Books about Politics & Fascism
A list of books I own that are about the origins of fascism and the depredations of right wing, reactionary politics. Although some may consider it offensive to lump US and Western European politics in with outright fascism, students of America’s post-war history know that the United States, NATO and their imperial allies around the world have been embracing fascist principles for a very long time – indeed, one could argue that this decades long and self-perpetuating incorporation of “just a little fascism” is a self-evident reason why we’re staring down a global or at least westernized, fascist takeover as we speak.
As always, books listed after the cut line should at best be absorbed with the understanding of their obvious ideological biases in mind, and at worst, they should be avoided altogether – your mileage may vary.
Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump
Spencer Ackerman – Review – Margin Notes
T. Adorno & Others – Review (sorta)
Mark Ames –
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Hannah Arendt – Review
Hannah Arendt – Review
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich
Dan Bar-On – Review
C. Bernstein, B. Woodward – Review
Edwin Black – Review
Strike! 50th Anniversary Edition
Jeremy Brecher – Review
Vincent Bugliosi – Review
Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It
Shane Burley – Review (sorta)
Chaotic Neutral: How Democrats Lost Their Soul In The Center
Ed Burmila –
Andy Campbell –
The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason
Chapo Trap House – Review
Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal
Aviva Chomsky – Review
Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy
Noam Chomsky – Review
Noam Chomsky – Review
Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
Noam Chomsky – Review
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
Ta-Nehisi Coates – Review
How Are You Going To Pay For That?
Ryan Cooper –
Our Germans: Project Paperclip and the National Security State
Brian E. Crim – Review (sorta)
Prisoners of the American Dream
Mike Davis – Review
Daniel Denvir – Review
Zinnophobia: The Battle Over History in Education, Politics, and Scholarship
David Detmer – Review
There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America
Philip Dray – Review
M. Dubofsky and J.A. McCartin – Review
Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
Barbara Ehrenreich – Review
Barbara Ehrenreich – Review
Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
Thomas Frank – Review – Margin Notes
Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle & the Unlikely Comeback of the Right
Thomas Frank – Review
Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society
Thomas Frank – Review – Margin Notes
The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
Thomas Frank – Review
What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
Thomas Frank – Review
Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency
Barton Gellman – Review
Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution
D. Georgakas, M. Surkin – Review
Toni Gilpin – Review
Henry A. Giroux – Review
The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope
A. Goodman, D. Moynihan – Review
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
Greg Grandin – Review – Margin Notes
Who Will Tell the People?: The Betrayal of American Democracy
William Greider – Review
Ryan Grim – Review (sorta)
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America
Bertram Gross –
Labor Law for the Rank and Filer (2nd Edition)
Daniel Gross, Staughton Lynd –
Daniel Guerin – Review
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
Chris Hedges – Review
Chris Hedges – Review – Margin Notes
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Eric Hoffer – Review
The American West and the Nazi East
Carroll Kakel – Review
No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics & Winning the World We Need
Naomi Klein – Review
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
Kevin M. Kruse – Review
The Apprentice’s Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism
Ishay Landa – Review
Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy
Talia Lavin – Review
A Short History of the US Working Class
Paul Le Blanc – Review
The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walt Reuther & The Fate Of American Labor
Nelson Lichtenstein – Review
A History of American in Ten Strikes
Erik Loomis – Review
Domenico Losurdo – Review
Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire
Mathew Lyons – Review
Niccolo Machiavelli – Review
Democracy in Chains: Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Nancy MacLean – Review
Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden
Branko Marcetic – Review
Dark Money: Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Jane Mayer – Review
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
Milton Mayer – Review
Jonathan Metzl – Review
Anna Merlan –
Ralph Nader – Review
Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump
David Neiwert – Review (sorta) – Margin Notes
The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower
Stephen H. Norwood – Review
Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right
Brendan O’Connor – Review (sorta)
Playing With Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics
Lawrence O’Donnell – Review
The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide
David Olusoga, Casper W. Erichsen – Review
Fascism: A Very Short Introduction
Kevin Passmore
Robert Paxton – Review
The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
Rick Perlstein – Review
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Rick Perlstein – Review
Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980
Rich Perlstein – Review – Margin Notes
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Wilhelm Reich – Review
The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right
David Renton – Review (sorta)
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
Corey Robin – Review
J.S. Saloma – No Review (too old)
Our Revolution: A Future to Believe in
Bernie Sanders – Review
Bernie Sanders – Review
Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate
Jean-Paul Sartre – Review (sorta)
Luke Savage
The Democrats: A Critical History
Lance Selfa – Review
Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics
Richard Seymour – Review
Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War
Christopher Simpson – Review
A True History of the United States
Daniel A. Sjursen – Review
Art Spiegelman – Review 
Right Moves: The Conservative Think Tank in American Political Culture Since 1945
Jason Stahl – Review
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2020 edition)
Jason Stanley – Review – NIDC Review
Paul Street –
Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus
Matt Taibbi – Review (sorta) – Margin Notes
Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire
Matt Taibbi – Review
The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion
Matt Taibbi – Review
Democracy In America (abridged)
Alexis de Tocqueville – Review
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
Adam Tooze – Review
Fascism: What is It and How to Fight It
Leon Trotsky – Review (sorta) – Margin Notes
Border and Rule: : Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism
Harsha Walia – Review
Harsha Walia – Review
The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum and the US Border and Beyond
John Washington – Review
Ideology of Death: Why The Holocaust Happened In Germany
John Weiss – Review (sorta)
Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
James Q. Whitman – Review
T. Harry Williams – Review
Democracy Inc: Managed Democracy & the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
Sheldon S. Wolin – Review
Fear: Trump in the White House
Bob Woodward – Review
The Last of the President’s Men
Bob Woodward – Review
Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations about A People’s History
Howard Zinn – Review
You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History
Howard Zinn – Review
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Shattered – Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes – Review – Caveat Emptor
Hacks – Donna Brazile – Review – Caveat Emptor
Hard Choices (original HC) – Hillary Clinton – Review – Caveat Emptor
The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich – William L. Shirer – Review – Caveat Emptor