Each week we will feature a new list of required reading, viewing or listening from our favorite contributors, prominent pundits, politicos, artists, bands, writers, or performers. To kick off The Syllabus feature, here is an eclectic list of favorite recommendations from the Center for American Progress staff.
Non-Fiction
Fiction
Films
Speeches
The Baffler
Excellent Chicago based journal of social, cultural, and political critique founded by Thomas Frank that takes on everything from punk rock to politicians with equal humor and erudition.
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock
This former conservative darling who made his name trashing Anita Hill chronicles his painful personal break with the right-wing while exposing the dirt on the conservative message machine.
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
The first work to openly ask for American independence from Great Britain, this best-seller made the moral argument for revolution, effective checks and balances, sovereignty, and written constitutions.
The Cultural Front, Michael Denning
A massive and breathtaking record of progressive activism in the 30s and 40s that encompasses political, artistic, literary, journalistic, scientific, and labor circles.
Earth in the Balance, Al Gore
Makes a stirring case for the environmental crisis that we are confronting and identifies concrete solutions.
Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s most extensive and forcefully written statements against racial injustice.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
After trooping around the country barely getting by at jobs that provided only poverty level wages, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding.
The Other America by Michael Harrington
Though not so widely read anymore, this old standby was a favorite of JFK’s and has been called “the driving force behind the ‘war on poverty’.”
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power
Power critiques politicians on both sides of the aisle in this powerful call to humanitarian duty.
Race Matters, Cornel West
A worthwhile collection of eight sophisticated, controversial, and frank essays on American race relations.
A Theory of Justice, John Rawls
A brilliant updating of social contract theory married to rational decision theory. A progressive classic.
The Story of American Freedom, Eric Foner
Especially with our President Freedom running around the globe wrapping himself in the word at every opportunity, this history of the evolving conception of American freedom is a timely read.
Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi
This mother/daughter pair present carefully researched economic data exploring the impossible stresses on today’s middle-class families.
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, Jonathan Schell
A fascinating and inspiring study of alternatives to warfare from the dawn of time to the present.
Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit by Nelson Lichtenstein
Great storytelling in this meticulously researched portrait of a commanding, fearless, and not unblemished labor leader, provides important context for evaluating where the labor movement has been and what challenges lie ahead.
War is a Force that Gives us Meaning , by Chris Hedges
This veteran war correspondent draws on everything from the Iliad to Hannah Arendt to explore what makes war so compelling for soldiers, politicians, and citizens.
What’s the Matter With Kansas , Thomas Frank
Frank, a native Kansan and a trenchant and funny social critic, explains how and why so many working class Americans have turned against their own critical economic interests by voting conservative.
Waiting for the Barbarians, by J. M. Coetzee
A chilling allegorical story that takes place in an unnamed part of the British Empire that is obsessed with security and rapidly turning a blind eye to human rights.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
This is one of the best progressive definitions of American identity out there and a milestone in African-American literature. It is Ellison’s only complete novel and is said to have been strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
No Way Out
No Way Out is a film of firsts. It is Sidney Poitier’s first movie, the first film noir to deal with race relations, the first film to show a black professional on screen, and the first film to depict a race riot. It is a rarity – a truly progressive film noir that anticipates the coming civil rights movement.
Lone Star
John Sayles’ great mystery movie with a political edge set in the borderlands; it’s an angry reminder of the ways in which US and Mexican interests, history, rights, and culture have always been intertwined. Also check out Sayles’ Matewan, which is about coal miners fighting for their right to organize in West Virginia.
Modern Times
It’s the only Charlie Chaplin movie that isn’t dated and it’s in the grand tradition of an underdog struggling in the face of an unflinchingly heartless economy.
Eyes on the Prize
This documentary series has been touted as the most important movie ever made about the Civil Rights Movement. Adding to its intrigue is the fact that it has not been available on video or TV for the last ten years due to copyright restrictions. There is a movement to encourage individuals to find the film in their libraries and screen it in cities and towns all over the country in honor of Black History Month.
The Fog of War
A relentlessly interesting documentary focused on the still sharp and lively eighty-five year old Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam War and the eleven lessons he learned during his tenure.
The King of Comedy
Directed by Martin Scorsese, this is a powerfully bleak assessment of who we are as a people – pathetic, insecure, angry, deluded.
The Organizer (Compagni, I)
Directed by Mario Monicelli, this is a completely uplifting tale of impoverished workers in 19th C. Italy standing up to the callous factory. (“Write to me, write to me,” implores the woman to her lover leaving town by train. “But you can’t read,” he shouts back.)
Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech
Robert F. Kennedy’s speech in Indianapolis upon Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination
Bill Moyers’ speech to the National Conference on Media Reform