Resistance Reading

Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life. In American Fascists, Chris Hedges, veteran journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, challenges the Christian Right’s religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.

The Wave –
This novel dramatizes an incident that took place in a California school in 1969. A teacher creates an experimental movement in his class to help students understand how people could have followed Hitler. The results are astounding. The highly disciplined group, modeled on the principles of the Hilter Youth, has its own salute, chants, and special ways of…

It Can’t Happen Here (Signet Classics)
“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street,Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written d…

The New Jim Crow
Only Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as “brave and bold,” this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness…

The seminal work of speculative fiction from the Booker Prize-winning, soon to be a Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss, Samira Wiley, and Joseph Fiennes. Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now…. Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and literary tour de force.

In a series of personal letters to his sons, Omar Saif Ghobash offers a short and highly readable manifesto that tackles our current global crisis with the training of an experienced diplomat and the personal responsibility of a father. Today’s young Muslims will be tomorrow’s leaders, and yet too many are vulnerable to extremist propaganda that seems omnipresent in our technological age. The burning question, Ghobash argues, is how moderate Muslims can unite to find a voice that is true to Islam while actively and productively engaging in the modern world. What does it mean to be a good Muslim?

Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way Washington Works: 2016 will be one of the most historic years in politics: It marks the potential for the first female President of the United States and the 100th anniversary of the first woman elected to Congress. Additionally, in 2016, single women will be one of the most pivotal voting groups heading…

Parable of the Talents (Earthseed)
Lauren Olamina’s love is divided among her young daughter, her community, and the revelation that led Lauren to found a new faith that teaches “God Is Change”. But in the wake of environmental and economic chaos, the U.S. government turns a blind eye to violent bigots who consider the mere existence of a black female leader a threat. An…

A laborer, journalist and a professor who lived through four successive periods of German political history – from the German Empire, through the Weimar Republic and the Nazi state through to the German Democratic Republic – Victor Klemperer is regarded as one of the most vivid witnesses to a tumultuous century of European history. First published in 1957, The Language of the Third Reich arose from Klemperer’s conviction that the language of the Third Reich helped to create its culture. As Klemperer writes: ‘It isn’t only Nazi actions that have to vanish, but also the Nazi cast of mind, the typical Nazi way of thinking, and its breeding ground: the language of Nazism.’ “Klemperer’s The Language of the Third Reich (or LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii) is important but difficult to categorize. Originally published in German in 1957 and translated into English in 2000, LTI derives from notes the Jewish philologist and literature professor took before and during WW II, in which he signals and dissects Nazi language. This book is an honest narrative of hope and oppression, touching in places and well written, in an accessible translation. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.” ―M. Aaij, Auburn Montgomery, CHOICE About…

The United States of Fear
“A tour de force.”—Jeremy Scahill “Tom Engelhardt is the I. F. Stone of the post-9/11 age.”—Andrew J. BacevichIn 2008, when the US National Intelligence Council issued its latest report meant for the administration of newly elected President Barack Obama, it predicted that the planet’s “sole superpower…