Press Action ::: Influential books for the holidays

Sunday, December 15, 2002

Influential books for the holidays

Here’s a top-25 list of non-fiction books that have most influenced my political outlook. This is a list of only books I own, in case you don’t see some of your favorites.

The list represents a bias toward modern struggles for and against power. Perhaps my preoccupation with U.S. government intrigues is related to the fact that my initiation into power politics began during the Watergate era when on holiday from elementary school I grew fixated on the congressional and media investigations into the Nixon scandals.—Mark Hand

1. Bookchin, Murray, Post Scarcity Anarchism, 1971 (Black Rose Books, Second Edition, 1986)
One of history’s greatest anarchist writers, Bookchin and his Post Scarcity Anarchism introduced me to the virtues of spontaneity.

2. Woodward, Bob and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s Men, 1974
All the President’s Men embodies modern investigative journalism at its greatest. Too bad Woodstein was a one-hit wonder.

3. Goldman, Emma, Living My Life: Volumes One and Two, Knopf 1931 (Dover, 1970)
What an honor to possess the memoirs of one of the greatest Americans, who also sadly was exiled from this country because of her fight for justice and equality.

4. Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States, Harper & Row, 1980
I’m sure Lynn Cheney and Bill Bennett are aghast over Zinn’s book still finding its way onto the reading lists of so many high school and college U.S. history courses. Still waiting on the Damon and Affleck television series based on the book, though.

5. Bagdikian, Ben, The Media Monopoly, Beacon Press, 1983.
Media Monopoly offers a highly readable assessment of the effects of an ever-growing consolidation of the U.S. media. Its clarity allows it to make the list over Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.

6. Parenti, Michael, Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media, St. Martin’s Press, 1986
Inventing Reality provides the best critique of the U.S. media from a Marxist perspective. Had I owned it, Parenti’s Democracy for the Few would have made this list right behind Zinn’s People’s History.

7. Rothbard, Murray, For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Fox & Wilkes, 1985
It’s my bible of modern libertarianism, a tradition that Chomsky and other libertarian socialists hate so much.

8. Turki, Fawaz, The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile, Monthly Review Press, 1972
This is the book that opened my eyes to the plight of the Palestinians under Israel’s control.

9. Woodcock, George, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, Penguin, 1962
Anarchism is a seminal book that offers one of the most lucid histories of the ideas and personalities that shaped the anarchist tradition.

10. Hougan, Jim, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA, Random House, 1984
This is the real history of the Watergate scandal that Woodward and Bernstein couldn’t cover in the Post or All the President’s Men because they had their own secret agenda.

11. Said, Edward, Orientalism, Vintage Books, 1978
Said’s revisionist history of the Middle East played an important role in nudging Western scholars toward going into the closet with their bigotry toward the region.

12. Fitzgerald, Frances, Fire in the Lake, Vintage, 1972
Fitzgerald was one of the first to humanize the Vietnamese whom the U.S. government had decided to slaughter by the millions.

13. Chomsky, Noam, American Power and the New Mandarins: Historical and Political Essays, Vintage, 1969
This collection of essays on U.S. involvement in Vietnam is more readable than Chomsky’s more recent material. It’s probably my favorite Chomsky book.

14. Agee, Philip, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Bantam Books, 1975
Agee still is paying the price for naming names and speaking his mind about the crimes of the company in the 1960s.

15. Wise, David, The American Police State: The Government Against the People, Random House, 1976
How would the David Wise of 1976 interpret what the federal government of 2002 is doing to police our freedoms? Just wondering. This is a wonderfully researched look at a government run amok in the 1960s and 1970s.

16. Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962, Penguin, 1977
Horne’s is the preeminent book on France’s sordid fight against Algeria’s National Liberation Front.

17. Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics For Our Treatment of Animals, Avon Books, 1975
Singer’s Animal Liberation opened my eyes to the fact that if I really wanted to help non-human animals, I should stop eating them.

18. Seldes, George, Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious and the Three SOBs, Ballantine, 1987
The socialist muckraker met a lot of interesting people during his travels around the world.

19. Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Portraits, Princeton University Press, 1988
The leading U.S. historian of anarchism, Avrich packs this volume with scads of information on leading figures and relative unknowns of the anarchist movement.

20. Wreszin, Michael, A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight MacDonald, Basic Books, 1994
I don’t own any books by the great Dwight MacDonald, so this excellent biography will serve as MacDonald’s representative on this list.

21. Cockburn, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship, Harper Collins, 1991
A solid history of how and why the U.S. has been burned by its relationship with Israel. Dangerous Liaison provides the perfect prologue to the current War on Terrorism.

22. Powers, Thomas, The Man Who Kept The Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA, Knopf, 1979
It’s a portrait of the disgraced Helms, but Powers’ book also provides one of the best histories of the CIA.

23. Lee, Martin and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, Grove Press, 1985
Lee and Shlain weave the great American narrative about the CIA and Timothy Leary.

24. Friedman, Robert, The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, From FBI Informant to Knesset Member, Lawrence Hill, 1990
More than a decade ago, Robert Friedman, who died earlier this year, took us inside the world of a crazed racist. Too bad Kahane clones hold even more clout in Jerusalem today than when Friedman wrote this biography.

25. Russell, Dick, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Carroll & Graf, 1992.
This is my favorite book about the JFK assassination.

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