Below are authors that have critical lessons for organizers who are working to reverse the White patriarchal minority takeover of the United States and beyond. Hopefully you will find a couple of books to add to your summer reading list. If you have other good ones to suggest please share them in the comments!
The links go to Medium, please follow me over there if you can. You can also find the same articles on my website in case Medium gives you any hassles.
You Say You Want a Revolution: Well, you know, there is a recipe
Engler, Mark, and Paul Engler. This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. Bold Type Books, 2016.
brown, adrienne m. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. AK Press, 2017.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Abridged 1976 ed. Oxford University Press, 1978.
Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Columbia University Press, 2011.
Fithian, Lisa. Shut It Down: Stories From A Fierce, Loving Resistance. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019.
We Were Born for This Fight (the Climate Emergency)
Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. Tim Duggan Books, 2019.
McKibben, Bill. Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Henry Holt and Company, 2019.
LaValle, Victor and John Joseph Adams, editors. A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers. One World, 2019.
The Pitchforks Are Coming for Philanthropy
Villanueva, E. Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018.
Reich, R. Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better. Princeton University Press, 2018.
Giridharadas, A. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Knopf, 2018.
We Have Found the Enemy (TLDR; It’s Not Us)
Perlstein, Rick. Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976–1980. Simon and Schuster, 2020.
Teachout, Zephyr. Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2020.
McGhee, Heather. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World, 2021.
Are You Committed to Fighting or Winning? Because there is a difference, and it matters
Subar, Rebecca. When to Talk and When to Fight: The Strategic Choice Between Dialogue and Resistance. PM Press, 2021.
Hayhoe, Katharine. Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Altria/One Signal Publishers, 2021.
If You’re Not Building Power, You’re Just Admiring the Problem
Malm, Andreas and the Zetkin Collective. White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism. Verso, 2021.
Malm, Andreas. How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire. Verso, 2021.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Ministry for the Future. Orbit, 2020.
Garza, Alicia. The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart. One World, 2020.
Fonda, Jane. What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to Action. Penguin Press, 2020.
You Are Being Called to Greatness in the Face of the Apocalypse
Smiley, Erica, and Sarita Gupta. The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. Cornell University Press, 2022.
Burnham, Linda, Max Elbaum and Maria Poblet. Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections. A Project of Convergence: A Magazine of Radical Insights. O/R Books, 2022.
How Long Must My Journey Go? An Organizer-Bodhisattva’s Guide to Enlightenment
Han, Hahrie, and Elizabeth McKenna and Michelle Oyakawa. Prisms of the People: Power & Organizing in Twenty-First Century America. University of Chicago Press, 2021.
Mott, Andrew. Preparing to Win: Developing Community Leaders, Organizers and Allies. New Community Press, 2020.
McAlevey, Jane. A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy. Ecco Press, 2020.
Greenhouse, Steven. Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor. Random House, 2019.
The Path from Pandemic to Green New World: What kind of a world do we have the will to win?
Engh, Susan. Women’s Work: The Transformational Power of Faith-Based Community Organizing. Lexington Books-Fortress Academic, 2019.
Brescia, Ray. The Future of Change: Technology, Social Movements, and Social Change. Cornell University Press, 2020.
How Cheap Things Expose the Root Causes of Our Biggest Problems
Patel, Raj, and Jason W. Moore. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. University of California Press, 2017.