A Reading List for The Resistance
We present this reading list for The Resistance as a useful starting point for anyone sharing in our overwhelming sense of anger and despair at our present crisis, and anyone looking for hope and inspiration in the #TheResistance movements of the past and the organizing strategies of the present.
This reading list is far from complete, and this page will continue to be updated as we add new books and videos.
The List
1984
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell
Animal Farm
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell
It Can’t Happen Here
“Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.” ― Sinclair Lewis
The Origins of Totalitarianism
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” ― Hannah Arendt
On Tyranny
“The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more free speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens.” ― Timothy Snyder
The Handmaid’s Tale
“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” ― Margaret Atwood
Brave New World
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” ― Aldous Huxley
Hillbilly Elegy
“Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it — not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.” – J. D. Vance
Fahrenheit 451
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” ― Ray Bradbury
American Fascists
“The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.” ― Chris Hedges
Dark Money
“The polluters had triumphed by overturning the campaign-finance laws. “There was a huge change after Citizens United,” he contends. “When anyone could spend any amount of money without revealing who they were, by hiding behind amorphous-named organizations, the floodgates opened. The Supreme Court made a huge mistake. There is no accountability. Zero.” ― Jane Mayer
The Hunger Games
“You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.”
“Destroying things is much easier than making them.”
“Stupid people are dangerous.” ― Suzanne Collins
Between The World and Me
“The world, the real one, was civilization secured and rules by savage means. How could the schools valorize men and women whose values society actively scorned? How could they send us out into the scteets of Baltimore, knowing all that they were, and then speak of nonviolence?” ― Ta-Nehisi Coates
Orwell on Truth
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” – George Orwell
The Penultimate Truth
“if men are too blind to govern themselves, how can they be trusted to govern others?” ― Philip K. Dick
This Is an Uprising
“At their core, the principles of civil resistance are inherently democratic: nonviolent campaigns require mass public support and participation if they are to succeed.” ― Mark Engler
Ratf**ked
“America is the only major democracy in the world that allows politicians to pick their own voters.” ― David Daley
The Road to Unfreedom
“An important sign of the collapse of the rule of law is the rise of a paramilitary and its merger with government power.” ― Timothy Snyder
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