General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat political books are an absolute must-read for DUers?
The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)
Girard442
(6,067 posts)Probably should pour yourself a drink first.
Chipper Chat
(9,676 posts)by Eugene Burdick
Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)Chipper Chat
(9,676 posts)I couldn't remember Lederer's first name.
CivicGrief
(147 posts)SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)Kilgore
(1,733 posts)Seriously, it gave much more of an insight into his thinking than any thing else i have read
hunter
(38,309 posts)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
(1,733 posts)explaining his actions than anything else I have seen
Paladin
(28,246 posts)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
(147 posts)Paladin
(28,246 posts)Nay
(12,051 posts)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
(47,370 posts)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
(7,486 posts)Howard Zinn- A Peoples History of the United States
burrowowl
(17,637 posts)and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich!
Hannah Arendt.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)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
(38,309 posts)... 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
(16,829 posts)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
(16,829 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)I had read that right before 9/11, and it made everything that happened after seem like surreal bullshit.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)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
(4,858 posts)...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
(16,829 posts)You should make a post sometime with all your recommendations. I'm interested to hear more.
Stuart G
(38,414 posts)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
(111,237 posts)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
(15,124 posts)Atticus
(15,124 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,182 posts)malaise
(268,898 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)Danmel
(4,912 posts)By Philip Roth
rurallib
(62,406 posts)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
(50,258 posts)"The Making of Donald Trump." He's been studying the con artist for decades.
crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)PatSeg
(47,370 posts)It should be required reading for every eligible voter.
dumbcat
(2,120 posts)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
(16,829 posts)is also important for understanding how we got here. Not as offensive as Ayn Rand, but very influential.
RedWedge
(618 posts)speeches of the Rev. Dr. MLK Jr.; The Half Has Never Been Told, Edward Baptist; etc.
milestogo
(16,829 posts)zagamet
(8 posts)Man of the House - Tip O'Neill
canetoad
(17,149 posts)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/