(!) = most highly recommended by MP

intro to communism:

• The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels [Madeline Pendleton rec: start with chapter 2]
• Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism - Lenin ["ties in how imperialism/foreign policy is linked to domestic policies of capitalism"]
• Women, Race, and Class - Angela Davis [intersectionality!!]
• Oppose Book Worship - Mao Tse-tung [easy read; essay not a book]
• The Correct Handling of a Revolution - Huey P. Newton [also recommends transcriptions of his speeches]

slightly harder reads that are good intro primers:

• Das Kapital - Marx [political theory prof advised they assign chapters 1, 2, 5 & 6 due to length of full text] [tough read so commenters rec'd "Marx's Capital Illustrated" & "Reading Capital Today" as easier-to-digest alternatives]
• Black Marxism - Cedric Robinson

Palestine:

• The Question of Palestine - Edward Said [updated version also ties into some American foreign policy]

Foreign Policy:

• (!) Killing Hope - William Blum [available as free pdf on CIA website lmao; explores US military and CIA interventions worldwide since WWII; broken up into 50+ small chapters that outline specific operations in different places; don't have to read in order; short overviews so research specific topics further to learn more]
• Crisis Reader: Volume One - Crisis Editions [effort to preserve journalism; harder to find but article titled "The CIA in the Media" written by Carl Bernstein for Rolling Stone in 1977 is available online
• The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins [about how US main goal is fighting communism abroad and all the terrible things that happened in pursuit of that]
• An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire - Arundhati Roy [short and easy to read; endorsed by Naomi Klein]
• The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein [engaging & easy to read]
• The Zapatista Reader [collection of essays so can read in any order; engaging & easy to read]
• The Village Against the World - Dan Hancox [interesting perspective on how communism & socialism can be applied at a small scale in localized communities]
• On Cuba - Noam Chomsky [exploration of effects of blockade on Cuba & US foreign policy against Cuba]
• The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon [decolonial politics]

Korea:

• Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution from 1945-1950 - Suzy Kim [engaging & written by prof of Korean history]
• The Hidden History of the Korean War 1950-1951 - I.F. Stone
• Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics, and Public Opinion 1950-1953 - Steven Casey
• North Korea - Bruce Cumings [small easy read & more modern account]
• Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History - Bruce Cumings [also modern account obvs]

Prison Abolition:

• We Do This 'Til We Free Us - Mariame Kaba [great intro text]
• Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
• (!) Elite Capture - Olufemi O. Taiwo [about commodification of identity politics by capitalism; fast easy ready but vital info]

those deemed "enemies of the state":

• We Are All Suspects Now - Tram Nguyen [talks about the actual human effect of politics; explores aftermath of 9/11 and war on terror; explores homeland security and impact on our politics abroad]

Additional Black Panther recs:

• anything Kathleen Cleaver or Huey P. Newton
• The Revolution Has Come - Robyn C. Spencer [history of Black Panther Party; also FBI COINTELPRO]

recommendations from comments on the video:

• An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz
• Blackshirts and Reds - Michael Parenti
• Orientalism - Edward Said
• Culture and Imperialism - Edward Said
• Materialism and the Dialectical Method - Maurice Cornforth
• Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism - Harsha Walia
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Walter Rodney
• Discourse on Colonialism - Cesaire
• Neo-Colonialism - Nkrumah
• Doppelgänger - Naomi Klein
• Policing the Planet - Christina Heatherton [anti-racism]
• Killing the Black Body - Dorothy E. Roberts [anti-racism]
• Medical Apartheid - Harriet A. Washington [anti-racism]
• If They Come in the Morning - Angela Davis
• The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin [anti-capitalist]
• Pirates and Emperors - Chomsky [anti-capitalist]
• Practical Utopia - Michael Albert [anti-capitalist]
• A Field Guide to White Supremacy - Kathleen Belew
• Uncivil Disobedience - Jennet Kirkpatrick
• The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber, David Wengrow
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years - David Graeber
• Caste - Isabelle Wilkerson ["great exploration of race structure in US and how nazi party used our laws to structure their own"]