CHN BOOKSHELF – A regular feature calling attention to important books and articles that CHN staff, board, and collaborating scholars are reading and recommend.
Julian Brave NoiseCat serves as the Center’s 2020 Editing Fellow. He developed “How can we live respectfully with the land and with one another?” for the Center’s Questions for a Resilient Future. We asked Julian where he is finding inspiration and nourishment at this time.
Varshini Prakash and Guido Girgenti, eds. Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must and How We Can (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020). A collection from the Sunrise Movement; I contributed a chapter.
Tommy Orange, There There (New York: Vintage Books, 2018). My friend Tommy Orange is absolutely sensational in this novel. He gets so much right about the urban Native community in Oakland, California, where I also grew up.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, widely considered the best Canadian film of all time, directed by Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk.
Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013). Historian Ira Katznelson writes about the New Deal, how it was forged, and how the compromises required to broker it created our society.
Mark Engler and Paul Engler, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (New York: Nation Books, 2016). Should be required reading for all activists and people interested in how to build effective social movements.
Anton Treuer, The Language Warrior’s Manifesto: How to Keep Our Languages Alive No Matter the Odds (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2020). Outlines how, against the odds, Indigenous nations can keep our languages alive.
Eric Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth (New York: Hyperion Books, 2010). A well-reported and well-written book about how we failed to act on climate in the first term of the Obama Administration. It reminds me how important it is to get things right this time.
The National Basketball Players Association. They’ve done so much for Black Lives Matter and our democracy this past year.
