Revolutionary Reading List

A [non-exhaustive] list of further readings, split up by topic.

(Note: This is a living page, and will be updated over time with additional readings and topics!)


PRIDE

Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come - Leslie Feinberg

This pamphlet is an attempt to trace the historic rise of an oppression that, as yet, has no commonly agreed name. We are talking here about people who defy the ‘man’-made boundaries of gender. Gender: self-expression, not anatomy.

Towards a Gay Communism: Elements of a Homosexual Critique - Mario Mieli

This book details the way in which the liberation of homosexual desire requires the emancipation of sexuality from both patriarchal sex roles and capital. It’s an essential reading for all who seek to understand the true meaning of sexual liberation under capitalism today.

Warped: Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism - Peter Drucker

“This book shows how the successive 'same-sex formations' of the past century and a half have led both to the emergence of today's 'homonormativity' and 'homonationalism' and to ongoing queer resistance” (Haymarket Books).

Transgender Marxism - Elle O'Rourke and Jules Joanne Gleeson

Reflecting on the relations between gender and labor, these essays reveal the structure of antagonisms faced by gender non-conforming people within society.

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique - Sa’ed Atshan

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique explores the necessity of connecting the struggles for Palestinian freedom with the struggle against homophobia. Sa'ed Atshan asks how transnational progressive social movements can balance struggles for liberation along more than one axis.

Honorable Mentions

  • The Spiral Path - David Fernbach

  • Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation - Sherry Wolf

  • Gay Liberation in the Eighties - Jamie Gough and Mike MacNair


LABOR

Strike! - Jeremy Brechner

Strike! narrates the dramatic story of repeated, massive, and sometimes violent revolts by ordinary working people in America and tells this exciting hidden history from the point of view of the rank-and-file workers who lived it.

Teamster Rebellion - Farrell Dobs

This is the story of the strikes and union organizing drive the men and women of Teamsters Local 574 carried out in Minnesota in 1934, paving the way for the continent-wide rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a fighting social movement.

A History of America in Ten Strikes - Erik Loomis

This book challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. Labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers' strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about.

Labor’s Untold Story - Richard O. Boyer

“Labor’s Untold Story is a history of the U.S. labor movement from the Civil War through the Eisenhower Administration. Widely regarded as a classic study since it was first published in 1955, the book documents labor-management conflict from the workers’ perspective” (Labor’s Bookstore).

From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend - Priscilla Murolo

Hailed as the first comprehensive look at American history through the prism of working people, this book "[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor" (Library Journal).

Honorable Mentions

  • American Labor Struggles - Samuel Yellen

  • The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker - Theresa S. Malkiel

  • Empire of Timber: Labor Unions and the Pacific Northwest Forests - Erik Loomis

  • Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution - Dan Georgakas, Marvin Surkin, Manning Marable


More topics coming soon!