Summer Reading List 2025

There is a theme here.

I thought it would be good to step away from all the Trump-talk for a bit and try offering something of a different variety instead.

One of the broad issues that vexes me about our current societal predicament is that people often lack the language to speak about political matters beyond the narrow confines of ideological slogans or internet lingo. Of course, the vernacular has always had its place in the political realm, but a more well developed way of speaking on complicated topics is needed to move beyond the emotive and reactive impulse to engage with only that which is right in front of us. Specificity of language yields specificity of thought, a necessity to grappling with the specificity of the threats facing a democratic society in time of crisis. And this is a skill that can only truly be developed through engaging with written works dedicated to such ideas. The great defenders of democracy across history, after all, share at least one thing in common - they’ve all been well read.

And so, as we enter June, I thought it would be fitting to compile a “summer reading list” of sorts - a collection of writings from both Americans and foreigners - aimed at helping people engage with politics beyond the “current thing” they’re reading about in some online article or social media post.

I’ve tried to include a variety of material - from “introductory” stuff for folks who are new readers in this space to more intermediate and advanced texts for those who are already politically literate. A few items in here aren’t exactly “political” writings, but they nonetheless can help us understand our current reality.

A Quick Note on How / Where to Read:

I’ll start by saying that a great many of these books will be available at your local library. For those that may be more difficult to find unless you happen to live in a large city with an expansive library catalog, I’ll include links to where you can find second-hand copies for cheap.

As always - don’t go looking for books on places like Amazon. You’re defeating the purpose of bringing consequences to the corporate capitulators if you keep giving them your business. Sites like ThriftBooks are an excellent place to shop inexpensively for books that you can’t access through your library or university.

Short Reads

On Tyranny

Timothy Snyder
Reading Level: For Anyone

I cannot stress enough how much this is basically required reading for anyone looking to seriously grapple with the times we’re living in and what we as individuals can do in our own lives about it. What’s great about this book is that is takes lessons from 20th century countries that lived under authoritarian regimes - like Nazi Germany and Communist Eastern Europe - and uses them as examples of not only the warning signs of totalitarian methods to beware of, but also the tactics employed by citizens to resist and, in some cases, overcome them. Snyder writes with one eye on history and the other on present day America. This isn’t just a history book, it’s written for us living through the current era in our own country. “On Tyranny” is one of the most insightful and also simple pieces of political literature to read, and it contains such a trove of meaningful advice on how making some small adjustments in your civic participation and habits can make such a difference.

How to Read It: The book comes in “regular” book format, as well as a comic book edition, making it perfect for readers of every type. You can also easily find audiobook versions read by Snyder, including an updated audiobook which features commentary on events from recent years too.

The Power of the Powerless

Václav Havel
Reading Level: Complex.

Best read as a follow-up to Synder’s “On Tyranny” as it is a work frequently cited in it. Václav Havel was a Czech playwright-turned-dissident working against the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia. Published in 1978 as the lead piece in a series of essays by various Czechoslovak and Polish dissidents living in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, the “Power of the Powerless” offers Havel’s thoughts on the nature of what he described as the “post-totalitarian” regime and how individuals within such a system could attempt to break free of it by “living within the truth.” Havel would later become a key figure in the Velvet Revolution and the first democratic president of the Czech Republic after the fall of the Communist government in the 1990’s, so it’s a worthwhile read from a writer who wasn’t just a thinker of his time, but a doer of his time as well that actually achieved results.

Where to Find It: While technically an “essay” it’s really more like the length of a short book. However, most English language versions you’ll find are part of some “collected works” book by another name. My best recommendation for finding a copy would be this one.

Politics and the English Language

George Orwell
Reading Level: Moderate

Unlike the previous two essays, which are long enough to merit book-length publication, Orwell’s essay is much shorter and can be read in a single sitting. A warning against the dangers of falling prey to conformity of speech and euphemisms for difficult topics, it serves as both an examination of the role that language plays in shaping the authoritarian state as well as a rebuke to us in liberal society to be wary of the ways in which we reduce issues to sloganeering.

You can read it for free on the Orwell Foundation site.

Books for Current Topics

The Death of Expertise (2nd Edition)

Tom Nichols
Reading Level: Moderate

I must stress that you’ll be wanting to read the 2nd edition version of the book published in 2024 (the one with the red cover, not the 2017 blue one) as contains the most up-to-date examples of current issues plaguing America.

In the age of DOGE and utterly unqualified individuals running just about every department of the federal government, with a significant number of people cheering on putting anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr. in charge of our nation’s health organizations, Nichols takes a look at how we as a society got to the point where people trust the crackpots more than the experts. It’s both an examination of the deliberate efforts by the nefarious actors to undermine public trust in our experts, as well as the irresponsible failures of liberal institutions that created the culture of intellectual self-indulgence which paved the road for their own undoing.

I recommend this book for two reasons. One is that we can’t get out of our current societal situation unless we understand how we got here in the first place, and this book does a a great job of highlighting a number of notable trends and events from over the past decade or so. The other is that it challenges your priors. Maybe you’ll agree with Nichols on every assessment, or maybe there will be some points that you take umbrage with, but either way, its a book that forces the reader to get outside of their own tribal political bubbles when grappling with complicated topics.

Material World: The Six Raw Materials that Shape Modern Civilization

Ed Conway
Reading Level: Moderate

Unlike the rest of the books recommended here, which are explicitly political, this one falls more into the science and economics category. The writer takes a deep dive into six raw materials that get mined from the earth - sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium - and the role that they play in shaping the modern world, from basic infrastructure to advanced medicine and technology. Not only does he go into detail about all the ways that substances like sand play a core role in pretty much every aspect of our lives, but he walks you through the complicated supply chain networks that these raw materials and their end products traverse through on their journeys across the globe, and their history in creating what we think of as the developed world.

At a time when global trade is very much so being affected by belligerent state actors, this book does an excellent job of showing why no country can do it alone. The supply chain networks for these materials and the products made with them are often so specialized to either regional deposits or national industries that there is no way the modern world can survive without collaboration across countries and peoples. It also examines the environmental impact of these industries, and the troubling paradox that in order to create the industries of the green future of tomorrow, that means people have to find a way to make their peace with the less rosy requirements of what needs to be done at scale in the present.

While topics like industrial processes and supply chains might sound like a a dry and complicated subject only for science nerds or academics, Ed Conway has a way of writing about these things in a narrative style that is highly engaging for the average reader. If you’re looking for an interesting summer read to learn things without having to get heavily into politics, but still something that’s highly relevant to our current situation, I truly can’t recommend this one enough.

Plays

Rhinoceros

Eugène Ionesco
Reading Level: For Anyone

An absurdist play taking place in a small French village where the citizens start turning into rhinoceroses rampaging about the town. With the context that the play was written in the post-war years, it’s easy to understand it as an allegory for looking back on how people turned to fascism for one reason or another, and how society can normalize such a change and ostracize those trying to call attention to the idea that something isn’t right with what’s going on. While Ionesco writes with his own experiences in Romania and France during the 1930’s and 40’s in mind, it is striking how much certain characters in the play bear similarities to archetypes of people that we know in our own lives today.

If you’re not the type who enjoys reading plays, there’s a film version available. You can stream it for free on Kanopy with access from your public library.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/114471

The Garden Party

Václav Havel
Reading Level: Moderate

We return once again to Havel. “The Garden Party” is perhaps the writer’s most significant contribution to the stage. A work of absurdist satire, the play revolves around a young man attending a garden party at the headquarters of the local government, and in the process of casting aside his own identity to constantly reshape the situation to his advantage by mastering the meaningless jargon of the political bureaucracy, advances beyond the other various government employees who can’t adapt quite as well to the constantly changing nature of what the current party line is (or what they believe it is).

The play is more accessible to people who already have some idea of what the political environment was like at this time in the Soviet Union and affiliated client states. Some of the humor won’t land as well otherwise, and you can’t really appreciate the nature of the absurdity unless you realize how close some of it actually was to reality.

Then again, here in 2025, one doesn’t actually need to know what much about Communist Czechoslovakia as a reference point. The play is primarily a critique of the ever-shifting language and hollowness of character found in the type of people who exist only to tow the party line, and one doesn’t have to look very hard at the constant stream of contradictory rhetoric coming from figures inside the administration and their media allies to get what Havel was seeing in his own society.

Where to Find It: While a famous play in Europe, it’s not widely published here in America. This collection of the plays of Havel is the only English translation I’m aware of.