B U R E A U O F P U B L I C S E C R E T S |
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People
[1965]
See below.
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
[1980]
Zinn’s book is an important corrective to the usual histories and textbooks,
but that’s all it is. If you rely only on his book, you will have a
narrow and distorted idea of American history. I suggest that you first read
some “mainstream” work — Morison’s is probably as good as any — then read
Zinn.
The Federalist Papers [1787-1788]
A series of articles by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay,
arguing for the adoption of the new American Constitution. They are among the
most masterful political polemics ever written, and as such well worth reading,
though the Constitution they argued for served in many respects to reinforce vested
political and economic interests.
The first
half of the book is the most important; the later articles (numbers
52-83) concern details that are of less general interest. For the opposing
arguments, see Cecelia Kenyon’s The Antifederalists or Jackson Turner
Main’s The Antifederalists or, if you really want to go into the matter,
The Debate on the Constitution (Library of America, 2 vols.).
Henry Adams, History of the United States During the Administrations of
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison [1891]
A
lucid, leisurely and elegant account of the early years of the new republic
(1800-1817).
If it’s too long for you (it takes up two hefty Library of America
volumes), try the first six introductory chapters, sometimes published
separately under the title The United States in 1800.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
[1840]
Possibly the best
general study
ever written about the United States. Many of Tocqueville’s insights into
American culture, character, and social organization remain valid.
Herbert Apthecker, American Negro Slave Revolts
[1943]
The sheer number of revolts (approximately 250) documented in this pioneering
study refuted previous contentions that the slaves were resigned to their lot.
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
[1845]
Autobiography of the escaped slave who became a leading Abolitionist
spokesman.
The Narrative is quite short. If you want more, there is a later and
longer autobiography entitled The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
[1903]
Militant without ceasing to be humanistic, Du Bois was the most important
African-American spokesman of the early twentieth century. This is usually
considered his best work, but he wrote many others that are essential for those
interested in African-American history.
Louis Adamic, Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America
[1931]
Classic account of the violent class struggles in America that have been left
out of the usual histories and textbooks.
Jeremy Brecher, Strike!
[1972]
Similar to Adamic’s book, but includes more recent history.
Harvey O’Connor, Revolution in Seattle
[1964]
Good account of the 1919 Seattle General Strike, including the
struggles by the IWW and others that led up to it.
Sidney Fine, Sit-Down: The General Motors Strike of 1936-1937
[1969]
Detailed account of the important and innovative strike
in Flint, Michigan, in which 1200 auto
workers occupied their factory for six weeks.
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
[1960]
In 1959 the author, a white man, disguised himself as a black and traveled
through the American South. His best-selling account of the shockingly different
treatment he got due to a mere change in skin color was of considerable
significance in generating white support of civil rights struggles.
[Rexroth
essay on the civil rights movement]
Malcolm X, Autobiography
[1965]
Malcolm X’s political ideas seem to me to be much overrated, but his
autobiography is interesting.
James Carr, Bad: The Autobiography of James Carr
[1975]
Tough, no-illusions story of a young black man’s experiences as criminal,
prisoner, and Black Panther. He was in the process of developing a more
antiauthoritarian radical position when he was assassinated by two ex-members of
the Panthers.
The Sixties
I have not read a single book that seems to convey a very accurate idea of
the sixties counterculture or New Left movement, much less of the sixties as a
whole. In each case certain aspects, or even merely certain personalities, are
played up as much more important than they were and many other
aspects are
distorted or neglected. I suppose this is inevitable with
such an immense topic,
where so much was going on in so many contradictory directions. Here are some
books that may give you a taste of one or another aspect:
Charles Perry, The Haight-Ashbury:
A History
[1984]
A gossipy
but generally competent account of the Haight scene during its heyday
as capital of the hip counterculture (1965-1967).
[On
the Poverty of Hip Life]
Art Kleps, Millbrook: The True Story of the Early Years of the Psychedelic
Revolution [1975]
An amusing insider’s account, centered on the mansion in upstate New York
where Timothy Leary, Kleps and others were headquartered during the early
sixties. There are many other books
on the psychedelic movement, but they tend to be superficial and sensationalistic.
Kleps’s narration
is certainly trippy enough, but he knows what he’s talking about and his sense of humor and irony helps keep it down
to earth.
Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
[1968]
I dislike Wolfe’s
glib, trendy style of journalism, but this
particular book covers some notable events in the sixties psychedelic scene in
considerable detail.
Emmett Grogan, Ringolevio
[1972]
Autobiography of one of the founders of the San Francisco Diggers. It’s an
interesting and sometimes exciting story, but it should not be taken too
seriously: Grogan’s grandiose sense of his own importance gives a rather
distorted impression of what things were really like.
David Lance Goines, The Free Speech Movement
[1993]
An excellent and comprehensive
account, by far the best book on the Berkeley FSM. The author was one of the leading
participants, but he rounds out his personal narrative with generous excerpts
from other participants’ takes on the events.
[Remarks
on the FSM]
Michael Rossman, The Wedding Within the War
[1971]
This “chronicle of the movement, 1958-1970” by an FSM participant well
conveys some of the personal and subjective aspects of the New Left scene.
A later book by the same author, New Age Blues: On the Politics of
Consciousness, though interesting in some respects, is in my opinion too
uncritically accepting of the existence of supposed paranormal phenomena.
Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
[1987]
Good history of the New Left movement by one of the early SDS leaders.
My review of another Gitlin book, The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media
in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left, is online
here.
[Situationist
critique of the sixties student movement]
[Critique
of the New Left]
Peter Stansill and David Mairowitz (ed.),
BAMN: Outlaw Manifestoes and
Ephemera, 1965–1970 [1971]
A confused and eclectic collection, but it gives some idea of some of the
more radical agitational currents of the time, in Europe as well as America
(Situationists, Provos, Diggers, Yippies, Motherfuckers, etc.).
Section from Gateway to the Vast Realms: Recommended
Readings from Literature to Revolution, by Ken Knabb (2004).
No copyright.
Bureau of Public Secrets, PO Box 1044, Berkeley CA 94701, USA
www.bopsecrets.org knabb@bopsecrets.org