Any time I try to learn about these topics it always references super old books that are written in a complicated English that’s beyond my simplistic knowledge.
I’m Gen Z and didnt know the difference between Democrat and Republican until like 4 years ago because I never cared about politics (and pretty personal reasons), this has obviously changed as of recent. As I went through highschool in one of, if not THE most censored history classes in the country (and from a trump supporter teacher too…) I wasn’t given the best background knowledge for these topics.
I would like a book that essentially explains the ideas and some of the historical events in a more understandable way that won’t lead me to the Wikipedia page for some random person from Russia in the 1900s confused as hell.
Any recommendations would be appreciated.
I am going to go on a limb, since if you anything like me reading some dense economic theory written in dense academic language using words from 100 years ago, is not going to help you and you may well come away without your mental health.
I read a book called Damdest Radical and I suggest to all people who want an understanding, its not a theory book, and it wont try to explain anything to you.
Its a biography, about a doctor who fell in with anarchists, and what he got up to with his life. I feel its a good introduction, since you see peoples ACTIONS and how they LIVED their lives, you will pretty quickly see what Anarchism and more generally leftism is about.
You’ll see how people from 100 years ago tried to change their world, where they failed and where they succeeded. And hopefully you will think about how you might apply some of their ideas to problems in your life, and how you might avoid some of their pitfalls. Both at a personal level and at a political level.
It helps that the guys life is genuinely quite interesting and fun, and because he kind of fell into anarchism, you get a perspective of someone who isn’t down the ideological rabbit hole, and is taking what they feel is good about the whole thing and leaving the negatives.