What political books are an absolute must-read for DUers?

[milestogo]

The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)

[Girard442]

1. The Handmaid's Tale

Probably should pour yourself a drink first.

[Chipper Chat]

2. The Ugly American

by Eugene Burdick

[Dave Starsky]

34. And William J. Lederer n/t

[Chipper Chat]

37. Thx

I couldn't remember Lederer's first name.

[CivicGrief]

3. The Souls of Black Folk - W.E.B. Du Bois (eom)

[SecularMotion]

4. The Republican Noise Machine - David Brock

[Kilgore]

5. The Art Of the Deal

Seriously, it gave much more of an insight into his thinking than any thing else i have read

[hunter]

39. Trump didn't write it, and he probably didn't read it.

It's just one writer's perspective on Trump.

I can imagine Trump sitting impatiently with the writer, "Yeah, yeah, blah blah, sounds good, get to the next part..."

[Kilgore]

41. Irregardless, it still does a better job

explaining his actions than anything else I have seen

[Paladin]

6. "The Peculiar Institution" by Kenneth Stampp (1956)

Yes, Stampp's study of slavery in the American South has been around for a while; it was an established classic when I read it as a college freshman, decades ago. I regard it as important reading for the way it strips away and negates the sort of neo-confederate myths that still are regarded as truths by way too many people in this country. It has had a lasting, positive impact on me, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[CivicGrief]

14. Added to my wish list

[Paladin]

16. Great. Hope it affects you as it did me. (nt)

[Nay]

7. Confessions of an Economic Hitman -- John Perkins. In the Garden of the Beasts --

Erik Larson.

Also, an excellent memoir of Hitler's rise: Defying Hitler: A Memoir -- Sebastian Haffner

Haffner's memoir is the most relevant to us today.

[PatSeg]

32. "In the Garden of the Beasts"

gave me such a clear picture of what happened in 1930s Germany. I highly recommend it. I heard that Tom Hanks bought the movie rights to the book and may play the U.S. ambassador.

[Mendocino]

8. The Truth by Al Franken

Howard Zinn- A Peoples History of the United States

[burrowowl]

24. Amen!!!!!!!!

and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich!
Hannah Arendt.

[FarCenter]

9. World Order by Henry Kissinger

He seems to be influential with Trump. May be predictive of how the next administration will view foreign policy.

I'm mostly through it. It is interesting, but he takes the Peace of Westphalia way to seriously.

[hunter]

40. Maybe the reason politicians seem so peculiarly respectful of Kissinger...

... is that they believe he stood between angry drunk Nixon and all-out nuclear war.

It may be too much to hope for, but maybe some sane person in the Trump Administration will break Trump's tiny thumbs and assign the tweeting to staff.

If this happens the mainstream media won't say a thing, they'll just make up some nonsense about Trump maturing into the job.

[milestogo]

10. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951)

Arendt's first major book was titled The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), which traced the roots of Stalinism and Nazism in both antisemitism and imperialism. In it, Arendt argues that totalitarianism was a "novel form of government," different from other forms of tyranny in that it applied terror to subjugate mass populations rather than just political adversaries.[25] The book was opposed by some on the Left on the grounds that it presented the two movements as equally tyrannical. She further contends that Jewry was not the operative factor in the Holocaust, but merely a convenient proxy. Totalitarianism in Germany was, in the end, about terror and consistency, not eradicating Jews only.

[milestogo]

11. Thanks for the recommendations, hoping for more.

[yurbud]

12. THE PRIZE by Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize winning history of oil

I had read that right before 9/11, and it made everything that happened after seem like surreal bullshit.

[yurbud]

13. OVERTHROW by Stephen Kinzer. history of foreign gov'ts US overthrew from Hawaii forward

You get a couple of chapters in and realize all our military and covert interventions are about making the already rich a lot richer or protecting them from paying higher wages or being subject to the rule of law in other countries.

[First Speaker]

15. Alan Bullock's *Hitler*...

...still the best book on the subject, and indispensable to understanding how the world really works--what it's capable of. Also--anything you can find by Mencken, Orwell, Dwight MacDonald, Hunter Thompson, and oh geez, a million others...

[milestogo]

17. Thank you.

You should make a post sometime with all your recommendations. I'm interested to hear more.

[Stuart G]

18. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair ..

Originally an economic critique, but it revolutionized politics and brought about government regulation of food and the processing of food....(Food and Drug Administration)..1906...T Roosevelt, President at the time, gave up eating meat when this was published..(as did most of the country)

Must read for those interested in deregulating everything. It was the stock yards in Chicago about 1900.......

[Warpy]

26. It also indirectly inspired housing mortgage reform as part of the New Deal

since the shenanigans of the bankers produced balloon payment mortgages that were a glorified rental scheme since those mortgages had to be renegotiated every time the balloon payments kicked in. Few people were able to save enough to purchase a house outright and that was about the only alternative.

"The Jungle" did more to inspire the New Deal than any other book out there.

"The Grapes of Wrath" is another good read, documenting how people were forced off their land in favor of mechanized Agribusiness and set adrift across the country, landless, jobless and hopeless. Yes, the Joads look like caricatures now, but they weren't back then, they were honest, churchgoing people who lived as decently as they could afford until the collision of the Dust Bowl, mechanization, and predatory banking combined to destroy their lives. And don't we know all about those last two.

Both books are great reads.

[Atticus]

19. A People's History of the United States---Howard Zinn nt

[Atticus]

20. Justice---Michael J. Sandel nt

[TheBlackAdder]

21. F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," Buckley's "God and Man at Yale" show how F-ed New Reps are.

[malaise]

22. The Constitution of Imperium by Ronnie D. Lipschutz

https://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol177/Imperium

[milestogo]

23. kick

[Danmel]

25. The Plot Against America

By Philip Roth

[rurallib]

27. Marking to return to - got to see other recs for books

hope this gets tons of responses.

For me "The Conscience Of A Liberal" by Paul Krugman. Really woke me up to the RW as a long standing and amoral movement, not a political party

[Vinca]

28. If you can stomach reading about the Manbaby, David Cay Johnston's book -

"The Making of Donald Trump." He's been studying the con artist for decades.

[crazycatlady]

30. I'm on the waiting list for that one

[PatSeg]

33. I read that shortly after it came out

It should be required reading for every eligible voter.

[dumbcat]

29. Some won't like this, but Atlas Shrugged

You really need to see the world from their warped viewpoint to understand how the Trump got to where he is. It would probably be the hardest thing you have ever read, but is required to know thine enemy. It would help you to understand Ryan and many other con leaders.

[milestogo]

36. Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom

is also important for understanding how we got here. Not as offensive as Ayn Rand, but very influential.

[RedWedge]

31. It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis; Outrageouts Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Gloria Steinem;

speeches of the Rev. Dr. MLK Jr.; The Half Has Never Been Told, Edward Baptist; etc.

[milestogo]

38. Thank you.

[zagamet]

35. Primer on winning local

Man of the House - Tip O'Neill

[canetoad]

42. From 1989

The original (and the best) - House of Cards by Michael Dobbs.

From the author's website:

The idea for a novel based around the dark political arts came to me shortly after the 1987 general election campaign, which had been particularly bruising. Margaret Thatcher won that election but made many enemies while doing so – too many, I thought. It inspired me to begin work on a plot – entirely fictional, of course – to get rid of a Prime Minister. The book was dramatised by the BBC, and in the very week it was first broadcast Margaret was forced out of Downing Street. It seemed almost impossible, but she was gone. Fact had overtaken Fiction.
http://www.michaeldobbs.com/house-of-cards/