Books/Media I’ve read in the past 5 years on US history (at home and abroad):
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn - covers Columbus to W Bush, emphasis on workers/“the people” over “great men in high places”. Everyone will tell you to read it and they’re right.
Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi - structures by 5 consecutive lifetimes of American intellectuals from Cotton Mather to Angela Davis (very interesting portrayal of time), tracking development and evolution of anti-black and anti-racist ideas.
White Trash: the 400-year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg - what it sounds like. Read a people’s history first, but I got a lot out of reading another history of similar time but with different emphases (this is true for all my history reading)
The Inconvenient Indian: a Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King - the title word choice is explained at the start, reads like a knowledgeable uncle is telling you what he knows. Starts from early native/non-native contact and goes to time of publishing (2012). History as example stories/themes (w lists/references for further details)
The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins - the context leading up to, the facts we know/US admits to of US supporting the Indonesian military’s murder of about a million of their civilians in 1965, and the subsequent impact to other countries. Incredible journalism, great introduction to Cold War American global policy and particular focus on Indonesia. Mix of first hand sources and declassified govt docs.
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill - also very good journalism, but more true crime style, starts with a man assigned to find an angle about the Manson murders and then twenty years of pulling loose threads he has a book’s worth of holes in the official story and suspicious coincidences connecting to LA sheriffs, the FBI, and homegrown CIA operations. Very grounded and avoids sensationalism even when he finds a connection to the Kennedy assassination…
[podcast, not a book!] Blowback: seasons 1-3 (I plan to listen to 4-6, only just finished 3) - each season focuses on a country/event that America has villainized, and gives the history with interspersed interview/sound clips (great sound design) up to present day. Season 1 covered the Iraq War, season 2 covered Cuba’s revolution/the Cuban missile crisis, and season 3 covers the Korean War.
Let me know if you have recommendations along these lines!
