Read

• Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991 (2nd Edition).
  One of the key books on nationalism, Anderson discusses ways in which nationalism is socially constructed through the creation of “imagined communities.” The second edition adds three new chapters.
• Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
  A spectacular account of just what an incompetent mess of idiocy the Iraq occupation was.
• Andre Gunder Frank. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  Frank builds off of Immanuel Wallerstein’s ideas about the world system in order to make the argument that in the longue durée Asia should be recognized as the chief economic and political power and the last two hundred years as an aberration.
• Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, New York: Penguin, 1997.
  All your favorite punk rockers really liked Nazi paraphernalia.
• Rick Perlstein. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
  —. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. New York: Scribner, 2008.
  —. The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
  An indispensable guide to the rise of conservatism from the late 1950s through to Reagan’s first presidential campaign.