☆ Bay Area history profs: Hit the books with these enlightening top picks (part 1)
In this exclusive Opp Now installment, four history educators (from SJ, Berkeley, and SF) discuss what book/documentary/podcast they'd assign local politicians as “required reading.” Spanning from the beginning of time itself, to ancient Greece, to our modern world—their recommendations (poignant and powerful) read below.
Ralph McKay, San Jose State University Social Science Teacher Preparation (SSTP) supervisor:
I would assign Yuval Noah Harari’s book, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” Readers benefit from Harari’s perspectives on the human condition and its evolution.
Maria Mavroudi, UC Berkeley history professor:
I recommend Plato’s “Republic” because it offers a profound reflection on practical and moral issues surrounding governance that never stoops to preaching. Socrates and several native Athenians and foreigners discuss old age, the definition and application of justice, and the role of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance in civic life. They contemplate which arrangements regarding wealth, family, education, and the study of the Good contribute towards harmonious state governance. Philosophers are ideal rulers because they can access the world of Ideas (of which our world is a mere reflection) and have a moral obligation to introduce others to it. Different forms of governance are outlined: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. The “Republic” ends with the banishment of poets from the ideal city and the story of a dead soldier who lives again to describe what he experienced in the Afterlife—a narrative with strong moral underpinnings.
James Stone Lunde, University of San Francisco history adjunct professor:
What an absolutely wonderful idea! As you can imagine, there are dozens of books I'd love all my political representatives to read. If I could, I'd make it a requirement for office!
I'd suggest a short TED talk by Coleman Hughes called “The Case for Color Blindness” (for the more patient reader, it's available as a book, “The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America” [Coleman Hughes]).
I've chosen this item for two reasons.
Firstly, it's short, digestible, and directly relevant to current U.S. and California affairs, and thus I feel it has a good chance of actually being read by a busy official.
Secondly, I think Hughes articulates a position that strongly reflects the sentiments of the vast majority of U.S. voters, but one that is much less popular among our elites: specifically, the strong desire for public policy to explicitly disregard race. Indicated by the resounding rejection of California Prop 16 (2020), with a margin of 57.23%, the general public seem to strongly agree with the view that "The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."
By contrast, academics and politicians tend to have a very favorable view of race-based policies or second-order racial discrimination such as Affirmative Action, many DEI policies, or the type of racial selectivism against Asians alleged in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case. Given the seeming mismatch between what the electorate thinks racial justice is and what a small group of political entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and activists think, I feel that giving Coleman Hughes' arguments a listen might be of some value to our legislators, at least to balance the discourse a little.
Joshua Horowitz, San Francisco State University history lecturer and academic counselor:
For any local politician, I would first recommend reading a historical text by and about local Indigenous people. One example, of many others, is “Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir” by Deborah Miranda.
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