Reading For Tuesday: Six Books for the ‘26 Midterms
One Week To Go
To know where we — as a nation – are going, it’s useful to know where we have been.
As America’s government and mutual fund investments have proven, past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
In the months leading up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I read 50 books for a deep dive into the events that led both in the independence of the United States from the United Kingdom and the years leading to the adoption of the Constitution.
Going into what is probably the most consequential election since I began voting 50 years ago, I opted to read five books that provide perspective on how our nation got into the mess it’s in, and prospects for getting ourselves out.
As I was concluding my non-fiction reading I opted to include sixth book, a remarkable work of fiction, “Yesteryear”.
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The two best measures of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” is his book sales and who hates him and the book.
The right has condemned this book. The left has condemned this book. There are dishonest academics on the right who have made entire careers out of trying to “debunk” Zinn and “A People’s History of the United States”.
Zinn must have done something right.
From the moment the first edition of this books was published in 1980 it became a best seller. At least 4 million copies have been sold and was still selling more than 100,000 books in 2006. Sales grew during the 30 years between 1980 and 2010.
Zinn updated the book significantly with a 2009 edition that covered the era up to the first Clinton administration.
Zinn died of a heart attack at age 87 in January 2010 while swimming in a hotel pool in Santa Monica, California. Even as he approached 90, Zinn was still out there lecturing. When he died, he was in Santa Monica to speak during an event “A Collection of Ideas… the People Speak” at the Crossroads School and the Santa Monica Museum of Art.
“A People’s History of the United States” was one of dozens of books Zinn authored or cowrote. In 2004, Zinn edited a primary source companion volume with Anthony Arnove, titled “Voices of a People’s History of the United States”, a move similar to the companion volume to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote as an answer to pro-slavery debunkers who claimed her portrayal of the horrors of slavery weren’t real.
“A People’s History of the United States” continues to sell well and is widely read 16 years after his death. Gee, I wonder why?
Zinn said in an interview shortly before his death that he would like to be remembered “for introducing a different way of thinking about the world, about war, about human rights, about equality,” and “for getting more people to realize that the power which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth and guns, that the power ultimately rests in people themselves and that they can use it. At certain points in history, they have used it. Black people in the South used it. People in the women’s movement used it. People in the anti-war movement used it. People in other countries who have overthrown tyrannies have used it.”
He said he wanted to be known as “somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before.”
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
Published in 2017, “On Tyranny” focuses on the concept of tyranny in the context of the modern United States politics, analyzing what Snyder calls “America’s turn towards authoritarianism.”
Snyder points out that “history does not repeat, but it does instruct.”
This slim volume – 126-pages – presents a series of instructions for fighting tyranny. These include things such as “defend institutions,” “remember professional ethics,” and “believe in truth.” Vigorous writing is concise.
Snyder’s “On Tyranny” analyzes 20th century Europe, identifying the conditions enabling the transformation of established democracies into dictatorships.
The book topped The New York Times Best Seller list for paperback nonfiction in 2017.
As of July 2025, more than 1.4 million copies of “On Tyranny” have been sold and the book is on its 47th printing.
On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History by Matthew C. MacWilliams
Twelve lessons about fascism in America in 12 chapters in 208 pages.
Political scientist and author Matthew C. MacWilliams covers topics including “the United States of Lyncherdom,” as Mark Twain labeled America, Lincoln versus Douglas, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Trail of Tears, the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, the Palmer Raids, McCarthyism and the surveillance state.
Some view “On Fascism”, published in 2020, as a companion to Snyder’s “On Tyranny”.
MacWilliams thinks denial and division will not save the Republic, but coming to terms with our history might.
“At turning points throughout history, as we aspired toward great things, we also witnessed the authoritarian impulse drive policy and win public support,” MacWilliams wrote in his website. “Only by confronting and reconciling this past, can America move forward into a future rooted in the motto of our Republic since 1782: e pluribus unum (out of many, one).
“But this book isn’t simply an indictment. It is also a celebration of our spirit, perseverance, and commitment to the values at the heart of the American project.”
The March of Folly, From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman
“The March of Folly, From Troy to Vietnam” was widely panned when it was published in 1984. Historian and journalist Tuchman was accused being “shallow.”
Tuchman contended her book is about “one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests” and not intended as in-depth examinations of each of these fumbles.
Mostly reviewers in era of Reagan didn’t like the book because she was critical of Vietnam and everyone at the time was now supposed to think the war was just dandy.
“March of Folly” details four historic examples of military and government failures.
• The Trojans’ deciding it was a good idea to move the Greek horse statue into their city.
• Renaissance popes, blinded by greed, fail to heed to the impending Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
• England’s failure dealing with the American colonies under King George III.
• United States’ mishandling of the conflict in Vietnam.
And man does Tuchman metaphorically go to Vietnam. More than half of the book is about America’s intvolvement in the Vietnam War.
Tuchman, who died in 1989, won the Pulitzer Prize twice. One for “The Guns of August” (1962), a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and “Stilwell and the American Experience in China” (1971), a biography of General Joseph Stilwell. She wrote 11 books and numerous other publications.
The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter
John Maynard Keynes was much more than just an economist, especially reviled by the likes of Ronald Reagan. Keynes was probably the 20th century’s the foremost anti-authoritarian philosopher.
“The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes” was written by Zachary D. Carter, who has been senior reporter at HuffPost coving economic policy and American politics, a columnist for Slate, a fellow at The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an adviser to the Hewlett Foundation, and a Writer in Residence with the Omidyar Network.
“The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes” was a New York Times bestseller and was named one of the best books of 2020 by the book critics of The New York Times, The Economist, Publishers Weekly, Bloomberg, Mother Jones, TechCrunch.
The book traces Keynes’ life from turn-of-the-20th-century Bloomsbury art scene parties in London to the negotiations shaping the Treaty of Versailles, stock market crashes and currency crises to diplomatic breakthroughs and wartime ballet openings at Covent Garden.
Keynes was an amazingly complex man who believed art and ideas could overcome war and deprivation. Keynes was a gay man who fell in love with a woman and started a family. He was a moral philosopher, political theorist, immersed in a creative world populated with ballerinas and literary icons.
In the last third of the book, Carter delves into a nearly a forgotten set of Keynes’ ideas – ideas despised by the likes of Reagan and the cabal that formed the MAGA Reich – that have the power to reinvent national government while reviving and reframing the principles of international diplomacy being destroyed by our current president.
Naturally, this earned Carter the ire of any number of MAGA pundits.
Yesteryear by Cao Claire Burke
This book is making right wing religious heads explode.
“Yesteryear”, published in April 2026, is a debut novel by Caro Claire Burke about a “tradwife” social media influencer, who wakes up one day in the 19th century, where she must learn how to live without the convenience of modern society. This description isn’t quite accurate, but to be accurate would, in effect, be a spoiler.
Burke is herself somewhat of an influencer, gaining a following on TikTok discussing topics like feminism and tradwives. She also cohosts a politics and pop culture podcast Diabolical Lies, with Katie Gatti Tassin.
“Yesteryear” has been called “the book of the year” by The New Yorker. Burke has gotten coverage from Vouge, Elle, People, Time, The New York Times and NPR. A film to star Anne Hathaway is in the works.
Burke even has her very own Substack. https://substack.com/@caroclaireburke/posts
“I suppose that’s why I wrote my novel. I figured if I couldn’t subvert the image of a tradwife, then I could subvert her world instead – and see how long it takes before she starts to scream,” Burke wrote in an essay published earlier this year in The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/29/serve-smile-procreate-yesteryear-author-caro-claire-burke-on-the-rise-of-the-tradwife.
“Yesteryear” was such a hot property that 15 publishing houses reportedly bid on the rights, and the film rights were sold to Amazon MGM Studios in July 2024, two years before publication.
Conservative publications, especially religious publications, pretty much despise the book.
Kirkus Reviews gave the novel a starred review. Kirkus called “Yesteryear” “a remarkable debut—both a book for the moment and one that will endure.”
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