Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser (Anchor, $17). I had to rush out and buy this book after I saw the movie with Kirsten Dunst. Fraser has a gift for making history narratively juicy. A gossipfest from another era, with plenty of lessons about hubris and repression that are timely today.
Buy Marie Antoinette at Amazon
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Reds by Ted Morgan (Random House, $17). This is a stunning and very balanced account of the Red Scare in the U.S. in the 1950s. It is amazing to see how little it takes to close down an open society once people feel they are personally threatened for having engaged in dissent.
All Governments Lie! by Myra MacPherson (Scribner, $35). This biography of the great muckraking journalist I.F. Stone is another riveting reminder of how the U.S. periodically engages in efforts to close down dissent.
Guantánamo by Michael Ratner with Ellen Ray (Chelsea Green, $15). I can’t say this book makes pleasant reading, but it is definitely one of the most important books on my list. Written by a leading human-rights lawyer who represents Guantánamo detainees, Guantánamo will trouble your conscience. What we are doing there to innocent people as well as to people who are guilty—both of whom should face a fair trial—is far beyond what even educated people are likely to have read about.
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