Booklist: Trump, Russia, Drugs U.S. History, Politics, Corruption, Feminism

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Drugs

J Hari. Chasing the scream. The first and last days of the war on drugs
N Reding. Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
JH Halpern. Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World
S Quinones. The Least of Us: True Tales of America & Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth
M Forsyth. A short history of drunkenness: how, why, where, and when humankind has gotten Merry
W Rorabaugh. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition
A Rogers. Proof: The Science of Booze.
N Ohler. Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
M Lewis. Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on Drugs
MA Lee. Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana – Medical, Recreational and Scientific

American History

R Chernow. Grant. 2017
N Isenberg. White Trash: the 400-year untold history of class in America
B Bailyn. The barbarous years. The peopling of British North America. The conflict of civilizations 1600-1675
DJ Silverman. Thundersticks (guns and how they affected American Indians)
SC Gwynne. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
B Obama. A promised land.
C Johnson. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
E Larson. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
RA Caro. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
RA Caro. The path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I
RA Caro. Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II
RA Caro. Master of the Senate: The years of Lyndon Johnson III
RA Caro. The passage of power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV
S Schiff. The witches: Salem, 1692
D Priest. Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State
T Wolfe. The Right Stuff.
J Barry. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
P Fussell. Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
M Levinson. The box: how the shipping container made the world smaller (my note: this is what made globalization possible)
V Jenkins. The Lawn. A history of an American Obsession
C Knowlton. Cattle kingdom. The hidden history of the cowboy west.
M Sperber. Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Education
J Ryan. Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: Making and Breaking of elite gymnasts & figure skaters
J Doyle. Taken for a ride: Detroit’s big three and the politics of pollution.
JC Scott. Seeing like a state. How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed.
JB Freeman. Behemoth. A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World
D Allosso. Peppermint Kings: A Rural American History
P Pagnamenta. Prairie Fever: British Aristocrats in the American West 1830-1890

American Politics, Authoritarianism, & the End of Democracy

Andersen K (2017) Fantasyland. How America Went Haywire. A 500-Year History.
Kruse K (2016) One Nation under God: How corporate America invented Christian America.
Bucknell H (1982) Energy and the National Defense
Mayer J (2016) Dark money. The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right
Dean JW (2006) Conservatives without conscience.
Leitsky S (2018) How Democracies die.
Smith T (2020) Foxocracy: Inside the Network’s Playbook of Tribal Warfare.
A Nelson. Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right
R Busse. Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America
Stewart K (2020) The Power Worshipers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
M D’Antonio. The Hunting of Hillary: The Forty-Year Campaign to Destroy Hillary Clinton
D Talbot. The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government
H Garcia. Sex, Power, and Partisanship. How evolutionary science makes sense of our political divide. Post 1: Why we need more women leaders Post 2: The evolution of liberal and conservative minds
Leonard C (2019) Kochland: The secret history of Koch Industries and corporate power in America.
M Gessen. Surviving Autocracy
L Lessig. Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress–& a Plan to Stop It
2016 Republican party platform: the most extreme ever and The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2012: from moderate to extreme
MacLean N (2017) Democracy in chains. The deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America
T Heaton. The Gospel of self. How Jesus Joined the GOP.
JW Dean. Broken government. How Republican rule destroyed the legislative, executive, and judicial branches
M Lewis. The fifth risk
J Bakan. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
D Rushkoff. Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
K Belew. Bring the war home. The white power movement & paramilitary America
L Gordon. The second coming of the KKK: the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American political tradition
L Harding. Collusion. Secret meetings, dirty money, & how Russia helped Donald Trump win
GM Graff. Raven Rock: the story of the U.S. government’s secret plan to save itself–while the rest of us die
M Isikoff. Russian roulette. The inside story of Putin’s war on America and the election of Donald Trump.
M Nance. The plot to destroy democracy. How Putin and his spies are undermining America
K Andersen. 2020. Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History

Trump and books about why Americans voted for him

T Smith. 2020. Foxocracy: Inside the Network’s Playbook of Tribal Warfare. Diversion Books.
P Rucker. A very stable Genius: Donald J Trump’s testing of America
B Levine. 2019. All the President’s Women: Donald Trump and the making of a Predator.
T Heaton. 2017. The Gospel of self. How Jesus Joined the GOP.
J Bageant. Deer hunting with Jesus. Dispatches from America’s class war.
S Stoll. 2017. Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia.
DC Johnston. 2016. The making of Donald Trump
DC Johnston. 2018. It’s even worse than you think. What the Trump administration is doing to America

American Corruption

J Hari. Chasing the scream. The first and last days of the war on drugs
JM Feinman. Delay Deny Defend. Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.
F Vogl. The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption – Endangering Our Democracy
S Chayes. On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake And What Is at Stake
A Glantz. Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream
J Eisinger. The chickenshit club. Why the justice department fails to prosecute executives
J Lanchester. I.O.U. Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay
G Morgenson. Reckles$ endangerment. How outsized ambition, greed, and corruption led to economic Armageddon
AR Sorkin. Too big to fail. The inside story of how Wall Street & Washington fought to save the financial system—and themselves
C Bruck. The predators’ ball: the inside story of Drexel Burnham and the rise of the Jumkbond raiders
D Matthew. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
F. Partnoy. Infections greed: how deceit and risk corrupted the financial markets
C Ferguson. Predator nation. Corporate criminals, political corruption, and the hijacking of America
M Taibbi. Smells like dead elephants: Dispatches from a rotting empire
S. Das. Extreme money. Masters of the universe and the cult of risk
W Pavlo. Stolen without a gun: confessions from inside history’s biggest accounting fraud – the collapse of MCI Worldcom
R Lowenstein. When genius failed: the rise and fall of long-term capital management
C Cooper. Extraordinary circumstances: the journey of a corporate whistleblower
BL Toffler. Final accounting: Ambition, greed, and the fall of Arthur Andersen
K Eichenwald. Serpent on the rock: Crime, betrayal and the terrible secrets of Prudential Bache
M Zuckoff. Ponzi’s scheme: the true story of a financial legend
A Kirtzman. Betrayal: the life and lies of Bernie Madoff
J Belfort. Catching the wolf of Wall street.
D Grann. Killers of the flower moon: the Osage murders & the birth of the FBI
F Portnoy. Fiasco. The inside story of a wall street trader
L Leopold. The looting of America: How wall street’s game of fantasy finance destroyed our jobs, pensions, and prosperity—and what we can do about it
JB Stewart. Den of Thieves.
K Calavita. Big money crime: fraud and politics in the savings and loan crisis
D Vine. Base Nation: American Empire Project.
M Lewis. Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

Slavery, prison, eviction

A Reséndez. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
ZNH Barracoon. The story of the last “black cargo”
W Warren. New England bound: Slavery and colonization in early America
S Northup Twelve years a slave
P Kerman. Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison
J Hogshire. You Are Going To Prison.
RJ Miller. Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration
M Desmond. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
A Pang. Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods

Russian politics and corruption

M Gessen. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.
P Pomerantsev. Nothing is true and everything is possible: the surreal heart of the new Russia
N Malcolm. The Plot to Destroy Democracy. How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West.
M Isikoff. Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.
M Galeotti. Vory. Russias Super Mafia. Yale University Press.
C Belton. Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West
L Harding. Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.
R Maddow. Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth. Crown.

Feminism and Women’s history

S Simard. Finding the Mother Tree
L Cooke. Bitch: On the female of the species
P Orenstein. Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
HA Garcia. Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide
R Miles. Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women’s History of the World
K Manne. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women
R Solnit. Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays
E Freedman. The Essential Feminist Reader
S McCurry. Women’s War: Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War
M Chollet. In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial

Female Rulers

J Chang. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
E Lev. The Tigress of Forli. Renaissance Italy’s most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici
J Weatherford. The secret history of the Mongol queens: how the daughters of Genghis Khan rescued his empire
S Schiff. Cleopatra: A life
S Puhak. The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World
K Pangonis. Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared to Rule
J DeJean. Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast
J Baird. Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

Female Spies

K Abbott. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War
J Pearson. Wolves at the Door: The True Story Of America’s Greatest Female Spy
S Purnell. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

Economics & Investing

Now that we’re at the end of growth, have a distribution of wealth worse than before the Great Depression, and a future crash given the utter lack of economic reforms and growing debt, this is not a good time to invest!

C.A.S. Hall, Energy & the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical economy
R. Heinberg. The end of growth: Adapting to our new economic reality
E. Lefevre. Reminiscences of a stock operator: with new commentary and insights on the life and times of Jesse Livermore
M. Lewis. Liar’s poker.
D. Liss. The coffee trader.
W. Bonner. The new empire of debt: the rise and fall of an epic financial bubble
W. Bonner. Mobs, messiahs, and markets: Surviving the public spectacle in finance and politics
N. N. Taleb. Fooled by randomness: the hidden role of chance in life and in the markets.
B. Mann. Republic of debtors. Bankruptcy in the age of American independence
S. Das. Traders, guns & money: knowns and unknowns in the dazzling world of derivatives
J. Rothchild. A fool and his money: the odyssey of an average investor
E. Chancellor. Devil take the hindmost: A history of financial speculation
A. Wiggin. Financial reckoning day fallout: surviving today’s global depression

Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts