Disclaimer: History Is A Weapon makes no claim that these writers endorse us. Nor do we necessarily agree with everyone on this list. However, all of them are worth your time.

The Beginning



The Autobiography

Of Malcolm X

Assata

by Assata Shakur

The Twentieth Century

by Howard Zinn

The Angela Y. Davis Reader

edited by Joy James

The Larger Pool



Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert

(a proposal for an alternative economic model)

The Trajectory Of Change: Activist Strategies for Social Transformation By Michael Albert

Cultural Hegemony in the United States by Lee Artz and Bren Ortega Murphy

(Breaks down the complex concept of Hegemony)

Living For Change by Grace Lee Boggs

(Thought-provoking and inspiring autobiography)

The No-Nonsense Guide to World History by Chris Brazier

(World history in less than 40,000 words)

Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky

(Buy this and put it in your bathroom. Best advice ever.)

Cages Of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment In The United States by Ward Churchill

The Black Panthers Speak by Philip S. Foner



Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin

(Brief history of recent radical black worker organizations in Michigan. Very inspiring.)

Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century by Stan Goff

(Like a guide for understanding the military for the peace movement)

The Movement Toward A New America : The Beginnings Of A Long Revolution by Mitchell Goodman

(Out of print. Great 60s reader)

Policing a Class Society: The Experience of American Cities, 1865-1915

by Sidney Harring

A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey

Blood in My Eye by George L. Jackson

Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 by George Katsiaficas

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Fiction)



Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South

by Alex Lichtenstein

Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

by James W. Loewen

Our Word Is Our Weapon: Selected Writings

by Subcommandante Marcos

God's Bits of Wood

by Sembene Ousmane (fiction about African labor struggle and feminism)

Post-Conservative America

by Kevin Phillips

(Nixon's strategist shares his insightful analysis)

Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis

by Christian Parenti (Required reading.)

The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on Terror

by Christian Parenti

Democracy For the Few by Michael Parenti



Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

by Neil Postman

(Television, technology, and the effect on political discussion)

Groundings with My Brothers

by Walter Rodney

(Great)

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

by Walter Rodney

(The premiere history of Africa)

Walter Rodney Speaks

by Walter Rodney



The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class by David R. Roediger

SDS by Kirkpatrick Sale

Introduction to Marx and Engels: A Critical Reconstruction by Richard Schmitt

(The best introduction)

Jarhead : A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford



Rivington Street by Meredith Tax

(fiction)

Union Square by Meredith Tax

(fiction. Sequel to Rivington Street)

The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World by Immanuel Wallerstein

Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams

Our Enemies in Blue by Kristian Williams

(A great history of the police)

Negroes With Guns by Robert F. Williams

Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements by Malcolm X

(or any other collection of his talks)

Declarations Of Independence by Howard Zinn

(tackles popular American myths)