This Month’s Book Recommendations

Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden
Metropolitan Books (September 17, 2019) 352 Pages
Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.
In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. More

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, by Naomi Klein
Simon & Schuster (September 17, 2019) 320 Pages
These long-form essays show Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one, as well. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of “perpetual now,” to the soaring history of humans changing and evolving rapidly in the face of grave threats, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of “climate barbarism,” this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink. More

This Month’s Book Recommendations

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken
Publisher: Penguin Books (April 18, 2017) 256 Pages
The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world.In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. Read More

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, by Sheldon S. Wolin
Princeton University Press; New edition (August 29, 2017) 376 Pages
Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America. Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive–and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a “managed democracy” where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Read More

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,
by Anand Giridharadas
Knopf; First Edition, First Printing edition (August 28, 2018) 304 Pages
The New York Times bestselling, groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite’s efforts to “change the world” preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news. More

Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better,
by Rob Reich
Princeton University Press (November 20, 2018) 256 Pages
Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today’s democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society’s benefit, Just Giving shows how such generosity not only isn’t the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice. Big philanthropy is often an exercise of power, the conversion of private assets into public influence. And it is a form of power that is largely unaccountable, often perpetual, and lavishly tax-advantaged. More

This Month’s Book Recommendations

Our History Is the Future – Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance
By Nick Estes
Published by Verso (Mar 05, 2019) 320 Pages
How two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming “Water is life”
In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance. More

Fight Like a Mother – How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World
by Shannon Watts
HarperOne (May 28, 2019) 304 Pages
Fight Like a Mother is the incredible account how one mother’s cry for change became the driving force behind gun safety progress. Along with stories of perseverance, courage, and compassion, Watts shines a light on the unique power of women—starting with what they have, leading with their maternal strengths, and doubling down instead of backing down. While not everyone can be on the front lines lobbying congress, every mom is already a multi-tasking organizer, and Shannon explains how to go from amateur activist to having a real impact in your community and beyond. Fight Like a Mother will inspire everyone—mothers and fathers, students and teachers, lawmakers, and anyone motivated to enact change—to get to work transforming hearts and minds, and passing laws that save lives. More