When the civil rights era dawned and that authoritarian system broke through, the result was not only civil rights for individual black citizens, but a massive redistribution of political power in the United States, just as democratic revolutions in other countries brought about. Seen through that lens, the chaos of the sixties and seventies takes on a completely different cast.
Reader Responses: Books That Changed Your View of the World
Jan Levine Thal, from Madison, WI recommended “The Mandarins” by Simone de Beauvoir
The first book that changed my life five decades ago was The Mandarins. I was 21 and traveled with my brother through India from a cheap hotel to a tacky youth residence. We stopped at a kind of hostel run by a church. The book was on a shelf with the Bible and some other volumes. I opened it idly. I was entranced. It made me understand what it meant to have the lights back on in Paris after World War II. And about national loss and identity without fascism. I became an activist against war.
Felipe Fisher from Chicago, IL recommended “No Visible Bruises” by Rachel Louise Snyder
I read this book a few years ago and it completely changed my view on domestic violence. Snyder has confronted me with my own assumptions and stereotypes about victims of domestic violence and the deep-seated misogyny that allow this ongoing epidemic to flourish. It has stayed with me to this day.
Sandra Hager Eliason, from Minneapolis, MN, USA, recommended ‘Cost of Living’ by Emily Florence Maloney
I’m a doctor. I’ve spent years thinking and talking about the problems in the medical system, but I haven’t been able to find the right words to distill these thoughts and feelings. In Cost of Living, Maloney describes how a suicide attempt forced her to pay for years, making her realize the true cost of living.
As an emergency room assistant, as someone who works for drugs, she sees the medical system from both sides, patient and health professional, and is able to really describe the problems in a way that kept me saying “Yes!” and be thankful that someone could describe the intricacies of this system, the nuts and bolts behind the interactions with patients, in a way that lay people could identify with.
What are you reading?
Thank you to everyone who has written to tell me what you are reading. Keep the submissions coming!