Read Orientalism

Socrates on justice, the philosopher-king and the cave; the book Western philosophy replies to.

Machiavelli's advice to a ruler: better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

Solzhenitsyn's literary investigation of the camps from 227 witnesses; the abridged edition is enough.

A Kentucky coal strike in 1973, filmed from the picket line; Barbara Kopple's Oscar.

What humans will want once famine, plague and war are solved; Harari's sequel.

Haile Selassie's court told by its servants; Kapuscinski on power anywhere.

Russians remember the end of the Soviet Union and the 1990s; Alexievich's chorus.

American history from the losers' side, Columbus to Clinton; Zinn's two million copies.