100 books like Spirit of Rebellion

By Jarod Roll,

Here are 100 books that Spirit of Rebellion fans have personally recommended if you like Spirit of Rebellion. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Making of the English Working Class

Cecilia Morgan Author Of Sweet Canadian Girls Abroad: A Transnational History of Stage and Screen Actresses

From my list on social and women’s history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been interested in family stories, the history of women’s lives, and history in general. Discovering new (at least it was at the time!) work in social and women’s history at university in the 1980s opened up new vistas for me and showed me it was possible to do academic work in the discipline in creative and challenging ways. These books were crucial to my development as a historian, both because of their subject matter and because they are so beautifully written. They brought the past “to life” for me and showed that historians could care about their subjects without sacrificing academic rigor.

Cecilia's book list on social and women’s history

Cecilia Morgan Why did Cecilia love this book?

I read this book the summer before I returned to university to complete my B.A. Thompson’s book convinced me that one of my first loves, the study of history, was where I wanted to be.

It is a ground-breaking study of people overlooked, ignored, and condescended to by historians, whose lives were changed by early forms of industrialization in late 18th and early 19th-century England. Thompson treats these people as active agents in shaping their worlds socially, economically, and politically, and he takes their role in “making class” and political activism seriously.

It is also beautifully written, and the depth of his research sets a high standard for subsequent generations of historians.

By E.P. Thompson,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Making of the English Working Class as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Fifty years since first publication, E. P. Thompson's revolutionary account of working-class culture and ideals is published in Penguin Modern Classics, with a new introduction by historian Michael Kenny

This classic and imaginative account of working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, revolutionized our understanding of English social history. E. P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole-life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation, and who yet created a cultured and political consciousness of great vitality.

Reviews:

'A dazzling vindication of the…


Book cover of To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War

Betsy Wood Author Of Upon the Altar of Work: Child Labor and the Rise of a New American Sectionalism

From my list on to make you excited about labor history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by how ordinary people can change the course of their own lives since I was a child. However, I had no idea until later in life that there were entire fields of study devoted to understanding how this process works historically. When I discovered “new labor history” many years ago, I knew I wanted to be part of it. It was the privilege of a lifetime to study under some of the best labor historians in the world at the University of Chicago. And I can’t describe how I felt when my dissertation won the Herbert Gutman Prize in Labor History. I hope these books spark your interest!

Betsy's book list on to make you excited about labor history

Betsy Wood Why did Betsy love this book?

I’ve always been a sucker for a good labor strike.

But a labor strike of Black women in the South—only a decade removed from slavery—demanding dignity, equality, and a living wage so they could simply “enjoy their freedom” in a region where a rich, white, slaveholding regime was just recently toppled? That’s next-level stuff.

Hunter tells the story of this Black female majority who worked in domestic labor in the years following the Civil War. Can you imagine going to work as a wage-earning domestic laborer in the home of your former owner? And then collectively organizing to demand that “freedom” actually means something in this godforsaken region?

Come for the organized labor protests. Stay for the moment these women pack their bags and move to the North seeking the joy and pleasure they deserve.

By Tera W. Hunter,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked To 'Joy My Freedom as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As the Civil War drew to a close, newly emancipated black women workers made their way to Atlanta--the economic hub of the newly emerging urban and industrial south--in order to build an independent and free life on the rubble of their enslaved past. In an original and dramatic work of scholarship, Tera Hunter traces their lives in the postbellum era and reveals the centrality of their labors to the African-American struggle for freedom and justice. Household laborers and washerwomen were constrained by their employers' domestic worlds but constructed their own world of work, play, negotiation, resistance, and community organization.

Hunter…


Book cover of Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class, and Politics, 1863-1923

Betsy Wood Author Of Upon the Altar of Work: Child Labor and the Rise of a New American Sectionalism

From my list on to make you excited about labor history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by how ordinary people can change the course of their own lives since I was a child. However, I had no idea until later in life that there were entire fields of study devoted to understanding how this process works historically. When I discovered “new labor history” many years ago, I knew I wanted to be part of it. It was the privilege of a lifetime to study under some of the best labor historians in the world at the University of Chicago. And I can’t describe how I felt when my dissertation won the Herbert Gutman Prize in Labor History. I hope these books spark your interest!

Betsy's book list on to make you excited about labor history

Betsy Wood Why did Betsy love this book?

New Orleans has always been one of my favorite cities to visit.

Beyond the beignets and parades, did you know this gorgeous city also has a colorful and vibrant labor history that united Black and white waterfront workers in solidarity against wealthy capitalists? I didn’t know until I read Arnesen’s masterful book.

I remember staying up all night to finish it in grad school and being forever shaped by the dynamic stories of immigrants, Black migrants, and their children performing the waterfront labor that kept the cotton, sugar, and other goods flowing at the New Orleans port. I keep this biracial, waterfront labor movement in my heart right alongside the beignets and jazz.

By Eric Arnesen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Waterfront Workers of New Orleans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is an account of the New Orleans dockworkers and their formation of an inter-racial labour movement from 1880 to 1894, and again from 1901 to 1923. After the Civil War, Louisiana had no social group that exercised a clear and sustained cultural and political hegemony over the others, and sharp conflicts over racial and class issues marked the struggle for political control. This was particularly acute in New Orleans, which had what was in effect a long-standing black middle class. These free people of colour, along with ex-slaves under their guidance, fostered legislation that dismantled the segregated streetcar system…


Book cover of Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys

Betsy Wood Author Of Upon the Altar of Work: Child Labor and the Rise of a New American Sectionalism

From my list on to make you excited about labor history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by how ordinary people can change the course of their own lives since I was a child. However, I had no idea until later in life that there were entire fields of study devoted to understanding how this process works historically. When I discovered “new labor history” many years ago, I knew I wanted to be part of it. It was the privilege of a lifetime to study under some of the best labor historians in the world at the University of Chicago. And I can’t describe how I felt when my dissertation won the Herbert Gutman Prize in Labor History. I hope these books spark your interest!

Betsy's book list on to make you excited about labor history

Betsy Wood Why did Betsy love this book?

When kids stick it to the (adult) rich capitalists, it just hits different.

I reviewed this outstanding book by Vincent DiGirolamo after it had won multiple awards in 2020. It is deserving of all the accolades and then some. I learned that across America, newsboys weren’t just the purveyors of the news but they actively shaped American history, the urban landscape, and working-class identity.

I found it inspiring that these kids stoked the flames of working-class anger as they cried out the news of labor strikes and organized dozens themselves. This book was a great reminder that we have to include children and young people in the quest to rescue forgotten voices from the “enormous condescension of posterity.” 


By Vincent DiGirolamo,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From Benjamin Franklin to Ragged Dick to Jack Kelly, hero of the Disney musical Newsies, newsboys have long intrigued Americans as symbols of struggle and achievement. But what do we really know about the children who hawked and delivered newspapers in American cities and towns? Who were they? What was their life like? And how important was their work to the development of a free press, the survival of poor families, and the shaping of their own attitudes, values and beliefs?

Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys offers an epic retelling of the American experience from the perspective…


Book cover of Death in Lover's Lane

Vee Kumari Author Of Dharma: A Rekha Rao Mystery

From my list on families disguised as mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

Being an immigrant from India, a culture that places family values above all else, I am drawn to books that explore family conflicts, secrets, and the triumph of love against all odds. When an author incorporates these themes into a mystery, the book becomes more than a simple formulaic whodunnit story that educates me about the complexities of our lives.

Vee's book list on families disguised as mysteries

Vee Kumari Why did Vee love this book?

One of the best Henrie O novels, I love it that this takes place within the hallowed halls of the academia at the fictitious Thorndyke University, where the sixty-something journalism professor-turned sleuth encourages an ambitious student to dig up the dirt on three unsolved local crimes. Of course, the student gets killed, and against the wishes of the police and the powers-that-be Henrie O gets involved, dredging up a past everyone wants to keep buried. I now realize that not knowingly, but at a subconscious level, this novel inspired me to write mine!

By Carolyn G. Hart,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Death in Lover's Lane as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-reporter and journalism teacher at ivy-covered Thorndyke University, Henrietta "Henrie O" Collins demands of her students the same steadfast dedication to the truth that was the cornerstone of her own illustrious career. So when beautiful, ambitious Maggie Winslow decides to investigate a trio of hitherto unresolved local crimes, Henrie O urges her to pursue the story with uncommon vigor.

But the gifted future journalist's zeal may have cost her her life. The next day Maggie's corpse is discovered in Lovers' Lane--the very site of one of the unsolved mysteries the extraordinary young woman was exploring at the…


Book cover of The Whole Town's Talking

Jeff Billington Author Of Chicken Dinner News

From my list on an honest look at rural America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nearly a quarter century has passed since my childhood spent in the Ozark Mountains, but it still remains home. It’s a unique corner of America, not quite the South and not quite the Midwest, but undeniably country. Growing up there on a farm, near towns in decades-long decline, I saw the best and worst of rural life, and of the folks who call it home. That place and those people inspire me and my writing, driving me to show the Ozarks and its people as complex and ever changing. I aspire to move past the nostalgia of rural life, but not at the sacrifice of its beauty and charm.

Jeff's book list on an honest look at rural America

Jeff Billington Why did Jeff love this book?

Many would point to Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café as her opus to rural America, but the broader scope of The Whole Town’s Talking pulled me in instantly.

She draws out a full history of a small town, its good and bad and the people that made their mark there, some from birth to death. Even after death, their voices remain an active part of her tale, remaining as unbashful observers from the cemetery on the hill.

So much of rural America has fallen into disrepair, as does Flagg’s fictional Elmwood Springs, but I hold out hope that the increase in telecommuting and simmering desires to leave urban (and suburban) lives behind can reinvigorate some of these sleeping villages that are spread across much of the nation. 

By Fannie Flagg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Whole Town's Talking as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is at her superb best in this fun-loving, moving novel about what it means to be truly alive.

WINNER OF THE SOUTHERN BOOK PRIZE 

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it’s called, is anything but still. Original, profound, The Whole Town’s Talking, a novel in the tradition of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Flagg’s own Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, tells the story of Lordor Nordstrom, his…


Book cover of The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States

Mark Robert Rank Author Of The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity

From my list on understanding the paradox of American inequality.

Why am I passionate about this?

For much of my career as a sociologist and professor of social welfare, I’ve focused my research and teaching on the issue of economic and social inequality in America. Why should the United States have both great wealth and yet at the same time extreme poverty and inequities? This question has motivated much of my scholarly and popular writing over the years. For me, this represents the fault line of America. We profess the importance that all are created equal, and yet our actions undermine such a belief. Why should this be the case, and how can we change the reality to reflect the ideal? 

Mark's book list on understanding the paradox of American inequality

Mark Robert Rank Why did Mark love this book?

This is a very powerful book that takes the city of St. Louis as a case study to illustrate the amount of violence, discrimination, and inequities that have happened across a 300-year period, particularly with respect to race. 

Johnson develops the idea of racial capitalism throughout the book, and notes that “the red thread that runs through this entire book is the historical relationship between imperialism and anti-Blackness.” At the same time, the city has also been home to both communist and Black radical organizing into the 20th century. 

A highly interesting and important case study of American inequality and exploitation.

By Walter Johnson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Broken Heart of America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A searing and "magisterial" (Cornel West) history of American racial exploitation and resistance, told through the turbulent past of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in The Broken Heart of America, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor Black residents, from slavery through redlining and…


Book cover of Tending Roses

Myra Johnson Author Of The Soft Whisper of Roses

From my list on Christian true-to-life women dealing with life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a native of Texas who loves bluebonnets, big skies, and barbecue! With 25+ books in print, I write about imperfect characters who discover their inner strength as they lean on God and learn to trust each other and themselves. I’m fascinated by the dynamics of personalities and relationships, as well as the backstories that made the individuals who they are now. If you’re looking for stories of true-to-life characters growing deeper in faith while dealing with all the messiness human relationships entail, here are some novels you may enjoy.

Myra's book list on Christian true-to-life women dealing with life

Myra Johnson Why did Myra love this book?

When I read this book several years ago, I was just starting out in my writing career, and I remember thinking, If only someday I could write like this! Lisa Wingate has a beautiful way of eliciting emotion and empathy, of creating scenes and situations so true-to-life that she never fails to draw me in. Like all her books, Tending Roses takes a deeply honest look at human relationships—the good, the bad, and the in-between—and always with an underlying current of faith. Kate’s situation may be different from my own, but I could still relate to her feelings and struggles, her questions and doubts. That resonance—that connection—is what makes any story memorable.

By Lisa Wingate,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends and Before We Were Yours comes a heartfelt novel about the bonds of family and the power of second chances.

When Kate Bowman temporarily moves to her grandmother’s Missouri farm with her husband and baby son, she learns that the lessons that most enrich our lives often come unexpectedly. The family has given Kate the job of convincing Grandma Rose, who’s become increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to move off her beloved land and into a nursing home. But Kate knows such a change would break her…


Book cover of Enemy Women

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a child sexual abuse survivor who struggled for years with the help of therapy to become the person I am today. My sister, my mother, and I suffered years of emotional abuse by my father. When I was a child, my best friend (who also suffered abuse by her brother) and I made up stories that helped us navigate the situations in our families. I read, hiked, backpacked, and traveled alone for years in order to take risks and develop strength before attempting to write at age sixty-one. I love books that put me solidly in time and place and deeply empathize with characters who struggle and grow to become their genuine selves.

Karen's book list on strong emotion, excellent plotting, and vivid descriptions that put me securely in time and place

Karen Lynne Klink Why did Karen love this book?

I love this book mainly because the main character is an ordinary young woman with grit who defies all hostility in Missouri during the Civil War, including neighbors who turn against her.

I went through lots of emotions with this character during her journey to finding love, from anger and trepidation to wonder and exhilaration. The setting, historical context, and unsentimental yet tender and poetic writing make this book a triumph. 

By Paulette Jiles,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Enemy Women as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A gritty, memorable book ... it is a delight from start to finish, without a single misstep." Tracy Chevalier

Missouri, 1865. Adair Colley and her family have managed to hide from the bloody Armageddon of the American Civil War, but finally even their remote mountain farm cannot escape the plundering greed of the Union militia. Her house is burnt, her father beaten and dragged away. With fierce determination, Adair sets out after him on foot. So begins an extraordinary voyage which will see Adair herself denounced as a Confederate spy and thrown in jail. Here she falls passionately in love…


Book cover of The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

Susan Garzon Author Of Reading the Knots

From my list on women slogging through turbulent times.

Why am I passionate about this?

Foreign cultures have always intrigued me. I am a Midwesterner who lived for several years in Latin America, teaching English and later doing field work in anthropology. As a young woman, I lived through a violent coup d’état in Chile, and I drew on that experience when I later wrote about political upheaval in Guatemala. A Ph.D. in anthropology gave me the opportunity to spend time in Guatemala and Mexico, some of it in Mayan towns. My love of historical fiction stems from my desire to enter and understand other worlds, and I am grateful to authors who spin their magic to bring far-off places and times to life. 

Susan's book list on women slogging through turbulent times

Susan Garzon Why did Susan love this book?

I love Lidie Newton. She is a newlywed who accompanies her abolitionist husband from Illinois to Kansas Territory, at a time when the territory is mired in partisan rage and violence. Lidie narrates the story, and her straightforward, often insightful accounts pulled me in immediately. I was right there with her as she forged her way through numerous exploits, some humorous, others heart-breaking. The story is populated with characters who are both colorful and believable, and I came away with a heightened understanding of the role played by events in Kansas and Missouri during the frightening months leading up to the Civil War.

By Jane Smiley,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lidie joins the pioneering Westward migration into America's heartland. It is harsher, more violent and more disorientating then Lidie could ever have imagined. They find themselves on a faultline - forces crash against each other, soon to erupt into the he American Civil War.


Book cover of The Making of the English Working Class
Book cover of To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War
Book cover of Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class, and Politics, 1863-1923

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