Books -- Fiction (learn about them at Amazon Books)

1. "Thank You for Smoking" by Christopher Buckley (a lobbyist's trials and tribulations); also "Little Green Men," "God is my Broker," and "No Way to Treat a First Lady" -- all good, political satire.
2. "Fair Play for Frogs" by Jerome Waldie and Nestle J. Frobish (grassroots pressure on an important issue)
3. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood (contemporary disutopia)
4. "Darkness at Noon" and "The Gladiators" by Arthur Koestler (slave revolts and show trials: the power and tragedy of revolutionary ideology)
5. "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren (political ambition and corruption)
6. "Bread and Wine" by Ignazio Silone (becoming a man of the people)
7. "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey (eco-warriors or tree-huggers?)
8. "The Plague" by Albert Camus (fighting the good fight) and "Candide"  by Voltaire (the best of all possible worlds?)
9. "Jailbird" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" by Kurt Vonnegut (social justice)
10. "The Grand Inquisitor" by Fyodor Doestoyevsky (fear of freedom)

Books -- Nonfiction (learn about them at Amazon Books)

1. "Power and Powerlessness" by John Gaventa (three forms of political power) and "Domination and the Arts of Resistance" by David C. Scott (forms of cultural resistance by the powerless to the powerful)
2. "Public Opinion in America" by Jim Stimson (aggregate public opinion over time) and "The Spiral of Silence" by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (why is it important to speak up)
3. "Which Side Are You On?" by Thomas Geoghegan (union busting in the Reagan era)
4. "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Alexrod (computer simulations based on the prisoner's dilemma problem)
5. "The Passions and the Interests" by Albert O. Hirschman (intellectual history of the concept "interest")
6. "Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement" by Dennis Chong (game theory applied to the 1960s civil rights movement) and "The Politics of Authenticity" by Doug Rossinow (fascinating, insightful case study of 1960s student movement centered in  Austin, TX)
7. "The Myth of the Madding Crowd" by Clark McPhail (theory and research on crowd behavior)
8. "The Myth of Sisyphus" and "Neither Victims Nor Executioners" by Albert Camus (remaining moral in an absurd and violent world)
9. "The Unconscious Civilization" by John Saul and "Achieving Our Country" by Richard Rorty (humanism in the 1990s and living up to our nation's ideals)
10. "A Preface to Democratic Theory" by Robert Dahl (minorities rule)

Movies (learn about them at the Internet Movie Database)

1. "A Man for All Seasons," "A Clockwork Orange" and "Inherit the Wind" (allegiance to law and authority??)
2. "Dr. Strangelove" and "Fail-Safe" (learning to live and die with the bomb)
3. "The Great Dictator" and "Caberet" (Tomania, Bacteria, and Germany)
4. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," "Meet John Doe" and "State of the Union" (Frank Capra's view of American politics)
5. "Swept Away" [the original], "Bread and Chocolate" and "Breaking Away" (social class in Italy, Switzerland and Indiana)
6. "Magic Town"  (marketing and public opinion)
7. "Sullivan's Travels," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," (the examined life on screen: "tragedy or comedy tonight?")
8. "Bob Roberts," "The Best Man," "A Face in the Crowd," "City Hall," "Bulworth" and "The Candidate" (modern politics or "We ain't one-at-a-timin' here. We're MASS communicating!")
9. "Marat/Sade" or "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade" (a retelling of the death of a leader of the French Revolution)
10. "House of Cards," "To Play the King," and "Final Cut" (old FU plays political hardball on his way to #10 Downing Street) and "All the President's Men" (unraveling the Watergate coverup)

Documentaries (learn about them at the Internet Movie Database)

1. "Roger &  Me," "TV Nation" series and "The Big One" (corporate irresponsibility of the 1990s)
2. "Harlan County, USA," "American Dream" and "Live Nude Girls, UNITE!" (unionizing of the 70s and 90s in the coal fields of Kentucky, meatpacking plants of Minnesota  and strip tease clubs of San Francisco)
3. "The Battle of Algiers" and "In the Year of the Pig" (fighting foreign occupation); and  "Lagaan" (a movie) too
4. "The Thin Blue Line" (capital punishment in the 1980s); and anything by Errol Morris including "Gates of Heaven," "Mr. Death," and "The Fog of War"
5. "Other People's Money" (S&L crisis of the 1990s), "ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room" (leading the pack of corporate scandals in the 21st century) and Bill Moyers' Capitol Crimes (Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay-Ralph Reed-Grover Norquist axis of evil)
   
6. "The War at Home" (anti-Vietnam War student protest of the 1960s)
7. "Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis" (history of national security ending with the Iran-Contra scandal)
and "Manufacturing Consent" (Noam Chomsky's analysis of the mass media)
8. "Huey Long" (Ken Burns on the life and assassination of the "Kingfish")
9. "Vote for Me!" (American campaign politics in the 1990s; people "saving democracy"); and "The War Room," and "The Perfect Candidate" (Bill and Ollie running for office)
10. "Death in the Amazon: The Murder of Chico Mendez" (defending the Amazon rainforest)

DO YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR THE LIST? E-MAIL ME AND I WILL BE HAPPY TO CONSIDER LISTING THEM: Clyde, here is/are my nominee(s)!