Here are 100 books that The Politics of Resentment fans have personally recommended if you like
The Politics of Resentment.
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For my psychology podcast, I’ve interviewed many political and psychology experts on the subject of political polarization and conflict resolution. That led to me writing my book Defusing American Anger. I believe extreme us-vs-them polarization is humanity’s biggest problem: I see it as an existential threat not just to specific nations, including America, but to humanity as a whole, especially as our weapons and technologies get more powerful. And I think we need more people working on reducing our seemingly natural tendency to always be fighting with each other.
Talisse does a great job putting our divides in the context of the fundamental problem of democracy.
How can we maintain democratic principles when we see the "other side" as very wrong, or even as dangerous? Should we maintain those principles? What do we owe our fellow citizens even when we see them as very flawed?
In addition to these hard and important questions, Talisse focuses on a less examined negative aspect of polarization: us-vs-them animosity makes us less able to get along even with people who are politically similar to us. We become more fractured even on "our side," and less able to do the basic work of politics.
Democracy is not easy. Citizens who disagree sharply about politics must nonetheless work together as equal partners in the enterprise of collective self-government. Ideally, this work would be conducted under conditions of mutual civility, with opposed citizens nonetheless recognizing one another's standing as political equals. But when the political stakes are high, and the opposition seems to us severely mistaken, why not drop the democratic pretences of civil partnership, and simply play to win? Why seek to uphold properly democratic relations with those who embrace political ideas that are flawed, irresponsible, and out of step with justice? Why sustain democracy…
Conflict and disagreement have always interested me. I was a middle child, so I naturally fell into the role of peacemaker. But I also had strong opinions, and I always thought I knew the right answer. The pursuit of education, love, and a career brought me to rural Montana, an Asian metropolis, and everywhere in between. These experiences deepened my fascination regarding how people could have such different beliefs, and how we are to live together despite those differences. A PhD in Science and Technology Studies, supervised by a political scientist, sent me on the path to diagnosing what ails American democracy, and what the cure might be.
This book is a classic. I recommend it to all my students. While the events discussed are dated: Three Mile Island, silicone breast implants, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I found the lessons to be perennial.
Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field show that when companies or government agencies focus on defending themselves during a crisis and fail to take responsibility, public confidence is only further eroded. I really enjoyed that, in the end, Dealing with an Angry Public is a practical guide to restoring and keeping trust, one that professionals in nuclear energy, public health, and other controversial fields would do well to read and understand.
Some portion of the American public will react negatively to almost any new corporate initiative, as Disney discovered when it announced its plans to build an historical theme park in Virginia. Similarly, government efforts to change policy or shift budget priorities are invariably met with stiff resistance. In this enormously practical book, Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field analyze scores of both private and public-sector cases, as well as crisis scenarios such as the Alaskan oil spill, the silicone breast implant controversy, and nuclear plant malfunction at Three Mile Island. They show how resistance to both public and private initiatives can…
Conflict and disagreement have always interested me. I was a middle child, so I naturally fell into the role of peacemaker. But I also had strong opinions, and I always thought I knew the right answer. The pursuit of education, love, and a career brought me to rural Montana, an Asian metropolis, and everywhere in between. These experiences deepened my fascination regarding how people could have such different beliefs, and how we are to live together despite those differences. A PhD in Science and Technology Studies, supervised by a political scientist, sent me on the path to diagnosing what ails American democracy, and what the cure might be.
Despite ever louder calls to “follow the science,” vaccine skepticism only seems to be rising.
Maya Goldenberg’s arguments helped me see why handwringing over the “war on expertise” fails and how we could do better. She shows that the crisis is rooted in declining public trust of medical institutions. Vaccine Hesitancy helped open my eyes to a critical fact: Medical skepticism is a rational response to a history of research scandals, corporate misconduct, and discrimination.
I honestly believe that had public officials paid attention to books like Vaccine Hesitancy, the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic would not have torn Americans apart.
The public has voiced concern over the adverse effects of vaccines from the moment Dr. Edward Jenner introduced the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. The controversy over childhood immunization intensified in 1998, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the MMR vaccine to autism. Although Wakefield's findings were later discredited and retracted, and medical and scientific evidence suggests routine immunizations have significantly reduced life-threatening conditions like measles, whooping cough, and polio, vaccine refusal and vaccine-preventable outbreaks are on the rise.
This book explores vaccine hesitancy and refusal among parents in the industrialized North. Although biomedical, public health, and popular science literature has…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I’ve been doing research on polarization for most of my career as an economist and have focused on affective polarization in US politics since 2015. As a behavioral economist, I’m interested in how false and biased beliefs contribute to affective polarization. As a microeconomist I’m also generally interested in economy—not “the economy,” but the efficient use of resources—and affective polarization leads to a lot of wasted time and resources. This happens in politics at all levels, and in relationships of all types—neighbors, colleagues, spouses, siblings—as we all know from experience. So, I’m hoping to try to understand this bias better and cut down on it where we can.
This book is quite different from the others on my list in that the author is a total outsider to politics: Elwood is a former professional poker player.
But it’s the book that resonates with me the most as it directly makes the case that affective polarization is bad for the country and is to a large extent misguided—and citizens across the spectrum should actively try to overcome and fight it. Elwood writes informally and engagingly while still referring to tons of academic research and tackling many thorny recent issues in detail.
If there was one book that I would ask my most polarized fellow Americans to read carefully this would probably be it. Poker champs tend to be astute observers of human psychology—think Annie Duke and Maria Konnikova—and Elwood maintains this tradition.
This is a book about our American divides by Zachary Elwood, host of the psychology podcast People Who Read People. Learn more about this book and its author at www.American-Anger.com.
"I can’t think of anyone I’ve seen who better practices what they preach, who better lives their ideals about depolarization. His book has an earnest, vulnerable, plainspoken style which parallels his speaking style in his podcast. He seems throughout to anticipate negative reactions from readers on both the left and the right..." - from a review by David Foster at KnowTheSystem.org
America is deeply divided. We don't just disagree on…
I have always had a passion for small towns, both real and fictional. After living in a bunch of them myself (in real life, not my head), I decided to try creating my own picture-perfect places. Like most writers, my love of books started with reading. I have read hundreds of wholesome, small-town romance novels, and I hope to read hundreds more! This list has some of my recent favorites. Bonus: All the books on this list are the first in a series, so if you love them, more swoonworthy stories await! (PS The list is in no particular order, I love each book equally!)
Small town that you will want a realtor for: Cashmere Cove, WI
If you love grumpy/sunshine, fierce sisterly love, and wholesome midwest towns, this is the book for you. Dobrinska does a wonderful job of creating likable characters and a feel-good storyline with tons of delightful twists and turns.
It’s so gosh darn good! I am talking stay-up-way-too-late-reading good. And while I have never been to Wisconsin in my life, after reading Friends Don’t, I am ready to change that!
A heartfelt and hilarious romantic comedy, loosely inspired by While You Were Sleeping.
As the oldest of three sisters, Poppy Kasper doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t the glue holding her siblings—and their lives—together. So moving across the country to Cashmere Cove, the hometown of her new boyfriend, is completely out of character. Add in the fact that said boyfriend is leaving for a months-long pro-golf tour, and it’s enough to make Poppy question her sanity. But it’s fine. Everything’s fine. She can still be a good sister from a distance, and she’ll keep the spark in her relationship…
I’ve been working professionally as a writer for twenty-five years. I’m nothing close to a household name, but a number of my articles have gone viral throughout the years. I’ve had educators reach out to mention they’ve taught my work at both the high school and college levels. Writing is an occupation of passion, and the authors I’ve mentioned are all talented and passionate about their craft. It’s rare to find people who speak the truth anywhere in our society. These writers don’t just speak the truth, they make it sing.
Dan Woll is an exceptional author who writes about outdoor life in Northern Wisconsin. He’s an avid runner, cyclist, and climber. This collection features an account of the Barneveld tornado that blew through Wisconsin back in 1984. Woll’s work is filled with both humor and wisdom. This is a great book for anyone with a passion for the outdoors.
Dan Woll, co-author of Death on Cache Lake is back with more tales of adventure in the Northwoods. This time, they’re true! You will love this book if you’ve ever paddled a canoe on a wild river, climbed a mountain, cycled lonely country roads, or sat by a roaring campfire while a solitary loon cries on a moonlit lake.
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.
From an early age I have been drawn to dark themes in stories. I always wanted to hear the dark fairy tales when I was a kid. My mother is from Finland originally, so I was weaned on Finnish folk tales and the Finnish mythology, the Kalevala, which has very many dark stories. Being a graphic novelist myself, I tend to favor morally ambiguous, darker broken characters in my stories. Happy characters make for boring stories I believe. There needs to be conflict for there to be drama. And there needs to be drama to make interesting stories.
An amazing personal tale of someone who went to high school with, what was to become, infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. What makes it so good, in my opinion, is, that it doesn’t become sensationalist in any way. It clearly shows how a vulnerable, very disturbed child could fall through the cracks in 70’s America. It is drawn in a cartoony style, which helps to create a distance from the reader to the incredibly dark and sad subject matter. It works amazingly well as it is told from the perspective of Dahmer’s classmates. Well recommended!
My Friend Dahmer is the hauntingly original graphic novel by Derf Backderf, the award winning political cartoonist. In these pages, Backderf tries to make sense of Jeffery Dahmer, the future serial killer with whom he shared classrooms, hallways, libraries and car rides. What emerges is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a young man struggling helplessly against the urges, some ghastly, bubbling up from the deep recesses of his psyche. The Dahmer recounted here, although universally regarded as an inhumane monster, is a lonely oddball who, in reality, is all too human. A shy kid sucked inexorably into madness while the…
Because sometimes I think they go further than the formulas set by traditional publishing. I love fantasy and similar genres because there are no limits for the imagination. The books I’ve chosen fulfill what I think is important – world-building, imagination, thought-provoking, intelligent, and wonderful characters on a mission of some kind.
I’ve read all of this author’s work and the Rushed series is my favourite because although it’s a sinister paranormal fantasy, it is filled with humour. The world-building for each book is amazing – certainly daunting and nasty in parts, yet believable.
There are remarks in reviews that it’s confusing and weird, so maybe you have to be odd to understand and appreciate it. I did, so I must be.
Eric can't remember the recurring dream that keeps waking him in the middle of the night with an overwhelming urge to leave, yet he spends each day feeling as if he desperately needs to be somewhere. With no idea how to cure himself of this odd compulsion, he decides to let it take its course and go for a drive, hoping that once he proves to himself that there is nowhere to go, he can return to his normal life. Instead, he finds himself hurled headlong into a nightmare adventure across a fractured Wisconsin as the dream reveals itself one…
Twenty-one years ago, I moved off the grid. As a city-dweller who didn't even go camping, I'd never considered myself a country woman, but I felt called to the woods. I wanted to learn practical skills like how to split wood and bake bread, and I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint. Now, because of our lifestyle, we don't run microwaves, toasters, or dishwashers, and it’s been 20 years since I’ve had a clothes dryer. Living this way has changed me. My relationship with the environment has evolved over the years, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about the different ways experiences in nature can help us humans to grow.
This story emphasizes the inner wilderness—those places in ourselves where we are sometimes afraid to go.
We first meet the main character, Lib Hart, as she runs barefoot in a street, her silver hair trailing out, trying to outpace her shameful past. I love how Lib is so fiercely independent—she’s living in her own house despite being married for nearly three decades. I related to Claire Taylor’s struggle, a young mother trying to balance the love she has for her son with the love she once had for a journalism career. The plot deftly leads Claire to reckon with the drinking problem that she hasn’t yet admitted to herself.
Most of all, I love how this small town takes care of these women in a book with a setting where my heart wanted to live.
One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence-or her previous marriage-to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack's workshop shortly thereafter, he's not the first…
This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands of…
Twenty-one years ago, I moved off the grid. As a city-dweller who didn't even go camping, I'd never considered myself a country woman, but I felt called to the woods. I wanted to learn practical skills like how to split wood and bake bread, and I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint. Now, because of our lifestyle, we don't run microwaves, toasters, or dishwashers, and it’s been 20 years since I’ve had a clothes dryer. Living this way has changed me. My relationship with the environment has evolved over the years, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about the different ways experiences in nature can help us humans to grow.
I love how this book starts—a young mother escaping her seemingly perfect life in the middle of the night, wearing a nightgown with infant in tow. Rachel Clayborne drives through the night to her grandmother’s lake house in northern Wisconsin, where we learn all the ways that being reasonable has led her to a miserable life.
Hassinger is particularly skilled at describing those intimate moments between a nursing mother and her young, and her protagonist, Rachael, is achingly aware of what she gave up to gain this wonderful experience of motherhood. One of my favorite scenes between Rachel and her first love, Joe, culminates with him telling her, “Did it ever occur to you that you can’t always get what you want? Even if you know what that is?” I love a story that grapples with that.
Undone by motherhood, judged by her husband, thirty-two-year-old Rachel Clayborne flees with her baby in the middle of the night for the one place on earth that's been her refuge: her grandmother's lakehouse in northern Wisconsin. Hoping to reconnect with a former, healthier self, she instead faces a confused and dying grandmother, her ever-present nurse who seems bent on thwarting each of Rachel's desires, and a changed ex-boyfriend-her first and most passionate love. As a constant rain threatens the nearby dam, Rachel struggles to discern what's happened to the past, who she's become, and what kind of a life she…
