Books They Would Ban If They Could
Books that terrify the far-right!
As book-banning becomes more prevalent, books on race, colonialism, gender politics and leftist politics are being removed from school curriculums and public libraries.
Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law is in full effect and being used to erase LGBTQ+ history and stigmatize LGBTQ+ students, and young people are forming ‘banned-book clubs’. Ted Cruz even ranted about the dangers of books on Critical Race Theory being assigned in schools during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing— leading to skyrocketing sales of The End of Policing by Alex Vitale (thanks Ted!)
And schools aren’t the only venues where our books are being banned. Julian Assange’s family was barred from taking copies of The Trial of Julian Assange by Nils Melzer into Australia’s parliament as it was deemed “protest material.”
These are the books that terrify the far-right, including a brilliant introduction to trans politics, a study of violent self-defense, and a call to abolish borders!
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When Ted Cruz waved this book around at a Senate confirmation hearing as an example of the ‘dangerous’ rhetoric being spread in schools, he brought police abolition to a massive and hungry audience. If only all of our books could get such an endorsement…
[book-strip index="2" style="buy"]The case of Julian Assange sets a chilling precedent: for when telling the truth has become a crime, we will all be living in a tyranny.
[book-strip index="3" style="buy"]“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” The Communist Manifesto is the most influential political book ever written—few others have fundamentally changed the world.
[book-strip index="4" style="buy"]A classic study of the origin of white privilege from the activist who first coined the term.
[book-strip index="5" style="buy"]This history of policing reveals the true character of a state that tries to silence dissent with violence. Protest will, however, not be suppressed.
[book-strip index="6" style="buy"]SCUM Manifesto was considered one of the most outrageous, violent and certifiably crazy tracts when it first appeared in 1968. But for all its vitriol, it is impossible to dismiss.
[book-strip index="7" style="buy"]So often trans people are the subjects of a toxic debate which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. We are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.
[book-strip index="8" style="buy"]These amazing life stories expand and challenge mainstream assumptions about sexual identity: showing that homosexuality itself was an idea that emerged in the 19th century, one central to major historical events.
[book-strip index="9" style="buy"]Remembering the forgotten and ignored stories of Empire is one important step in the long hard work of making amends for centuries of injustice.
[book-strip index="10" style="buy"]Malm argues that we must force fossil fuel extraction to stop—with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines.
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The ten myths that Pappe explores—repeated endlessly in the media, enforced by the military, accepted without question by the world’s governments—reinforce the regional status quo of Israel.
[book-strip index="12" style="buy"]America has a long tradition of justifying war as the defense of democracy, especially in schools. But what is the true purpose of the American War Machine?
[book-strip index="13" style="buy"]Today, some lives are seen to be worth so little that Black teenagers can be shot in the back for appearing "threatening" while their killers are understood, by the state, to be justified. That those subject to the most violence have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, the question of using violence in the interest of self-defense.
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Against Borders is a passionate manifesto for border abolition, arguing that we must transform society and our relationships to one another, and build a world in which everyone has the freedom to move and to stay.
All books are 40% off as part of our Student Reading Sale. Ends September 30 at 11:59PM EST. See all our student reading lists here.
