What can we say at this point that hasn’t already been said?
As many of us are overwhelmed and scared at our times ahead, perhaps what is most frightening is the way in which our anger threatens to dissipate into apathy or despair. It can seem easier to retreat into ourselves, to find ways to dull the stress and pain, instead of fighting.
As we head into uncertainty again, we wanted to share a few books that are either forthcoming or are already released that you can turn to reignite that spark within you. We picked these books in particular because we always appreciate writing that goes beyond theory and begins to lay out what practical steps we can take to enact change, no matter how small.
So here is our hope: Purchase, check out from the library, or preorder (because we need to show publishers the books we demand to see in the world) the books that call to you. Read and reflect. Then lean into your communities: Get involved in your local government, introduce yourselves to your neighbors, and—if you are in the position to—give to or volunteer at the organizations that are working to help the people around you. We are the only ones who will look out for us. So please, do not disappear.
We encourage you to find your local organizations and organizers who are leading the way in your communities and get involved in any way you can. If you’re in Chicago, here are a few to get you started (but by no means is this an exhaustive list):
- Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Organized Communities Against Deportations
- A list of mutual aid organizations by neighborhood & nonprofits in the city
- Indivisible Chicago
- Chicago DSA
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
By Timothy Snyder
Crown Publishing Group
February 28, 2017
First published in 2017, On Tyranny takes on entirely new relevance in our modern day. Timothy Snyder draws comparisons between our current political order and the threats of totalitarianism nations faced in the twentieth century. Historical understanding and education is key, as this book is a call to arms and a guide to resistance in an age in which any freedom cannot be taken for granted.
Their End is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition
By brian bean
Illustrated by Charlie Aleck
Haymarket Books
July 1, 2025
How do we begin to push back on the overwhelming and intertwined institutions of policing and capitalism? In The End is Our Beginning, Chicago activist brian bean explores the history of policing in its relation to global capitalism and colonialism, while also drawing upon extensive interviews from activists around the world to identify key lessons about how to push for abolition and the revolutionary logic needed for liberation.
The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity
By Sarah Schulman
Thesis
April 22, 2025
The word “solidarity” has become so ubiquitous in our modern culture that it is in danger of becoming meaningless. In The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, Sarah Schulman dispels a number of myths and misconceptions about solidarity in action and charts a new path for readers to follow. Solidarity is not a fantasy of bystander intervention into wrongdoing or action without a cost, but instead necessary and difficult prolonged collective action that requires true collaboration. Drawing upon case studies, such as the fight for abortion rights in post-Franco Spain to the wave of campus protest movements against Israel’s war on Gaza, Schulman makes a powerful and tangible argument to help guide movements in the future.
Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
By Dean Spade
Verso
October 27, 2020
Despite its success through movements throughout history—including the Black Panther Party’s urban food programs and across LGBT and working-class communities—mutual aid gained renewed interest as a concept during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever, mutual aid is a tool for community members to care and protect their neighbors. Dean Spade’s classic book explores the importance of mutual aid and explains how it looks in practice by providing grassroot theories and concrete steps and examples. Mutual Aid is an important look at a radical vision of community mobilization and compassionate activism.
Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable
By Will Potter
City Lights Books
June 24, 2025
When Will Potter set out to investigate the wave of new “ag-gag” laws that criminalize photographers and journalists as terrorists for their efforts to expose abuses on factory farms, his work soon expanded to shine light on the deep political corruption and corporate power that works to silence protest and obscure reality. The result is a fiery takedown of the weaponization of storytelling that the powerful use to silence protest and prevent us from seeing the ecological, public health, and authoritarian threats that industrial farming pose. Potter’s takeaways in Little Red Barns are universal, showing us the intertwined problems within major industries in the U.S. and how big business and their political allies game the system against its people.
Reclaiming the Future: A Beginner’s Guide to Planning the Economy
By Simon Hannah
Pluto Press
November 20, 2024
Reclaiming the Future dares readers to dream of a reshaped economic system that puts power and control firmly into the hands of the people instead of politicians and corporations. Simon Hannah provides a persuasive case study for socialist democratic planning as a way to meet the needs of people without destroying the planet and to return to a state of abundance within our planet’s limits.
It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform Our World
By Mikaela Loach
Haymarket Books
July 8, 2025
Acclaimed author and climate justice organizer Mikaela Loach brings a fresh perspective on tangible climate action with this toolkit for a new generation of activists. It’s Not That Radical explores how tackling the climate crisis requires us to visit the roots of poverty, capitalist exploitation, police brutality, and legal injustice. With a problem that is so pervasive and grand, Loach’s latest is an important resource to spark action and help mobilize a community dedicated to the future of our planet.
Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room: A Philosophy Primer for an Anxious Age
By Jonathan Foiles
Belt Publishing
December 3, 2024
It would be an understatement to say that this is an age of high-anxiety; but with anxiety comes the threat of inaction. In Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room, licensed psychotherapist Jonathan Foiles explains how philosophy can help us respond to the deep questions of modern life and the helplessness we can feel when confronted by the seemingly insurmountable threats of police violence, a warming planet, and instability. This book is here to bring peace to your mind and soul as you prepare to continue the fight.
Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Big Tech and Planetary Crisis
By Alessandra Mularoni and Nick Dyer-Witheford
Verso
February 11, 2025
Big Tech firms dominate the global economy, but what value do they actually produce? Alessandra Mularoni and Nick Dyer-Witheford survey the modern global tech economy and its incessant pursuit for automation to argue that there is a way out of the multiple crises that Big Tech has helped precipitate. They argue that breaking Big Tech’s grip will require not just antitrust legislation or reducing our time online, but also that we build a comprehensive program of democratic collective planning that can move us beyond capitalism. Cybernetic Circulation Complex illuminates a path toward digital degrowth that can help us steer between the boundaries of ecological sustainability and equitable social development.
Rednecks and Barbarians: Uniting the White and Racialized Working Class
By Houria Bouteldja
Translated by Rachel Valinsky
Pluto Press
November 20, 2024
In Rednecks and Barbarians, Houria Bouteldja details the recent history of white working class people becoming increasingly tempted by right-wing political parties and argues for an approach that unites the white working class and the racially oppressed. Bouteldja explores the ways in which antiracism can bridge divisions and imagine a truly emancipatory future.
