Books

Essential reading

Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy
Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian
Global Discontents is a compelling new set of interviews with Noam Chomsky, who identifies the “dry kindling” of discontent around the world that could soon catch fire. In wide-ranging interviews with David Barsamian, his longtime interlocutor, Noam Chomsky asks us to consider “the world we are leaving to our grandchildren”: one imperiled by the escalation […]
Is Inequality in America Irreversible?
Chuck Collins
We are living in a time of extreme inequality: America’s three richest people now own as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. Although most accept that this is grotesque, many politicians accept it as irreversible. In this book, leading US researcher and activist Chuck Collins succinctly diagnoses the drivers of rampant inequality, […]
The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations
Ervand Abrahamian
“A major contribution to understanding the contemporary world.” – Noam Chomsky In August 1953, the CIA orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. Over the next twenty-six years, the United States backed the unpopular, authoritarian shah and his secret police; in exchange, it reaped […]
Falter
Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature — issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic — was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics […]
Can the Working Class Change the World?
Michael Yates
Spoiler alert: Michael Yates not only answers his question with a resounding “Yes,” but insists that the working class must change the world. Our very survival as a people and a planet depend on it. What makes this book invaluable, however, is not its grand conclusion but Yates’s clear-eyed, global analysis of capitalism (historically and in […]
Night Thoughts
Wallace Shawn
Although he is guided and inspired by the people he respects, and despite the insufficiency of his knowledge and experience—an insufficiency shared by most (or all) other humans, Wallace Shawn can’t see any real alternative to trying to figure out his own answers to the most essential questions about the world he lives in. Having […]
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Shoshana Zuboff
By Shoshana Zuboff. 704 pages This huge tome is the book of the year. At a new frontier of power, there’s a fight for a human future. Shoshana Zuboff warns us about the dangers posed by Surveillance Capitalism and wonders “if this is our time now to emerge from this amorphous nonentity of ‘users,’ which is […]
Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward W. Said
Edward Said, David Barsamian
David Barsamian interviews Edward Said. Haymarket Books, 2019; 224 pages. Edward W. Said discusses the importance and centrality of popular resistance in the framework of culture, history, and struggle. He reveals his thoughts on the war on terrorism and the invasion of Afghanistan. On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he lays out a compelling vision for a secular, democratic […]
How to Read a Protest: The Art of Organizing and Resistance
L.A. Kauffman
By L.A. Kauffman 152 pages When millions of people took to the streets for the 2017 Women’s Marches, there was an unmistakable air of uprising, a sense that these marches were launching a powerful new movement to resist a dangerous presidency. But the work that protests do often can’t be seen in the moment. It […]
Things that Can and Cannot Be Said
Arundhati Roy
In late 2014, Arundhati Roy, John Cusack, and Daniel Ellsberg travelled to Moscow to meet with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The result was a series of essays and dialogues in which Roy and Cusack reflect on their conversations with Snowden. In these provocative and penetrating discussions, Roy and Cusack discuss the nature of the state, […]
A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present
Howard Zinn
By Howard Zinn. pp 729. New 2016 Edition, Introduction by Anthony Arnove, $20. The masterwork by the legendary historian is a must have for your library and the perfect gift. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History of the United States tells America’s story from the point […]
Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics
Howard Zinn, David Barsamian
David Barsamian interviews Howard Zinn. Foreword by Arundhati Roy. Harper Perennial, 2006; 167 pages. A collection of conversations with David Barsamian touching on such diverse topics as the American war machine, civil disobedience, the importance of memory and remembering history and the role of artists – from Langston Hughes to Dalton Trumbo to Bob Dylan- […]

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