A lot of people ask me for book or article recommendations. To save us all time, I’m compiling (lightly annotated) bibliographies to topics such as Israel-Palestine, feminism, socialism, and LGBTQ rights. If you have books, articles, or answers to add, get in touch via the “Contact Me” page on this site and if I agree with your addition, I’ll add it to this page. Lists reflect my own biases and blind spots, although I crowdsourced these so they include some sources I haven’t read myself.

Israel-Palestine Bibliography



Abdelrazaq, L. 2015. Baddawi. [graphic novel]

Abunimah, A. 2014. The Battle for Justice in Palestine. [accessible introductory text]

al-Ali, N. 2009. A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali. [as promised, these are cartoons]

Andoni, G. et al. 2004. Palestine Under Fire: Israel, Palestine, and the International Solidarity Movement.

Barghouti, O. 2011. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. [Barghouti was one of the earliest to put out the call for BDS, so this is a great starter text for that subject]

Bennis, P. 2007. Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. [great introductory text]

Blumenthal, M. 2015. The 51-Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza.

——– 2014. Goliath. [really well-reported, powerful work of journalism]

Brossat, A. and S. Klingberg. 2017. Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism. [definitely a fun read]

Chayut, N. The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust. [memoir]

Chomsky, N. in debate with Alan Dershowitz. 2014. [video]

Chomsky, N. and I. Pappe. 2015. On Palestine.

Darwish, M. 2017. Mural [poetry, illustrations by John Berger]

——- 1982. Memory for Forgetfulness [prose]

——- 1999. Then Palestine [poetry with photos by Larry Towell]

[but really, check out most anything by Darwish]

Davis, A. 2015. Freedom is a Constant Struggle. [beyond being a consistently wonderful thinker, Davis connects BLM and Palestine in this book]

Dawson, A. and B. Mullen. 2015. Against Apartheid: The Case for Boycotting Israeli Universities.

Flapan, S. 1983. The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities.

Finkelstein, N. 1995. Image and Reality. [great primer on the history]

Haddad, T. and T. Honig-Parnass. 2007. Between the Lines: Israel, the Palestinians, and the US War on Terror.

Hanieh, A. 2002. “Class, Economy, and the Second Intifada.” Monthly Review.

Hever, S. 2010. The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation.

Hoke, M. and C. Malek. 2014. Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under the Occupation.

Jacobs, S. and J. Soske. 2015. Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy. [South African writers on the South Africa-Israel comparison]

Jewish Voices for Peace. 2017. On Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice.

Kanafani, G. 2000. Returning to Haifa.

Kanazi, R. 2015. Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up from Brooklyn to Palestine. [poetry, and good poetry at that]

——— 2011. Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine.

——— (ed.) 2008. Poets for Palestine.

Karmi, G. 2015. Return. [memoir]

——- 2009. In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story. [memoir]

Khalidi, R. 2006. The Iron Cage.

——- 1997. Palestinian Identity.

Khaled, L. 1973. My People Shall Live.

Kimmerling, B. 2006. Politicide: The Real Lefacy of Ariel Sharon.

Laor, Y. 2017. The Myths of Liberal Zionism.

Laron, G. 2017. The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East.

Levy, G. 2010. The Punishment of Gaza.

Lim, A. (ed). 2012. The Case for Sanctions Against Israel.

Lockman, Z. 1996. Comrades and Enemies.

Machovers, M. 1969. “The Class Character of Israel.” International Socialist Review.

Marqusee, M. 2010. If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew. [memoir]

Marshall, P. 1989. Intifada: Zionism, Imperialism, and Palestinian Resistance.

Mayer, A. 2008. Plowshares into Swords: From Zionism to Israel.

Omer, M. 2015. Shell Shocked: On the Ground Under Israel’s Gaza Assault. [I remember being glued to Omer’s social-media updates during this assault, his reporting was so crucial]

Pappe, I. 2006. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. [more advanced but necessary read]

Prashad, V. (ed) 2015. Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation.

Reinhart, T. 2002. The Question of Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948.

Sacco, J. 2009. Footnotes from Gaza. [graphic novel]

—– 1994. Palestine. [graphic novel]

Said, E. 1992. The Question of Palestine. [Said is famous for his book ‘Orientalism,’ but in this book he deals directly with his birthplace]

Salaita, S. 2015. Uncivil Rights: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom.

Sayigh, Y. 1997. Armed Struggle and the Search for a State: The Palestinian National Movement 1949-1993.

Shammas, A. 1988. Arabesques. [a novel on Palestinian citizens of Israel]

Shlaim, A. 2010. Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. [warning: this one’s dense]

—– 2000. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.

Thrall, N. 2017. The Only Language They Understand.

Valley, E. 2017. Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel. [graphic novel]

Weizman, E. 2017. The Least of All Possible Evils: A Short History of Humanitarian Violence.

—– 2007. Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.

White, B. 2009. Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide.

Websites

Writing by Palestinian leftists: https://kanan48.wordpress.com/ghassan…/political-writings/

Great primer by the Middle East Research and Information Project: http://www.merip.org/primer-palestine-israel-arab-israeli-conflict-new

Visualizing Palestine

News and commentary:

+972mag.com

mondoweiss.net

electronicintifada.net

Films

Budrus (2009)

Divine Intervention (2002)

Five Broken Cameras (2011)

Gaza in Context (2016, twenty-minute documentary)

Ha-Hesder [Time of Favor] (2000)

Ici et Ailleurs (1976, Godard)

Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork (2009)

Jenin, Jenin (2002)

Late Summer Blues (1988)

Lemon Tree (2008)

Munich (2005)

Occupied Palestine (1981)

Omar (2013)

Paradise Now (2005)

Return to Haifa (2015)

Roadmap to Apartheid (2012)

Salt of This Sea (2008)

The Gatekeepers (2012)

The Law in These Parts (2012)

The Promise (2011, TV mini-series)

The Time that Remains (2009)

The Wanted 18 (2014)

Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Where Should the Birds Fly? (2013)

This is also a remarkably well-organized and surely under-utilized bibliography on Israel-Palestine by my friend Will Brown: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nwIK4OLoDad1WWORCOZNWJZUdCJza6eQYbZIqoBNuNe6B-KC4dB6pdWftpgygrjdjM2i98LrLkiODMVt/view

Feminist Bibliography

Alcoff., L 1988. “Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory.”

“______” 1992. “The Problem of Speaking for Others.”

“______” 2005. Visible Identities.

Angelou, M. 1969. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. [powerful and accessible autobiography by one of my favorite figures of all time]

Anzaldua. 1987. Borderlands/La Frontera.

Arruzza, C. 2016. “Functionalist, Determinist, Reductionist: Social Reproduction Feminism and its Critics.” Science and Society. [the benefit of being very recent, by one of the organizers of the women’s strike]

Atwood, M. 1998. The Handmaid’s Tale. [a novel and of course, now a tv series]

Baker, K. 2013. “Cockblocked by Redistribution: A Pick-Up Artist in Denmark.” [fun quick read]

Brown, W. 1988. Manhood and Politics.

“_______” 1995. States of Injury.

“_______” 2015. Undoing the Demos.

Brownmiller, S. 1984. Femininity.

Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. [this one’s famous but it is a bit dense]

“_____” 2004. Undoing Gender.

Butler, J. and J. Scott. 1992. Feminists Theorize the Political.

Collins, P. 1990. Black Feminist Thought.

Combahee River Collective. 1978. Foundational Statement. [short but absolute must read]

Costa, M. and S. James. 1971. The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community.

Crenshaw, K. 1993. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” [these days, this one is a must-read]

Davis, A. 1981. Women, Race, and Class. [a must read]

“_____” 1977. “Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation.”

De Beauvoir, S. 1949. The Second Sex. [one of the original feminist classics]

Delphy, C. 2015. Separate and Dominate.

Doeuff, M. 1989. The Philosophical Imaginary.

Duggan and Hunter. 2006. The Sex Wars.

Dworkin, A. 1983. Right-Wing Women.

“________” 1987. Intercourse. [this one is controversial – most feminists these days take issue with it – but that may be all the more reason to read it]

Ehrenreich, B. 2001. Nickle and Dimed.

Erickson, M. 2015. Class War: The Privatization of Childhood.

Fausto-Sterling. 2000. Sexing the Body.

Featherstone, L. 2004. Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Worker’s Rights at Walmart.

Federici, S. 2004. Caliban and the Witch.

“________” 2012. Revolution at Point Zero.

“________” 1971. Wages Against Housework. [this was and remains a controversial essay and campaign, but is thought-provoking and a necessary reference point]

Firestone, S. 1970. The Dialectic of Sex.

Frank, D. 1985. “Housewives, Socialists, and the Politics of Food: The 1917 New York Cost-of-Living Protests.” Feminist Studies. 11(2): 255-285.

Fraser, N. 2013. Fortunes of Feminism.

Friedan, B. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. [largely outdated but was a huge deal at the time]

Gilman, C. 1898. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. [including this one because it’s one of the earliest feminist texts]

Grant, M. 2014. Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work. [accessible and quick read]

Goldman, E. 1931. Living My Life.

Halberstam, J. 1998. Female Masculinity.

Haraway, D. 1984. A Cyborg Manifesto.

Hartmann, B. 1987. Reproductive Rights and Wrongs.

Hochschild, A. 1989. The Second Shift.

hooks, b. 1981. Ain’t I a Woman?

“_____” 1984. Feminist Theory From Margin to Center.

“_____” 2004. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.

Hyman, P. 1980. “Immigrant Women and Consumer Protest: The New York City Kosher Meat Boycott of 1902.” American Jewish History. 70(1): 91-105.

INCITE. 2016. Color of Violence.

Irigaray. 1985. This Sex Which is Not One.

Jackson, E. 1940 [republished in Viewpoint Magazine, 2015]. “The Negro Woman Domestic Worker in Relation to Trade Unionism.”

James, S. 1975. Sex, Race and Class.

Kaplan, L. 1995. The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service.

Kollantia, A. 1927. Red Love.

Kristeva, J. 2001. Female Genius: Life, Madness, Words: Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein, Colette.

Lorde, A. 1984. Sister Outsider.

MacKinnon, K. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State.

Mead, M. 1935. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies.

Mies, M. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale.

Millett, K. 1969. Sexual Politics.

Mitchell, J. 1974. Psychoanalysis and Feminism. [now you can still like Freud and be a feminist]

Mohanty, C. 1974. Feminism without Borders.

Moraga/Anzaldua. 1981. This Bridge Called My Back.

Morrison, T. 1987. Beloved. [amazing novel]

Ortega, M. 2006. “Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant: White Feminism and Women of Color”

Pateman, C. 1988. The Sexual Contract.

Plaskow, J. 2014. Feminism, Theology, and Justice.

Plath, S. 1963. The Bell Jar. [a novel, but a feminist text nonetheless]

Roberts, D. 1998. Killing the Black Body. [extremely popular book]

Rowbotham, S. 1972. Women, Resistance, and Revolution.

Rubin, G. 1984. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Politics of Sexuality.” [this essay is foundational]

Scott, J. 1989. Gender and the Politics of History.

“____” 1986. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” The American Historical Review. 91(5): 1053-1075.

Solanis, V. 1967. SCUM Manifesto. [can’t skip this one]

Smith-Rosenberg, C. 2010. This Violent Empire: The Birth of American National Identity.

Stanton, E. 1881-1922. History of Woman Suffrage.

Taylor, K. 2016. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation.

Vogel, L. 1983. Marxism and the Oppression of Women.

Walker, A. 1982. The Color Purple. [hugely powerful novel]

Weeks, K. 2011. The Problem with Work.

Wittig, M. 1980. “One is Not Born a Woman.”

Wollstonecraft, M. 1792. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. [the original feminist text…holds up]

Woolf, V. 1925. Mrs. Dalloway [novel]

“_____” 1927. To The Lighthouse. [novel]

“_____” 1929. A Room of One’s Own.

Bonus FAQ: Are there any good online resources for left/working class feminism? I’ve always wanted to read something like Feministing but not liberal feminism, but there seems to be no solid presence for working class or left feminism on the web

A: I don’t know of a website specifically devoted to left feminism, but you can find good feminist writing at a number of websites more broadly focused on left politics. Instead of trying to come up with a list, I’ll plug writers who are reliably good on left feminism: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Sarah Jaffe, Tithi Bhattacharya, Miya Tokumitsu, Sarah Jones, Laleh Khalili, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Kate Aronoff, Trish Kahle, Nicole Ashcoff, Melissa Gira Grant, Belen Fernandez, Roqayah Chamseddine, Meagan Day, Nancy Fraser, Deepa Kumar, Angela Nagle, Cinzia Arruzza, Liza Featherstone, Amber Frost, Rachel Cohen, Frances Fox Piven, Michelle Chen, Michelle Alexander, Sarah Leonard, Megan Kilpatrick, Catherine Liu, Abi Wilikinson, Laurie Penny, Lisa Duggan, Liz Bruenig, Premilla Nadasen, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Syvlia Federici, Kathleen Geier, Kathi Weeks

Introductory Socialist Texts Bibliography

Adamczak, B. 2017. Communism for Kids.

Anderson, P. 1976. Considerations on Western Marxism. [theoretical]

Cohen, GA. 2009. Why Not Socialism?

Davis, A. 2015. Freedom is a Constant Struggle.

Eagleton, T. 2011. Why Marx was Right.

Fisher, M. 2009. Capitalist Realism. [this is a short read and changed some of my friends’ lives]

Friere, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. [okay, this is not an intro to socialism but it is indispensable]

Goldman, E. 1931. Living My Life.

Harrington, M. 1973. Socialism.

Jacobin. 2016. ABCs of Socialism.

Katch, D. 2015. Socialism…Seriously.

Keucheyan, R. 2014. Left Hemisphere.

le Guin, U. 1974. The Dispossessed. [science fiction]

Maass, A. with intro by H. Zinn. 2008. The Case for Socialism.

Marx, K. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. [c’mon, this has to be on the list]

McMillan, S. 2014. Capitalism Must Die. [part book, part cartoons]

Miliband, R. 1994. Socialism for a Sceptical Age. [while I haven’t read this one yet, it comes highly recommended by friends]

Miliband and Liebman. 1985. “Beyond Social Democracy.” [highly recommend]

Huberman, L. and P. Sweezy. 1968. Introduction to Socialism.

Orwell, G. 1938. Homage to Catalonia. [extremely fun read, this is a personal account of Orwell’s experience in the Spanish Civil War]

Rich, A. 2007. Poetry and Commitment. [for a particular type of reader]

Rio, E. 2003. Marx for Beginners.[cartoon book!]

Taylor, K. 2016. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. [cannot recommend this book enough]

Zinn, H. 1980. A People’s History of the United States.

LGBTQ Bibliography

Baldwin, J. 1956. Giovanni’s Room. [it’s a Baldwin novel!]

Bornstein, K. 1994. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us.

“__________” 1997. My Gender Workbook.

Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble.

“______” 2004. Undoing Gender.

Chauncey, G. 1994. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940.

Cohen, C. 1997. “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens.” [v enjoyable essay]

“______” 1999. The Boundaries of Blackness.

D’Emilio, J. 1983. “Capitalism and Gay Identity.” [this may be my favorite text on this list]

Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the US 1940-70.

Duggan, L. 2004. The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy.

Edelman, L. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive.

Feinberg, L. 1993. Stone Butch Blues. [extremely popular novel]

Floyd, K. 2009. The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism.

Foucault, M. 1976. History of Sexuality.

Frank, M. 2014. Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America.

Halberstam, J. 1998. Female Masculinity.

Halperin, D. 1990. One Hundred Years of Homosexuality.

Hennessey, R. 2000. Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism.

Lorde, A. 1984. Sister Outsider.

Moraga/Anzaldua. 1981. This Bridge Called My Back.

Munoz, J. 2009. Cruising Utopia: the Then and There of Queer Futurity.

“______” 1999. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics.

Puar, J. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. [this one is dense but has some interesting essays buried in it]

Rich, A. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”

Rubin, G. 1984. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Politics of Sexuality.”

Shilts, R. 1987. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic.

Smith, B. 1983. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology.

Teal, D. 1995. The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in America.

Walters, S. 2014. The Tolerance Trap.

Warner, M. 1999. The Trouble with Normal.

“_________” 1993. Fear of a Queer Planet.

Wolf, S. 2009. Sexuality and Socialism.

Will have one of these up for race soon, and I’ll probably expand – especially to add articles and lighter readings – and better organize these another day. Enjoy/stay tuned.