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Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
Howard Zinn · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorIll Fares the Land
Tony Judt · 256 pages
In "Ill Fares The Land," Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment and offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, Judt argues that we must look to our not so distant past and to socia
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
Richard Hofstadter · 322 pages
Acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs. Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence--and derail--the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shed
And the Pursuit of Happiness
Maira Kalman · 471 pages
Filled with original art and photographs by the author who is also an illustrator and designer, each chapter represents a month of Kalman's yearlong travel across the U.S. and her reflections on democracy. She starts with a celebration of Barack Obama's Presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., continues with the month of February and Abraham Lincoln, and explores democracy and the pursuit o
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates · 155 pages
An Amazon Best Book of July 2015: Readers of his work in The Atlantic and elsewhere know Ta-Nehisi Coates for his thoughtful and influential writing on race in America. Written as a series of letters to his teenaged son, his new memoir, Between the World and Me, walks us through the course of his life, from the tough neighborhoods of Baltimore in his youth, to Howard University—which Coates dubs “
The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival
John Bagot Glubb · 52 pages
Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia
Gore Vidal · 192 pages
Why We Can't Wait
Martin Luther King Jr. · 159 pages
In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. launched the Civil Rights movement and demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action with this letter from Birmingham Jail. Why We Can't Wait recounts not only the Birmingham campaign, but also examines the history of the civil rights struggle and the tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equali
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race
Reni Eddo-Lodge · 272 pages
In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote on her blog about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. Her words hit a nerve. The post went viral and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own experiences. Galvanised, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Ex
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Timothy Snyder · 128 pages
In previous books, Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism a
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity
Amartya Sen · 432 pages
Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire
Matt Taibbi · 288 pages
"Smells Like Dead Elephants brings together notorious journalistic agitator Matt Taibbi's most incisive and hilarious work from his column in Rolling Stone. Written during a period in our history with no shortage of outrage to compel Taibbi's pen, these pieces paint a shocking portrait of our government at work, or rarely working. But Taibbi doesn't just hit inside the Beltway, he gets into the ac
Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society
Inga Muscio · 469 pages
"In her follow-up to Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, controversial author Inga Muscio asserts that the history we learn in school and throughout life is, in fact, a marketing brand developed by white men who maintain the right to spin their ideologies as hard facts. Muscio draws insight from personal experience, tackling a wide array of topics - from white normativity to gentrification to U.S
The Uses and Abuses of History
Margaret MacMillan · 194 pages
History can be a very useful tool in understanding why we and those we must deal with think and react in certain ways. But in the wrong hands it can be dangerous and used to foster a sense of grievance or a desire for revenge. Eminent historian Margaret MacMillan is fascinated by the power of history in our thinking. In The Uses and Abuses of History, she points out some of the traps that we can f
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
Gordon S. Wood · 401 pages
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history. In a series of elegant and illuminating essays, Wood explores the ideological origins of the revolution--from ancient Rome to the European Enlightenment--and the founders' attempts to forge an American democracy.
The Truth with Jokes
Al Franken · 352 pages
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
Slavenka Drakulic · 193 pages
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
Nikole Hannah-Jones · 590 pages
The Essential Chomsky
Noam Chomsky · 496 pages
"One of the World's most prominent public intellectuals, Noam Chomsky has, in more than fifty years of writing on politics, philosophy, and language, revolutionized modern linguistics and established himself as one of the most original and wide-ranging political and social critics of our time. The Essential Chomsky brings together selections from his most important writings since 1959 - from his g
Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.
Harry S. Jaffe, Tom Sherwood · 516 pages
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke · 552 pages
Messages from a Lost World: Europe on the Brink
Stefan Zweig · 216 pages
'Darkness must fall before we are aware of the majesty of the stars above our heads. It was necessary for this dark hour to fall, perhaps the darkest in history, to make us realize that freedom is as vital to our soul as breathing to our body.' As Europe faced its darkest days, Stefan Zweig was a passionate voice for tolerance, peace and a world without borders. In these moving, ardent essays, spe
In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo
Michela Wrong · 353 pages
Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace l