Tag: politics
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Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason de León
Soldiers and Kings is an eye opening look into human smuggling (not trafficking) in Mexico. It blew up everything I thought I knew about the migrant crisis in Central America
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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall
In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall uses a tragedy as a launching point for an incredible history lesson. It’s unforgettable
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When the Clock Broke by John Ganz
When The Clock Broke is an engaging and enlightening bit of history. It does a great job of showing how little has changed in the past 3 decades.
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Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
Surviving Autocracy was finished in early 2020. In it, Masha Gessen presents the reality of the terrifying moment, and perhaps a preview of the near future.
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Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
This leftist assessment of our current economic situation has a lot to offer but lost me in a few critical ways.
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Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista
Part memoir, part political history and part English lesson (I’m not kidding, I learned a bit about language from this). Evangelista is a reporter for a news outlet in the Philippines, and she details the historical, political and cultural context during the lead up to Duterte’s election, and the unbelievable number and brutality of state-supported…
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Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson
This is an excellent progressive history of the United States, and contextualizes a lot of our modern moment for people who feel like America has gone crazy since about 2016. Problem is, I’m a history and politics nerd, so for me there wasn’t a lot to chew on here. That’s my problem though, not the…
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The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
For the record, if it matters, I’m not American. I read the 10th anniversary edition of this book that has a lengthy preface (the first edition was published in 2010, the second in pre-pandemic 2020). The first came out shortly after Obama’s first election, and presciently, Alexander doesn’t fall into the trap of optimism that…
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Molly McGhee writing about class in The Guardian
There’s a lot more to say about this piece, and maybe I will try to figure out some way to say it. But this article is fire: Born Poor Stay Poor. The whole thing is excellent: The American dream has been sold and replaced with a Ponzi scheme meant to benefit the investor class. College…
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The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America by Margaret O’Mara
Even if you’ve read all the similar books like The Innovators: , Hackers, Don’t Be Evil, and The Contrarian, this is great. O’Mara details not just the people and brains, but the politics and culture of Silicon Valley and the broader U.S. tech industry from the 1960s to late 2010s. She isn’t a sycophant or part of the culture,…