Dark Age Ahead

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

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Susan Faludi · 592 pages

*Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women's Rights* "Opting-out," "security moms," "desperate housewives," "the new baby fever"--the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American women are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that Susan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of revelations. Now, the book that reignited the feminist movement is back in a fi

Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era

Michael S. Kimmel · 319 pages

"One of the enduring images from the 2012 presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. Bellowing white men fill the talk-radio airwaves. Why are they so angry? Michael Kimmel has spent hundreds of hours in the company of these angry white men-from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students-in pursuit of an

Everyday Sexism

Laura Bates · 406 pages

In a culture that's driven by social media, women are using this online space to come together, share their stories and encourage a new generation to recognise the problems that women face. This book is a call to arms in a new wave of feminism, and it proves sexism is endemic - socially, politically and economically - but women won't stand for it.

The Age of American Unreason

Susan Jacoby · 357 pages

Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon--one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence

We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation

Jeff Chang · 200 pages

"In his most recent book, Who We Be, Jeff Chang looked at how art and culture effected massive social changes in American society. Since the book was published, the country has been gripped by waves of racial discord, most notably the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. In these highly relevant, powerful essays, Chang examines some of the most contentious issues in the current discussion of race and i

Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion from Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond

Mark Ames · 280 pages

Full Frontal Feminism

Jessica Valenti · 275 pages

Newly revised and updated, the #1 must-read book for a new generation of feminists who refuse to accept anything less than equality and justice for all women Now in its updated second edition, Full Frontal Feminism embodies the forward-looking messages that bestselling author Jessica Valenti propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com. Smart and relatable, the book serves as a

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Michelle Alexander · 301 pages

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a 2010 book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States, but Alexander noted that the discrimination faced by African-American males is prevalent among other minorities and socio-economicall

The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

Anu Partanen · 448 pages

A Finnish journalist and naturalized American citizen compares and contrasts life in the U.S. with life in the Nordic region to encourage Americans to draw on practices from the Nordic way of life to create a fairer, happier, more secure, and less stressful society. At a 2012 conference on social mobility, where experts discussed whether people worldwide were attaining a better life than their pa

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Matt Taibbi · 432 pages

"Matt Taibbi's genius is in untangling complex stories and making us care about them by providing striking moral clarity and a genuine sense of outrage. He has become among the most read journalists in America, leading the dialogue with epic Rolling Stone pieces that offer an "almost startling reminder of the power of good writing" (Washington Post). In this new work, he once again takes readers i

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

Owen Jones · 298 pages

"In this groundbreaking investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth'. Moving through Westminster 's lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones lays bare the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, and reveals a far more complex reality: the increasing poverty and desperation o

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things

Barry Glassner · 279 pages

In this eye-opening examination of a pathology that has swept the country, sociologist Barry Glassner reveals why Americans are burdened with overblown fears. He exposes the people and organizations that manipulate our perceptions and profit from our anxieties: politicians who win elections by heightening concerns about crime and drug use even as both are declining; advocacy groups that raise mon

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

George Packer · 448 pages

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

Michael Eric Dyson · 228 pages

Fifty years ago, when a white woman asked Malcolm X what she could do for the cause, he told her "Nothing." Now, Michael Eric Dyson believes he was wrong and responds that if society is to make real racial progress, people must face difficult truths-- including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

Joe Bageant · 288 pages

After thirty years spent scratching together a middle-class life out of a "dirt-poor" childhood, Joe Bageant moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, where he realized that his family and neighbors were the very people who carried George W. Bush to victory. That was ironic, because Winchester, like countless American small towns, is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. T

The Beauty Myth

Naomi Wolf · 348 pages

In the struggle for womenʼs equality, there is one hurdle that has yet to be fully cleared-the myth of female beauty. It challenges every woman, every day, by seeking to undermine psychologically and covertly the material freedoms that feminism has achieved for women. And, fueled by new technology in media and medicine, its ravages are reaching epidemic proportions. The Beauty Myth cuts to the roo

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work

Melissa Gira Grant · 136 pages

Sex work and conditions within the sex industry are frequent topics of discussion in mainstream culture and media, but rarely do these discussions include sex workers themselves, and rarely do they deviate from the position that sex workers must be saved from their evil industry's position that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof repeatedly advocates. This work turns this position on its hea

Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class

Noam Scheiber · 384 pages

Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America

Dante Chinni, James Gimpel · 329 pages

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

J.D. Vance · 272 pages

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this book is a probing look at the struggles of America's white working class through the author's own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town. Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over fo

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Barbara Ehrenreich · 240 pages

The author's experience holding low-wage jobs in three parts of the U.S. in the late 1990s.

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes

Mark J. Penn, E. Kinney Zalesne · 425 pages

Pollster Mark Penn argues that the biggest trends in America are microtrends, the smaller trends that go unnoticed or ignored. One million people can create new market for a business, spark a social movement, or effect political change. In 1996, a microtrend identified by Penn ("soccer moms") helped re-elect Clinton. Now, Penn identifies the new microtrends sweeping the world, from Extreme Commute

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay · 360 pages

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l