A great way to initiate a dialogue across lines of difference is to agree to read a book or watch a movie and then discuss it. Here are some books and films that touch on various themes of importance to many progressives. You know your audience – pre-screen the material and select works that you believe they can digest open-mindedly. Your conservative counterpart will probably have their own favorites and so you can alternate between your recommendations and theirs.
In addition, there are several books that shed light on the cultural and economic forces that made Trump’s victory possible —American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears, Strangers in Their Own Land, The Tyranny of Merit, White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.
Class, Economics and Capitalism
Robert Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay
Martin Jay Levitt, Confessions of a Union Buster
Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison
Robert Reich, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It
Aaron Glantz, Homewreckers (explores the bi-partisan roots of the 2008 housing market collapse)
George Lakey, Viking Economics
Sarah Smarsh, Heartland
Max Haiven, Revenge Capitalism
Raj Patel and Jason Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
Robert Wuthnow, Left Behind
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed
Richard Wolff, Understanding Socialism
James Green, The Devil Is Here in These Hills
Mathew Desmond, Evicted
Jane Collins and Victoria Mayer, Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom of the Low-Wage Labor Market
Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein, Making Ends Meet (impact of welfare work requirements)
Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage
Kathryn Edin and Timothy Nelson, Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City
Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Forced to Care
Thomas Naylor, Affluenza
David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Sarah Kessler, Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work
Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism
Walter Mattli, Darkness by Design: The Hidden Power in Global Capital Markets
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper
Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning
Chris Hedges, America: The Farewell Tour
Imperialism, Foreign Policy and Settler Colonialism
Bruce Franklin, From the Good War to the Forever War
Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie
Christian Parenti, The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucination in Occupied Iraq
Charles Lewis, 935 Lies
James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War
Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine
Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire and Blowback
John Perkins, The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2d edition)
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
Eric Foner, Reconstruction and The Second Founding
Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
Charles Mann, 1491
Stephen Kinzer, True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
Andrea Stuart, Sugar in the Blood
Immigration
David Scott Fitzgerald, Refuge Beyond Reach
Daniel Denvir, All-American Nativism
Todd Miller, Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security
Racism
Heather McGhee, The Sum Of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together
Jennifer Eberhardt, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do (this book is a great place to start)!
Jonathan Metzl, Dying of Whiteness (how poor whites shoot themselves in the foot when they support racist policies)
Ibram Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts & Bodies (with chapters for POC and white readers)
Debby Irving, Waking Up White (first person account of learning about white privilege)
Daniel Denvir, All-American Nativism
Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (racism in the criminal justice system)
Nick Davies, White Lies: Rape, Murder, and Justice Texas Style (one devastating story that speaks volumes)
Philomena Essed, Understanding Everyday Racism
Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools
Democracy
Elaine May, Fortress America: How We Embraced Fear and Abandoned Democracy
Benjamin Page and Marin Gilens, Democracy in America?
Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt and Why Trust Science?
David Michaels, The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States—and the Nation
Yochai Benkler et al, Network Propaganda
Matt Taibbi, Hate, Inc.: Why Today’s Media Make Us Despise One Another (a great choice because Taibbi criticizes right and left-leaning media)
Jane Mayer, Dark Money
Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff, The United States of Distraction (critique of corporate media)
Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Criminal Justice
Ruth Gilmore, Golden Gulag
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison
Elaine May, Fortress America: How We Embraced Fear and Abandoned Democracy
Nick Davies, White Lies: Rape, Murder, and Justice Texas Style
Gender
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, We Should All Be Feminists
Laura Erickson-Schroth and Laura A. Jacobs, “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!” and 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions about Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People
Abigail Pesta, The Girls: An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down
Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues
Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift
US History
Howard Zinn, People’s History of the US
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
Charles Mann, 1491
Bruce Franklin, From the Good War to the Forever War
Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie
Our Planet
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Dar Jamal, The End of Ice
Charles Eisentstein, Climate: A New Story
Bill McKibben, Falter
Christopher Cook, Diet for a Dead Planet
Other Non-Fiction
Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe
Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists
Charles Eisenstein, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael
Daniel Quinn, My Ishmael
Michael Lerner, Revolutionary Love
Michael P. Lynch, Know-It-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture
Riane Eisler, Nurturing Our Humanity
Memoir
Nathan McCall, Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America
Amy Ellis Nutt, Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family
Garrard Conley, Boy Erased
Emily Bernard, Black is the Body
Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives
Fiction
Upton Sinclair, It Can’t Happen Here
Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
Sherman Alexie, Indian Killer
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man
Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
Octavia Butler, Bloodchild (sci fi)
Erik Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization (sci-fi)
Gerd Brantenberg, Egalia’s Daughters
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Shorter Reads
The Economic Origins of Mass Incarceration
A former farmworker on American hypocrisy (“illegal” but “essential farmworkers during the pandemic)
Born with two strikes: How systemic racism shaped George Floyd’s life
The Other Epidemic (how violence spreads like a disease)
Americans want to believe jobs are the solution to poverty. They’re not.
The Confidence Game: How Silicon Valley Broke the Economy
The Birth of the New American Aristocracy
The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
Photo essay of United States before air pollution regulations
Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math
These 3 supertrees can protect us from climate collapse
In Tijuana, Migrants Seeking Asylum in US Tell Harrowing Stories of Crisis
How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition
Being Black in America Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
What Happens When Black People Search for Suburban Homes
The Bleak Truth Behind My ‘Inspiring’ Path from Oakland to Yale
Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man
If People Were Paid by Ability, Inequality Would Plummett
The Fertile Ground of Bewilderment
Your Bonhoeffer Moment (for Christian evangelical Trump supporters)
Documentaries
The Bystander Moment: Combating Rape Culture at its Roots
Documenting Hate: Charlottesville
Documenting Hate: New American Nazis
Race – The Power of an Illusion
I Am Not Your Negro
Combat Obscura
The Long Shadow
The Tillman Story
Untold History of the US (12-part series)
Harvest of Empire
Company Town
Creating Freedom: The Lottery of Birth
The Informal Economy: Immigration and the Demand for Low Wage Work
The Eleventh Hour
A River’s Last Chance (about the Eel River but has lessons that apply to all rivers)
Chasing Ice
Gasland and Gasland Part II
The Economics of Happiness
Food, Inc.
Where to Invade Next
The Corporation
Merchants of Doubt
The Century of the Self
Capitalism (6-part series)
White Ally Toolkit Holiday Survive & Thrive Series
Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019)
Al-Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe
Short Videos:
Why There’s No Such Thing as White Pride — in one minute!
The Story of Stuff and other shorts
The Way We Think about Biological Sex Is Wrong (Emily Quinn Ted Talk)
Why Does Privilege Make Some People So Angry?
Are Cracker, White Trash & Redneck Racist?
There are many videos documenting racial profiling and harassment. Here are just a few:
Black man harassed by cops in Portland hotel lobby
Black Nordstrom shoppers harassed by off-duty cop
True Colors (1991 Prime Time Live clip documenting everyday racism)
Feature Films
Official Secrets
Erin Brockovich
El Norte
Norma Rae
Matewan
Silkwood
Kill the Messenger
If Beale Street Could Talk
Do the Right Thing
It’s a Wonderful Life
Born on the 4th of July
Boy Erased
Brokeback Mountain
Get Out
Snowden
When They See Us (Central Park Five)
Just Mercy