, Michael Wolff reveals what happened behind-the-scenes in the first nine months of the most controversial presidency of our time in Buy the Book:
How to Hide an Empire
A History of the Greater United States
by Daniel Immerwahr
A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire
Buy the Book:
I Was Told to Come Alone
My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad
by Souad Mekhennet
“I was told to come alone. I was not to carry any identification, and would have to leave my cell phone, audio recorder, watch, and purse at my hotel. . . .”
Buy the Book:
Kill Chain
The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
by Andrew Cockburn
An essential and page-turning narrative on the history of drone warfare by the acclaimed author of Rumsfeld, exploring how this practice emerged, who made it happen, and the real consequences of targeted killing
Buy the Book:
Kissinger's Shadow
The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman
by Greg Grandin
A new account of America's most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America's current imperial stance
Buy the Book:
Labor Will Rule
Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor
by Steve Fraser
"A superb, vibrant biography that mirrors American labor's "sea change" from insurgent proletariat to a force integrated into capitalist mass culture.—Publishers Weekly
Buy the Book:
Listen, Liberal
Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
by Thomas Frank
From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats?
Buy the Book:
Minority Leader
How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change
by Stacey Abrams
A personal and empowering blueprint—from one of America’s rising Democratic stars—for outsiders who seek to become the ones in charge
Buy the Book:
Operation Chaos
The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Themselves
by Matthew Sweet
An untold Cold War story: how the CIA tried to infiltrate a radical group of U.S. military deserters, a tale that leads from a bizarre political cult to the heart of the Washington establishment
Buy the Book:
Our Revolution
A Future to Believe In
by Bernie Sanders
When Bernie Sanders began his race for the presidency, it was considered by the political establishment and the media to be a “fringe” campaign, something not to be taken seriously. After all, he was just an Independent senator from a small state with little name recognition. His campaign had no money, no political organization, and it was taking on the entire Democratic Party establishment.
Buy the Book:
Rendezvous with Oblivion
Reports from a Sinking Society
by Thomas Frank
From the acclaimed author of Listen, Liberal and What’s the Matter with Kansas, a scathing collection of his incisive commentary on our cruel times—perfect for this political moment
Buy the Book:
Republic of Lies
American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power
by Anna Merlan
A riveting tour through the landscape and meaning of modern conspiracy theories, exploring the causes and tenacity of this American malady, from Birthers to Pizzagate and beyond.
Buy the Book:
Secrecy World
Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite
by Jake Bernstein
A two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist takes us inside the world revealed by the Panama Papers, a landscape of illicit money, political corruption, and fraud on a global scale.
Buy the Book:
Shadow Government
Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World
by Tom Engelhardt
Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn't have recognized.
Buy the Book:
Siege
Trump Under Fire
by Michael Wolff
Michael Wolff, author of the bombshell bestseller Fire and Fury, once again takes us inside the Trump presidency to reveal a White House under siege.
Buy the Book:
Spy Schools
How the CIA, FBI, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America's Universities
by Daniel Golden
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Daniel Golden exposes how academia has become the center of foreign and domestic espionage—and why that is troubling news for our nation's security.
Buy the Book:
Tears We Cannot Stop
A Sermon to White America
by Michael Eric Dyson
“One of the most frank and searing discussions on race ... a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and King's Why We Can't Wait. —The New York Times Book Review
Buy the Book:
The Age of Acquiescence
The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power
by Steve Fraser
"Sweeping and ambitious . . . Fraser weaves together a rich tapestry of history, statistics and barely suppressed outrage."—Washington Post
Buy the Book:
The Age of Illusions
How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
by Andrew Bacevich
A thought-provoking and penetrating account of the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump from the bestselling author of The Limits of Power.
Buy the Book:
The Arab of the Future 2
A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-1985: A Graphic Memoir
by Riad Sattouf
The highly anticipated continuation of Riad Sattouf’s internationally acclaimed, #1 French bestseller, which was hailed by The New York Times as “a disquieting yet essential read”
Buy the Book:
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom
America and China, 1776 to the Present
by John Pomfret
A remarkable history of the two-centuries-old relationship between the United States and China, from the Revolutionary War to the present day
Buy the Book:
The Complacent Class
The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
by Tyler Cowen
Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs.
Buy the Book:
The Empire and the Five Kings
America's Abdication and the Fate of the World
by Bernard-Henri Levy
One of the West’s leading intellectuals offers a provocative look at America’s withdrawal from world leadership and the rising powers who seek to fill the vacuum left behind
Buy the Book:
The End of the Myth
From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
by Greg Grandin
From a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.
Buy the Book:
The End of Victory Culture
Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation
by Tom Engelhardt
n a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century.
Buy the Book:
The Future We Want
Radical Ideas for the New Century
by Sarah Leonard and Bhaskar Sunkara
A stirring blueprint for American equality, from the "breakout stars" (The New York Times) of the young new left
Buy the Book:
The Infernal Library
On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of Literacy
by Daniel Kalder
A harrowing tour of “dictator literature” in the twentieth-century, featuring the soul-killing prose and poetry of Hitler, Mao, and many more, which shows how books have sometimes shaped the world for the worse.
Buy the Book:
The Limousine Liberal
How an Incendiary Image United the Right and Fractured America
by Steve Fraser
A renowned historian traces the genealogy of the "limousine liberal," the largely imagined enemy that has animated right-wing populism for nearly a century.
Buy the Book:
The Meaning of Michelle
16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own
by Veronica Chambers
Michelle Obama is unlike any other First Lady in American History. From her first moments on the public stage, she has challenged traditional American notions about what it means to be beautiful, to be strong, to be fashion-conscious, to be healthy, to be First Mom, to be a caretaker and hostess, and to be partner to the most powerful man in the world. What is remarkable is that, at 52, she is just getting started.
Buy the Book:
The Only Language They Understand
Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine
by Nathan Thrall
In a myth-busting analysis of the world's most intractable conflict, a star of Middle East reporting, "one of the most important writers" in the field (The New York Times), argues that only one weapon has yielded progress: force.
Buy the Book:
The People, No
A Brief History of Anti-Populism
by Thomas Frank
From the prophetic author of the now-classic What’s the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal, an eye-opening account of populism, the most important—and misunderstood—movement of our time.
Buy the Book:
The Poisoned City
Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy
by Anna Clark
When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins.
Buy the Book:
The Race for What's Left
The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources
by Michael Klare
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion---a crisis that encompasses shortages of oil and coal, copper and cobalt, water and arable land. With all of the Earth's accessible areas already being exploited, the desperate hunt for supplies has now reached the final frontiers.
Buy the Book:
The Skripal Files
The Life and Near Death of a Russian Spy
by Mark Urban
The explosive story of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and what it reveals about the growing clandestine conflict between the West and Russia
Buy the Book:
The True Flag
Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
by Stephen Kinzer
The bestselling author of Overthrow and The Brothers brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America’s interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond.
Buy the Book:
The United States of Fear
by Tom Engelhardt
In 2008, when the U.S. National Intelligence Council issued its latest report meant for the administration of newly elected President Barack Obama, it predicted that the planet’s “sole superpower” would suffer a modest decline and a soft landing fifteen years hence.
Buy the Book:
The Wall and the Gate
Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights
by Michael Sfard
From renowned human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, an unprecedented exploration of the struggle for human rights in Israel's courts
Buy the Book:
Thin Blue Lie
The Failure of High-Tech Policing
by Matt Stroud
A wide-ranging investigation of how supposedly transformative technologies adopted by law enforcement have actually made policing worse—lazier, more reckless, and more discriminatory
Buy the Book:
This Fight Is Our Fight
The Battle to Save America's Middle Class
by Elizabeth Warren
The fiery U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and bestselling author offers a passionate, inspiring book about why our middle class is under siege and how we can win the fight to save it
Buy the Book:
Unpresidented
A Biography of Donald Trump
by Martha Brockenbrough
A riveting, meticulously researched, and provocative biography of Donald J. Trump from the author of Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary.
Buy the Book:
Verax
The True History of Whistleblowers, Drone Warfare, and Mass Surveillance: A Graphic Novel
by Pratap Chatterjee
From a prize-winning journalist and the co-author of the best-selling Zahra's Paradise, a sweeping graphic history of electronic surveillance from 9/11 to the latest drone strike
Buy the Book:
Wall Street
America's Dream Palace
by Steve Fraser
Wall Street: no other place on earth is so singularly identified with money and the power of money. And no other American institution has inspired such deep moral, cultural, and political ambivalence. Is the Street an unbreachable bulwark defending commercial order? Or is it a center of mad ambition?
Buy the Book:
War Is Not Over When It's Over
Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War
by Ann Jones
From the renowned authority on domestic violence, a startlingly original inquiry into the aftermath of wars and their impact on the least visible victims: women
Buy the Book: