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   Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:10 JST Sean Bala

   4) "A Different Mirror: A Multicultural History of the United States" by Ronald Takaki - I like this one a bit better than Howard Zinn's work or even things like the 1619 project. It has bit less of an ideological axe to grind. What I like is how Takaki excavates unique stories that expand our notion of what the US could be.

   #Books #Bookstodon #History #USA

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     Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:11 JST Sean Bala

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     5) "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent" by Isabel Wilkerson - an absolute gut-punch of a book. It makes the uncomfortable claim that race functions like caste in the United States. She has a way of taking complex and uncomfortable subjects and describing them in well-drawn metaphors.

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     Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:12 JST Sean Bala

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     6) "The Irony of American History" by Reinhold Niebuhr - a short book that makes the argument the irony of American history is that Americans struggle with having an ironic distance with itself. What happens when a superpower actually believes it own rhetoric. Written in the 1950s and still prescient

     #Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #Theology #Philosophy #ReinholdNiebuhr

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     Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:12 JST Sean Bala

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     7) "This Republic of Suffering" by Drew Gilpin Faust - this is one of my favorite works of historical writing. Faust writes a history of the concept of Death through America's collective trauma of its Civil War. It is accessible and shows the totality of change that arose from that conflict. Might be a nice book to pair with "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horowitz.

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     7/10

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     Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:12 JST Sean Bala

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     8) "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin - short essays that are are, in my opinion, some of the best takes on race in the US. Baldwin was such a careful thinker and he didn't really rest neatly in any particular ideological camp.

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     8/10

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     Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:12 JST Sean Bala

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     This is definitely not an exhaustive list but I wanted to share them here if they might be useful for people. I tried to select works that I think are good for a broad audience and could be read by people outside of the United States. Let me know if you have any thoughts about the list or perhaps contribute with your own suggestions!

     I'd recommend starting with 1, 2, and 8, and then read the novels and start to go from there.

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     10/10

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     Sean Bala (seanbala@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 15-Aug-2024 02:15:13 JST Sean Bala

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     And two works of fiction for fun -

     9) "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck

     10) "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson

     Both are beautiful, haunting books. And I think they capture a certain American spirit. Of course, there are many other such books, but these two fiction works have really stuck with me.

     #Books #Bookstodon #History #USA #Fiction #literature #JohnSteinbeck #marilynnerobinson

     9/10