72 Books Like The American Way of Empire

This is a sequel to the author’s famous The Robber Barons. His detailed primary research into campaigns and negotiations between politicians and their backers illuminates many subjects that later historians have too quickly passed over. Because he knew so much about the economy, Josephson also zeros in again and again on the driving forces that later work often dissolves into bromides about “concentrated wealth” and such. Josephson shows you the people and the institutions actually at work.

Readers looking to the past for inspiration about the possibilities of antitrust and progressive movements right now are being served a very weak and distorted account of what the most successful trust busters like Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson were actually trying to do and what they really accomplished. Kolko was a leader in exploiting primary sources that upended traditional accounts of who did what to whom.

So-called “New Brandeis” antitrust champions in particular overlook the realities of trust busting in American history and have much to learn from this masterpiece. 

Weinstein’s, like Kolko’s book above, is a vital corrective to much starry-eyed contemporary writing about Progressivism and the real nature of movements supporting the “vital center.” His accounts of how major American businesses supported early twentieth-century reform movements, hoping to head off popular upsurges while also accomplishing changes they thought they needed, are indispensable in our time. Modern readers are not used to these sorts of things and so they have a hard time seeing through promises of reforms that are anything but what they appear to be. Like Kolko’s, Weinstein’s work is greatly strengthened by his study of primary sources. 

Younger Americans have no direct experience of the Cold War, McCarthyism, or the nineteen sixties. They rarely hear anyone suggest that the government is properly responsible for maintaining full employment. They also have little idea of what the American establishment was when Pax Americana shaped the world. This study conveys that world very well indeed. It benefits once again from a vast amount of primary research. Its depiction of how banks, lawyers, and American multinationals wielded power at the zenith of the “American Century” has few, if any rivals. It vividly shows how someone very few Americans ever heard of rose to the pinnacle of power, shaping not only the U.S., but western Europe (especially Germany), the Mideast, and many other parts of the world. The writing moves briskly along and is especially good at sketching complex situations that are intrinsically tough to convey concretely.

Racing away from Ground Zero, 16-year-old Kyle encounters a bizarre sight: an angel, clinging to the Brooklyn Bridge. Kyle stops to help and discovers the “angel” is a teenage girl, her wings a costume from a school play. But the girl doesn’t remember anything about who she is. Thus begins a quest that pulls Kyle in conflicting directions: to find his dad (a first responder), to care for his uncle (a disabled cop), and to help this girl find her way home.

I love that the book begins with an act of kindness to a stranger, something we saw often after 9/11. And while we sometimes say we’d love to forget an event like 9/11, Gae’s book bears witness to the need to remember.

A book rarely brings me to tears. I didn’t know what to expect when I first picked up this one. The main thing I love about this book is that it takes you right into the head of the main character, who happens to be a very precocious nine-year-old boy. Outwardly, the main character is on an adventure to solve a mystery, but inwardly, he’s on a journey to come to terms with his father’s death.

The protagonist–who, on the surface, is nothing like me–made me feel and address things I had not come to terms with in my life. I felt myself struggling along with the character, and then I ultimately began to heal with him, too. It’s a powerful, tragic, yet absolutely hilarious story that allowed me to forget myself for a while before realizing that I was learning about myself the entire time I read it.

This book is well-written with language that’s easy off the tongue and sweet on the ears. I appreciate the main character, Dèja’s, spunk, and confidence despite her family being unhoused. I also enjoyed how the story’s characters, though from different cultural backgrounds, get along organically while working together on a difficult school assignment.

The ending is satisfying and hopeful. And I truly appreciate the story’s takeaway theme—confronting the past is more empowering than ignoring it.

I’ll never forget how enthralled I was from the very beginning of Reign of Terror. Ackerman begins the book with a fascinating contrast in behavior that demonstrates that Americans have not abandoned nearly as much of their race prejudices as we like to pretend. In 1995, when Timothy McVeigh (with the help of many white supremacist groups) bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, he was put through all of the standard legal procedures required under the law. When the United States was hunting extremists in the war on terror, we created places such as Guantanamo Bay and other CIA black sites to extrajudicially hold and torture people. The way Ackerman frames America’s behavior during the war on terror makes Reign of Terror a must-read in my opinion. 

The September 11th terrorist attack is a difficult history to introduce.

Picture books can be a good way to start the conversation, especially with 8 and 9-year-olds. In This Very Tree, Sean Rubin broaches the topic through a remarkable Callery pear tree in the Twin Towers plaza which survived the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Rubin’s poignant artwork conveys both the destruction of that terrible day in New York City and the rebuilding efforts afterwards. Informative and lengthy back matter provides more information to complement the brief illustrated text. This picture book leaves the reader with an ultimately hopeful outlook of resilience and renewal. 

Louise Richardson’s book is an insightful investigation for people who want to understand the motivation of terrorists and their supporters, especially those who engage in suicide terrorism. She makes a persuasive argument that suicide terrorists are motivated by political objectives understood in the broad sense of this term. They have long and short-term political objectives among which are revenge, renown, and reaction. She refers to these motives as the three Rs. She contends that those who engage in suicide operations are disaffected individuals supported by a community that espouses a legitimizing ideology, be it political, religious, or both. As result, their deep-seated grievances can turn into deep-seated resentment against powerful nations which they blame for intervening in their own country. For example, they oftentimes blame the US government for maintaining a presence in Islamic countries, including supporting despotic and nepotic regimes, such as the present Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.