Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian at the University of Pennsylvania and an op-ed writer for numerous publications. I’m also a former Peace Corps volunteer and high school teacher. I’ve spent my adult life studying the ways that human beings imagine education, across space and time. Schools make citizens, but citizens also make schools. And we’re all different, so we disagree—inevitably and often profoundly—about the meaning and purpose of “school” itself. In a diverse nation, what should kids learn? And who should decide that? There are no single “right” answers, of course. I’m eager to hear yours.


I wrote

Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools

By Jonathan Zimmerman,

Book cover of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools

What is my book about?

When I wrote the first edition of this book, back in 2002, I thought our religion wars (such as evolution…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools

Jonathan Zimmerman Why did I love this book?

This is one of those books that reminds you of something that was hiding in plain sight, but that you somehow overlooked: Black students who desegregated schools in the South were disproportionately female. Take the Little Rock Nine, for example: six women, three men. Rachel Devlin takes us inside the lives of these brave Black girls, who incurred enormous risks to help America live out its founding creed: all men (and, now, women) are created equal. We are all in their debt, whether we realize it or not.

By Rachel Devlin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Girl Stands at the Door as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A new history of school desegregation in America, revealing how girls and women led the fight for interracial education

The struggle to desegregate America's schools was a grassroots movement, and young women were its vanguard. In the late 1940s, parents began to file desegregation lawsuits with their daughters, forcing Thurgood Marshall and other civil rights lawyers to take up the issue and bring it to the Supreme Court. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, girls far outnumbered boys in volunteering to desegregate formerly all-white schools.

In A Girl Stands at the Door, historian Rachel Devlin tells the remarkable…


Book cover of Troublemakers: Students' Rights and Racial Justice in the Long 1960s

Jonathan Zimmerman Why did I love this book?

We’re also indebted to young minority students for pioneering free-speech rights in our schools. Most of us still associate the struggle for student rights with antiwar activists like Mary Beth Tinker, whose armband protest against the Vietnam War led to the epochal Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court decision declaring that teachers and students don’t shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate. But before and after Tinker, Black and Chicano students challenged racist curricula, disciplinary policies, and more. Student rights are civil rights, and vice versa. We can’t—and shouldn’t—separate them.

By Kathryn Schumaker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Troublemakers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A powerful history of student protests and student rights during the desegregation era
In the late 1960s, protests led by students roiled high schools across the country. As school desegregation finally took place on a wide scale, students of color were particularly vocal in contesting the racial discrimination they saw in school policies and practices. And yet, these young people had no legal right to express dissent at school. It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court would recognize the First Amendment rights of students in the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines case.
A series of students' rights lawsuits…


Book cover of Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition & Sparked the Battle Over School Prayer

Jonathan Zimmerman Why did I love this book?

Talk about a badass. In 1956, 16-year-old Ellery Schempp protested his school’s mandatory prayer and Bible-reading period by reading silently from the Koran. He was kicked out of class and sued his school district, insisting that the First Amendment barred it from promoting a particular religious creed. Eventually, in Abington v. Schempp, the Supreme Court agreed. But along the way, kids called Schempp and his family “Commies” (it was the 1950s, remember) and his principal tried to get Tufts University to rescind its admission offer to him. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court permitted a football coach and devout Christian to pray on the field after games. It’s worth asking what would have happened if—like Schempp—the coach was reciting a Muslim prayer instead. 

By Stephen D. Solomon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ellery's Protest as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Often, great legal decisions result from the actions of an unknown person heroically opposing the system. This work details how one person's objection to mandatory school prayer became one of the most controversial cases of this century.


Book cover of Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s

Jonathan Zimmerman Why did I love this book?

Here’s the only full-scale biography of the most important student activist in American history. Mario Savio registered Black voters during the Freedom Rides in Mississippi and then led the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, when the university tried to prevent civil-rights demonstrators from protesting on campus. Savio’s story is yet another reminder about the radical roots of free speech, which is too often dismissed at contemporary universities as a conservative or even reactionary impulse. It wasn’t, and it isn’t. 

By Robert Cohen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Freedom's Orator as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Here is the first biography of Mario Savio, the brilliant leader of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, the largest and most disruptive student rebellion in American history. Savio risked his life to register black voters in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964 and did more than anyone to bring daring forms of non-violent protest from the civil rights movement to the struggle for free speech and academic freedom on American campuses. Drawing upon previously
unavailable Savio papers, as well as oral histories from friends and fellow movement leaders, Freedom's Orator illuminates Mario's egalitarian leadership style, his remarkable eloquence, and the…


Book cover of Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League

Jonathan Zimmerman Why did I love this book?

In this day of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” it’s easy to forget how our elite universities marginalized or simply excluded Black faculty and students. Stefan Bradley tells their stories for the first time, showing not just how African-Americans changed these institutions but also how their Ivy League experiences altered their own perceptions of America. We have a lot to learn from these “old heads”—about race, education, and much else—if we will simply stop for a moment, and listen.

By Stefan M. Bradley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Upending the Ivory Tower as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner, 2019 Anna Julia Cooper and C.L.R. James Award, given by the National Council for Black Studies
Finalist, 2019 Pauli Murray Book Prize in Black Intellectual History, given by the African American Intellectual History Society
Winner, 2019 Outstanding Book Award, given by the History of Education Society

The inspiring story of the black students, faculty, and administrators who forever changed America's leading educational institutions and paved the way for social justice and racial progress

The eight elite institutions that comprise the Ivy League, sometimes known as the Ancient Eight-Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell-are American stalwarts that…


Explore my book 😀

Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools

By Jonathan Zimmerman,

Book cover of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools

What is my book about?

When I wrote the first edition of this book, back in 2002, I thought our religion wars (such as evolution and school prayer) had no solution and our conflicts over history had the wrong one: we just folded new groups into the old story, instead of asking how their inclusion might change that story. Our religion wars cooled considerably, but history wars have heated up as never before. Was America born in slavery or freedom? Is the nation fulfilling its promise of human equality, or do racism and sexism remain enduring blots upon it? These are fundamental questions about the larger national narrative. The biggest question is whether we have enough faith in our schools—and in ourselves—to let our students make sense of America on their own. 

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Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

By Lyle Greenfield,

Book cover of Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

Lyle Greenfield Author Of Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward. 

Lyle's book list on restoring your belief in human possibility

What is my book about?

We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike. 

My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…

Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

By Lyle Greenfield,

What is this book about?

Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.

First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…


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