Recommended Reading List
Here are a number of books our members have found helpful or enlightening. You'll notice we have not included those ubiquitous links to online retailers. Please support your local community bookstores or borrow them from your library.
Join our book discussion group
Join us in a monthly discussion of thoughtful, progressive books at the Broadview Library. Our discussion group meetings are open to the public.
Current Events
- Don't Think of an Elephant, George Lakoff
- What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, Thomas Frank
- The Freedom: Shadows And Hallucinations In Occupied Iraq, Christian Parenti
World Conflicts
- Israel/Palestine, How to End the War of 1948, Tanya Reinhart
- Peace and Its Discontents, Edward Said
- The Question of Palestine, Edward Said
- Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan-African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation, by Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer
- Unarmed Bodyguards: International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights, by Liam Mahony, Luis Enrique Eguren
Nonviolence & Disarmament
- Satyagraha, by Mohandas K. Gandhi
- The Conquest of Violence: An Essay on War And Revolution, by Bart de Ligt
- Nonviolent Social Movements - A Geographical Approach, edited by Stephen Zunes
Economics, Environment, Consumer Culture
- State of the World 2004, by the Worldwatch Institute
This year's report focuses on consumerism, its true cost to our health, peace and freedom, and our alternatives. - Culture Jam: The Uncooling of AmericaTM, by Kalle Lasn
The founder of ADBUSTERS magazine takes on the corporate control of our minds and our freedom.
Oldies but Goodies
- Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville (1831)
This is still as fascinating today as when he wrote it. He was a Frenchman who came here to learn why American democracy was successful and how to apply those lessons to the turmoil in France after its revolution. This book offers a detailed and piercing analysis of our democracy's strengths and weaknesses, and how it could be overcome by tyranny or unrest. It is also very instructive to compare America's original form (when almost all the power was held by the States) to today's strong Federal administration. - On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill (1859)
An enlightened discussion on what liberty really means, in thought, in individuality, and in society. - Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau (1849)
"The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war;... What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn." Generally published with Walden.
Read a good book? Send us your recommendations and if we like them, we'll add them to the list.
Bookstores and libraries
We have some excellent independent community bookstores, but they are threatened by online retailers and monopolistic chain stores. Please help support our local economy and diversity of thought by visiting these shops: Elliott Bay Books, Third Place, Horizon, Left Bank, etc.
Seattle also has one of the best library systems in the world. You can reserve books online, and borrowing books helps conserve resources. Seattle Public Library - King County Library System