Here are 100 books that Rust Belt Union Blues fans have personally recommended if you like
Rust Belt Union Blues.
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I have always been fascinated with ideas and ideologies and how people can interpret the world differently. As a teenager I wanted to become an ethnographer, to travel the world and discover other cultures. Now I focus mostly on Europe and the US, but I always look to challenge myself by talking with people who hold opposing views. I am impressed by the revival of religious, nationalist, and conservative ideas in our current world and how they offer their own philosophy of the social order. That’s why I selected books that can help me see the world through the eyes of others.
This is my preferred book on this topic because it offers a pungent story of how pride and shame matter to our understanding of politics. Arlie Russell Hochschild already wrote another terrific book on Louisiana a few years ago, so I was really looking forward to this new one on the Appalachian post-industrial communities.
The way she describes small events of everyday life and how they influence voting patterns struck a chord with me. It tells us how politics at the grassroots level is, in fact, about making sense of the world around us and navigating difficulties, and it’s all about emotions and the way we deal with the question, “What about me?” It’s a superb book for deconstructing “high politics” and shows how far away people may feel from decisions made in Washington, DC.
In her first book since the widely acclaimed Strangers in Their Own Land, National Book Award finalist and bestselling author Arlie Russell Hochschild now ventures to Appalachia, uncovering the "pride paradox" that has given the right's appeals such resonance.
A 2024 New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Pick
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a…
I have always been fascinated with ideas and ideologies and how people can interpret the world differently. As a teenager I wanted to become an ethnographer, to travel the world and discover other cultures. Now I focus mostly on Europe and the US, but I always look to challenge myself by talking with people who hold opposing views. I am impressed by the revival of religious, nationalist, and conservative ideas in our current world and how they offer their own philosophy of the social order. That’s why I selected books that can help me see the world through the eyes of others.
This is a great book for capturing the urban-rural divide in the US as one of the key components to understanding our polarization. It is based on history but also on a large survey done of rural populations, so there is a lot of great detail on all the grievances accumulated by different rural groups and how they are framed.
I was particularly intrigued by its discussion of the nostalgic aspect—the idea that a traditional way of life is dying and the feeling of becoming an “endangered species” that needs to be preserved.
The widening gulf between rural and urban America is becoming the most serious political divide of our day. Support for Democrats, up and down the ballot, has plummeted throughout the countryside, and the entire governing system is threatened by one-party dominance. After Donald Trump's surprising victories throughout rural America, pundits and journalists went searching for answers, popping into roadside diners and opining from afar. Rural Americans are supposedly bigots, culturally backward, lazy, scared of the future, and radical. But is it that simple? Is the country splintering between two very different Americas-one rural, one urban?
I have always been fascinated with ideas and ideologies and how people can interpret the world differently. As a teenager I wanted to become an ethnographer, to travel the world and discover other cultures. Now I focus mostly on Europe and the US, but I always look to challenge myself by talking with people who hold opposing views. I am impressed by the revival of religious, nationalist, and conservative ideas in our current world and how they offer their own philosophy of the social order. That’s why I selected books that can help me see the world through the eyes of others.
For all those like me who are not familiar with Evangelical culture, this is the perfect book; very pedagogical in its explanations. It shows the key ideas and institutions that have pushed a large part of the Evangelical world to rally around Donald Trump.
For me, the most interesting part was the aspect of spiritual warfare, a notion that I studied while working on Russian ideologies. The idea of a forthcoming civil war, either real or feared, and how it can be read through Biblical themes related to eschatology is something that left a lasting impression on me.
This book introduces the American Evangelical movement and the role it played in the support of Donald Trump. Specifically, it focuses on the Neocharismatic-Pentecostal (NCP) leaders, their beliefs, and their political strategies. The author examines why 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and why he still received between 76% and 81% of their vote in 2020 despite losing the presidency. Additionally, the book discusses how NCP leaders are part of the Christian Right, a religious coalition with a political agenda centered on controversial issues such as anti-abortion activism, opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, and the protection of religious…
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…
I have always been fascinated with ideas and ideologies and how people can interpret the world differently. As a teenager I wanted to become an ethnographer, to travel the world and discover other cultures. Now I focus mostly on Europe and the US, but I always look to challenge myself by talking with people who hold opposing views. I am impressed by the revival of religious, nationalist, and conservative ideas in our current world and how they offer their own philosophy of the social order. That’s why I selected books that can help me see the world through the eyes of others.
This book was a discovery for me, as I know very little about Latino culture, but it’s super well-written and argued. Paula Ramos presents us with the whole spectrum of Latino figures who rallied to the Republican Party and their reasoning behind this, but she also adds a lot of personal introspection to it.
As a European émigré in the US, I could relate to many of her stories about what it means to embrace American national identity and the issues immigrants and second and third generations have to address.
An award-winning journalist's exploration of how race, identity and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics
“A deeply reported, surprisingly personal exploration of a phenomenon that is little understood in our politics: the affiliation of Latino voters with causes and candidates that would seem, at first glance, unwelcoming to them."—Rachel Maddow
Democrats have historically assumed they can rely on the Latino vote, but recent elections have called that loyalty into question. In fact, despite his vociferous anti-immigrant rhetoric and disastrous border policies, Trump won a higher percentage of…
As a child I grew up around blue-collar type men and women, and as I became an adult I grew to learn that these are the sorts of people who pioneer civilizations, who keep them running once they are built, and who are the ones to brave high-risk labor to bring us the food, shelter, and comforts we often take for granted. Adding a fictional element in the form of aliens, monsters, or the supernatural can put a fine and dynamic point on the life & struggles of such people. I strive for this in much of my military science fiction work and enjoy reading it as an audience member.
Though this is a war novel meets creature feature I think that the novel’s focus on the characters of the soldiers, most of whom were drafted out of everyday 1960s/1970s American life, merits placement on this list. These soldiers are draftees, compelled by the state to participate in a war abroad, and we get to explore their thoughts, feelings, growth, struggle to survive, and for many death as they endure not just war against other men with guns, but giant centipedes, which any creature fiction lover is going to really enjoy.
Tasked with finding a US informant who has gone missing in the village of Hai Trang, Sergeant Reese and Corporal Hanson lead their squad off into the Vietnamese jungle, but it isn't long before they get the sense that there's something different about this mission. They find Viet Cong corpses along the path, strangely mummified or desiccated, and the village of Hai Trang itself turns out to be a ghost town. There, they find just one survivor - a young girl named Lai Anh - who tells them that everyone in the village has been destroyed by the "Vietnam Black".…
As a child I grew up around blue-collar type men and women, and as I became an adult I grew to learn that these are the sorts of people who pioneer civilizations, who keep them running once they are built, and who are the ones to brave high-risk labor to bring us the food, shelter, and comforts we often take for granted. Adding a fictional element in the form of aliens, monsters, or the supernatural can put a fine and dynamic point on the life & struggles of such people. I strive for this in much of my military science fiction work and enjoy reading it as an audience member.
This book also strives to capture the harsh working conditions and rugged individuals who must endure such endeavors, as well as the greed that often can push those in management positions to take risks for profit that might put others in danger. While this book paints with a broad brush, it does very well at telling a story about blue collar heroes, greedy villains, and the price of hubris in the form of a hungry beast.
Bracken, a down on his luck oil man is offered a chance of redemption when a billionaire offers him a job to repair a ghost oil rig in the South Pacific Ocean. The payment is enough to retire him and his small crew.
But when they arrive on ghost rig Sera, Bracken soon discovers they're not alone. Something very large circles under the water around the rig. Something that shouldn't exist, but does. A thing of nightmares. And it's hungry...
As a child I grew up around blue-collar type men and women, and as I became an adult I grew to learn that these are the sorts of people who pioneer civilizations, who keep them running once they are built, and who are the ones to brave high-risk labor to bring us the food, shelter, and comforts we often take for granted. Adding a fictional element in the form of aliens, monsters, or the supernatural can put a fine and dynamic point on the life & struggles of such people. I strive for this in much of my military science fiction work and enjoy reading it as an audience member.
The Black is my first pick because it most keenly represents what I consider to be Blue Collar sci-fi/horror fiction. The novel takes place on an offshore oil rig, and the characters in the story are various laborers and specialists living and working on the rig. Much care and attention were taken by the author to present characters and situations that ring true to the lived experience of oil rig workers, from the technical aspects of their work to the particulars of life on the rig. This deep dive into the minds, lives, and skills of the blue-collar characters truly hammered home the terror and otherness of the antagonist when it was finally revealed. We often overlook the danger and strangeness of high-risk blue-collar professions, and exploring that in the context of sci-fi/horror genre fiction is tremendously engaging.
Under 30,000 feet of water, the experimental exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it.
But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.
The first book in Paul E Cooley's Parsec Award Winning series, The…
I’m a complete bookworm and romance addict. I love to see the old tropes being written with a fresh feel, and I’m a true believer that romance is so hard to write because everyone knows the end, but it’s up to the writer to bring you on a worthy journey. After reading countless friends-to-lovers novels, I can say with certainty I have the list with the best books written by the contemporary romance rock stars. Let’s get to it!
Even though he’s her best friend’s ex, it totally makes the list because they were all childhood friends first. One of the most underrated books by Meghan Quinn, I can’t stop talking about Tucker and Emma. The reason this book is so good comes down to a simple recipe: fluffy, hilarious, and with a tortured hero who only wants to be loved. This book is a standalone but part of a wonderful series full of mouthwatering heroes.
When I found an eviction notice taped on my apartment door, I had two options: find a comfortable cardboard box to call home, or move in with Tucker Jameson. Seeing that cardboard makes me feel itchy, I chose the latter. Which shouldn't be that big of a deal since Tucker is one of my good friends. And because he's still pining after his ex-girlfriend and I'm trying to finish my nursing degree, there is nothing to worry about in the romance department, making my last semester an easy one to conquer.Boy, was I wrong. Rules are set, dinners are made,…
As a child I grew up around blue-collar type men and women, and as I became an adult I grew to learn that these are the sorts of people who pioneer civilizations, who keep them running once they are built, and who are the ones to brave high-risk labor to bring us the food, shelter, and comforts we often take for granted. Adding a fictional element in the form of aliens, monsters, or the supernatural can put a fine and dynamic point on the life & struggles of such people. I strive for this in much of my military science fiction work and enjoy reading it as an audience member.
This is a cyberpunk novel, and while most books in that genre focus more on characters like criminals or rebels, this one narrows in on a former police detective and private security contractor. This is one of the few books in the genre that looks at the working stiffs of the cyberpunk future, instead of the punks with mohawks & machine guns or the corporate suits with their android bodyguards and elegant penthouses.
Hawai‘i author Chris McKinney’s first entry in a brilliant new sci-fi noir trilogy explores the sordid past of a murdered scientist, deified in death, through the eyes of a man who once committed unspeakable crimes for her.
Year 2142: Earth is forty years past a near-collision with the asteroid Sessho-seki. Akira Kimura, the scientist responsible for eliminating the threat, has reached heights of celebrity approaching deification. But now, Akira feels her safety is under threat, so after years without contact, she reaches out to her former head of security, who has since become a police detective.
It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
I’m a sociologist who studies American family life. About 20 years ago, I began to see signs of the weakening of family life (such as more single-parent families) among high-school educated Americans. These are the people we often call the “working class.” It seemed likely that this weakening reflected the decline of factory jobs as globalization and automation have proceeded. So I decided to learn as much as I could about the rise and decline of working-class families. The books I am recommending help us to understand what happened in the past and what’s happening now.
LeMasters hung out at a tavern in Wisconsin from 1967 to 1972, talking to factory workers who held well-paying, unionized jobs in the heyday of American industrial production. Working-class lives are so different now that I wish I could enter a time machine and travel back to the 1960s and talk to working-class men then. LeMasters’s book is as close as one can get to doing that. He describes the outlook of the tavern regulars on their work, their families, and the world around them. Despite their prosperity, they express attitudes about public life that, in some respects, would not sound out of place in a focus group of working-class adults today.
“LeMasters’ book is a valuable and popularly written source of information on the attitudes of working class men and women. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
Blue-Collar Aristocrats is a major statement about a group of Americans too little understood and too long ignored by by the country's decision- and policy-makers. Thanks to the work of E. E. LeMasters, we now have a rare and human insight into the lives, feelings, attitudes, and problems of America's blue-collar aristocrats—one that has the potential both to add to our knowledge and to contribute toward solutions to some of our nation's broadest social problems.
