Recommended Reading
A Consequential President
The Legacy of Barack Obama
by Michael D’Antonio
Barack Obama was once a most unlikely candidate, but his successful campaign for the White House made him a worldwide sensation and a transformative figure even before he was inaugurated. Elected as the Iraq War and the Great Recession had discouraged millions of Americans, Obama made a promise of hope that revived the national spirit. Soon after he occupied the White House, Congress approved his economic-recovery act and his program to save the U.S. auto industry. Both worked better than any observer predicted, and together they powered a recovery that has seen growth return and unemployment reduced to below five percent. Today the American economy is again the most vibrant in the world and its recovery has far outpaced Western Europe’s.
America’s War for the Greater Middle East
A Military History
by Andrew Bacevich
Retired army colonel and New York Times bestselling author Andrew J. Bacevich provides a searing reassessment of U.S. military policy in the Middle East over the past four decades.
Bill Clinton
The American Presidents Series: The 42nd President, 1993-2001
by Michael Tomasky
The president of larger-than-life ambitions and appetites whose term defined America at the close of the twentieth century
Consequence
A Memoir
by Eric Fair
A man questions everything–his faith, his morality, his country–as he recounts his experience as an interrogator in Iraq; an unprecedented memoir and “an act of incredible bravery” (Phil Klay)
Kill Chain
The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
by Andrew Cockburn
An essential and page-turning narrative on the history of drone warfare by the acclaimed author of Rumsfeld, exploring how this practice emerged, who made it happen, and the real consequences of targeted killing
Kissinger’s Shadow
The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman
by Greg Grandin
A new account of America’s most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America’s current imperial stance
Labor Will Rule
Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor
by Steve Fraser
“A superb, vibrant biography that mirrors American labor’s “sea change” from insurgent proletariat to a force integrated into capitalist mass culture.—Publishers Weekly
Listen, Liberal
Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
by Thomas Frank
From the bestselling author of What’s the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics — a book that asks: what’s the matter with Democrats?
Our Revolution
A Future to Believe In
by Bernie Sanders
When Bernie Sanders began his race for the presidency, it was considered by the political establishment and the media to be a “fringe” campaign, something not to be taken seriously. After all, he was just an Independent senator from a small state with little name recognition. His campaign had no money, no political organization, and it was taking on the entire Democratic Party establishment.
Shadow Government
Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World
by Tom Engelhardt
Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn’t have recognized.
Tears We Cannot Stop
A Sermon to White America
by Michael Eric Dyson
“One of the most frank and searing discussions on race … a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and King’s Why We Can’t Wait. —The New York Times Book Review
The Age of Acquiescence
The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power
by Steve Fraser
“Sweeping and ambitious . . . Fraser weaves together a rich tapestry of history, statistics and barely suppressed outrage.”—Washington Post
The Arab of the Future 2
A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-1985: A Graphic Memoir
by Riad Sattouf
The highly anticipated continuation of Riad Sattouf’s internationally acclaimed, #1 French bestseller, which was hailed by The New York Times as “a disquieting yet essential read”
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom
America and China, 1776 to the Present
by John Pomfret
A remarkable history of the two-centuries-old relationship between the United States and China, from the Revolutionary War to the present day
The Complacent Class
The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
by Tyler Cowen
Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs.
The End of Victory Culture
Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation
by Tom Engelhardt
n a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century.
The Future We Want
Radical Ideas for the New Century
by Sarah Leonard and Bhaskar Sunkara
A stirring blueprint for American equality, from the “breakout stars” (The New York Times) of the young new left
The Limousine Liberal
How an Incendiary Image United the Right and Fractured America
by Steve Fraser
A renowned historian traces the genealogy of the “limousine liberal,” the largely imagined enemy that has animated right-wing populism for nearly a century.
The Meaning of Michelle
16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own
by Veronica Chambers
Michelle Obama is unlike any other First Lady in American History. From her first moments on the public stage, she has challenged traditional American notions about what it means to be beautiful, to be strong, to be fashion-conscious, to be healthy, to be First Mom, to be a caretaker and hostess, and to be partner to the most powerful man in the world. What is remarkable is that, at 52, she is just getting started.
The Race for What’s Left
The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources
by Michael Klare
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion—a crisis that encompasses shortages of oil and coal, copper and cobalt, water and arable land. With all of the Earth’s accessible areas already being exploited, the desperate hunt for supplies has now reached the final frontiers.
The True Flag
Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
by Stephen Kinzer
The bestselling author of Overthrow and The Brothers brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America’s interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond.
The United States of Fear
by Tom Engelhardt
In 2008, when the U.S. National Intelligence Council issued its latest report meant for the administration of newly elected President Barack Obama, it predicted that the planet’s “sole superpower” would suffer a modest decline and a soft landing fifteen years hence.
Wall Street
America’s Dream Palace
by Steve Fraser
Wall Street: no other place on earth is so singularly identified with money and the power of money. And no other American institution has inspired such deep moral, cultural, and political ambivalence. Is the Street an unbreachable bulwark defending commercial order? Or is it a center of mad ambition?
War Is Not Over When It’s Over
Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War
by Ann Jones
From the renowned authority on domestic violence, a startlingly original inquiry into the aftermath of wars and their impact on the least visible victims: women