Over the past few weeks, we’ve asked our twitter followers this question:
As a historian, what readings would you recommend to Americans trying to make sense of the 2016 election? Best responses will go on Process.
— OAH (@The_OAH) November 26, 2016
A number of readings were mentioned more than once. The three most frequent responses were:
@The_OAH Jefferson Cowie, ‘Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class’
— Teal Arcadi (@TealArcadi) November 26, 2016
@processhistory Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, still does as much to explain race’s importance in white imagination as anyone ever has.
— Some Professor (@ProfessorSome) November 25, 2016
@The_OAH hofstader, the paranoid style in American politics
— max d. baumgarten (@maxbaumgarten) November 27, 2016
Other responses included:
@JournAmHist @marydudziak Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm. So prescient, esp. on role of social technology. @rickperlstein
— Brian L. Frye (@brianlfrye) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist American Babylon by Robert Self. Constructive in that it’s the best treatment of ways race overlaps political ideology in US
— Daniel Elkin (@delks87) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist 1984
— (((Roran_Stehl))) (@Roran_Stehl) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color
— David Fouser (@journeymanhisto) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist Henry R Luce: “Giving the People What They Want” (1938) & “The American Century” (Feb 1941)
— Sarah M Dreller (@SMDreller) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist Post-Democracy by Colin Crouch
— James Cook-Thajudeen (@JCookThajudeen) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist Theodor Adorno, “What Does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?”
— Onur Bakiner (@obakiner) November 23, 2016
@JournAmHist Isherwood, Berlin Stories
— Alvis Dunn (@Alvis12Dunn) November 23, 2016
@The_OAH George Packer, The Unwinding
— Claire Potter (@TenuredRadical) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH I read the penultimate paragraph of Pres Lincoln’s letter to Joshua Speed, Aug 24, 1855, to my students.https://t.co/3MVS6Dq3W7
— Nathan Wuertenberg (@nwuertenberg) November 26, 2016
@The_OAH @SarahRoseCrook Sinclair Lewis “It Can’t Happen Here”.
— Bill Cannon (@bgunner) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH @JournAmHist Richard hofstadter. “The paranoid style in American politics.” And wiebe. “The search for order”
— Gordon Harvey ?⚽️ (@ThisRunningLife) November 26, 2016
@The_OAH @JournAmHist Dan Carter. “The politics of rage”
— Gordon Harvey ?⚽️ (@ThisRunningLife) November 26, 2016
@The_OAH George Lipsitz’s The Possessive Investment in Whiteness
— Jonatan Pérez (@latinxhistorian) November 26, 2016
@The_OAH @processhistory Landon Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left
— melanie (@melanienewport) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail
— Christian McWhirter (@CLMcWhirter) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH Hiram Evans, “The Klan’s Fight for Americanism,” and Kantrowitz on Ben Tillman
— Erin Bartram (@erin_bartram) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH Wages of Whiteness by Roediger. Dixies Daughters by Karen Cox. Anything by evelyn brooks higgembotham
— TurkeyBullet (@turnbullet666) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH The Political Brain by Dr. Drew Westen
— HunterSJones (@HunterS_Jones) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH How the Irish Became White
— ElizabethLewisPardoe (@ejlp) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH For a historical perspectives concerning economic, social, and political climate: W.E.B. Du Bois’ – “Black Reconstruction”
— Toni’s Child (@khalfanilawson) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH Hows-a-bout some dystopian fiction? Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, for a start: “It was a pleasure to burn…”
— Evan Faulkenbury (@evanfaulkenbury) November 28, 2016
@The_OAH Christopher Lasch, Revolt of the Elites (1994), also essays “What’s Wrong With the Right” and “Why the Left has no Future”
— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) November 28, 2016
@JournAmHist Roediger’s, “Wages of Whiteness” or Saxton’s “Rise and Fall of the White Republic,” Jefferson Cowie, “Stayin’ Alive”
— Chad Statler (@chads2574) November 23, 2016
@The_OAH I would recommend: Hitler’s Willing Executioners, by Daniel Goldhagen
— Margo Lentz (@lentz_margo) November 28, 2016
@The_OAH Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind and Joel Kotkin’s The New Class Conflict.
— (((Leora Amdur))) (@realestateacct) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH
George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”— Virginia Scharff (@VirginiaScharff) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH Danielle allen’s _Talking to Strangers_. Any anything from critical race theory
— Tom McNamara (@tmcnama2) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents by Richard Neustadt
— Michael Nardi (@iPublicPolicy) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH The Wizard of Oz
— François Guesnet (@fguesnet) November 27, 2016
@The_OAH @JournAmHist : Daniel T. Rodgers’s, _Age of Fracture_,
— jeffery hobson (@jefferyhhobson) November 26, 2016
@The_OAH @JournAmHist The Election of 1800; a great book on the battle between Adams and Jefferson and the electoral college.
— Thomas McGovern Jr (@tommcge) November 26, 2016
@The_OAH My students and I read Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address.
— Shari Conditt (@ShariConditt) November 26, 2016
@JournAmHist Judith Stein’s “Pivotal Decade.”
— Robert Greene II (@robgreeneII) November 28, 2016
@JournAmHist https://t.co/Z4U6gEyHMg
— Blacktain America (@KurosaraKokuou) November 28, 2016
@JournAmHist I’ve been telling people to read ‘The Unwinding’ by George Packer.
— Dr.Daniel Mattingly (@DanMattingly87) November 28, 2016
@JournAmHist The Paranoid Style in Am Pol and It can’t happen here
— Luca Trenta (@lucatrenta) November 28, 2016
@JournAmHist Lily Geismer’s Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party
— Ryan Driskell Tate (@rydriskelltate) December 2, 2016
@JournAmHist “Listen, Liberal” by Thomas Frank gives excellent context for HRC’s election strategy and why it failed.
— Jeremy Milloy (@jeremymilloy) November 29, 2016
@JournAmHist Dog Whistle Politics by @IanHaneyLopez
— Jake 3n6315 (@jake3n6315) November 28, 2016
@The_OAH Kantrowitz’s Ben Tillman & The Reconstruction of White Supremacy. The preface esp. has incredibly prescient comparisons/lines
— Caroline Grego (@CarolineGrego88) November 24, 2016
@The_OAH Thomas Sugrue Origins of the Urban Crisis. Always relevant.
— Eric Beckman (@ERBeckman) November 23, 2016
@The_OAH Federalist #68
— Eli Pupovac (@EliPupovac) November 23, 2016
@The_OAH Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property”
— Buster (@BusterPhD) November 23, 2016
@processhistory Judith Stein’s “Pivotal Decade.”
— Robert Greene II (@robgreeneII) November 26, 2016
@processhistory Black Reconstruction in America by Du Bois
— Josh Myers (@ddehewty) November 25, 2016
@processhistory @pastpunditry on conservative media pic.twitter.com/vNxDBLPnYf
— Drew (@DrewPinkley) November 25, 2016
@processhistory Katherine Cramer if you want to include work from a political scientist pic.twitter.com/zWhMjCH9Ht
— Drew (@DrewPinkley) November 25, 2016
@processhistory Kim Philips-Fein’s Invisible Hands
— Kyle Burke (@KBurkeHistory) November 25, 2016
@JournAmHist Book of Revelation
— Abe Gibson (@AbrahamHGibson) November 23, 2016
What additional readings would you suggest?
