Book Recommendations from Paul Krugman
I’ve been asked by several people to recommend books liberals should read. I’m a bit wary, since there’s the terrible risk of failing to mention something really good, quite possibly written by a friend. So this list isn’t a “best of” list or anything like that – it’s a list of books I consulted a lot in writing The Conscience of a Liberal, and happened to remember when preparing this list. I was a little surprised, compiling this list, at the absence of economics books. But that’s because economists tend to write articles in professional journals, not books for general audiences.

Starting with the more accessible, less technical books.

Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. An eye-opening account of the origins of movement conservatism. Rick also let me have a draft of Nixonland, his next book, which will be even more stunning.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919-1933, The Age of Roosevelt. A portrait of America on the verge of the New Deal, pregnant with parallels to our own time.

Thomas Edsall, The New Politics of Inequality. A 1984 book that presciently saw what was happening to America.

Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. A glorious, thought-provoking rant on how “values” issues are used to mask elitist economic policies. I don’t actually fully agree with Tom Frank – I’ve become convinced, largely by some of the other books on this list, that race, not values, is what it’s really about. But Frank defines the issue, and his wrath is a joy to behold.

Thomas F. Schaller, Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South. By rights, Schaller should have been all over TV last November: this is the book that explained the 2006 election, in advance. A powerful reminder that race is still central to American politics, but also a diagnosis of the reasons it’s losing its sting.

And a couple of technical books by political scientists:

Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Find updated charts at PolarizedAmerica.com. This book, which uses sophisticated techniques to track ideological changes in Congress and relates those changes to America’s changing income distribution, was to a large extent where I started.

Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. It’s not in print yet, but it can be read online here. Chapter 3 is a version of his paper “What’s the matter with What’s the Matter With Kansas?” and a must-read along with Frank’s book – although beware, there are a lot of tables and charts. Chapter 6, “Homer gets a tax cut,” is must reading for those who are tempted to impute too much rationality to political debate.