Theory

Not every book by every communist thinker should be here necessarily, especially the more prolific ones, but collected works are fine. I am not an expert on any particular communist, so if you think the list for one of them is insufficient, or even too broad, then let me know.

If anybody out there thinks themselves as reasonably educated and knowledgeable about the history of socialist thought, then you can take a look at user @gammison’s History of Socialism Syllabus that they obtained from their university, determine what you like and don’t like, add more books if necessary, and create a section on that here.

Philosophy and Theology

Philosophy

• Elementary Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer (1946).
• Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (1979).
• Theory and Reality by Peter Godfrey-Smith (2003).

Theology

• God is Red: A Native View of Religion by Vine Deloria jr (1972).
• Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes by Robert Brown (1983).
• The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft by Ronald Hutton (1999).
• Unsettling the Word: Biblical Experiments in Decolonization by Steve Heinrichs (2018).
• In the Margins: A Transgender Man’s Journey with Scripture by Shannon Kearns (2022).

Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and Juche

Karl Marx

• Wage Labour and Capital (1847).
• Value, Price, and Profit (1865).
• Critique of the Gotha Programe (1875).
• Drafts of the Letter to Vera Zasulich (1881).

I would advise you to not read Capital if you are a new Marxist - the first few chapters in particular are a confusing slog.

• Capital, A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 1: The Process of Production of Capital (1867).
• Capital, A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 2: The Process of Circulation of Capital (1885).
• Capital, A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 3: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole (1894).

Friedrich Engels

• The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845).
• The Peasant War in Germany (1850).
• Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880).
• The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884).

Vladimir Lenin

• The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899).
• What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement (1902).
• The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914).
• Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916).
• The State and Revolution: The Marxist Doctrine of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution (1917).
• The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918).
• “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920).

Josef Stalin

• Foundations of Leninism (1924).
• The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists (1924).
• Dialectical and Historical Materialism (1938).
• Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (1951).

Mao Zedong

• On Contradiction (1937).
• On Practice (1937).
• On Guerrilla Warfare (1937).
• Combat Liberalism (1937).
• Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse Tu (1960).
• Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1964).

Kim Jong Il

• On the Fundamentals of Revolutionary Party Building (1992).
• The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of our Party (1992).
• Socialism is a Science (1994).
• On Having A Correct Understanding Of Nationalism (2002).
• Kim Jong Il: Selected Works (2006).
• Essential Juche Works (2020).
• On the Juche Philosophy (2022).

Other Authors

• Historical Materialism by Nikolai Bukharin (1925).
• Fundamentals of Marxism Leninism by Otto Wille Kuusinen (1960).
• Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971).
• Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist by Harry Haywood (1978).
• State, Power, Socialism by Nicos Poulantzas (1978). A critique of Marxist theories of the state.
• Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson (1983).
• Marxism and the Oppression of Women : Toward a United Theory by Lisa Vogel (1983).
• Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by John Lee Anderson (1997).
• Dance Of The Dialectic: Steps In Marx’s Method by Bertell Ollman (2003).
• Revolutionary Intercommunalism & the Right of Nations to Self-determination by Amy Gdala (2004).
• Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies by Kevin B. Anderson (2010).
• Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx’s Lost Theory by Mike Davis (2015).
• Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy by Kohei Saito (2017).
• The Principal Contradiction by Torkil Lauesen (2020).
• The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography by Marcello Musto (2020).
• Patriarchy of the Wage: Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism by Silvia Federici (2021).
• Transgender Marxism by Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke (2021).
• Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney (2022).
• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital by Søren Mau (2023).
• Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism by Kohei Saito (2023).

Anarchism and Anarcho-communism

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

• What is Property? (1840).
• Property Is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader by Iain McKay (2011).

Peter Kropotkin

• The Conquest of Bread (1892).
• The State: Its Historic Role (1896).
• Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1899).
• Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902).

David Graeber

• Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams (2001).
• Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire (2007).
• Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011).
• The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (2015).
• Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018).
• Anarchy—In a Manner of Speaking: Conversations with Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Nika Dubrovsky, and Assia Turquier-Zauberman (2020).
• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021).

Other Authors

• Anarchy by Errico Malatesta (1891).
• Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman (1911).
• Platform: Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists by Nestor Makhno (1926).
• Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice by Rudolf Rocker (1937)
• Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin (1971).
• The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868–1936 by Murray Bookchin (1976).
• The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy by Murray Bookchin (1982).
• What is Communist Anarchism? By Alexander Berkman (1989).
• The Political Economy of Participatory Economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel (1991).
• Against His-Story, against Leviathan by Fredy Perlman (2002).
• Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky by Noam Chomsky (2002).
• Anarchism - A Beginners Guide by Ruth Kinna (2005).
• On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky (2005).
• How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos (2005).
• Anarchy in Action by Colin Ward (2008).
• Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos (2010)
• Anarchism and Its Aspirations by Cindy Milstein (2010).
• The Failure of Nonviolence: From the Arab Spring to Occupy by Peter Gelderloos (2013)
• The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below by Peter Gelderloos (2022)

Trotskyism

Leon Trotsky

• The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects (1930).
• History of the Russian Revolution (1930).

General Theory

Indigenous Theory

• Marxism and Native Americans edited by Ward Churchill (1984).
• The National Question: Decolonizing The Theory of Nationalism by James Morris Blaut (1987).
• Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto by Taiaiake Alfred (1999).
• • Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Sean Coulthard (2014).
• As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2017).
• Kayanerenkó:wa: The Great Law of Peace by Kayanesenh Paul Williams (2018).

Left-wing History

• Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 by George N. Katsiaficas (1987).

Organizing and Discipline

• How to Be a Good Communist by Liu Shaoqi (1939).
• Democracy Is Power: Rebuilding Unions from the Bottom Up by Mike Parker and Martha Gruelle (1999).
• The Trajectory of Change by Michael Albert (2002).
• Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization by Jeffrey S. Juris (2008).
• Direct Action: An Ethnography by David Graeber (2008).
• Springtime: The New Student Rebellions by Clare Solomon and Tania Palmieri (2011).
• Think Outside the Boss: How to Create a Worker-Owned Business by the SELC (2013).
• The Communist Necessity: Prolegomena to Any Future Radical Theory, by J. Moufawad-paul (2014).
• No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane F. McAlevey (2016). Readers advise that the author isn’t a particularly good organizer, so read with a critical lens and do not take her advice as gospel.
• The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression by Peter Joseph (2017).
• Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization by Rodrigo Nunes (2021).
• Fight to Win: Inside Poor Peoples’ Organizing by A.J. Withers (2021).
• Fighting Times: Organising on the Front Lines of the Class War by Jon Melrod (2022).
• If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins (2023).
• Teaching the Actuality of Revolution: Aesthetics, Unlearning, and the Sensations of Struggle by Derek R. Ford (2023).

Culture and Media

• Culture and Society: 1780-1950 by Raymond Williams (1958).
• The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord (1967).
• Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (1968).
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere (1968). It is recommended to read this book and Wretched of the Earth in quick succession.
• On The Reproduction Of Capitalism: Ideology And Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser (1968).
• Simulcra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard (1981).
• Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti (1986).
• Comments on the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord (1989).
• Postmodernism: or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism by Fredric Jameson (1992).
• Cultural Hegemony in the United States by Bren Ortega Murphy and Lee Artz (2000).
• The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television by Tricia Jenkins (2012).
• Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood by Nicholas Schou (2016).
• Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy by Janet Wasko (2020).

Police, Prisons, and State Oppression

• Policing A Class Society The Experience Of American Cities, 1865-1915 by Sidney L. Harring (1983).
• Cages of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment in the United States by Ward Churchill and J. J. Vanderwall (1992).
• Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti (1999).
• Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America by Kristian Williams (2004).
• Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, And Resistance by Peter Linebaugh (2014).
• Coup D’Etat: A Practical Handbook by E. Luttwak (2016).
• The End of Policing by Alex Vitale (2017).
• In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action by Vicky Osterwell (2019).

Left Economics and Planning

These books focus on socialist economics:

• Towards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott (1993). Cockshott is a TERF, but a major figure in the theory of socialist economic planning, so it can be difficult to avoid him, unfortunately.
• Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert (2003).
• The People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism by Leigh Phillips and Michael Rozworski (2019). The title is tongue-in-cheek. An introduction to planned economies for liberals and baby leftists but not without its problems.
• Economic Planning In An Age of Climate Crisis by Paul Cockshott, Alin Cottrell, and Jan Philip Dapprich (2022).
• Socialist Economic Development in the 21st Century: A Century After the Bolshevik Revolution by Alberto Gabriele and Elias Jabbour (2022).

Also see Chile’s experiments with Cybersyn under Allende in the History section to see how a planned economy could be established in the real world, and how various challenges were addressed.

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is included in this section, though several socialists have issues with its applicability and conclusions. The Deficit Myth is the most well-known text on MMT and a good introduction.

• Macroeconomics by William Mitchell, L. Randall Wray, and Martin Watts (2019).
• The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy by Stephanie Kelton (2020).

Capitalism, Imperialism, and Anti-Communism

Analysis of Capitalism

General

• Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams (1944).
• Historical Capitalism by Immanuel Wallerstein (1983).
• The Crisis of Keynesian Economics: A Marxist View by Geoffrey Pilling (1986).
• The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View by Ellen Meiksins Wood (1999).
• Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor (1999).
• Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang (2007).
• The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (2008).
• Does Capitalism Have a Future? by Immanuel Wallerstein (2013).
• Killing the Host by Michael Hudson (2015).
• Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud by David Dayen (2016).
• J is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception by Michael Hudson (2017).
• In the Long Run We Are All Dead: Keynesianism, Political Economy, and Revolution by Geoff Mann (2017).
• The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran (2017).
• Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx’s Law of Value by Samir Amin (2018).
• Self-Devouring Growth: A Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa by Julie Livingston (2019).
• Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power by David Dayen (2020).
• Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia (2021).
• Digital, Class, Work: Before and During COVID-19 by John Michael Roberts (2022).
• Six Crises of the World Economy: Globalization and Economic Turbulence from the 1970s to the COVID-19 Pandemic by José A. Tapia (2023).

Liberalism and Neoliberalism

• Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo (2005).
• A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey (2005).
• Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism by Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk (2007).
• The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry by Utsa Patnaik and Sam Moyo (2011).
• Divided World, Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism by Zak Cope (2012).
• Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown (2015).
• The Capital Order by Clara Mattei (2022).

Tech Companies and Surveillance

• The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America, from Slavery to the War on Terror by Christian Parenti (2003).
• Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization by Alexander R. Galloway (2006).
• War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification by Jeff Halper (2015).
• Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek (2016).
• Surveillance Valley By Yasha Levine (2018).
• Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World by Jathan Sadowski (2020).
• Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris (2023).

Agriculture and Land Reform

• Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America by Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros (2005).
• Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform by Peter Rosset, Raj Patel, and Michael Courville (2006).
• Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel (2007).
• The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry by Utsa Patnaik and Sam Moyo (2011).

Analysis of Imperialism

World-systems Analysis

A multidisciplinary approach for analysing the world and social change, introducing the relatively common socialist terms “periphery” and “imperial core”, created by Immanuel Wallerstein.

Wallerstein’s theory is laid out in four dense volumes:

• The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century
• The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750
• The Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730s–1840s
• The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789–1914

I advise you to not read these first, and instead start with the short and simple introductions, and see if you vibe with the theory:

• World-systems Analysis: An Introduction by Immanuel Wallerstein (2004).
• Uncertain Worlds: World-systems Analysis in Changing Times by Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas, Charles Lemert, and Immanuel Wallerstein (2012).

Further works using world-systems analysis or by authors in that field:

• Africa and the Modern World by Immanuel Wallerstein (1986).

• After Liberalism by Immanuel Wallerstein (1995).

• Accumulation on a World Scale: Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment by Samir Amin (1971).

• Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism by Samir Amin (1973).

• Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour by Maria Mies (1986).

• European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power by Immanuel Wallerstein (2006).

• Eurocentrism: Modernity, Religion, and Democracy: A Critique of Eurocentrism and Culturalism by Samir Amin (2010).

Uncategorized Imperialism Analysis

I’m not an expert on categorizing the different schools of imperialist theory and political economies so I’ll just put everything else here for now.

• Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah (1965).
• How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart (1971).
• Super Imperialism by Michael Hudson (1972).
• Unequal Exchange: a Study of the Imperialism of Trade by Arghiri Emmanuel (1972).
• Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement by Robert Biel (1985).
• Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 by Alfred W. W. Crosby (1986).
• Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective by Ha-Joon Chang (2002).
• Development After Globalization: Theory and Practice for the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age by John S. Saul (2006).
• Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization, and Empire by Radhika Desai (2013).
• Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis by John Smith (2016).
• Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik (2021).
• Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy by Radhika Desai (2022).
• Imperialist Appropriation in the World Economy: Drain From the Global South Through Unequal Exchange, 1990–2015 by Jason Hickel (2022).

The American Empire

The Venn diagram of “imperialism in the 20th and 21st century” and “American imperialism” is almost - but not quite, thanks to Europe - a circle. This section is focussed entirely on the latter, and is generally more on the nitty gritty of empire, as opposed to the more theoretical, detached and zoomed-out perspectives that you might find in the previous sections.

• Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower by William Blum (2000).

• The Triumph of Evil: The Reality of the USA’s Cold War Victory by Austin Murphy (2000).

• Private Warriors by Ken Silverstein (2000).

• The Empire of Disorder by Alain Joxe (2002).

• The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World by Immanuel Wallerstein (2003).

• Alternatives: The United States Confronts the World by Immanuel Wallerstein (2004).

• Naked Imperialism: America’s Pursuit of Global Hegemony by John Bellamy Foster (2006).

• Cold War and the New Imperialism: A Global History, 1945-2005 by Henry Heller (2006).

• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins (2006).

• Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II by Lloyd C. Gardner (2009).

• The Globalization of NATO by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya (2012).

• The Making Of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy Of American Empire by Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch (2013).

• Tomorrow’s Battlefield : U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa by Nick Turse (2015).

• In The Shadows Of The American Century The Rise And Decline Of Us Global Power by Alfred McCoy (2017).

• Outsourced Empire: How Militias, Mercenaries, and Contractors Support US Statecraft by Andrew Thomson (2018).

• The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, Isis, and Donald Trump by Max Blumenthal (2019).

• The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power by Vijay Prashad (2022).

• Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests by Agathe Demarais (2022).

• Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997). This is a book by a high-up political figure who worked in the Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter administrations - that is, it’s a book written a strongly anti-communist reactionary who detailed what American strategy should be. It’s only here so as to gain insight from what the imperialist ghouls themselves are, or were, thinking. It’s also vaguely entertaining to read from a schadenfreude perspective as the American Empire circles the drain.

Development Institutions, NGOs, Non-profits, and Aid Organizations

• For and Against NGOs by Tessa Morros-Suzuki (2000).
• Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank And Social Capital by John Hariss (2001).
• Behind the Scenes at the WTO: The Real World of International Trade Negotiations by Fatoumata Jawara and Aileen Kwa (2004).
• Globalization from Below: AIDWA, Foreign Funding, and Gendering Anti-Violence Campaigns by Elisabeth Armstrong (2004).
• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (2007).
• Aid to Africa: Redeemer or Coloniser? by Samir Amin et al (2009).
• Protest and Organization in the Alternative Globalization Era: NGOs, Social Movements, and Political Parties by H. Gautney (2009).
• The Political Economy of NGOs: State Formation in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Jude L. Fernando (2011).
• Saving the World? Western Volunteers and the Rise of the Humanitarian-Development Complex by Agnieszka Sobocinska (2021).

Settler-Colonialism and Slavery

Due to how many countries have experienced colonialism and slavery and to keep this section manageable, this is just a selection of more general books. Specific cases will usually be in their respective regional and national history sections.

• Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams (1944).
• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon (1952).
• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961). It is recommended to read this book and Pedagogy of the Oppressed in quick succession.
• The Fourth World: An Indian Reality by Michael Posluns and George Manuel (1974).
• Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, by Jack D. Forbes (1992).
• Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire (2000).
• Basic Call to Consciousness by the Syracuse Cultural Worker (2005).
• Decolonization Is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (2012).
• The Colonisation of Time: Ritual, Routine and Resistance in the British Empire by Giordanno Nanni (2012).
• Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern by J. Sakai (2014).
• The Empire of Necessity: The Untold History of a Slave Rebellion in the Age of Liberty by Greg Grandin (2015).
• Unsettled Expectations: Uncertainty, Land and Settler Decolonization by Eva Mackey (2016).
• Resistance and Decolonization by Amilcar Cabral (2016).
• Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination by Mark Rifkin (2017).
• Theft Is Property!: Dispossession and Critical Theory by Robert Nichols (2019).
• Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism by Ariella Azoulay (2019).
• The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century by Gerald Horne (2020).
• The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a Political Idea by Lorenzo Veracini (2021).

Multipolarism and Great Power Competition

• ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age by Andre Gunder Frank (1998).
• The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz (2000).
• Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future by Ian Morris (2010).
• Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization, and Empire by Radhika Desai (2013).
• Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy by Radhika Desai (2022).

Intelligence Agencies, Anti-Communism, and Fascism

Intelligence Agencies

This will naturally have a lot of overlap with tech companies, surveillance, and American Empire. This is more to do with the government organizations actively overthrowing governments and killing leaders.

Mostly within America

• The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States by Ward Churchill (1990).
• The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television by Tricia Jenkins (2012).
• The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot (2015).
• Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood by Nicholas Schou (2016).
• Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring (2019).
• The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party by Aaron J. Leonard (2020).

Foreign Activity

• Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave (2003).
• Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations by Vijay Prashad (2020).
• The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins (2020).
• Strange Tales of the Parapolitical: Postwar Nazis, Mercenaries, and Other Secret History by Frank Zero and William Snider (2020).
• White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa by Susan Williams (2021).

Drugs

• The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence & International Fascism by Henrik Kruger (1980).
• Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb (1998).
• American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan by Peter Dale Scott (2010).
• Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture by Oswaldo Zavala (2022).

Fascism, White Supremacism, and Right-wing Extremism

For more on specific fascist movements and governments, check out their respective national histories.

• Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it by Leon Trotsky (1944).

• Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism by Nicos Poulantzas (2018).

• The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists by Martin A. Lee (1999).

Science, Humanity, and the Environment

Science

While we could have dozens of dense physics and chemistry textbooks here, those are fairly findable without our help. Instead, this section has more approachable books that are more focussed on a particular facet of science and how it impacts us, directly or indirectly, and especially politically.

• Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA by Richard Lewontin (1991).
• Local Science vs. Global Science: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge in International Development edited by Paul Sillitoe (2006).
• Bridging Cultures: Indigenous and Scientific Ways of Knowing Nature by Glen Aikenhead and Herman Michell (2012).
• Mutant Ecologies: Manufacturing Life in the Age of Genomic Capital by Erica Borg and Amedeo Policante (2022).

Climate Change, the Environment, and Energy

Energy, Fossil Fuels, and Resource Extraction

• Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming by Andreas Malm (2016).
• Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System by Ian Angus (2016).
• Energy Humanities: An Anthology by Imre Szeman (2017).
• White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism by Andreas Malm (2021).
• The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene by Rosie Warren, China Miéville, Jamie Allinson, and Richard Seymour (2021).
• Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World’s Most Vulnerable Places by Christopher Pollon (2023).
• Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region by Hamza Hamouchene and Katie Sandwell (2023).

Climate Change and the Environment

• Breakfast of Biodiversity: The Political Ecology of Rainforest Destruction by John Vandermeer (1995)
• The Global Fight for Climate Justice: Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction by Ian Angus (2009).
• Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis by Ian Angus and Simon Butler (2011). Debunks the myth of overpopulation.
• Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life by George Monbiot (2014).
• Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy by Kohei Saito (2017).
• A Redder Shade of Green: Intersections of Science and Socialism by Ian Angus (2017).
• Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century by Andreas Malm (2020).
• Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez (2022).
• The Earth Transformed: An Untold History by Peter Frankopan (2023).
• Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet by Ashley Dawson (2024).

Also check out the three-part series by Rolando V. Garcia on the droughts of 1972:

• Drought and Man: Nature Pleads Not Guilty.
• Drought and Man: Constant Catastrophe: Malnutrition, Famines and Drought.
• Drought and Man: The Roots of the Catastrophe.

Growth and Degrowth

These books focus on degrowth:

• Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth by Kohei Saito (1998).
• Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism by Kohei Saito (2023).

These books are a critique of degrowth:

• Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-porn Addicts: A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff by Leigh Philips (2015).

Veganism, Animal Liberation, and Farming

• Animal Liberation by Peter Singer (1975).
• Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? By Franz de Waal (2016).
• Ecological Complexity and Agroecology by John Vandermeer (2017).
• 18 Theses on Marxism and Animal Liberation by the Alliance for Marxism and Animal Liberation (2018).
• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake (2020).
• Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot (2022).
• Saying No To a Farm-Free Future by Chris Smaje (2023).

Disease

• Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 by Alfred W. W. Crosby (1986).
• Women, Poverty, and AIDS: Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence by Paul Farmer (1996).
• Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues by Paul Farmer (1999).
• Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor by Paul Farmer (2003).
• Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century by Andreas Malm (2020).
• Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Paul Farmer (2020).
• Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy by Radhika Desai (2022).
• Digital, Class, Work: Before and During COVID-19 by John Michael Roberts (2022).

Architecture and Urbanism

Europe

• Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, by Diana Darke (2020).

• Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism in Belgrade by Brigitte Le Normand (2014).

North America

• Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan by Rem Koolhaas (1978). Controversial architect but a great read for understanding the contrast between Corbusier-style modernist urbanism and the urbanism of New York City.

• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (1961). Non-Marxist but good.

• The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler (1993).

• Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck (2000).

• The Color Of Law A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (2018). Non-Marxist but good.

• Power Play: Professional Hockey and the Politics of Urban Development by Jay Scherer, David Mills and Linda Mcculoch (2019).

General Urbanism

• The Right to the City by Henri Lefebvre (1968). Originally published as Le Droit à la ville, later translated into English.
• Social Justice and the City by David Harvey (1973).
• Urbanization Without Cities – The Rise and Decline of Citizenship by Murray Bookchin (1992).
• Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography by David Harvey (2001).
• Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution by David Harvey (2012).
• Palaces for the People: How To Build a More Equal and United Society by Eric Klinenberg (2018).
• Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State by Samuel Stein (2019).

Public and Private Transportation

• Dear Motorist: The Social Ideology of the Motor Car by André Gorz (1973).
• Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives by Jarret Walker (2011).

Gender, Race, Disability, and Neurodivergence

To keep this section somewhat manageable, I will not be featuring books on men, women, queer movements, and so on which are focussed within specific countries - those will go into their national sections. These will instead either be more general books and studies, or those that focus on the world or large regions.

Men

• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks (2004).

Women

• The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World by Nawal El Saadawi (1977).
• Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis (1981).
• Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a United Theory by Lisa Vogel (1983).
• More Work For Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave by Ruth Cowan (1983).
• Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Womens’ Oppression by Christine Delphy (1984).
• Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World by Kumari Jayawardena (1986).
• Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour by Maria Miles (1986).
• Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice by Francesca Miller (1991).
• Women, Poverty, and AIDS: Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence by Paul Farmer (1996).
• Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici (2004).
• Democratization, Women’s Movements, and Gender-Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison by Jocelyn Viterna and Kathleen M. Fallon (2008).
• Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle by Silvia Federici (2012).
• Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons by Silvia Federici (2018).
• Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici (2018).
• A Decolonial Feminism by Françoise Vergès (2019).
• Patriarchy of the Wage: Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism by Silvia Federici (2021).

LGBTQIA+

• Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Marsha P. Johnson and Beyond by Leslie Feinberg (1996).
• Trans Liberation in Pink and Blue by Leslie Feinberg (1998).
• Making a Scene: Lesbians and Community Across Canada, 1964-84 by Liz Millward (2015).
• Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton (2017).
• Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930-1985 by Valerie Korinek (2018).
• Transgender Marxism by Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke (2021).

Race

• Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis (1981).
• The History of White People by Neil Irvin Painter (2010).
• The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen (2012).
• Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis by Katherine McKittrick (2014).
• Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton (2017).
• White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-Racial Society by Kalwant Bhopal (2018).
• Afropessimism by Frank Wilderson (2020).

For books on indigenous populations, see the Settler-colonialism section or the relevant regional/national history section.

Neurodivergence

• Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price (2021). Not so much about neurodivergence specifically but I don’t know where else to put it.
• The Autism Relationships Handbook: How to Thrive in Friendships, Dating, and Love by Joe Biel and Faith G. Harper (2021).
• Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing Our Hidden Neurodiversity by Devon Price (2022).
• Wandering Minds: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction by Jamie Kreiner (2023).
• Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman (2023).

Self/Revolutionary Improvement

Whatever you want to call the phenomenon of you and others becoming a better person and communist through effort, this section is about.

• DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets by Marsha M. Lineham (2014).
• Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman (2016).

Faith G. Harper has a series on this subject. Her writing style is very Reddit/Tumblr “Buckle up, you chucklefucks. Your brain is a real douchecanoe sometimes that can’t even, and that fucking sucks.” She isn’t necessarily a capitalist, but I would not describe her as especially socialist either, though that’s about as good as we’re going to get in the raging vortex of awfulness that is the modern self-help industry. She also has books on how to give great head, which won’t be on this list, but you can check that out at your leisure.

• Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers
• Unfuck Your Adulting: Give Yourself Permission, Carry Your Own Baggage, Don’t Be a Dick, Make Decisions, & Other Life Skills
• Unfuck Your Boundaries: Build Better Relationships through Consent, Communication, and Expressing Your Needs
• Unfuck Your Intimacy: Using Science for Better Relationships, Sex, and Dating
• Unfuck Your Anger: Using Science to Understand Frustration, Rage, and Forgiveness
• Unfuck Your Grief: Using Science to Heal Yourself and Support Others
• Unfuck Your Anxiety: Using Science to Rewire Your Anxious Brain
• Unfuck Your Shame: Using Science to Accept Our Feelings, Resolve Guilt, and Connect with Ourselves
• Unfuck Your Worth: Overcome Your Money Emotions, Value Your Own Labor, and Manage Financial Freak-outs in a Capitalist Hellscape
• Unfuck Your Burnout: How to Survive Your Overwhelming Life
• Unfuck Your Stress: Using Science to Cope with Distress and Embrace Excitement
• Unfuck Your Body: Using Science to Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Move, and Feel Better
• How to Be Accountable: Take Responsibility to Change Your Behavior, Boundaries, and Relationships
• Coping Skills: Tools & Techniques for Every Stressful Situation

Global, Regional, and National Histories and Politics

I find it hard to make a solid distinction between history and current-day politics (and frankly I don’t fancy having to re-do this list every year if I instated a 20-year rule or something) so I’m just going to lump them all together. This list will feature several books from other sections because of how broad it is.

General World Histories

World History

Any book that covers a very wide stretch of time, usually at least a millennium. Some are just general histories while others are focussed on how specific aspects of society evolved, such as David Graeber’s Debt.

• A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium, by Chris Harman (1999).
• Global History: A View from the South by Samir Amin (2010).
• Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber (2011).
• A Marxist History of the World: From Neanderthals to Neoliberals by Neil Faulkner (2013).
• The End of the Megamachine: A Brief History of a Failing Civilization, by Fabian Scheidler (2015).
• A Radical History of the World by Neil Faulkner (2018). Unsure if this is a development on the previous book or a retelling from another perspective, or what.
• How the World Works: The Story of Human Labor from Prehistory to the Modern Day by Paul Cockshott (2019).
• The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette Steeves (2021).
• The Earth Transformed: An Untold History by Peter Frankopan (2023).

Pre-Modern History

The pre-modern era is usually defined as before AD 1500.

• The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World by Cyprian Broodbanks (2013)

• 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline (2014).

• The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 by Peter Brown (1971).

• Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism by Perry Anderson (1974).

• The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021).

Modern History

The modern era is usually defined as after AD 1500.

Fernand Braudel wrote a three-part series on history from the 15th to 18th centuries:

• Civilization and Capitalism, Volume 1: The Structure of Everyday Life
• Civilization and Capitalism, Volume 2: The Wheels of Commerce
• Civilization and Capitalism, Volume 3: The Perspective of the World

Eric Hobsbawn wrote a four-part series on history from the late 18th century onwards:

• The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848
• The Age of Capital: 1848–1875
• The Age of Empire: 1875–1914
• The Age of Extremes: 1914–1991

Other books that deal mostly with pre-20th century events include:

• Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis (2000).
• After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 by John Darwin (2007).
• The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century by Jürgen Osterhammel (2009).

These books mostly focus on the 20th century:

• The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times by Giovanni Arrighi (1994).
• The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad (2007).
• The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South by Vijay Prashad (2012).
• Red Star Over the Third World by Vijay Prashad (2017).
• The Long Revolution of the Global South: Toward a New Anti-Imperialist International by Samir Amin (2019).

World War 1

While it’s difficult to separate the history of the state and the history of the war during total wars, the more strictly military books will be placed here regardless of the state, while books more on the domestic and economic conditions during the wars will be in their respective national sections. Same goes for the World War 2 section. I might change my mind on how to categorize these books as more literature comes in.

• Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie (1991). This guy might be a lib, but he talks a lot about the naval history of WW1, which is a significant niche.
• Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie (2003). See above.
• The Great Class War 1914-1918 by Jacques R. Pauwels (2014).
• Lawrence of Arabia’s War: The Arabs, the British and the Remaking of the Middle East in WWI by Neil Faulkner (2016).

World War 2

These books focus on general history:

• The Second World War: A Marxist History by Chris Bambery (2014).

These books focus on the Eastern Front:

• The American West and the Nazi East: A Comparative and Interpretive Perspective by Carroll Kakel (2011).
• The Holocaust as Colonial Genocide: Hitler’s ‘Indian Wars’ in the ‘Wild East’ by Carroll Kakel (2013).
• The Italian War on the Eastern Front, 1941–1943: Operations, Myths and Memories by Matteo Scianna (2019).

David Glantz wrote all about the Eastern Front:

• Operation Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia 1941
• Barbarossa Derailed: The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941
• To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942
• Armageddon in Stalingrad: September - November 1942
• Endgame at Stalingrad: Book One: November 1942
• Endgame at Stalingrad: Book Two: December 1942–-February 1943
• After Stalingrad: The Red Army’s Winter Offensive, 1942-1943
• The Battle for Kursk, 1943: The Soviet General Staff Study
• When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler

The Cold War

• The Cold War’s Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace by Paul Thomas Chamberlin (2018).

Regional Histories

Multi-Region

• Against Colonization and Rural Dispossession: Local Resistance in South & East Asia, the Pacific & Africa edited by Dip Kapoor (2017).
• Research, Political Engagement and Dispossession: Indigenous, Peasant and Urban Poor Activisms In the Americas and Asia edited by Dip Kapoor (2019).

Europe

These books focus on general history:

• Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World by David Landes (1983).
• The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 by Michael Hogan (1987).
• The Measure of Reality: Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600 by Alfred Crosby (1988).
• Whores in History: Prostitution in Western Society by Nickie Roberts (1992).
• Waiting for the Weekend by Witold Rybczynski (1992).
• Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft by Robin Briggs (1996).
• NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe by Ganser Daniele (2004).
• Liberating Sapmi: Indigenous Resistance in Europe’s Far North by Gabriel Kuhn (2020).
• On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dodds Pennock (2023).

These books focus on left-wing movements:

• The Western Soviets: Workers’ Councils Versus Parliament, 1915-20 by Donny Gluckstein (1985).
• Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849 by Christopher Clark (2023).

North America

• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann (2005).
• 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles Mann (2011).
• The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean by Gerald Horne (2018).

Latin America

These books focus on general history:

• Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano (1971).
• The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America by Michael Taussig (1980).
• Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America by James Dunkerley (1988).
• Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice by Francesca Miller (1991).
• The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism To Three Continents by John Dinges (2004).
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann (2005).
• Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, The United States, And the Rise of the New Imperialism by Greg Grandin (2006).
• The Wandering Signifier: Rhetoric of Jewishness in the Latin American Imaginary by Erin Graff Zivin (2008).
• History of Modern Latin America: 1800 to the Present by Teresa Meade (2010).
• Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America by Benjamin Dangl (2010).
• 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles Mann (2011).
• Crisis and Contradiction: Marxist Perspectives on Latin America in the Global Political Economy by Jeffery R. Webber and Susan Spronk (2014).
• A Perfect Storm in the Amazon: Volume 1: The Conventional Economy and the Drivers of Change by Timothy J. Killeen (2022).

These books focus on left-wing movements:

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope by Tariq Ali (2006).
• Dispatches from Latin America: Experiments Against Neoliberalism by Vijay Prashad and Teo Ballvé (2006).
• What Is New and What Is Left of the Economic Policies of the New Left Governments of Latin America? by Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid and Igor Paunovic (2008).
• The New Mole: Paths of the Latin American Left by Emir Sader (2009).
• A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America’s Long Cold War by Gilbert M. Joseph and Greg Grandin (2010).
• The Distinguishing Features of Latin America’s New Left in Power: The Chávez, Morales, and Correa Governments by Steve Ellner (2012).
• The New Latin American Left: Cracks in the Empire by Jeffery R. Webber (2012).
• Latin America’s Radical Left: Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-first Century by Steve Ellner (2014).
• Interpreting the Internet: Feminist and Queer Counterpublics in Latin America by Elisabeth Friedman (2016).
• Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings by Steve Ellner (2019).
• The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same: The Politics and Economics of the New Latin American Left by Jeffery R. Webber (2017).
• Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolutions by Marc Becker (2017).

Africa

These books focus on general history:

• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney (1972).
• Essays on the Political Economy of Africa by Giovanni Arrighi and John S. Saul (1973).
• Africa and the Modern World by Immanuel Wallerstein (1986).
• The Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham (1990).
• Africa: The Politics of Independence and Unity by Immanuel Wallerstein (2005).
• Development as Modernity, Modernity as Development by Siyabonga Lushaba (2006).
• Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe by Gerard Prunier (2008).
• Aid to Africa: Redeemer or Coloniser? by Samir Amin et al (2009).
• Tomorrow’s Battlefield : U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa by Nick Turse (2015).
• How Africa Developed Europe by Nkwazi Nkuzi Mhango (2018).
• Extracting Profit: Imperialism, Neoliberalism and the New Scramble for Africa by Lee Wengraf (2018).
• White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa by Susan Williams (2021).
• Economic and Monetary Sovereignty in 21st Century Africa by Maha Ben Gadha (2022).

These books focus on left-wing movements:

• Henry Sylvester Williams and the Origins of the Pan-African Movement, 1869-1911 by Hollis Lynch (1976).
• Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Paul Farmer (2020).
• Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney (2022)
• Revolutionary Movements in Africa: An Untold Story by Pascal Bianchini (2023).
• Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics by Kevin Okoth (2023).

Also check out John S. Saul’s literature on eastern and southern Africa:

• The State and Revolution in Eastern Africa (1979).
• Millennial Africa: Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy (2001).
• The Next Liberation Struggle: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy in South Africa (2005)
• Decolonization and Empire: Contesting the Rhetoric and Reality of Resubordination in Southern Africa and Beyond (2008).
• A Flawed Freedom: Rethinking Southern African Liberation (2014).
• On Building a Social Movement: The North American Campaign for Southern African Liberation Revisited (2017)
• Revolutionary Hope vs Free-Market Fantasies: Keeping the Southern Africa Liberation Struggle Alive – Theory, Practice, Context (2021)

Western Asia

These books focus on general history:

• Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran by Parvaneh Pourshariati (2008).

• The Mongols and the Islamic World – From Conquest to Conversion by Peter Jackson (2017).

• Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work by Billie Melman (2016).

• The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World by Nawal El Saadawi (1977).

• In Search of Arab Unity 1930-1945 by Yehoshua Porath (1986).

• Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society by Hisham Sharabi (1988).

• American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945 by Douglas Little (2002).

• Iraq, Afghanistan and Imperialism of Our Time by Aijaz Ahmad (2004).

• Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II by Lloyd C. Gardner (2009).

• The Iran Connection: Understanding the Alliance with Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas by Amal Saad (2012).

• Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East by Paul Amar and Vijay Prashad (2013).

• Lawrence of Arabia’s War: The Arabs, the British and the Remaking of the Middle East in WWI by Neil Faulkner (2016).

• The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, Isis, and Donald Trump by Max Blumenthal (2019).

• Empire and Jihad: The Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 by Neil Faulkner (2021).

• The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power by Vijay Prashad (2022).

These books focus on left-wing movements:

• The Sickle and the Minaret: Communist Successor Parties in Yemen and Afghanistan after the Cold War by John Ishivama (2005).

Central Asia

• The Successors of Genghis Khan by Rashid al-Din (1971).
• The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan (2015).
• The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan (2018).

East Asia

• The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott (2009).
• Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Vol.2: People Power in the Philippines, Burma, Tibet, China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia, 1947-2009 by George Katsiaficas (2013).
• The Colonisation and Settlement of Taiwan, 1684-1945: Land Tenure, Law and Qing and Japanese Policies by Ruiping Ye (2018).
• Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire by Timothy Harper (2020).

National Histories and Politics

Afghanistan

• Revolutionary Afghanistan by Beverly Male (1982).
• Afghanistan - Washington’s Secret War by Philip Bonosky (1985).
• Iraq, Afghanistan and Imperialism of Our Time by Aijaz Ahmad (2004).
• The Sickle and the Minaret: Communist Successor Parties in Yemen and Afghanistan after the Cold War by John Ishivama (2005).
• Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan by Jerome Klassen and Gregory Albo (2013).
• The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold by Tariq Ali (2021).

Albania

• Pickaxe and Rifle: The Story of the Albanian People by William Ash (1971).
• Albania at War, 1939–1945 by Bernd J. Fischer (1999).
• The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania (1944-1975) by Luan Omari and Stefanaq Pollo (1988).
• The Anglo-American threat to Albania: Memoirs of the National Liberation War by Enver Hoxha (1982).
• A Coming of Age: Albania Under Enver Hoxha by James S. O’Donnell (1999).

Algeria

• A Dying Colonialism by Frantz Fanon (1959).
• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961).
• A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954–1962 by Alistair Horne (1977).

Andorra

Nothing here yet…

Angola

• Slaves, Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola: 1840-1926 by William Gervase Clarence-Smith (1979).

Antigua and Barbuda

Nothing here yet…

Argentina

Nothing here yet…

Armenia

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1920-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Australia

• The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes (1986).
• Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture by Bruce Pascoe (2014).
• How Labour Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project by Elizabeth Humphrys (2018).

Austria

Nothing here yet…

Azerbaijan

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1920-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Bahamas

Nothing here yet…

Bahrain

Nothing here yet…

Bangladesh

• The Political Economy of NGOs: State Formation in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Jude L. Fernando (2011).

Barbados

Nothing here yet…

Belarus

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1922-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Belgium

• Political History of Belgium: From 1830 Onwards by Els Witte, Jan Craeybeckx, and Alain Meynen (2000).

Belize

Nothing here yet…

Benin

Nothing here yet…

Bhutan

Nothing here yet…

Bolivia

• Latin America’s Left Turn and the New Strategic Landscape: The Case of Bolivia by James Rochlin (2007).
• Bolivia’s Radical Tradition: Permanent Revolution in the Andes by S. Sandor John (2009).
• Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia by Jeffery R. Webber (2011).
• From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation, and the Politics of Evo Morales by Jeffery R. Webber (2011).

Bosnia and Herzegovina

This country was part of Yugoslavia over the period 1945-1992, so check out the Yugoslavia section.

Nothing here yet…

Botswana

• Self-Devouring Growth: A Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa by Julie Livingston (2019).

Brazil

A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth Century Rio de Janeiro by Brodwyn Fischer (2008).

Brunei

Nothing here yet…

Bulgaria

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1946-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Burkina Faso

Nothing here yet…

Burundi

Nothing here yet…

Cabo Verde

Nothing here yet…

Cambodia

Nothing here yet…

Cameroon

Nothing here yet…

Canada

These books focus more on Canada’s domestic situation:

• Prison of Grass: Canada from a Native Point of View by Howard Adams (1975).
• Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada by Ian Angus (1981).
• A Tortured People: The Politics of Colonization by Howard Adams (1995).
• Reading the Entrails: An Alberta Ecohistory by Norman Conrad (1999).
• The Tragedy of Progress: Marxism, Modernity and the Aboriginal Question by David Bedford and Danielle Irving-Stephens (2001).
• Cops, Crime and Capitalism: The Law and Order Agenda in Canada by Todd Gordon (2006).
• Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Aboriginal Life by James Daschuk (2013).
• A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation by Yves Engler (2016).
• Responding to Human Trafficking: Dispossession, Colonial Violence and Resistence among Indigenous and Racialised Women by Julie Kaye (2017).
• Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming – in Alberta, and in Ottawa by Kevin Taft (2017).
• 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph (2018).
• Organizing the 1%: How Corporate Power Works by William Carrol and J.P. Sapinski (2018).
• Policing Indigenous Movements: Dissent and the Security State by Andrew Crosby (2018).
• Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People′s History of the Canadian Military by Yves Engler (2021).
• The Summer Canada Burned: The Wildfire Season that Shocked the World by Monica Zurowski (2023).

These books focus more on Canada’s foreign role:

• Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority by Yves Engler (2006).
• The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy by Yves Engler (2009).
• Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid by Yves Engler (2010).
• Imperialist Canada by Todd Gordon (2010).
• The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy by Yves Engler (2012).
• Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan by Jerome Klassen and Gregory Albo (2013).
• Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation by Yves Engler (2015).
• Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America by Todd Gordon and Jeffrey R. Webber (2016).
• Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination by Tyler Shipley (2020).

Central African Republic

Nothing here yet…

Chad

Nothing here yet…

Chile

• Chile: Lessons of the Coup - Which Way to Workers’ Power? by Gerry Hedley and Tariq Ali (1977).
• Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile by Eden Medina (2011).
• 1000 Days of Revolution: Chilean Communists on the Lessons of Popular Unity by various authors (2018).
• The Santiago Boys podcast, which focuses on Allende’s efforts to create a socialist planned economy via Cybersyn.

China

These books focus on general Chinese history:

• China: A History by John Keay (2008).
• Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization by Anita Chan (2009). A microcosm of a changing China.

Jean Chesneaux wrote a three-part series on China:

• China from the Opium Wars to the 1911 Revolution
• China From The 1911 Revolution to Liberation
• China: The People’s Republic, 1949-1976

These books mostly focus on WW2, the Chinese Revolution, and Mao:

• Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow (1937).
• Fanshen by William Hinton (1966).
• Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic by Maurice Meisner (1977).
• Wind in the Tower: Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1949-75 by Han Suyin (1978).
• The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution by Mobo Gao (2008).
• The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village by Dongping Han (2008).
• Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China’s New Class by Joel Andreas (2009).
• Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History by Rebecca E. Karl (2010).
• The Cultural Revolution at the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis by Yiching Wu (2014).
• China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China 1937-1952 by Hans van de Ven (2017).
• Negotiating Socialism in Rural China: Mao, Peasants and Local Cadres in Shanxi, 1949-1953 by Xiaojia Hou (2018).

These books mostly focus on the post-Mao period up to the present day:

• China’s Socialist Economy by Xue Muqiao (1981).
• The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought by Wang Hui (2004).
• Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century by Giovanni Arrighi (2007).
• The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity by Wang Hui (2009).
• Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel (2011).
• China’s Twentieth Century: Revolution, Retreat, and the Road to Equality by Wang Hui (2016).
• Marxism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics by Jin Huiming (2017).
• Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi by Christian Sorace (2019).
• I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China by Ramin Mazaheri (2019).
• Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners by Roland Boer (2021).
• China’s Great Road: Lessons for Marxist Theory and Socialist Practices by John Ross (2021).
• Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development by Tiejun Wen (2021).
• The East is Still Red - Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century by Carlos Martinez (2023).
• China and the American Lake by Mark Tseng Putterman - an article (2021).

These books focus on women:

• Women of China: Imperialism and Women’s Resistance by Bobby Siu (1982).

Colombia

Nothing here yet…

Comoros

Nothing here yet…

Congo-Brazzaville

Nothing here yet…

Costa Rica

Nothing here yet…

Cote D’Ivoire

• The Road to Independence: Ghana and the Ivory Coast by Immanuel Wallerstein (1964).

Croatia

This country was part of Yugoslavia over the period 1945-1991, so check out the Yugoslavia section.

Nothing here yet…

Cuba

These books focus on the Cuban Revolution and its pre-1990 history.

• Women and the Cuban Revolution by Fidel Castro (1970).
• People’s Power: Cuba’s Experience with Representative Government by Peter Roman (1999).
• My Life: A Spoken Autobiography by Fidel Castro (2006).
• Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution by H. Yaffe (2009).
• A History of the Cuban Revolution by Aviva Chomsky (2010).

These books focus on Cuba after the fall of the USSR:

• Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba by Leslie Feinberg (2009).
• Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion by Arnold August (2013).
• Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture From the Ground Up by Carey Clouse (2014).
• We Are Cuba!: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World by Helen Yaffe (2019).
• How the Workers’ Parliaments Saved the Cuban Revolution: Reviving Socialism After the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Pedro Ross (2022).

Cyprus

Nothing here yet…

Czechia

Czechia was part of Czechoslovakia (which was itself part of the Soviet Union for most of its history) over the period 1945-1992, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

These books focus on the Korean War:

• This Monstrous War by Wilfred G. Burchett (1953).
• The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam (2007).
• Korea’s Grievous War by Su-kyoung Hwang (2016).
• Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom by Stephen Gowans (2018).

These books focus on post-war history and politics:

• Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings (1997).
• North Korea: Another Country by Bruce Cumings (2003).
• Understanding North Korea by Stephen Gowans - an article (2007).

For more on the DPRK, including articles and documentaries, visit the DPRK Study Guide. Also useful is Blowback Season 3 and their source list.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

These books focus on general DRC history:

• The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (2002).

These books focus on the colonial period:

• Colonialism in the Congo Basin, 1880–1940 by Samuel H. Nelson (1994).
• King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (1998).

These books focus on the post-independence period:

• Lumumba Speaks: Speeches and Writings, 1958-61 (1974).
• The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo by Ernesto Che Guevara (1997).
• The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte (1999).
• Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns (2011).
• Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus by Ben Radley (2023).

Denmark

Nothing here yet…

Djibouti

Nothing here yet…

Dominica

Nothing here yet…

Dominican Republic

Nothing here yet…

Ecuador

• Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements by Marc Becker (2008).
• In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900–1995 by Steve Striffler (2021).

Egypt

• Egypt’s Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolution by Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956).
• Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt by Margot Badran (1995).
• Nasser: The Last Arab by Said K. Aburish (2004).

El Salvador

Nothing here yet…

Equatorial Guinea

Nothing here yet…

Eritrea

• Dangerous Liaisons: Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea, 1890–1941 by Giulia Barrera (2018).

Estonia

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1944-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Eswatini

Nothing here yet…

Ethiopia

• The Economy of Ethiopia by Keith Griffin (1992).

• A History of Ethiopia by Harold G. Marcus (1994).

• History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991 by Bahru Zewde (2001).

• The Quest for Socialist Utopia: The Ethiopian Student Movement, c. 1960-1974 by Bahru Zewde (2014).

• Native Colonialism: Education and the Economy of Violence Against Traditions in Ethiopia by Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes (2017).

• The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame by Ian Campbell (2017).

Fiji

Nothing here yet…

Finland

State and Revolution in Finland by Risto Alapuro (1988).

France

These books focus on the French Revolution:

• Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution by Robert Roswell Palmer (1941).
• A People’s History of the French Revolution by Eric Hazan (2014).

These books focus on 19th century French history:

• The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx (1852).
• The Paris Commune: A Brief History by Carolyn J. Eichner (2022).
• Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 by Eugen Weber (1976).

These books focus on 20th and 21st French history:

• France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values by Ramin Mazaheri (2022).

Gabon

Nothing here yet…

Gambia

Nothing here yet…

Georgia

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1922-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Germany

These books focus on pre-WW2 German history and politics:

• The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918 to 1923 by Chris Harman (1997).
• The German Revolution: 1917-1923 by Pierre Broue (2003).
• The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism by Casper Erichsen and David Olusoga (2010).
• All Power to the Councils!: A Documentary History of the German Revolution 1918-1919 by Gabriel Kuhn (2012).
• Export Empire: German Soft Power in Southeastern Europe, 1890-1945 by Stephen G. Gross (2015).

These books focus on Nazi Germany. Books focussing on the fighting in WW2 specifically will be in that section above; the more economic parts and the genocides will be featured here.

• Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin (1936).
• Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism by Franze Neumann (1942).
• Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism by Alfred Sohn-Rethel (1978).
• Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult by Peter Levanda (1995).
• Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America Made the Third Reich by Guido Giacomo Preparata (2005).
• The American West and the Nazi East: A Comparative and Interpretive Perspective by Carroll Kakel (2011).
• The Holocaust as Colonial Genocide: Hitler’s ‘Indian Wars’ in the ‘Wild East’ by Carroll Kakel (2013).
• Borrowing from Mussolini: Nazi Germany’s Colonial Aspirations in the Shadow of Italian Expansionism by Patrick Bernhard (2013).
• Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Whitman (2017).

These books focus on post-Nazi Germany history and politics:

• Stasi State or Socialist Paradise by Bruni De la Motte and John Green (2015).

Ghana

• The Gold Coast Revolution - The Struggle of An African People from Slavery to Freedom by George Padmore (1953).
• The Road to Independence: Ghana and the Ivory Coast by Immanuel Wallerstein (1964).

Greece

• The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests by G. E. M. de Ste. Croix (1981).

• Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still to Come by Antonis Vradis and Dimitris Dalakoglou (2011).

Grenada

Nothing here yet…

Guatemala

• Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution And The United States, 1944-1954 by Piero Gleijeses (1991).
• The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation by Greg Grandin (2000).

Guinea

Nothing here yet…

Guinea-Bissau

• The Liberation of Guine: Aspects of an African Revolution by Basil Davidson (1969).
• Our People Are Our Mountains: Amilcar Cabral on the Guinean Revolution (1972).
• Sowing the First Harvest: National Reconstruction in Guinea-Bissau by the LSM Information Center (1978).
• Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral (1979).
• Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea-Bissau by Stephanie Urdang (1979).
• Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher Jr. (2013).
• Amílcar Cabral: The Life of a Reluctant Nationalist by António Tomás (2021).

Guyana

• A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905 by Walter Rodney (1980).

Haiti

These books focus on the Haitian Revolution and early Haitian history:

• The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C. L. R. James (1938).
• Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution by Laurent Dubois (2004).
• The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution by Julius Scott (2018).

These books focus on more recent Haitian history:

• AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame: Haiti and the Geography of Blame by Paul Farmer (1992).
• Uses of Haiti by Paul Farmer (1994).
• Haiti After the Earthquake by Paul Farmer (2011).

Honduras

Nothing here yet…

Hungary

Nothing here yet…

Iceland

Nothing here yet…

India

A long series on Indian history by Irfan Habib. Several volumes don’t appear in any searches online.

• A People’s History of India 1: Prehistory
• A People’s History of India 2 – The Indus Civilization
• A People’s History of India 3 – The Vedic Age
• A People’s History of India 4:The Age of Iron and the Religious Revolution
• A People’s History of India 5: Mauryan India
• A People’s History of India 6 – Post Mauryan India
• A People’s History of India 7: Society and Culture in Post-Mauryan India
• A People’s History of India 14: Economic History of India: The Period of the Delhi Sultanate and the Vijayanagara Empire
• A People’s History of India 20: Technology in Medieval India
• A People’s History of India 23: The Establishment of British Rule
• A People’s History of India 25: Indian Economy Under Early British Rule
• A People’s History of India 28: Indian Economy, 1858–1914
• A People’s History of India 30: The National Movement
• A People`s History of India 31: The National Movement, Part 2: The Struggle for Freedom
• A People`s History of India 36: Man and Environment

These books focus on India under foreign occupation and rule:

• Annihilation of Caste by B. R. Ambedkar (1936).
• Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 by Antoinette Burton (1994).
• The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India by Philip J. Stern (2011).
• Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor (2017).
• The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple (2019).

These books focus on post-colonial history and politics:

• The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan by Robert J. McMahon (1994).
• Castes of Mind – Colonialism and the Making of Modern India by Nicholas B. Dirks (2001).
• Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism Under US Hegemony by Vijay Prashad (2003).
• Gender and Neoliberalism: The All India Democratic Women’s Association and Globalization Politics by Elisabeth Armstrong (2013).
• Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation by Hafsa Kanjwal (2023).

These books focus on left-wing movements:

• The Communist Party in Kerala: Six Decades of Struggle and Advance by E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1994).
• Walking with the Comrades by Arundhati Roy (2011).
• No Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism by Vijay Prashad (2015).
• Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas by Alpa Shah (2018).

Indonesia

• Bandung in the Early Revolution, 1945-1946: A Study in the Social History of the Indonesian Revolution by John R.W. Smail (1964).
• Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno: Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965 by Rex Mortimer (1974).
• The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins (2020).

Iran

• All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer (2003).
• The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations by Ervand Abrahamian (2013).
• Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism by Ramin Mazaheri (2020).

Iraq

These books focus on general history:

• The Modern History of Iraq by Phebe Marr (1985).

These books focus on the Iraq War:

• Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq by Tariq Ali (2004).
• Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2006).
• Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians by Chris Hedges (2008).

Ireland

• Ireland Her Own: An Outline History of the Irish Struggle for National Freedom and Independence by T. A. Jackson (1946).
• The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Fein by Brendan O’Brien (1995).

Israel/Palestine

The Decolonize Palestine reading list is an invaluable resource for literature on many facets of Palestine. I will be using it almost in full, with some books shifted to other sections and others not included, such as autobiographies, novels, fiction, and culture (such as poetry and food). It is available here for those interested in the parts I left out: https://decolonizepalestine.com/reading-list/

The reading list recommends these three books as an introduction to Palestine:

• The Question of Palestine by Edward Said (1992).
• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (2007).
• The Hundred Years’ War On Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi (2020).

I would add:

• Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom by Norman Finkelstein (2018).
• Palestine: A Socialist Introduction by Sumaya Awad and Brian Bean (2020).

These books are general histories:

• A Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Ibrahim A. Abu-Lughod (1971).
• Palestinians in the Arab World: Institution Building and the Search for State by Laurie A. Brand (1988).
• The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood by Rashid Khalidi (2007).
• The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries by Rosemary Sayigh (2013).
• Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha (2018).

These books focus on pre-Nakba Palestine:

• The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine by Ghassan Kanafani (1972).
• Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948 by Walid Khalidi (1984).
• From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948 by Walid Khalidi (1987)
• The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism by Muhammed Y. Muslih (1988).
• Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine by Avi Shlaim (1988).
• Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 by Beshara Doumani (1995).
• Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948 by Zachary Lockman (1996).
• Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness by Rashid Khalidi (2010).
• Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean by Basem Ra’ad (2010).
• Revolt in Palestine in the Eighteenth Century: The Era of Shaykh Zahir al-’Umar by Ahmad Hasan Joudah (2013).
• The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge by Ilan Pappe (2014).
• Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times by Lorenzo Kamel (2015).
• The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate, and Resistance in Palestine by Bernard Regan (2017).
• A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine by Ingrid Hjelm (2019).

These books focus on the Nakba:

• All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 by Walid Khalidi, Sharif S. Elmusa, and Muhammad Ali Khalidi (1992).
• Expulsion of the Palestinians by Nur Masalha (1992).
• The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem by Nur Masalha (2003).
• Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory by Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod (2007).
• Palestine Rising: How I Survived the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre by Dawud Assad (2010).
• The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory by Nur Masalha (2012).
• An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha (2018).

These books focus on post-Nakba history and politics:

• Intifada: the Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation by Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin (1989).
• A Land Without A People: Israel, Transfer, and the Palestinians 1949-96 by Nur Masalha (1997).
• The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians by Joseph Massad (2006).
• Palestinian Politics After Arafat: A Failed National Movement by As’ad Ganim (2010).
• The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination 1969-1994 by Edward Said (2012).
• Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism, and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Virginia Tilley (2012).
• Under Siege: PLO Decision-making During the 1982 War by Rashid Khalidi (2013).
• Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe (2013).
• On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe (2015).

These books focus on gender and the LGBTQIA+ movement:

• Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East: A Palestinian Case-Study by Nadera Shalhoub Kevorkian (2009).

• Arab and Arab-American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, and Belonging by Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Alsultany, and Nadine Naber (2011).

• Israel’s Dead Soul by Steven Salaiti (2011).

• Captive Resolution: Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle Within the Israeli Prison System by Nahla Abdo-Zubi (2014).

• In The Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism by Sara R. Farris (2017).

• Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times by Jasbir K. Puar (2007).

• Displaced At Home: Ethnicity and Gender Among Palestinians in Israel by Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh and Isis Nusair (2010).

• “Even a Freak Like You Would Be Safe in Tel Aviv”: Transgender Subjects, Wounded Attachments, and the Zionist Economy of Gratitude by Saffo Papantonopoulou (2014).

• Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique by Sa’ed Atshan (2020).

These books focus on Palestinians inside the green line:

• Palestinian-Arab Minority in Israel, 1948-2000 by As’ad Ghanem (2001).
• Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine by Oren Yiftachel (2006).
• Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy by Ben White and Zoabi Haneen (2012).
• Israel and its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State by Sahar S. Huneidi (2017).
• The Naqab Bedouins: A Century of Politics and Resistance by Mansour Nasasra (2017).

These books focus on media and censorship, including hasbara narratives:

• Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question by Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens (2001).
• Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman Finkelstein (2003).
• Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History by Norman Finkelstein (2008).
• Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom by Steven Salaita (2015).
• Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image, and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine by Dina Matar and Zahera Harb (2013).
• Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe (2017).
• The Palestinian Exception to Academic Freedom: Intertwined Stories from the Frontlines of UK-Based Palestine Activism by Rebecca Ruth Gould and Malaka Shwaikh (2020).
• Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel by David Landy, Ronit Lentin, and Conor McCarthy (2020).

These books focus on activism, social movements, and resistance:

• Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine by the PFLP (1969).
• Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti (2011).
• In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine by Nora Barrows-Friedman (2014).
• Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis (2016).
• Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics by Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick (2021).

These books focus on the one-state solution, the “peace” process, and political economy:

• One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israel-Palestinian Impasse by Ali Abunimah (2006).

• Where Now For Palestine? The Demise of the Two State Solution by Jamil Hilal (2007).

• The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough For Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock by Virginia Tilley (2010).

• The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abunimah (2014).

• The Re-Emergence of the Single State Solution in Palestine/Israel: Countering an Illusion by Cherine Hussein (2015).

• Rethinking the Politics of Israel/Palestine: Partition and Its Alternatives by Bashir Bashir and Azar Dakwar (2014).

• Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky (1983).

• Dishonest Broker: The Role of the United States in Palestine and Israel by Naseer H. Aruri (2003).

• The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine by Tikva Honig-Parnass (2011).

• Peace and its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process by Edward Said (2012).

• Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Jeremy R. Hammond (2016).

• The Emergence of a Palestinian Globalized Elite by Sari Hanafi and Linda Tabar (2005).

• Palestinian Labour Migration to Israel: Labour, Land, and Occupation by Leila Farsakh (2005).

• The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation by Shir Hever (2010).

• The Political Economy of Aid in Palestine: Relief From Conflict or Development Delayed? by Sahar Taghdisi-Rad (2010).

• Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond by Mandy Turner and Omar Shweiki (2014).

• Palestine Ltd.: Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Occupied Territory by Toufic Haddad (2016).

• The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development by Sara Roy (2016).

• Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel by Andrew Ross (2019).

These books focus on Zionism and anti-semitism:

• Zionist Colonialism in Palestine by Fayez Abdullah Sayegh (1965).
• Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany by Faris Glubb (1978).
• The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman Finkelstein (2000).
• Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History by Norman Finkelstein (2005).
• The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians by Joseph Massad (2006).
• Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal (2013).
• On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements by Ella Shohat (2017).
• Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom by Maya Wind (2024).

These books focus on surveillance:

• Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine: Population, Territory, and Power by Elia Zureik, David Lyon, and Yasmeen Abu-Laban (2010).
• Security Theology, Surveillance, and the Politics of Fear by Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2015).
• War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification by Jeff Halper (2015).

Italy

These books focus on the Roman Empire:

• The Assassination of Julius Caesar by Michael Parenti (2003).

These books focus on Italy in the WW1 and WW2 period:

• Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism by J. M. Cammett (1967).

• Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971).

• Under the Axe of Fascism by Gaetano Salvemini (1936).

• Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin (1936).

• The Rise of Italian Fascism: 1918-1922 by Angelo Rossi (1938).

• How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-1945 by Victoria de Grazia (1992).

• Italian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism: The Political Development of the Industrial Bourgeoisie, 1906-34 by Franklin Hugh Adler (1995).

• Mussolini’s Camps: Civilian Internment in Fascist Italy (1940–1943) by Carlo Spartaco Capogreco (2006).

• Behind the Battle Lines: Italian Atrocities and the Persecution of Arabs, Berbers, and Jews in North Africa during World War II by Patrick Bernhard (2012).

• The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame by Ian Campbell (2017).

• An Institutional History of Italian Economics in the Interwar Period ― Volume I: Adapting to the Fascist Regime by Massimo M. Augello, Marco E. L. Guidi, and Fabrizo Bientinesi (2019).

• An Institutional History of Italian Economics in the Interwar Period — Volume II: The Economics Profession and Fascist Institutions by Massimo M. Augello, Marco E. L. Guidi, and Fabrizo Bientinesi (2020).

• The Capital Order by Clara E. Mattei (2022).

These books focus on post-fascism history and politics:

• Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy by David Broder (2023).

Jamaica

• Democratic Socialism In Jamaica: The Political Movement & Social Transformation In Dependant Capitalism by J. Stephens (1986).

Japan

These books focus on oppressed groups inside Japan:

• Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir by Shigeru Kayano (1980).
• Peasants, Rebels, Women and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan by Mikiso Hane (1982).
• A History of Discriminated Buraku Communities in Japan by Teraki Nobuaki (2019).

These books focus on pre-WW2 history and politics:

• The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590-1800 by Brett Walker (2001).
• Cultivating Commons: Joint Ownership of Arable Land in Early Modern Japan by Phillip Brown (2011).

These books focus on post-WW2 history and politics:

• Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert Bix (2000).
• The Modern Family in Japan: It’s Rise and Fall by Chizuko Ueno (2009).

Jordan

• Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine by Avi Shlaim (1988).

Kazakhstan

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1936-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Kenya

• Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins (2005).
• Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire by David Anderson (2005).
• The Building of the Communist Party of Kenya by the Communist Party of Kenya (2023).

Kiribati

Nothing here yet…

Kuwait

Nothing here yet…

Kyrgyzstan

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1936-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Laos

• Revolution in Laos: Practice and Prospects by Kaison Phomvihan (1981).

Latvia

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1944-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Lebanon

• A History of Modern Lebanon by Fawwaz Traboulsi (2007).
• Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image, and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine by Dina Matar and Zahera Harb (2013).

Lesotho

Nothing here yet…

Liberia

Nothing here yet…

Libya

• Libya: The Struggle for Survival by Geoff Simons (1993).
• Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya by Matteo Carpasso (2023).

Liechtenstein

Nothing here yet…

Lithuania

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1944-1990, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Luxembourg

Nothing here yet…

Madagascar

• Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar by David Graeber (2007).
• Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber (2019).

Malawi

Nothing here yet…

Malaysia

Nothing here yet…

Maldives

Nothing here yet…

Mali

Nothing here yet…

Malta

Nothing here yet…

Marshall Islands

Nothing here yet…

Mauritania

Nothing here yet…

Mauritius

Nothing here yet…

Mexico

• The Mexican Revolution of 1910 by Edgcumb Pinchon (1944).
• Women and Power in Mexico: The Forgotten Heritage, 1880–1954 by Carmen Ramos Escandón (1998).
• Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt by John Gibler (2009).
• Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture by Oswaldo Zavala (2022).

These books focus more on left wing movements:

• Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico by Bill Weinberg (2000).
• Ya Basta!: 10 Years of the Zapatista Uprising Writings of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos by Subcomandante Marcos (2003).
• The Fire and the Word: A History of the Zapatista Movement by Gloria Muñoz Ramírez (2008).
• Insurgent Marcos: The Political-Philosophical Formation of the Zapatista Subcommander by Nick Henck (2016).

These books focus on women:

• Women and Power in Mexico: The Forgotten Heritage, 1880–1954 by Carmen Ramos Escandón (1998).

Micronesia

Nothing here yet…

Moldova

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1924-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Monaco

Nothing here yet…

Mongolia

• Genghis Khan: A History of the World Conqueror by Ata-Malik Juvayni (1937).
• The Secret History of the Mongols by Christopher Atwood (2023).

Montenegro

This country was part of Yugoslavia over the period 1918-1992, and then connected to Serbia until 2006, so check out the Yugoslavia section.

• To Kill A Nation by Michael Parenti (2000). Apparently has some significant historical inaccuracies.
• Fool’s Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions by Diana Johnstone (2002).

Morocco

Nothing here yet…

Mozambique

• A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique by John S. Saul (1985).

Myanmar

Nothing here yet…

Namibia

• Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword by John S. Saul and Colin Leys (1995).

Nauru

Nothing here yet…

Nepal

Nothing here yet…

Netherlands

Nothing here yet…

New Zealand

Nothing here yet…

Nicaragua

Nothing here yet…

Niger

Nothing here yet…

Nigeria

• Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria by Michael Watts (1983).
• Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights, and Oil by Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas (2001). Lib Warning: Ike Okonta has explicitly stated that they believe that poor African leadership, not colonization or similar factors, is the reason why Africa remains so impoverished and exploited.

North Macedonia

This country was part of Yugoslavia over the period 1945-1991, so check out the Yugoslavia section.

Nothing here yet…

Norway

• Industrial Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Europe: Norway in Context by Hans Otto Frøland, Mats Ingulstad, and Jonas Scherner (2016)

Oman

Nothing here yet…

Pakistan

• The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan by Robert J. McMahon (1994).
• The Class Structure of Pakistan by Taimur Rahman (2012).
• Dispatches from Pakistan by Madiha R. Tahir, Qalander Bux Memon, and Vijay Prashad (2014).
• Uprising in Pakistan: How to Bring Down a Dictatorship by Tariq Ali (2018).

Palau

Nothing here yet…

Panama

Nothing here yet…

Papua New Guinea

Nothing here yet…

Paraguay

Nothing here yet…

Peru

Nothing here yet…

Philippines

• The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines by Benedict J. Kerkvliet (1977).
• Rise and Fall of Marcos Fascist Dictatorship, an article by Jose Maria Sison (2012).

Poland

• Privatising Poland: Baby Food, Big Business and the Remaking of Labour by Elizabeth Dunn (2004).

Portugal

Nothing here yet…

Qatar

Nothing here yet…

Romania

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1945-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Russia/Soviet Union

These books focus on general history and politics:

• Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism by Samir Amin (2016).

These books focus on history and politics prior to the Russian Revolution:

• The Development of Capitalism in Russia by Vladimir Lenin (1899).

These books focus on the Russian Revolution:

• 10 Days That Shook The World by John Reed (1919).
• History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky (1930).
• Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917–1918 by S. A. Smith (1983).
• October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Mieville (2017).
• The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World by Walter Rodney (2018).

These books focus on the Soviet Union:

• Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm by Caroline Humphrey (1983).
• Human Rights in the Soviet Union: Including Comparisons with the USA by Albert Syzmanski (1984).
• Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics by Felix Chuev (1993).
• The Soviet Century by Moshe Lewin (2003).
• The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933 by R. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft (2004).
• Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union by Francine Hirsch (2005).
• A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev by Vladislav Zubok (2007). Anti-Stalin, Anti-Khruschev, and anti-Gorbachev, so a real Everyone Here Sucks dude.
• Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo (2008).
• Inside Lenin’s Government: Ideology, Power and Practice in the Early Soviet State by Lara Douds (2018).

These books focus on the fall of the Soviet Union:

• Perestroika: The Complete Collapse of Revisionism by Harpal Brar (1992).
• Heroic Struggle, Bitter Defeat: Factors Contributing to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the Soviet Union by Bahman Azad (2000).
• Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny (2004).
• Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok (2021). Same context as above.

These books focus on post-Soviet Russia:

• Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War by Tony Wood (2018).

These books focus on indigenous history and politics:

• Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North by Yuri Slezkine (1994).
• When the North was Red: Aboriginal Education In Soviet Siberia by Alice L. Bartels and Dennis Bartels (1995).
• Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait by Bathsheba Demuth (2019).

Rwanda

• Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe by Gerard Prunier (2008).

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Nothing here yet…

Saint Lucia

Nothing here yet…

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Nothing here yet…

Samoa

Nothing here yet…

San Marino

Nothing here yet…

Sao Tome and Principe

Nothing here yet…

Saudi Arabia

Nothing here yet…

Senegal

Nothing here yet…

Serbia

This country was part of Yugoslavia over the period 1918-1992, and then connected to Montenegro until 2006, so check out the Yugoslavia section.

• To Kill A Nation by Michael Parenti (2000). Apparently has some significant historical inaccuracies.
• Fool’s Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions by Diana Johnstone (2002).

Seychelles

Nothing here yet…

Sierra Leone

Nothing here yet…

Singapore

• The Aware Saga: Civil Society and Public Morality in Singapore by Terence Chong (2011).

Slovakia

Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia (which was itself part of the Soviet Union for most of its history) over the period 1945-1992, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Slovenia

This country was part of Yugoslavia over the period 1918-1991, so check out the Yugoslavia section.

Nothing here yet…

Solomon Islands

Nothing here yet…

Somalia

Nothing here yet…

South Africa

These books are general histories:

• South Africa - The Present as History: From Mrs Ples to Mandela and Marikana by John S. Saui (2014).

These books focus on apartheid:

• I Write What I Like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko (1978).
• The Crisis in South Africa by John S. Saul and Stephen Gelb (1981).
• Socialist Ideology and the Struggle for Southern Africa by John S. Saul (1990)
• Recolonization and Resistance in Southern Africa in the 1990s by John S. Saul (1994)
• South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid by Nancy Clark and William H. Worger (2004).
• New Histories of South Africa’s Apartheid-Era Bantustans by Shireen Ally and Arianna Lissoni (2017).

These books focus on the post-apartheid period:

• We Are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa by Ashwin Desai (2002).
• Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa by John S. Saul (2011).

South Korea

For books on the Korean War, check out the DPRK’s section.

These books focus on the post-Korean War period:

• Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings (1997).
• South Koreans in the Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare Society by Jesook Song (2009).
• Asia’s Unknown Uprising Volume 1: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century by George Katsiaficas (2012).

South Sudan

Nothing here yet…

Spain

These books focus on the Spanish Civil War:

• The International Non-Intervention Agreement and the Spanish Civil War by Ann Van Wynen Thomas and A. J. Thomas, Jr. (1967).
• The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868–1936 by Murray Bookchin (1976).
• Soviet Intervention in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39: A Reexamination by John McCannon (1995).
• Fascist Italy in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 by Javier Rodrigo (2021).

Sri Lanka

• The Political Economy of NGOs: State Formation in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Jude L. Fernando (2011).

Sudan

Nothing here yet…

Suriname

Nothing here yet…

Sweden

• Riding the Wave: Sweden’s Integration into the Imperialist World System by Torkil Lauesen (2021).

Switzerland

• Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality In World War II by Stephen P. Halbrook (1997).

Syria

• Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe by Charles Glass (2016).

Tajikistan

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1929-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Tanzania

• Revolutionary State-Making in Dar es Salaam: African Liberation and the Global Cold War, 1961–1974 by George Roberts (2021).
• Joan Wicken: A Lifelong Collaboration with Mwalimu Nyerere by Aili M. Tripp (2023).

Nothing here yet…

Thailand

Nothing here yet…

Timor Leste

Nothing here yet…

Togo

Nothing here yet…

Tonga

Nothing here yet…

Trinidad and Tobago

Nothing here yet…

Tunisia

Nothing here yet…

Turkiye

Nothing here yet…

Turkmenistan

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1925-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Tuvalu

Nothing here yet…

Uganda

Nothing here yet…

Ukraine

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1922-1991, and is being (so far partially) annexed by the current Russian Federation, so check out the Russia section.

• Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide, and Cult by Grzegorz Rossolinksi-Liebe (2014).

United Arab Emirates

Nothing here yet…

United Kingdom

These books focus on Britain before the British Empire:

• From Chiefs to Landlords: Social and Economic Change in the Western Isles and Highlands by Robert Dodgshon (1998).
• Pagan Britain by Ronald Hutton (2013).
• The Making of Oliver Cromwell by Ronald Hutton (2021).

These books focus on the British Empire domestically:

• The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714, by Christopher Hill (1961).
• The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thomson (1963).
• The Origins of English Individualism: The Family, Property and Social Transition by Alan Macfarlane (1978).
• The Capital Order by Clara E. Mattei (2022).

These books focus on the British Empire outside of Britain itself:

• Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 by Antoinette Burton (1994).
• Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins (2005).
• Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire by David Anderson (2005).
• The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire by John Newsinger (2006).
• Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work by Billie Melman (2016).
• Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes by Tariq Ali (2022).
• Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism by Philip J. Stern (2023).

These books focus on post-Empire Britain:

• The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners by Seumas Milne (1994).
• Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain by George Monbiot (2000).
• We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire by Ian Patel (2021).

These books focus on left-wing movements:

• Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation’, the Labour Party, and the British Left by Colm Murphy (2023).

United States

These books are general histories of the US which do not fit neatly into any of the below sections.

• A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980).
• Two Faces of American Freedom by Aziz Rana (2010).
• White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg (2016).
• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr (2019).

These books focus on the military, state oppression, and surveillance:

• Policing A Class Society: The Experience Of American Cities, 1865-1915 by Sidney L. Harring (1983).
• The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States by Ward Churchill (1990).
• Cages of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment in the United States by Ward Churchill and J. J. Vanderwall (1992).
• Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America by MIchael Parenti (1994).
• Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti (1999).
• Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century by Stan Goff (2004).
• Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America by Kristian Williams (2004).
• The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail by Jason de Leon (2015).
• Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018).
• Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America by Kathleen Belew (2018).
• End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin (2019).
• Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture by Oswaldo Zavala (2022).
• Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris (2023).
• Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century by Benjamin Fong (2023).

These books focus on the environment:

• The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan (2017).

These books focus on the 18th century:

• An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles Beard (1913).
• American Road to Capitalism, The: Studies in Class-Structure, Economic Development and Political Conflict, 1620 - 1877 by Charles Post (2011).
• The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne (2014).

These books focus on the 19th century:

• Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South by James Oakes (1990).
• A People’s History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom by David Williams (2006).
• Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of America by Richard White (2011).
• The American West and the Nazi East: A Comparative and Interpretive Perspective by Carroll Kakel (2011).
• Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Whitman (2017).
• They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers (2019).

These books focus on the 20th century:

• The Movement Toward a New America: The Beginnings of a Long Revolution by Mitchell Goodman (1970).
• The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR by Jules Archer (1973).
• The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch (1979).
• Lyndon Larouche and the New American Fascism by Dennis King (1989).
• Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology by Howard Zinn (1990).
• Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South by Alex Lichtenstein (1995).
• Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Stocks, Jails, Welfare by Vijay Prashad (2003).
• Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America by Russ Baker (2008).
• The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War by Stephen Kinzer (2013).

These books focus on the 21st century:

• Hinterland: Americas New Landscape of Class and Conflict by Phil A. Neel (2018).

These books focus on black history and politics:

• Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement by Jim Vanderwall and Ward Churchill (1988).

• Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays (2021).

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (1845).

• Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880 by W. E. B. Du Bois (1935).

• Negroes with Guns by Robert F. Williams (1962).

• Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (1965).

• Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton (1967).

• Blood In My Eye by George Jackson (1972).

• Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution by Dan Georgakas (1975).

• Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist by Harry Haywood (1978).

• Assata: An Autobiography (1987).

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (2010).

• This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible by Charles Cobb Jr (2014).

• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (2016).

• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson (2016).

• The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran (2017).

• An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created by Santi Elijah Holley (2023).

• Collected Works of the Black Liberation Army: Volume 1 (2023).

These books focus on the Black Panthers:

• The Black Panthers Speak by Philip S. Foner (1970).
• Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P. Newton (1973).
• War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America by Huey P. Newton (1982).
• The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders: U.S. Intelligence’s Murderous Targeting of Tupac, MLK, Malcolm, Panthers, Hendrix, Marley, Rappers and Linked Ethnic Leftists by John L. Potash (2008).
• Liberated Territory: Untold Local Perspectives on the Black Panther Party by Yohuru Williams and Jama Lazerow (2008).
• To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton by Toni Morrison (2009).
• Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom (2012)

These books focus on indigenous history and politics:

• Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr. (1969).
• The Trail of Broken Treaties by Hank Adams (1972). A position paper during the 1972 march on Washington DC.
• Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence by Vine Deloria Jr. (1974).
• Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against the American Indian Movement by Rex Weyler (1982).
• The Shawnee Prophet by R. David Edmunds (1983).
• Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus the United States : 1775 to the Present by Edward Lazarus (1991).
• Crow Dog: Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men by Leonard Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes (1995).
• Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Knee Trials by John William Sayer (1997).
• Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches by Mark Diedrich (1998).
• We Were Not The Savages: A Mikmaq Perspective on the Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations by Daniel N. Paul (2000).
• Voices of Wounded Knee by William S. E. Coleman (2001).
• Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law by David E. Wilkins and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (2001).
• The Indian Reorganization Act: Congresses and Bills by Vine Deloria (2002).
• Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement by Dennis Banks (2004).
• Remember This!: Dakota Decolonization and the Eli Taylor Narratives by Waziyatawin Angela Wilson (2005).
• Wasase: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom by Taiaiake Alfred (2005).
• Like a Loaded Weapon: The Rehnquist Court, Indian Rights, and the Legal History of Racism in America by Robert A. Williams (2005).
• This Stretch of the River by the Oak Lake Writers Society (2006).
• Framing Red Power: The American Indian Movement, the Trail of Broken Treaties, and the Politics of Media by Jason A. Heppler (2009).
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dubar-Ortiz (2014).
• Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism by Iyko Day (2016).
• The Thunder Before the Storm: The Autobiography of Clyde Bellecourt (2016).
• The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez (2016).
• As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2017).
• Kayanerenkó:wa: The Great Law of Peace by Kayanesenh Paul Williams (2018).
• Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes (2019).
• Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, The Indian America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer (2019).
• “Help Indians Help Themselves”: The Later Writings of Gertrude Simmons-Bonnin by P. Jane Hafen (2020).
• Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth by The Red Nation (2021).
• Red Nation Rising: From Border Town Violence to Native Liberation by Nick Estes, Melanie Yazzie, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and David Correia (2021).
• We Are the Land: A History of Native California by Damon B. Akins and William J. Bauer Jr. (2021).
• It’s All about the Land: Collected Talks and Interviews on Indigenous Resurgence by Taiaiake Alfred (2023).

These books focus on labour and other left-wing movements:

• History of the Labour Movement in the United States by Philip S. Foner (1955).
• Strike! by Jeremy Brecher (1972).
• Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression by Robin D. G. Kelley (1990).
• Black Liberation/Red Scare by Gerald Horne (1994).
• The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements by Jules Boykoff (2006).
• Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: The Rise of Community Organizing in America by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy (2011).
• Heavy Radicals - The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists by Aaron J. Leonard (2015).
• Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism by L. A. Kauffman (2017).
• The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party by Aaron J. Leonard (2020).
• The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland by Mark Kruger (2021).
• A People’s Green New Deal by Max Ajl (2021).

Uruguay

Nothing here yet…

Uzbekistan

This country was part of the Soviet Union over the period 1924-1991, so check out the Russia section.

Nothing here yet…

Vanuatu

Nothing here yet…

Vatican City

Nothing here yet…

Venezuela

• Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution by Richard Gott (2005).
• Revolutionary and Non-Revolutionary Paths of Radical Populism: Directions of the “Chavista” Movement in Venezuela by Steve Ellner (2005).
• Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chavez Phenomenon by Steve Ellner (2008).
• We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution by Geo Maher (2013).
• Viviremos: Venezuela Vs Hybrid War by Claudia de la Cruz, Manolo de los Santos, and Vijay Prashad (2020).
• Objective Conditions in Venezuela: Maduro’s Defense Strategy and Contradictions Among the People by Steve Ellner (2023).

Vietnam

These books focus on general history:

• Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present by Ben Kiernan (2017).

These books focus on the Vietnam War:

• Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu by Bernard Fall (1966).
• Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience by Gabriel Kolko (1985).
• The Phoenix Program: America’s Use of Terror in Vietnam by Douglas Valentine (1999).
• Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse (2013).

Yemen

• The Sickle and the Minaret: Communist Successor Parties in Yemen and Afghanistan after the Cold War by John Ishivama (2005).
• A History of Modern Yemen by Paul Dresch (2008).

Yugoslavia

This section refers to Yugoslavia up to 1992. The successor state which lasted up to 2006 is covered in Serbia and Montenegro’s respective sections.

• Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World by Alvin Z. Rubinstein (1970).
• Yugoslavia in Crisis by Harold Lydall (1989).
• To Kill A Nation by Michael Parenti (2000). Apparently has some significant historical inaccuracies.
• Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away by Dejan Jović (2009).
• Tito and His Comrades by Joze Pirjevec and Emily Greble (2010).

Zambia

Nothing here yet…

Zimbabwe

Nothing here yet…