The Ultimate Reading Guide To Understand The Key Issues Of This Election

Read up on key issues like climate change, racial equality, public health, and more — because no matter what happens next week, the work isn't over.

Earlier this month, the New York Public Library compiled a list of books exploring key issues of this election, like climate change, racial equality, public health, immigration, and more. No matter what happens next week, one thing is certain: It will be just one step in ongoing work. Below, we've featured some of our favorite books from the library's extensive list to help you dive deeper into issues that will continue to affect the country (and world), and figure out what your next move will be.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt & Company, 2014)

In its long, long history, our planet has experienced five periods of mass extinction, each of which dramatically decreased the diversity of life. Elizabeth Kolbert contemplates the idea of a sixth extinction — the result of climate change — and how human beings are responsible for changing life on earth in a way no other species has.

As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, From Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Beacon Press, 2019)

Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker presents a multifaceted and accessible examination of “Indigenized environmental justice,” comprising a history of federal and corporate destruction of Native peoples’ land and their active resistance to it, a critical look at how mainstream environmental activism has alienated Native populations, and insight into effective ways of fighting for sustainability.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein (Simon & Schuster, 2014)

Naomi Klein's provocative book unveils the myths surrounding climate change, explores how the "free market" is holding us back from making vital changes that are necessary for a livable future (like reducing greenhouse emissions), and argues that these changes wouldn’t only counteract the climate crisis but would also spur economic and social progress.

The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court by Richard J. Lazarus (Belknap Press, 2020)

In 1999, lawyer Joe Mendelson petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to restrict greenhouse emissions from new cars, arguing that carbon dioxide fell under the umbrella of air pollutants it had been granted power to regulate via the Clean Air Act. Mendelson was challenged by all sides — even prominent environmentalists argued it was a dead end — but through his dogged persistence, he was able to gather support from Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and 12 state attorneys and take the EPA to court.

Further reading:

THE ECONOMY

Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse (Knopf, 2019)

At a time when the wage gap is increasing and social mobility is declining, journalist Steven Greenhouse walks us through how we got here by offering an accessible history of American labor policies and activism, exposing the exploitation of modern American workers through original reporting and in-depth profiles, and proposing methods for workers to reclaim their power.

Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein (Simon & Schuster, 2017)

In December 2008, in the midst of the Great Recession, General Motors shut down its the oldest operating assembly plant in the US — and, with that decision, wiped out the main employer of the industrial town of Janesville, Wisconsin. Through years of on-the-ground reporting, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Amy Goldstein gives a deep and multifaceted portrait of the Janesville community and the ways in which it recovered from an economic collapse.

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder (W.W. Norton, 2017)

Nomadland tells the stories of “workampers” — a growing, albeit still largely invisible population of American senior citizens who have ridden themselves of mortgages and rent and taken to life on the road. Bruder profiles a cast of characters but centers on Linda May as she is pushed out of job after job, moves into an RV, and finds community through short-term and scattered work at places like Amazon, state parks, and private farms. It exposes the oppression under capitalism and presents a way of life that exists outside of it.

Further reading:

EDUCATION

Cutting School: The Segrenomics of American Education by Noliwe Rooks (The New Press, 2017)

Noliwe Rooks, a cultural critic and American studies professor, digs into the modern segregation of the country’s schools, outlining how issues like privatization, school choice, teacher quality, class size, and funding disproportionately put Black students at a disadvantage. This year's edition is updated with a new foreword from former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch.

Human Targets: Schools, Police, and the Criminalization of Latino Youth by Victor M. Rios (University of Chicago Press, 2017)

At 15 years old, Victor Rios walked away from a dangerous life of gangs, drugs, and violence. Through the mentorship of one of his teachers, he found a job, worked his way to college, and eventually earned a PhD. In Human Targets, he turns his attention toward California teens at a similar crossroads — following young gang members through their daily lives and interactions and painting complex, nuanced portraits of Latino youth who are too frequently stereotyped and victimized.

The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind by Justin Driver (Pantheon, 2018)

Award-winning constitutional law scholar Justin Driver exposes how the US public school system has failed to protect students’ constitutional rights since the 1970s, allowing educators and administrators to inflict corporal punishment, perform body and property searches without probable cause, and suppress free speech, among other transgressions.

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris (New Press, 2016)

Morris, cofounder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, follows young Black girls across the country, exposing the profound judgments they face from teachers and administrators and exploring how these harsh environments can degrade their will and stunt their potential.

Further reading:

FOREIGN POLICY

Clear & Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans by Michael A. Cohen and Micah Zenko (Yale University Press, 2019)

Michael Cohen and Micah Zenko argue that global fearmongering is advantageous to a Presidential administration that doesn’t want to deal with national security threats within the country, and that the world is actually healthier and safer than it’s ever been. Dissecting what they call the “threat-industrial complex,” the authors call for a refocusing of our energy with issues like gun violence, income inequality, failing infrastructure, and inadequate healthcare in the US.

The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen (Riverhead, 2012)

Masha Gessen’s biography of Putin looks at his ascension into absolute, dangerous power — from a young man groomed to be Boris Yeltsin’s successor to a corrupt leader responsible for the destruction of Russian democracy. Gessen is able to provide a vital perspective, drawing from her firsthand experience as a journalist living in Moscow and gathering insight from new and rare sources.

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas (Knopf, 2018)

Giridharadas skewers the groups of super-wealthy entrepreneurs, philanthropists, politicians, and “thought leaders” who build reputations on working for justice and improving the world, but who, behind the scenes, refuse to do anything that might challenge the status quo or diminish their power within it. It’s a compelling look through interviews with powerful figures, but it’s also a reminder that meaningful change won’t come from a select few. (Read an excerpt from Winners Take All.)

GUN CONTROL

An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz (Nan A. Talese, 2019)

Kotlowitz looks beyond the data of Chicago’s notorious gun violence and gives voice to the lives affected by it. Through intimate, moving portraits — of a man reckoning with past crimes, a social worker trying to help a student embroiled in a dangerous situation, and a witness to a police shooting, among others — Kotlowitz brings these communities to life and challenges the stereotypes about them.

Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge (Bold Type Books, 2016)

Award-winning journalist Gary Younge looks at the overwhelming number of yearly gun fatalities in the US — nearly 40,000 in 2017, from the CDC’s most recent data — and zeroes in on killings on one day: Nov.23, 2013. Over the course of those 24 hours, 10 people — Black, white, and Latino, aged 9 to 19 — died across the country, and Younge digs into their lives to paint complex, human portraits of the people behind the numbers.

Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation by Andrew Marantz (Viking, 2019)

New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz is deeply embedded in the social media spheres, reporting both on the side of the entrepreneurs shaping these platforms and of the “gate-crashers” commandeering them. Antisocial tracks the spread of disinformation and failing media literacy, bringing light to the trolls, conspiracists, and white supremacists who use social media to grow in popularity and turn their digital agendas into real threats.

HEALTH

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney (PublicAffairs Books, 2017)

Science journalist Laura Spinney turns her attention to the flu pandemic of 1918–1920, chronicling a narrative history of a virus that infected a third of the global population, killing between 50 million and 100 million people. She traces its spread around the world and its devastating effects, arguing that it was as socially and politically significant as both world wars.

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, From Cholera to Ebola and Beyond by Sonia Shah (Sarah Crichton Books, 2016)

Award-winning science journalist Sonia Shah offers a survey of the world’s most destructive pandemics; in this year’s new edition, COVID-19 is appropriately added to that list. Shah blends historical analysis, original reporting, and personal narrative, drawing connections among the world’s deadliest pathogens and presenting a path to a more viable future.

The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark (Metropolitan Books, 2018)

In April 2014, residents of Flint, Michigan, mostly Black and living in poverty, started complaining about foul-smelling and discolored water pouring from their faucets, but their grievances were dismissed. The state wouldn’t admit the water was poisoned with lead and other toxins for over a year. Detroit journalist Anna Clark offers the first extensive account of the crisis — one that is ongoing — and exposes the many failures of the state to protect its citizens.

Further reading:

IMMIGRATION

America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee (Basic Books, 2019)

The US national identity hinges on it being a “melting pot,” and a necessary component of that is a population of immigrants from all around the world. So why has xenophobia endured every step of the way? Erika Lee traces our country’s deep-seated fear and even hatred of immigrants from the colonial era to the present day and writes about how that xenophobia has been enacted through policy.

No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants by Alina Das (Bold Type Books, 2020)

Immigrant rights activist and lawyer Alina Das walks the reader through an immigration system she calls the “deportation machine” — one that arrests, imprisons, and deports hundreds of thousands of people in the US each year. Das exposes the racism underlying US policy that created the idea of the “criminal alien” and the dangerous notion that some are good and some are bad, and then used these constructs to justify the violent uprooting and banishing of human beings.

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press, 2017)

Valeria Luiselli — a Mexican writer who grew up in South Africa and Mexico and then moved to New York — reflects on her experience as a translator for undocumented Latin American children who have to answer 40 questions that will be evaluated by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in order to determine whether they will stay or be deported. By drawing from these answers, Luiselli humanizes these children — some as young as 6 years old, many of whom have experienced unthinkable trauma — and shifts the abstract idea of the immigrant experience into reality.

Further reading:


LGBTQ RIGHTS

Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and US Surveillance Practices by Toby Beauchamp (Duke University Press, 2019)

Toby Beauchamp, professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, connects the enforcement of gender conformity with US surveillance, arguing that the marginalization of gender nonconformity is directly related to its perceived threat to the US security, and how the government tries to mold citizens into something it can predict and control.

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States by Samantha Allen (Little, Brown and Company, 2019)

Award-winning journalist Samantha Allen puts a spotlight on the lives and worlds of queer Americans across the country in this book that is equal parts travelogue, cultural analysis, and narrative nonfiction. She blends interviews and research with her own experience as a trans woman traveling through Republican states. The result is an illuminating, stereotype-busting account of queer America. Read an excerpt.

Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene A. Carruthers (Beacon Press, 2018)

Activist Charlene Carruthers presents a vigorous and uncompromising argument for making the Black liberation movement more queer and more feminist, as well as a clear and practical model for enacting these necessary changes in the fight for social justice.

Find further reading on LGBTQ news here.

MEDIA

Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other by Sherry Turkle (Basic Books, 2012, revised in 2017)

MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that the increasing integration of the internet into our daily lives has led to a growing sense of isolation — that the connections we make on social media don’t function as authentic communication. Based on hundreds of interviews and shrewd analysis, Turkle explores how technology is shifting our personal relationships.

Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy by Claire Bond Potter (Basic Books, 2020)

Historian Claire Bond Potter challenges the idea that the internet has been uniquely detrimental to politics, with its ability to spread false information and amplify outrage and trolls. Drawing a line from independent newsletters in the 1950s to talk radio in the 1970s to cable television in the 1980s, Potter contextualizes social and web media in a long history of alternative outlets on both the left and right.

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power by Anna Merlan (Metropolitan Books, 2019)

Investigative journalist Anna Merlan dives into the history of conspiracy theories and hoaxes in the US, giving a nuanced and complex account of the people who believe them and the social, cultural, and political circumstances that make these beliefs attractive. Through historical analysis and firsthand reporting, Merlan explores how formerly fringe theories have gained mainstream prominence during the Trump era.

GENDER EQUALITY

Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, edited by Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman (Seal Press; 2019)

When it was originally published in 2002, this anthology was revolutionary in its exposure of the feminist movement as exclusive and predominantly white. Revised and updated in 2019, the book takes into consideration key social movements like Black Lives Matter and activism within the transgender and immigrant communities.

Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment by Linda Hirshman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019)

Historian Linda Hirshman chronicles the events leading up to the #MeToo movement and its aftermath. She examines the first stories of workplace harassment to get mainstream attention in the 1970s, the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal (and its villainization of Lewinsky), and the thwarted attempts to address and end rape on college campuses. She also explores the political, legal, and social movements to fight sexual abuse that have gained traction, largely due to organizing led by women of color.

See Jane Win: The Inspiring Story of the Women Changing American Politics by Caitlin Moscatello (Dutton, 2019)

In the 2018 US election cycle, more women ran for local and national office than ever before. Journalist Caitlin Moscatello follows four candidates — a mom and former CIA operative in Virginia, a Colombian-born attorney in New York, an Iranian American in Florida, and a young Black Memphis native running as a Democrat — and expounds on their experiences through interviews with researchers and strategists.

POLARIZATION

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (Doubleday, 2016)

Investigative journalist Jane Mayer exposes the behind-the-scenes work of American billionaires in steering US politics toward their interests, tracing billions of dollars from these elite networks to academic institutions, media groups, political powers, and industry leaders in an effort to maximize their influence — and, in doing so, compromising the function of democracy.

How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley (Random House, 2018)

Philosopher and political analyst Jason Stanley draws not only from research but also his experience as the child of World War II refugees to expose how democratic societies become vulnerable to fascism. Stanley presents and deconstructs 10 pillars of fascist policies — connecting examples from Poland, India, the US, and elsewhere — and lays bare the ways in which anti-intellectualism, attacks on labor groups, idealized national history, and racist policing disintegrate democracy.

Lost in the USA: American Identity From the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March by Deborah Gray White (University of Illinois Press, 2017)

Professor and historian Deborah Gray White turns her attention to the US at the turn of the millennium — an era often remembered as one of peace and prosperity despite its mass protests. Looking at personal testimonies from participants in the Million Mom March, the Promise Keepers, and the LGBTQ protests, White presents Americans looking for community in a culture of growing isolation, and looking for agency and meaning in a time of rapid change.

POLICING

American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer (Penguin Press, 2018)

In 2014, Shane Bauer — an award-winning investigative journalist — was hired as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Louisiana, where he worked for four months. American Prison is part exposé, drawing from his experiences, and part historical account of for-profit prisons, reaching back to before the Civil War — a blistering condemnation of a system built on racism.

Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon (Random House, 2019)

Journalist Emily Bazelon deflates the notion that, within the American criminal justice system, the fight between the prosecution and defense is a fair and balanced one. Bazelon follows two young people — a 20-year-old man charged with a violent felony in Brooklyn and a teenage girl from Memphis indicted for her mother’s killing — from their arrest to their sentencing, weaving in her own research and analysis to show how prosecutors can control the outcome of their cases, but also presenting the gains being made toward reforming the system.

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks (St. Martin’s Press, 2018)

Political science professor Virginia Eubanks exposes the bias built into automated systems used to streamline political, professional, social, and financial industries. Eubanks discusses how decisions based on data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models are used to punish and police the most impoverished and already marginalized communities — and how it’s part of a long history of using tech to keep people in poverty.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (New Press, 2010)

Alexander's bestselling book dismantles the notion of “color blindness” through the lens of the criminal justice system. Alexander argues that by targeting Black communities through programs like the war on drugs, stop-and-frisk, and "broken windows" policing, the government has enacted a new type of racial control — mass incarceration. The 10th-anniversary edition, out this year, includes a new preface from Alexander.

RACIAL EQUALITY

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press, 2014)

This book-length poetic essay — one we named in our best books of the 2010s — is a powerful meditation on race, racism, and the violence against Black people that has been going on for centuries in the US without significant change. It’s a damning condemnation of white supremacy and its immeasurable physical and psychological toll on Black people, transcending the idea of “timeliness.”

Read our interview with Claudia Rankine.

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (One World, 2019)

Mira Jacob’s graphic memoir is a frank but warm examination of the world as distilled and understood by Jacob’s 6-year-old son, who is half Jewish and half Indian. In answering his many questions about current events, Jacob turns to her own history and shares the conversations about race, sexuality, injustice, and love that have helped her make sense of the world.

Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture by Ed Morales (Verso Books, 2018)

Latinos — or Latinx, the gender-neutral term increasing in popularity — make up one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the US, and it’s a population that’s growing rapidly. What do those communities look like, and how are they shaping the identity of the US? Journalist and poet Ed Morales explores the diversity within the Latinx population and how their political identities (and influence) are shaped by the Latin American history of mestizaje, i.e., its racial and cultural intersections.

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (Bold Type Books, 2016)

Kendi’s National Book Award–winning Stamped From the Beginning scrutinizes the history of anti-Black racism in the US, from this nation’s birth to now. By showing how deeply entrenched racist ideas have been — and still are — in America, and thus clearly exposing and discrediting these ideas, Kendi has created not only a great work of scholarship but a much-needed tool in anti-racist work.

Further reading:

VOTER RIGHTS

Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College by Jesse Wegman (St. Martin’s Press, 2020)

Supreme Court journalist Jesse Wegman presents an extensively researched argument for abolishing the Electoral College, analyzing the history of its controversial creation and drawing on insight from influential campaign managers and officials gathered from his on-the-ground reporting.

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney (New York Review Books, 2014)

Blackballed is a compact (i.e., under 150 pages) but powerful meditation on the history of Black Americans’ participation in US politics from Reconstruction to today, blending memoir, history, and political analysis. Pinckney looks at key leaders in the ongoing fight for racial justice and civil rights and their differing strategies toward equality. The 2020 reissue comes with a new essay on fighting for racial justice in the midst of a pandemic disproportionately harming Black communities, with protests reaching a global audience after the killing of George Floyd.

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson (Bloomsbury, 2018)

Award-winning historian Carol Anderson looks at the history of voter suppression, outlining the hindrances to Black Americans’ participation specifically after the Shelby ruling — the 2013 Supreme Court decision to quash the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Through shrewd analysis and by following real voters, Anderson exposes the racial discrimination underlying government-sanctioned laws and practices like photo ID requirements and gerrymandering.

Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy by David Daley (Liveright, 2020)

Journalist David Daley follows the growing resistance movements fighting voter suppression, turning to key victories against gerrymandering across the country, outlining their significance, and using these as examples of how to continue the work.

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