Getting smarter about protest 

The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution Micah White (2016)

Dissent: The History of an American Idea Ralph Young (2015)

When We Fight, We Win: Twenty-First-Century Social Movements and the Activists That Are Transforming Our World Greg Jobin-Leeds (2016)

The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Alicia Garza (2020)

This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century, Paul and Mark Engler (2016)

Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, Zeynep Tufekci (2017)

The Movement and The Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. Terry Anderson et al (1995)

Subterranean Fire Sharon Smith (2018)

The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements James Jasper (2008)

What We Do Now: Standing Up For Your Values in Trump's America Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians (2017)

Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt Sarah Jaffe (2016)

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, Angela Davis (2016)

Getting smarter about our unruly history

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776)

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau (1849)

Steal This Book Abbie Hoffman (1971)

The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade, Judith and Edward Albert (1984)

The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (2017)

Killers of the Dream Lillian Smith (1994)

How Change Happens Duncan Green (2016)

The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story Nikole Hannah-Jones (2021)

The Movement and The Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. Terry Anderson et al (1995)

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present by David Treuer (2019).

Getting smarter about race

They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement, Wesley Lowery (2016)

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi (2019)

The Color of Law Richard Rothstein (2017)

I’ve Got The Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Charles M. Payne (2007)

Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin (1955)

The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education Ibram X. Kendi (2012)

Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century by Barbara Ransby (2018)

Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements Deva Woodly (2021)

Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen Ishizuka (2016)

Race, Rights and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture Alexandra Filindra (2023)

All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life Winona LaDuke (1999)

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America Clint Smith, (2021)

Get smarter about incarceration and abolition

Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson, (2015)

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (2012)

Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, Ruthie Gilmore (2007)

Queer and Trans Prison Voices: A Podcast Archive on Prison Abolition Josefine Ziebell (2022)

Get smarter about disability

No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement Joseph Shapiro (1994)

The Politics of Empowerment David Pettinicchio (2019)

Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability Paul Longmore (2003)

Getting smarter about saving our planet

All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis Edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson (2021)

This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent Daegen Miller (2018)

The Climate Book Greta Thunberg (2023)

The World We Need: Stories and Lessons from America’s Unsung Environmental Movement Audrea Lim (2021)

Get smarter about struggles abroad

Note: I originally wrote this before the renewed war between Israel and Hamas broke out; undoubtedly there are new and better books to supplement this reading list as well. My biggest suggestion is to find a protest movement you want to know more about, and then look at the reading lists assembled by its supporters.

The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter’s Quest Aminatta Forna (2003)

Parastou Forouhar: Art, Life and Death in Iran edited by Rose Issa (2011)

The Underground Girls of Kabul Jenny Nordberg (2015)

Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot Masha Gessen (2014)

The Magic Lantern Timothy Garten Ash (1991)

Get smarter about gender and sexuality

Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism Jennifer Baumgardner, Amy Richards, and Winona LaDuke (2005)

Good and Mad Rebecca Traister (2018, updated 2023)

A Guide to Gender: The Social Justice Advocate's Handbook Sam Killermann (2017)

Rage Becomes Her Soraya Chemaly (2018)

The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service Laura Kaplan (2019)

Organizing for Transgender Rights Anthony J. Nownes (2020)

The Pregnancy Police: Conceiving Crime, Arresting Personhood Grace Howard (2024)

Getting smarter through memoir

How do people who participated in activism big and small understand their own stories?

Eloquent Rage Brittney Cooper (2018)

Dear America: Notes of An Undocumented Citizen Jose Antonio Vargas (2018)

Between the World and Me TaNehisi Coates (2015) (just read all of his stuff)

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban Malala Yousafzai (2013) 

Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi (2008)

Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant Andrea Dworkin (2006)

Eyes to the Wind Ady Barkan (with a forward from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex ) 2019

The entire March graphic novel collection, John Lewis (2013)

Citizen: An American Lyric Claudia Rankine (2014)

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows Ai Weiwei (2022)

Getting smarter through fictional encounters

Beyond 1984 and Animal Farm and Brave New World, because you already know to read those

The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood

The Color Purple Alice Walker

Dissident Gardens Jonathan Lethem

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist Sunil Yapa

Do Not Say We Have Nothing Madeleine Thien

The Book of Joan Lidia Yuknavitch

The Great Believers Rebecca Makkai

There, There Tommy Orange

Getting smarter about dissident art

Protest!: A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics Liz McQuiston (2019)

Picturing Resistance: Moments and Movements of Social Change from the 1950s to Today Melanie and Ken Light (2020)

Trespass: A History Of Uncommissioned Urban Art, Carlo McCormick and Marc Shiller (2010)

Helping your kids get smarter too

Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins Carole Boston Weatherford

Pride Puppy Robin Stevenson and Julie McLaughlin

We March Shane W. Evans

Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem Amanda Gorman

A is for Activist Innosanto Nagara

Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Books Florida has banned

The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison

Looking for Alaska John Green

Gender Queer: A Memoir Maia Kobabe

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky

Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher

All Boys Aren’t Blue George M. Johnson

Flamer Mike Curato

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie

Out of Darkness Ashley Hope Perez

The Poem “The Hill We Climb” Amanda Gorman

Honorable mention: two books about crayons (because we live in the dumbest timeline): Red: A Crayon’s Story and The Day the Crayons Quit (banned for featuring a “naked” crayon).

[1] If you don’t know Ady Barkan’s legacy, you owe it to yourself to do some reading. He died in 2023 while I was writing this book, and the world is so lucky that he shared his time and labor and talent with us while grappling with this awful illness. The book owes a debt to his activism.