School’s back in session. Here’s your non-required reading.
By Paul Begala, Janeane Garofalo, Katrina vanden Heuvel, David Brock, Larry Korb, and Carla Cohen
Monday August 22, 2005
Summer is almost over. Get in some non-required progressive fall reading before the work piles up. Here are thirty-two choices that are guaranteed to entertain you, inspire you, inform you and equip you to make a difference.
Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and former host of CNN’s Crossfire
What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank
God’s Politics by Jim Wallis
Now They Tell Us by Michael Massing
A brief but engrossing analysis of how the media dropped the ball and abetted President Bush’s effort to mislead us into war in Iraq.
The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Wellstone
Paul is gone, but he lives on in this book. Especially important for people who were too young to be aware of Sen. Wellstone’s message when he was alive.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris.
It’s not a political book, but it’s funny and it’s poignant, and I suspect you could use a smile after all the heavy stuff I’ve suggested.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor, The Nation
Thomas Paine and The Promise of America by Harvey Kaye
In these times that try men’s and women’s souls, this lucid resurrection of Paine’s ideas and influence is must reading for today’s aspiring democratic rebels and radicals.
John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics by Richard Parker
This monumental study of a great American dissenter and his times – virtually the entire 20th century – is a fitting tribute to a man who eloquently, consistently and boldly argued on behalf of alternative understandings and policies and who brought to the American liberal tradition deep conviction, fierce intelligence and piercing wit.
How the Left Lost Teen Spirit by Danny Goldberg
Longtime music exec and political activist and now CEO of Air America radio, Goldberg challenges his fellow Democrats to get back to the party’s progressive roots and be a voice for working people, women, the elderly, the poor, and people of color (in other words, the majority of the country).
What’s My Name, Fool! Sports and Resistance in the United States by Dave Zirin
We could use a talented, progressive sports writer. Zirin is our guy. He has knowledge, a social conscience, humor and an understanding of how the passion we invest in sports can transform it from a kind of mindless (and over-commercialized) escape into a site of resistance. And he writes in street smart prose.
Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States by Hector Tobar
A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and novelist, Tobar has been compared to de Tocqueville for his chronicle of (what he describes as) the birth of a new Latin Republic of the United States. It’s a brilliant and provocative account of how millions of Latino Americans will change the country – in everything from food to pop culture to politics – and how they will be profoundly changed in turn.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
It’s been said that a good reporter exposes the difference between what America promises, and what it delivers. Ehrenreich is a ferociously honest, humane and idealistic reporter whose book – now required reading in more than 600 colleges and universities around the nation – is teaching a new generation what it is to be poor in a country filled with prosperity … and promise.
Janeane Garofalo, comedienne and co-host of Air America’s Majority Report
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
A look inside how our government works with the private sector to achieve complete corporate hegemony in developing countries. Not for those who want to remain in ignorance about U.S. foreign policy.
The Howard Zinn Reader by Howard Zinn
A true historian, Zinn doesn’t whitewash the repressive, regressive part of our history. But he also speaks to the possibility of justice and of the power of social movements and great progressive ideas.
Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Corporate controlled media must be called out for what it is at its worst: a propaganda arm for whoever buys it off. Noam Chomsky’s work is essential; I couldn’t watch cable news again after this book without yelling at the TV.
Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders
Saunders has a gift for the absurd … beautiful and disturbing.
Pastoralia by George Saunders
An imagined future of capitalism and society. Saunders’ characters are, as always, fantastic and lucid.
Carla Cohen, owner, Politics + Prose bookstore, Washington DC
The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol
This is an urgent topic for American citizens. Not a day goes by that we don’t experience the repercussions from isolating and mal-educating African Americans. If you don’t want to spring for a hardback, the precursor (now over 10 years old) is called Savage Inequalities.
The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership by Zbigniew Brzezinski
This is a sensible discussion of American foreign policy options. Brzezinski was the National Security Advisor to President Carter and, if you had to characterize him in those years, it would have been interventionist. He’s one of many in that camp who has rethought American policy in light of the fracturing of the current world.
A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin
A marvelous and very readable background to the mess in the Middle East about the Great Powers in 1918 carving up the Ottoman Empire. It was published in 1989 and remains the single best book on that subject.
Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
A concise, informative and amazingly evocative book on American history. What is striking is how the founders dealt with precisely the same issues with which we are dealing today in American politics.
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind
A brilliant book about race and class which describes the cultural gap between a youngster from a "ghetto" school and his Ivy League classmates.
Larry Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet by James Mann
Great background of individuals on the Bush foreign policy team.
Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of America’s Power by David Rothkopf
Best analysis of national security decision making process in the Bush administration.
America Alone by Stefan Halper
Good explanation of the ideology that drives Bush’s foreign policy.
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
Best analysis of origins of al Qaeda.
David Brock, President and CEO of Media Matters, former conservative insider
What Liberal Media by Eric Alterman
An excellent analysis rebutting the conservative claim that the media inherently helps liberal and progressive causes and candidates.
The Hunting of the President by Joe Conason
An illuminating case study of how the conservative noise machine was used to conduct its campaign against Bill Clinton’s presidency.
The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World by Kathleen Hall Jameison and Paul Waldman
A look at how the way the press chooses to cover (or not to cover) a story can affect elections and public policy.
Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason
A recent look at how the right wing has used the media to advance its agenda
Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them by Al Franken
A very funny take on the right and its misinformation.
Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater by Gene Lyons
A thorough investigative work that illustrates how the very premise of the Whitewater scandal was based on conservative information misreported in the mainstream media.