Does today’s political moment have you asking “How did we get here?” If so, we have a reading list for you that includes histories of American commerce and trade, culture wars, the American Supreme Court, European capitalism, and the hunt for Nazis who escaped justice after World War II. Works by political scientists analyze the politics of resentment, the importance of political parties, how constitutional rules can hinder or help the decline of democracy, and the racial politics of the Obama era. Ethnographic studies address the real roots of poverty, the racial dynamics of police stops, the lived experience of dealing with America’s safety net, and the crisis of deindustrialization in working-class communities. Finally, we offer a handy guide for assessing the reliability of information you find online.

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