What Was The First Political Book You Ever Read?

[WiVoter]

Me: Conscience Of A Liberal by Paul Wellstone.

[bullimiami]

1. Foundation.

An actual non-fiction political book? None.

[Rustynaerduwell]

2. All the President's men.

I was 12 years old.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

47. In this queue

Down to the age, lol.

nt

[LakeArenal]

3. Apparently, the Bible.

[hunter]

27. I read the Bible cover to cover when I was seven years old...

... and was praised for that by too many adults who told me I was some kind of genius.

They should have smacked me upside my head with the book and sent me outside to play.

That probably explains why I'm so twisted.

But honestly, I had no idea what most of it was about.

I also read Eric Hoffer, The True Believer early on, in middle school, but not a lot of it stuck.

The first political book that stuck with me was John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

[FalloutShelter]

4. All the Presidents Men

[nevergiveup]

5. I am not sure which was first

but it is between "Hiroshima" and "All is Quiet on the Western Front". These books may not be considered political but they turned me politically into an anti-war citizen for the next 50 years.

[Walleye]

10. The movie from "All Quiet on the Western Front" turned out to be so antiwar,

One of my favorite movies by the way, that Hollywood was obliged to make some really gung ho war movies at the beginning of World War II

[LibinMo]

35. Another good one from 1957

Paths of Glory with Kirk Douglas. I saw it in a theater around that time, which gives you a clue as to how old I am! I think it's still on Amazon Video.

[Walleye]

43. Also one of my favorite movies, Paths of Glory, powerful

[cbabe]

6. Boss/Mike Royko

[ConstanceCee]

7. The Ugly American

[Walleye]

8. I think it was "All the King's Men"

By Robert Penn Warren loosely based on the Huey Long in Louisiana story, every man a king, his slogan. But it might’ve been “Seven Days in May” or “Fail Safe”. We were all terrified of nuclear war in those days.

[SpamWyzer]

9. Found a book in a neighbors

abandoned house. Mr. Larsen had been dead for quite a few years and no one cared much for the house he had. My friends and I "broke in" by entering the open basement door hanging off hinge from an earlier burglary. On one dusty rack of shelves was a box of books and inside was a book with a fascinating title:

On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt. It was red, white and black and the pages had hardly been leafed through. I took this book because of the title. I then initiated my adult awareness of politics and how it works. I recommend it to all.

[librechik]

17. Obama has read this book, and conservatives vilify him for it.

Good Job, Spam! and told like the first lines of a Bradbury book.

[allegorical oracle]

11. Fahrenheit 451 nt

[Doc Sportello]

12. Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power

When I was barely a teen. I was a politics nerd early on.

[Doc_Technical]

13. Animal Farm-George Orwell

[HeartachesNhangovers]

19. Me too, as far as I can remember.

[BluesRunTheGame]

45. Either that one or "1984"...

…when I was 13 or 14.

[IL Dem]

57. I think it was Animal Farm for me, too. In a H.S. lit class.

1984 a year or two later on my own.

[Johonny]

14. Nixon by Richard Reeves

Good book.

[librechik]

15. House of Bush, House of Saud a real eye opener

Probably not the first, Now that I think about it though, (and thanks to all the great suggestions on the thread,) 1984, Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, Animal Farm and others (Huckleberry Finn?) I read as a teenager. Golden Oldies.

[Donkees]

16. Silent Spring

Politics

At the time the book was written, environmental issues were excluded from mainstream political conversation in America.[33] However, Carson believed that governments should consider what environmental impact a policy may have before implementing it, for example, in chapter 10 she describes a pesticide program from 1957 that was intended to control the spread of fire ants:

With the development of chemicals of broad lethal powers, there came a sudden change in the official attitude towards the fire ant. In 1957 the United States Department of Agriculture launched one of the most remarkable publicity campaigns in its history. The fire ant suddenly became the target of a barrage of government releases, motion pictures, and government-inspired stories portraying it as a despoiler of southern agriculture and a killer of birds, livestock, and man. A mighty campaign was announced, in which the federal government in cooperation with the afflicted states would ultimately treat some 20,000,000 acres in nine southern states.[34]

Despite calls from experts to consider the damage using the pesticides could bring to the environment, the Agriculture Department dismissed the objections and continued on with the program:

Urgent protests were made by most of the state conservation departments, by national conservation agencies, and by ecologists and even by some entomologists, calling upon the then Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Benson, to delay the program at least until some research had been done to determine the effects of heptachlor and dieldrin on wild and domestic animals and to find the minimum amount that would control the ants. The protests were ignored and the program was launched in 1958. A million acres were treated the first year. It was clear that any research would be in the nature of a post mortem.[35]

After the program, an increased number of birds, cattle, horses and other wildlife were found dead in the areas where the pesticides had been sprayed.[36] To make matters worse, the heptachlor and dieldrin sprayed accomplished nothing, instead creating more infested areas.[37] Had the government researched the impact the chemicals could have on wildlife they could have prevented the deaths and environmental damage and saved the taxpayer's money.[38] Overall, Silent Spring not only uncovered the many negative effects pesticides have on the environment but also asked for environmental issues to be discussed and treated seriously within the political sphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

[Walleye]

23. My grandfather had that but he also had some nice Audubon picture book

I remember seeing them in his den. The title of Silent Spring scared me so much, I never read the book.I was still a child. But I do remember there was talk of Rachel Carson being a communist, which in those days was something dirty. Of course it turns out she was absolutely right

[former9thward]

18. Two books assigned to my university's freshman.

The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmond Burke.

[malaise]

20. The Ugly American

then Black Like me. I read a lot of books by Caribbean writers or cricketers who lived in England- CLR James, Lamming, Harris, Selvon, Naipaul. I also read The West on Trial by Jagan.
Our great aunts, great uncle and aunts brought all of these books for us when we were pre-teens.

[dembotoz]

21. theory of conspicuous consumption by Veblin

[The Magistrate]

22. 1984, Ma'am

I was nine, it was the paperback edition with the pulp style cover....

[Prairie_Seagull]

24. Admittedly required reading but 'Animal Farm' here as well. nt

[keep_left]

25. Something by Noam Chomsky...

...I think it was Deterring Democracy. Either that or a really good book about the "Iraq-gate" affair, Spider's Web by Alan Friedman.

[yorkster]

26. Maybe Grapes of Wrath? Not overtly political, but got me

thinking about how policies affect people's lives
I was in 8th grade and parents had told me about the Depression and the New Deal, FDR, etc.

I knew about treating people fairly on a personal level, but that book brought me an awareness of social injustice on a much broader scale through immersion into such a powerful narrative

[hatrack]

28. "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" - I think I was 10 . . .

.

[jcgoldie]

29. Not really political but Howard Zinn

Peoples History of the Unites States got me going early in high school.

[WiVoter]

37. That Was One My Firsts Too

My mom got it for me for my birthday. I lost my mom in January of this year I treasure that book and her memory.

[ismnotwasm]

30. Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

Not exactly political, but that book changed my very young life. I was raised by unapologetic racists.

[bottomofthehill]

31. How the good guys finally won

Jimmy Breslin’s book about watergate summer.

[Kid Berwyn]

32. "Will the Soviet Union Surive Until 1984?" by Andrei Amalrik

1969-Seventh Grade. And Junior High was never the same.



Nor's the rest of my life's path.

[LearnedHand]

33. Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin

[JonAndKatePlusABird]

34. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

[Iggo]

36. Probably Animal Farm.

Maybe I read 1984 before Animal Farm. It was a long time ago…lol.

I started The Prince, but I’m sure I never finished it. Same with The Art Of War.

I’ve never ever read a one-off book by a living politician. (I used to call them “vanity books”, but that just seems rude now.)

[MineralMan]

38. George Orwell - Animal Farm

I think I was 10 years old. Maybe 11.

[Iggo]

39. Yeah, that's why I think Animal Farm came before 1984.

I feel like I was a little kid when I read it. I was definitely in high school when I read 1984.

[MineralMan]

41. Animal Farm was my introduction to political satire.

I got addicted to it. I just kept reading and reading and reading.

[Midnight Writer]

40. The Strawberry Statement

I read a lot of "radical" 60s books when I was a teen. There was a little headshop/bookstore in a nearby town that carried a lot of underground comics, underground newspapers and counter-culture books. I ate them up like candy.

Not sure Strawberry Statement was the first, but I remember loaning it to a lot of my small town friends in High School.

[LibinMo]

42. Manchild In The Promised Land by Claude Brown

I found this in my high school library, in a sundown town in rural Arkansas, of all places! Kudos to the librarian, may she rest in peace.

[ananda]

44. Profiles in Courage since my mother..

had checked it out of the library

I was about 14 then.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

46. Easy

All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Political nerd that I am, I'd been waiting and waiting for it to come out after one of them mentioned its imminent release on the telly.

Also one of the first books I ever bought by myself, for myself. I think it was also the only book my family did a "family read aloud" for after dinner every night.

[GoCubsGo]

48. "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo.

Although, it's possible I got to Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" before that. The GOP would have conniptions over what was required reading when I was in high school.

[Music Man]

49. Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot

Al Franken

[Generic Brad]

50. The Warren Commission Reort

I was 12. It was a long, boring summer. I wanted to learn what it was all about.

[Mr.Bill]

51. Same here, at around the same age.

Next one was Revolution for the Hell of It, by Abbie Hoffman. After that, a ton of Hunter S. Thompson, mostly in Rolling Stone magazine.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

52. I've never read a political book and have zero intention of ever reading a political book.

Just doesn't interest me in the least.

[Trueblue1968]

53. Allen Drury --- Advise and Consent

[DemocraticPatriot]

54. 'Decisions for a Decade' by Senator Edward M. Kennedy,

from the early 1970s... Much as I love Ted, it was not a very memorable book... I was 15 or 16 years old, and romantically enthralled by the possibility of a 'restoration of Camelot'. While that all turned out to be a mistake, I am convinced that President Carter would have lost the 1980 election without any Kennedy challenge--- that is why grassroots Democrats and Democratic legislators all over the country begged Ted to run that year--- they feared what would happen if Carter headed the ticket, and they turned out to be quite correct--- although most of them were nowhere to be found while Carter recovered during the nomination race, when the president was actually benefitting from the "rally around the flag" effect, due to the Iranian hostage crisis--- the same crisis that actually killed his general election campaign, along with inflation and the economy...

I am convinced to this day that the Democrats would have done better down-ticket and perhaps kept the Senate, if Ted Kennedy had been the nominee-- although we still would likely have lost the White House.

Still, I now think no prominent Democrat should challenge a sitting Democratic President,
especially a very SUCCESSFUL sitting Democratic President,
such as we now have!!

I do now very much admire Jimmy Carter, more for his life work after leaving office than anything else.
As far as his time in the White House is concerned, it seems to me that he was very unlucky,
and mostly not to blame for everything that was happening then...



Otherwise, I read the famous political novel about 'Mayor Skeffington's last campaign, what was that called ??
Spencer Tracy played the role in the movie. I read that one when I was 17 or 18, early in 1981, I think..

("Skeffington" was a fictional mayor, seeming to be based on old machine Democratic mayors of Boston...)

I think I still have a copy somewhere inside one of ten or eleven boxes of books,
now I feel like hunting it down to read again... it has been a few years...

Ah, "The Last Hurrah", wasn't it ??

[Akacia]

55. Watergate: The Full Inside Story: Chester, Lewis, etal.

[DiverDave]

56. Black like me.

I was 13.

[GoodRaisin]

58. Animal Farm

[betsuni]

59. Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series. My second grade reading textbook of folklore

and stories from around the world included a chapter from "Little House in the Big Woods" about maple syrup collecting and there's an uncle who ran away to join the Union army at fourteen and came back nutty.

Throughout the series settlers hated the government, the railroads, civilization in general -- too many people -- keep going West. You know, Teh Establishment and Eastern coastal elites. The same Establishment that was giving away land to suckers who believed it was easy to farm the Great Plains and found out about grasshopper plagues, prairie fires, blizzards and long winters and oops the reality of depending on the railroads for coal and food, tornadoes, drought, illegally settling on Indian land, claim jumpers, etc. Free, white, and twenty-one.

[bif]

60. Either "1984" or "A Brave New world".

[stuck in the middle]

61. Possibly never

I can’t recall ever reading an explicitly political book, but my memory may be failing me.

What counts as political?

I’ve read lots of math books.

[LeftInTX]

62. The following books were required reading in my high school

Lord of the Flies
Auschwitz
Johnny Got His Gun
The Jungle
1984
Animal Farm

The ones bolded are the ones that left the greatest impression.

I admit real political books don't hold my interest. I've read Profiles in Courage. I tried to read the 911 Report, but lost interest. I've read books by George Lakoff.

[Conjuay]

63. Read? Who needed to read?

My parents were both alive during the Irish revolution; in fact my mothers home (farm) was ransacked by the Black and Tans.

They met at an IRA dance, here in NYC. This was at a point in history when the Irish Republican Army was heroic freedom fighters and not terrorist bombers.

So my earliest understanding of politics was a deep distrust of the British Monarchy.

Coupled with that, my father gave speeches in Washington Square with other depression era malcontents.

So I was politically aware pretty much from the crib

[sakabatou]

64. Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot