“To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth,” Rolling Stone has advised, “you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert.” From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most

A Harvard student from China discovers the fraught, hidden history of the Tiananmen Square massacre in this powerful novel of protest and suppression from the National Book Award–winning author.   1 In the fall of 2008, my sophomore year at Harvard, China’s premier came to visit and gave a speech. Urged by the officials of

From the celebrated writer J. Malcolm Garcia, a narrative nonfiction account of a forgotten Alabama neighborhood through intimate, tender, and gritty profiles of its people as they navigate immense loss and an unassailable determination to overcome their circumstances.   Overture December 2020. A friend calls and tells me about a feature story he saw on PBS about

The bestselling author of American Nations reveals how centuries-old regional differences have brought American democracy to the brink of collapse and presents a powerful story that can bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic.   Introduction Democratic collapses, like bankruptcies, happen gradually and then all at once. So do collapses of countries. Americans are experienc­ing what

From the national bestselling author of The Food Explorer comes the untold story of Alice Hamilton, a trailblazing doctor and public health activist who took on the booming auto industry—and the deadly invention of leaded gasoline, which would poison millions of people across America.   1 Alice Hamilton in 1915. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1919 For as long as

From renowned organizers and activists Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor, comes the first in-depth examination of Solidarity—not just as a rallying cry, but as potent political movement with potential to effect lasting change. A Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist   Introduction In 1969, an ambitious and zealous political operative named Kevin Phillips published a book

PRH Education/Common Reads presents: unCommon Authors unCommon Authors is a monthly video series highlighting exceptional and unique authors talking about their books.   Advocate is a moving graphic memoir following Eddie Ahn, an environmental justice lawyer and activist striving to serve diverse communities in San Francisco amidst environmental catastrophes, an accelerating tide of racial and

From one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the forces eroding America’s social fabric, her most personal and powerful work: a reckoning with the changes that have rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown.   It was June 2023, and Silas James had just graduated from Urbana High School, forty-one years after I wore that

Dear Reader, With heat waves, wildfires, storms, and floods becoming ever more deadly, the urgency of climate action is increasingly understood. Unfortunately, people are unsure what to do beyond choosing a more fuel-efficient vehicle or other options that are out of reach for most college students. When faced with the need to transform our systems,

Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United

How to Foster Civil Discourse in the Classroom Using the Science of Group Dynamics to Help Your Students Disagree Well By Colin M. Fisher, professor at University College London and author of The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups   Universities were once celebrated as places where ideas could be challenged, debated, and

Orwell: 2+2=5 is a 2025 documentary film, directed and produced by Raoul Peck. It follows the life and career of George Orwell, and how his political observations are still relevant in present day, particularly the lessons from his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.   George Orwell (1903–1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and