22 Dec Citations Needed Reading List
Books Written By Guests of the Pod
Here at Citations Needed, we’ve had on scores of wonderful guests — activists and academics, organizers and journalists. Indeed, our guests are what make the show what it is, and (confession!) we very often build our show around articles and books our guests have written — taking themes, research or ideas we find interesting and in urgent need of further exposure, then connecting them to the media tropes and narratives that are built around them. Ever since we aired our first episode in July 2017, listeners have asked us for a reading list. So here it is.
Below are books by Citations Needed guests we think you may like. We urge you to purchase from your local bookstore or the publisher directly, if possible!
We’ll keep updating this list as new guests join the show.
Thank you as always for your support and listenership,
— Nima, Florence, Julianne, Adam and Marco
Testimony: A Novel
by Peter Lazare and Sarah Lazare (Strong Arm Press, 2021)
Sarah Lazare is a frequent contributor, researcher, writer, and production consultant for Citations Needed.
Selling Women Short : The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart
by Liza Featherstone (Basic Books, 2005)
featured in Episode 159: The Anti-Worker Pseudo-Psychology of Corporate Personality Testing (April 27, 2021)
The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After the End of History
by Luke Savage (OR Books, 2022)
featured in Citations Needed Live Interview: What Happened to Our Politics After the End of History? (April 13, 2021)
The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke
by Maximillian Alvarez (OR Books, 2022)
featured in Episode 157: How the “Culture Wars” Label Obscures and Trivializes Life-and-Death Political Issues (March 9, 2021)
Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico
by Prakash Kashwan (Oxford University Press, 2017)
featured in Episode 155: How the American Settler-Colonial Project Shaped Popular Notions of ‘Conservation’ (February 23, 2021)
Becoming Abolitionists: Police Protests and the Pursuit of Freedom
by Derecka Purnell (Astra House, 2021)
featured in Citations Needed Live Interview: Police ‘Defunding’ That Never Was and Abolitionism as a Long-Term Social Project (January 26, 2021)
A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics
by Hadas Thier (Haymarket Books, 2020)
featured in Episodes 150 and 151: How Economic Jargon and Cliches Make Cruel, Anti-Poor Policies Sound Sterile and Science-y (Parts I & II) (December 1 and 8, 2021)
Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture
by Amy Erdman Farrell (NYU Press, 2011)
featured in Episode 149: How Fatness Became a Cheap Joke and Proxy for Moral Deficiency in Pop Culture (November 24, 2021)
We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign
ed. Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis (Broadleaf Books, 2021)
featured in Episode 148: The GOP’s ‘Rightwing Populism’ Rebrand (Part II) — Messaging Wars in “White America” (November 10, 2021)
Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity
by Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes (University of Minnesota Press, 2019)
featured in Episode 147: The GOP’s ‘Rightwing Populism’ Rebrand (Part I) — How Billionaire-Backed Charlatans Pick Off Disillusioned Lefties (November 3, 2021)
The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World
by Dave Zirin (The New Press, 2021)
featured in Live Interview: How ‘The Kaepernick Effect’ Revealed Reactionary Forces in Youth Sports with Dave Zirin (October 6, 2021)
by Eric Bennett (University of Iowa Press, 2015)
featured in Episode 144: How the Cold War Shaped First-Person Journalism and Literary Conventions (September 22, 2021)
Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System
by Alec Karakatsanis (The New Press, 2019)
featured in Episode 142: The Summer of Anti-BLM Backlash and How Concepts of “Crime” Were Shaped By the Propertied Class (August 4, 2021)
NOlympians: Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Beyond
by Jules Boykoff (Fernwood Publishing, 2020)
featured in a Citations Needed Live Interview: How the ‘Pandemic Games’ Expose the Neoliberal Scam of Global Sporting Events (July 28, 2021)
Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars
by Kristin L. Hoganson (Yale University Press, 1998)
featured in Episode 139: Of Meat and Men: How Beef Became Synonymous with Settler-Colonial Domination (June 30, 2021)
Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror
by Nicole Nguyen (University of Minnesota Press, 2019)
featured in Episode 132: The House Always Wins — How Every Crisis Narrative Enriches the Security and Carceral State (March 10, 2021)
The Heartland: An American History
by Kristin L. Hoganson (Penguin, 2019)
featured in Episode 130: ‘Heartland,’ ‘Middle America,’ and US Media’s Vaguely Nostalgic, Racialized Code for White Grievance (February 3, 2021)
Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection
by Jacob Silverman (HarperCollins, 2015)
featured in News Brief: Finance Media’s GameStop Meltdown and the Thin Moral Pretexts of Wall Street’s Game Rigging (January 28, 2021)
Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas
by Roberto Lovato (Harper, 2020)
featured in Episode 126: Obama-Era Media Failures We Shouldn’t Rehash Under Biden (Part II) (December 9, 2020)
Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game
by Oliver Stone (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020)
featured in News Brief — Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Follow Up Conversation with Oliver Stone (October 14, 2020)
Work Won’t Love You Back How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone
by Sarah Jaffe (Bold Type Books, 2021)
featured in Episode 120: 30 Under 30 Lists and The Problem with Our Youth-Obsessed ‘Success’ Narratives (September 30, 2020)
In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action
by Vicky Osterweil (Bold Type Books, 2020)
featured in Episode 118 — The Snitch Economy: How Rating Apps and Tipping Pit Working People Against Each Other (September 16, 2020)
National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood
by Matthew Alford and Tom Secker (Drum Roll Books, 2017)
featured in Episode 115: Anti-Muslim Racism in Hollywood (Part III) — How the Pentagon & CIA Sponsor American Mythmaking (July 22, 2020)
Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 years of Muslim Tropes And How to Transform Them
by Maytha Alhassen (Pop Culture Collaborative, 2018)
featured in Episode 114: Anti-Muslim Racism in Hollywood (Part II) — Oscar-Bait Imperialism (July 15, 2020)
Jim Brown: Last Man Standing
by Dave Zirin (Penguin Random House, 2018)
featured in News Brief: Trump, the NFL, and the Upcoming Mother of All ‘Culture Wars’ (May 27, 2020)
The Happiness Industry: How Government and Big Business Sold Us Well–Being
by William Davies (Verso, 2016)
featured in Episode 109: Self-Help Culture and the Rise of Corporate Happiness Monitoring (May 6, 2020)
Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
by Jason Hickel (Penguin Random House, 2020)
featured in Episode 108: How GDP Fetishism Drives Climate Crisis and Inequality (April 29, 2020) and Episode 146: Bill Gates, Bono and the Limits of World Bank and IMF-Approved Celebrity ‘Activism’ (October 27, 2021)
The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity
by Lewis Raven Wallace (University of Chicago Press, 2019)
featured in Episode 102: The Conservative Sanctimony of Journalistic Impartiality (February 26, 2020)
Gramsci’s Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives
by Kate. A.F. Crehan (Duke University Press, 2016)
featured in Episode 101: The False Universality of “Common Sense” (February 19, 2020)
Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
by Maia Szalavitz (Picador, 2017)
featured in Episode 99: The Cruel, Voyeuristic Quackery of Rehab TV Shows (January 29, 2020)
Liberalism at Large: The World According to The Economist
by Alexander Zevin (Verso, 2019)
featured in Episode 98: The Refined Sociopathy of The Economist (January 22, 2020)
Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty and Find Peace
by Frank Schaeffer (Regina Orthodox Press, 2014)
featured in Episode 96: The Christian Cinema-GOP Persecution Complex (December 11, 2019)
Precarious Claims The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States
by Shannon Gleeson (University of California Press, 2016)
featured in Episode 93: 100 Years of US Media Fueling Anti-Immigrant Sentiment (November 13, 2019)
Failed: What the Experts Got Wrong About the Global Economy
by Mark Weisbrot (Oxford University Press, 2015)
featured in Episode 92: The Responsibility-Erasing Catch-all of ‘Automation’ (October 30, 2019)
Four Futures: Life After Capitalism
by Peter Frase (Verso, 2016)
featured in Episode 92: The Responsibility-Erasing Catch-all of ‘Automation’ (October 30, 2019)
A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy
by Jane McAlevey (HarperCollins, 2020)
featured in Episode 91: It’s Time to Retire the Term “Middle Class” (October 23, 2019)
Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance
by Nick Estes (Verso, 2019)
featured in Episode 90: How Western Media’s False Binary Between “Science” and Indigenous Rights Is Used to Erase Native People (October 16, 2019)
The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent
by P.E. Moskowitz (Bold Type Books, 2019)
featured in Episode 88: The Mythical Bygone Glory Days of “Free Speech” (Sept. 18, 2019)
Why You Should Be a Socialist
by Nathan J. Robinson (All Points Books, 2019)
featured in Episode 87: Nate Silver and the Crisis of Pundit Brain (Sept. 18, 2019)
Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean
by Sarah E. Bond (University of Michigan Press, 2016)
featured in Episode 82: ‘Western Civilization’ and White Supremacy: The Right-Wing Co-option of Antiquity (July 10, 2019)
Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking
by Cord J. Whitaker (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)
featured in Episode 82: ‘Western Civilization’ and White Supremacy: The Right-Wing Co-option of Antiquity (July 10, 2019)
Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals
by Lori Gruen (Lantern Publishing & Media, 2014)
featured in Episode 80: Animal Rights as Media and Pop Culture Punchline (June 20, 2019)
Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life
by Natasha Lennard (Verso, 2019)
featured in Episode 74: Liberal Gandhi Fetishism and the Problem with Pop Notions of ‘Violence’ (April 24, 2019)
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets
by Jason Hickel (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018)
featured in Episode 73: Western Media’s Narrow, Colonial Definition of ‘Corruption’ (April 17, 2019) and Episode 58: The Neoliberal Optimism Industry (November 28, 2018).
Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media
by Jeff Cohen (Polipoint Press, 2006)
featured in Episode 72: John Stossel — Libertarian Billionaires’ Inside Man (April 10, 2019)
All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It
by Daniel Denvir (Verso, 2019)
featured in Episode 68: A New Gun Control Debate — Dismantling Our Racist ‘Lock ’Em Up’ Approach (March 6, 2019)
Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield
by Jeremy Scahill (Nation Books/Bold Type Books, 2013)
featured in Episode 66: Whataboutism — The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy (February 20, 2019)
No Shortcut to Change: An Unlikely Path to a More Gender Equitable World
by Kara Ellerby (NYU Press, 2017)
featured in Episode 65: How Empire Uses ‘Feminist’ Branding to Sell War and Occupation (February 6, 2019)
Indian Suffragettes: Female Identities and Transnational Networks
by Sumita Mukherjee (Oxford University Press, 2018)
featured in Episode 65: How Empire Uses ‘Feminist’ Branding to Sell War and Occupation (February 6, 2019)
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Beacon Press, 2014)
featured in Episode 62: Sanitizing Our Settler-Colonial Past With ‘Nation of Immigrants’ Narratives (January 16, 2019)
The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad
by Robert Elias (The New Press, 2010)
featured in Episode 59: National Pastimes — Mindless Militarism in American Sports (December 5, 2018)
Divining Desire: Focus Groups and the Culture of Consultation
by Liza Featherstone (OR Books, 2018)
featured in News Brief: Consumer Society and the Curation of Culture (November 21, 2018)
Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law
by Dean Spade (Duke University Press, 2015)
featured in Episode 57: A Matter of Survival — Trivializing Trans Rights as Boutique “Identity” Issue (November 14, 2018)
In Our Power: U.S. Students Organize for Justice in Palestine
by Nora Barrows-Friedman (Just World Books, 2014)
featured in Episode 56: How The Media Learned to Worry About War Without Ever Opposing It (November 7, 2018)
We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation
by Jeff Chang (Picador, 2016)
featured in Episode 52: Attacks on Affirmative Action and the Commodification of Diversity (October 3, 2018)
Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power
by Phyllis Bennis (Olive Branch Press, 2005)
featured in Episode 50: Anti-Imperialism and MSNBC-Approved Socialism (September 19, 2018)
No Such Thing As A Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy
by Linsey McGoey (Verso, 2015)
featured in Episode 45: The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire (Part I) — Bill Gates and Western Media (July 25, 2018)
Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden
by Branko Marcetic (Verso, 2020)
featured in Episode 43: RussiaGate, Year 3 (Part I) — How Liberals’ Martial Posture Harms the Left (July 11, 2018)
The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
by Thomas Frank (Metropolitan Books, 2020)
featured in Episode 42: “Populism” — The Media’s Favorite Catch-All Smear for the Left (June 27, 2018)
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements
by Charlene Carruthers (Penguin Random House, 2019)
featured in Episode 37: Black Lives Matter, Dreamers, and the Problem of ‘The Perfect Victim’ (May 16, 2018)
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine
by Noura Erakat (Stanford University Press, 2019)
featured in Episode 28: The Asymptotic ‘Two State Solution’ (Part I) (February 28, 2018)
Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt
by Sarah Jaffe (Bold Type Books, 2016)
featured in Episode 26: The “Welfare” Dog Whistle (February 7, 2018)
Decolonizing Dialectics
by George Ciccariello-Maher (Duke University Press, 2017)
featured in Episode 25: The Banality of CIA-Curated Definitions of ‘Democracy’ (January 31, 2018)
Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love
by Dave Zirin (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
featured in Episode 20: Lotteryism (Part II), A Most Dangerous Game —How Sports Are Used To Fleece Public Trusts (December 20, 2017)
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
by Chris Hedges (Nation Books/Bold Type Books, 2009)
featured in Episode 18: Fake News Panic and the Silencing of Dissident Media (December 6, 2017)
Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia
by Sheila Carapico (Cambridge University Press, 1998, reissued 2007)
featured in Episode 17: Yemen, War Crimes and the Political Convenience of Caring (November 29, 2017)
by Greg Shupak (OR Books, 2017)
featured in Episode 17: Yemen, War Crimes and the Political Convenience of Caring (November 29, 2017)
The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond
by Hannah Gurman (Columbia University Press, 2012)
featured in Ep. 13: The Always Stumbling US Empire (October 25, 2017)
Killing African Americans: Police and Vigilante Violence as a Racial Control Mechanism
by Noel A. Cazenave (Routledge, 2018)
featured in Episode 11: The Deficit Racket (Part II) — Racist Media as Barrier to Government Spending (October 4, 2017)
The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy
by Stephanie Kelton (PublicAffairs, 2020)
featured in Episode 11: The Deficit Racket (Part II) — Single-Payer Propaganda War (September 27, 2017)
Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To
by Dean Burnett (W. W. Norton & Company, 2016)
featured in Episode 10: Ableism and the Ethics of Calling Trump “Crazy” (September 20, 2017)
(Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation about Mental Health
ed. Kelly Jensen (Algonquin Young Readers, 2018), which includes s.e. smith’s chapter, “Top 10 Crazies In Fiction.”
featured in Episode 10: Ableism and the Ethics of Calling Trump “Crazy” (September 20, 2017)
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
by Glenn Greenwald (MacMillian, 2014)
featured in Episode 08: The Human Rights Concern Troll Industrial Complex
Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom
by Steven Salaita (Haymarket Books, 2015)
featured in Episode 07: BDS & the Moral Narratives of Colonization (August 23, 2017)
Not Our President: New Directions from the Pushed Out, The Others and the Clear Majority in Trump’s Stolen America
eds. Haki R. Madhubuti & Lasana D. Kazembe (Third World Books, 2017), which includes Jared A. Ball’s chapter, “Agent Orange: Donald Trump as Political Chemical Warfare.”
featured in Episode 06: The Media’s Default Setting of White Supremacy (August 9, 2017)
Navigating Souths: Transdisciplinary Explorations of a U.S. Region
eds. Michele Girgsby Coffey & Jodi Skipper (University of Georgia Press, 2017), which includes Robert Greene II’s chapter, “Where Do We Go From Here? The Implications of Black Intellectual History in the Modern South.”
featured in Episode 05: Purging Socialists of Color From American History (August 2, 2017)
Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing
by Tim Shorrock (Simon & Schuster, 2009)
featured in Episode 02: The North Korea Memory Hole (July 19, 2017)
A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School
by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire (The New Press, 2020)
featured in Episode 1: The Charter School Scam (July 12, 2017)