America Today! New Social and Political Books
What’s going on in America today? Check out the new social and political books we’ve added since July!
December 31, 2020
What’s going on in America today? Check out the new social and political books we’ve added since July!
In this list:
- Politics today
- Rights, race, and class
- Health and disability
- Immigration and refugees
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Politics Today
Beyond Your Bubble
Tania Israel
This practical, politically neutral book offers concrete skills for holding meaningful conversations that cut across today’s intense political divide, showing readers how to connect to the people in their lives.
Blitz
Trump Will Smash the Left and Win
David Horowitz
Outlines a blueprint for how Donald Trump may win reelection by gaining the support of unexpected voters and vanquishing progressive Democrats.
Hoax
Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth
Brian Stelter
The CNN correspondent examines Donald Trump’s controversial relationship with the Fox News network and discusses the tensions at the network between Trump loyalists and the few remaining journalists.
If Then
Jill Lepore
The Pulitzer Prize-finalist author of These Truths traces the Cold War origins of today’s data-driven world to the Simulmatics Corporation, describing how its scientists mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, and destabilized politics decades before the era of Silicon Valley.
Of Bears and Ballots
An Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics
Heather Lende
A tribute to the author’s home state of Alaska details how she successfully ran for local office on a less-than $1,000 campaign before tackling the nitty-gritty realities of passing legislation in today’s polarized world
Our Time Is Now
Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America
Stacey Abrams
The award-winning House Democratic Leader and best-selling author of Lead from the Outside draws on extensive national research to outline an empowering blueprint for ending voter suppression, reclaiming identity and reshaping progressive politics in America.
Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
Fareed Zakaria
The CNN host and Washington Post columnist shares 10 lessons in subjects ranging from globalization and threat-preparedness to inequality and technological advancement to outline the likely political, social, technological and economic impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Thank You for Voting
The Maddening, Englightening, Inspiring Truth About Voting in America
Erin Geiger Smith
A journalistic examination of the ongoing fight for voting equality shares insights into why so few Americans vote, citing the role of corporations in encouraging voter turnout while outlining innovative approaches to voter education and motivation.
Twilight of Democracy
The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
Anne Applebaum
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist examines the current world-wide rise of authoritarianism and explains how it appeals to citizens by using conspiracy theory, political polarization, social media and nostalgia.
What You Need to Know About Voting and Why
Kim Wehle
Presents information about different aspects of the voting process, including registration, mail-in ballots, primary elections, the Electoral College, and the importance of voting in the general election.
Rights, Race, and Class
Begin Again
James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the Civil Rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race, and the author explores what Americans can learn from Baldwin’s struggle in the era of President Trump.
Caste
The Origins of Our Discontents
Isabel Wilkerson
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns identifies the qualifying characteristics of historical caste systems to reveal how a rigid hierarchy of human rankings, enforced by religious views, heritage and stigma, impact everyday American lives.
Down Along with that Devil’s Bones
A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy
Connor Towne O’Neill
The NPR White Lies podcast producer illuminates the inherent racism shaping ongoing debates about community-supported monuments honoring Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Five Days
The Fiery Reckoning of an American City
Wes Moore
An account of the 2015 police-brutality killing of Freddie Gray retraces key events from the perspectives of seven insiders, including a conflicted Baltimore Police Department captain, the victim’s sister and the owner of the Baltimore Orioles.
Good Economics for Hard Times
Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo
Two award-winning economists demonstrate how economics, correctly applied, may help solve the most difficult social and political problems of today’s world, from migration and unemployment to free trade and political polarization.
I’m Still Here
Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
Austin Channing Brown
The author shares her experiences of growing up black, Christian, and female in white America, exploring the country’s racial divide at all levels of society and how overcoming apathy and focusing on God’s work in the world can heal persistent divisions.
The Inner Work of Racial Justice
Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness
Rhonda V. Magee
A law professor and mindfulness practitioner offers a road map to a more peaceful existence and describes how paying attention to our thoughts increases emotional intelligence, reveals unconscious bias and provides room to become less reactive when faced with injustice.
Just Us
An American Conversation
Claudia Rankine
A collection of essays, poems, and images examine the power of whiteness in everyday interactions and urges readers to begin the conversation and discover what it takes to breach the silence and violence.
Long Time Coming
Reckoning with Race in America
Michael Eric Dyson
From the New York Times best-selling author of Tears We Cannot Stop issues a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption.
Mediocre
The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
Ijeoma Oluo
A history of American white male identity by the best-selling author of So You Want to Talk About Race imagines a merit-based, non-discriminating model while exposing the actual costs of successes defined by racial and sexual dominance.
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander
Argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.
The Organ Thieves
The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South
Chip Jones
An investigation into how racial inequality has shaped the heart transplant race describes how in 1968 an injured black man checked into a hospital before his heart was removed and donated without his family’s knowledge or consent.
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man
Emmanuel Acho
With open-hearted generosity, Acho explains the vital core of white privilege, cultural appropriation, and ‘reverse racism.’ In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both.
Union
The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood
Colin Woodard
Examines the fight to form a myth of American “national unity,” between those feeling the country had a God-given mission to lead humanity towards equality and inclusion and others who saw it as a homeland for a superior “Anglo-Saxon” race.
White Fragility
Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Robin DiAngelo
Analyzes defensive moves that white people make when racially challenged, how these actions protect racial inequality, and presents strategies for engaging more constructively in these conversations.
Health and Disability
Disability Visibility
First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
Alice Wong
This collection of essays from contemporary disabled writers celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act focuses on issues such as disabled performers in the theater and the everyday lives of the community.
Soul Full of Coal Dust
A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia
Chris Hamby
In a devastating and urgent work of investigative journalism, a Pulitzer Prize winner uncovers the tragic resurgence of black lung disease in Appalachia, its Big Coal cover-up, and the resilient mining communities who refuse to back down.
Immigration and Refugees
Brown Album
Essays on Exile and Identity
Porochista Khakpour
Presents a collection of essays that draws on his personal experiences to explore the realities of the Iranian-American immigration experience in the post-9/11 era of Donald Trump.
Conditional Citizens
Laila Lalami
A Pulitzer Prize finalist recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship.
The Next Great Migration
The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
Sonia Shah
Reveals how the refugee crises and unusual animal migrations of today’s world can be linked to historical migrations in earlier eras, explaining that migration should be recognized as an ancient and lifesaving biological response to environmental change.
No Option but North
The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border
Kelsey Freeman
Living in Mexico during the early days of Trump administration, Fullbright scholar Kelsey Freeman details the stories of migrants who must flee poverty at home only to become equally vulnerable as they head north.
One Mighty and Irresistible Tide
The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965
Jia Lynn Yang
A history of the 20th-century battle to reform the American immigration laws behind today’s most contentious debates discusses the Congressional immigration restrictions of 1924, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the impact of transformative laws on nonwhite migration.
Separated
Inside an American Tragedy
Jacob Soboroff
The award-winning NBC News and MSNBC correspondent presents a deeply personal report from America’s borders on the wrenching human realities behind the Trump administration’s infamous decision to systematically separate thousands of children from their migrant families.
The Undocumented Americans
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
An Ivy League-educated DACA beneficiary reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans, from the volunteers recruited for the 9/11 Ground Zero cleanup to the homeopathy botanicas of Miami that provide limited health care to non-citizens.