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Ralph Nader > In the Public Interest > Summer Reading to Spark Civic Action

Summer Reading to Spark Civic Action

By Ralph Nader

July 11, 2025

Readers think, and thinkers read. Here are some selections for your summer reading list.

  1. A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine by Chris Hedges (Seven Stories, 2025). With brilliant narratives, both historical and contemporary—Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges provides the framework that explains how the mass-murdering Netanyahu regime can destroy the lives of 500,000 civilians, innocent babies, children, mothers, and fathers—and get away with it. Mr. Hedges enriches his insight as a war correspondent for the New York Times by recently re-visiting the repressed people of the West Bank. Although well known nationally, Hedges has been kept out of most mainstream media after his book was published, including the New York Times. You can be the person-to-person media for his intense and magnificent book.
  2. Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful (Mariner Books, 2025) by David Enrich. A deep exposé of the broad campaign orchestrated by plutocratic Americans to overturn sixty years of Supreme Court precedent. David Enrich is a very accurate, engaging journalist. A gripping and revelatory book.
  3. Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service (Penguin Books, 2025) by Michael Lewis. Bestselling author Lewis and other writers tell stories of the dedicated but unsung federal government workers—who defend us from pandemics, climate violence, air and water pollution, hunger, infectious diseases and corporate crimes—now under attack from Trump and, until recently, Elon Musk. Their vicious message to many thousands of these civil servants is: “You’re Fired.” (Mark Green and I foreshadowed Trump’s penchant for destruction of basic democratic institutions that serve the people in our 2020 book Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All.)
  4. Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within (The New Press, 2025) by Mike German and Beth Zasloff. Mike German, a former FBI agent, wrote this book before the re-election of Donald Trump, but it is quite current in terms of the lawlessness of the federal government under Trump, the violation of constitutional rights, statutory rights, and due process of law.
  5. White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (Liveright, 2024) by Rev. Dr. William Barber with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Rev. Barber is a supremely proven motivator. This compelling, usable book emphasizes CLASS BONDING against impoverishment and powerlessness.
  6. Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk (St. Martin’s Press, 2025) by Faiz Siddiqui. This is a very important book. It reflects a man who has unprecedented political and corporate power with the potential to affect every aspect of life in America—look at what he did under Trump with DOGE. It’s very readable and a book that increases your sense of awareness of who’s controlling what in our country.
  7. The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America (Princeton University Press, 2024) by Michael J. Graetz. If the American people and their Congress had listened to Michael Graetz over the years, we would have a much better political economy.
  8. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (Knopf, 2025) by Professor Peter Beinart. A short book, less than 150 pages, but it is very, very courageous, thought-provoking and very deeply probing of many of the obstacles to  peace in the Middle East.
  9. Zionist Betrayal of Jews: From Herzl to Netanyahu (2024) by Stanley Heller. A historical exposé that brings us to modern-day Netanyahu’s genocidal destruction of Gaza and its people.
  10. The Power of Where: A Geographic Approach to the World’s Greatest Challenges (ESRI Press, 2024) by Jack Dangermond. Dangermond—founder of ESRI—shows us how and why geography is so compellingly important.
  11. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (Crash Course Books, 2025) by John Green. Tuberculosis, the ancient scourge of humans, takes over a million lives a year, making it the world’s most deadly infectious disease. Bestselling novelist John Green tells the true story of how this disease shaped humanity.
  12. Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower (Skyhorse, 2025) by Becky McClain. To be released later this year, this memoir by a molecular biologist details her courageous fight against corporate retaliation after revealing dangerous biosafety failures in biotech labs. She raises the larger issue of poorly regulated biolab hazards near you.
  13. They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals (Crown, 2025) by Mariah Blake. A ten-year investigation into the chemical industry’s campaign to hide the dangers of forever chemicals. “We are in the midst of the gravest contamination crisis in human history,” journalist Blake told the Corporate Crime Reporter. 
  14. Growing Costs of U.S. Health Care Corporate Power vs. Human Rights (Copernicus Healthcare, 2025) by John Geyman.  The latest from Dr. John Geyman—a former family practitioner, professor and author of many books on the healthcare industry. He describes how costs and other problems can be resolved for the benefit of all Americans.
  15. American Empire Before the Fall (2010) and Congressional Surrender and Presidential Overreach (2023) by Bruce Fein. These two books from constitutional expert Bruce Fein draw persuasively from his deep historical and contemporary knowledge of American legal history.
  16. Civic Self-Respect (Seven Stories, 2025) by Ralph Nader. I wrote this book so readers can identify their own potential for wrapping civic awareness and activity around their daily roles as Citizens, Workers, Consumer-Shoppers, Taxpayers, Voters, Parents, Veterans, Philanthropists. If you would like an autographed copy, visit nader.org.