The 25 best politics books
The 25 highest-ranked politics books in our ranking of 2,816, scored on how much readers love them, their prize, best-list and bestseller record, and current buzz. We rank 44 politics books in all. How we rank
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One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This90.6Must-Read ScoreOne Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
In October 2023, a few weeks into the bombardment of Gaza, novelist Omar El Akkad posted a single line that went viral and became this book's title.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2025)Goodreads Choice (nonfiction) finalist (2025) - 2
The Passage of Power90.5Must-Read ScoreThe Passage of Power
The fourth volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson covers 1958 to 1964.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Biography) winner (2012)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 3
Master of the Senate88.8Must-Read ScoreMaster of the Senate
Book three of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson covers Johnson's twelve years in the Senate, from 1949 to 1960.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2003)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2002)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1) - 4
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness87.1Must-Read ScoreThe New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander argues that mass incarceration in the United States, driven by the War on Drugs, has created a new system of racial control: millions of Black Americans labeled felons and then legally stripped of the right to vote, to serve on juries, and to get jobs, housing and benefits, much as Jim Crow laws once did.
Why it made the list22 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2012NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 5
A Promised Land84.5Must-Read ScoreA Promised Land
In the first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his political rise, from his early days as a community organizer and state senator to his 2008 campaign.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (10 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2020 (Publishers Weekly) - 6
Orientalism82.8Must-Read ScoreOrientalism
Edward Said argues that Western scholarship, art and literature about "the East" — the peoples of Asia, North Africa and the Middle East — built a patronizing, distorted image of them, and that this knowledge was bound up with the empires that produced it.
Why it made the listTIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time - 7
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS82.0Must-Read ScoreBlack Flags: The Rise of ISIS
Joby Warrick, a Washington Post reporter, traces the rise of the Islamic State back to one man: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a petty criminal from Jordan who was radicalized in prison.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2016) - 8
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China81.9Must-Read ScoreAge of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
Evan Osnos, a New Yorker correspondent in Beijing for eight years, tells the story of China's transformation through ordinary and extraordinary people: an entrepreneur who started an online dating site, an artist who became the country's best-known dissident, an economist who defected from Taiwan, and young people chasing wealth, truth and faith in a country changing at breakneck speed.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2014)Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2015) - 9
Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump80.0Must-Read ScoreRegime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump
Maggie Haberman of The New York Times and Jonathan Swan, who have covered Donald Trump more closely than almost anyone, chronicle the first year of his second presidency.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (8 weeks at #1)16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2026 - 10
Dark Money79.8Must-Read ScoreDark Money
The investigative journalist Jane Mayer traces how a small group of very rich conservatives, led by the brothers Charles and David Koch, used their fortunes, often through hidden donations, to fund think tanks, university programs, advocacy groups and political campaigns, and how they reshaped American politics from the 1970s to the Tea Party era.
Why it made the list16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2016NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2016) - 11
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism79.4Must-Read ScoreThe Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein argues that free-market policies have repeatedly been pushed through in the chaos after a crisis, a war, a coup or a natural disaster, when people are too shocked to resist.
Why it made the listGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 12
107 Days79.2Must-Read Score107 Days
On July 21, 2024, President Joe Biden announced that he would not run for reelection, and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)22 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2025Goodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) finalist (2025) - 13
Homage to Catalonia79.1Must-Read ScoreHomage to Catalonia
In late 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and joined a militia fighting Franco instead.
Why it made the listModern Library 100 Best NonfictionTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 14
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America78.9Must-Read ScoreThe Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
George Packer tells the story of America from 1978 to 2012 through a handful of lives: a North Carolina farmer's son chasing the new economy with a biofuel business, a factory worker in Youngstown, Ohio, a Washington insider, and the billionaire Peter Thiel.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2013)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2013) - 15
Poverty, by America78.5Must-Read ScorePoverty, by America
The United States is the richest country on earth and has more poverty than any other advanced democracy.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (nonfiction) winner (2023)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)29 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2023 - 16
Flash Boys76.6Must-Read ScoreFlash Boys
After the financial crisis, a small group of Wall Street outsiders discovered that high-frequency traders were using speed, measured in millionths of a second, to profit at ordinary investors' expense.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)27 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2014 - 17
The Gulag Archipelago76.1Must-Read ScoreThe Gulag Archipelago
In 1945, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet artillery officer, was arrested for criticizing Stalin in a letter and spent eight years in labor camps.
Why it made the listLe Monde's 100 Books of the Century - 18
Means of Ascent75.6Must-Read ScoreMeans of Ascent
The second volume of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson covers Johnson's wilderness years, from his defeat in the 1941 Senate race to the 1948 Senate election he won by 87 suspicious votes, earning the nickname "Landslide Lyndon." Caro shows Johnson at his most nakedly ambitious, and contrasts him with his opponent, the honest former governor Coke Stevenson.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1) - 19
Al Franken: Giant of the Senate73.9Must-Read ScoreAl Franken: Giant of the Senate
Al Franken, the Saturday Night Live writer and comedian, tells the story of how he ran for the Senate in Minnesota, won by 312 votes after a months-long recount, and then learned to be a senator.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2017 - 20
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right73.5Must-Read ScoreStrangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild traveled from liberal Berkeley to the bayou country of Louisiana, a conservative stronghold, to understand the people there.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2016) - 21
A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership73.2Must-Read ScoreA Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
Former FBI director James Comey writes about two decades in government, from prosecuting the Mafia and fighting terrorism to the 2016 election investigations and his firing by President Trump.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1) - 22
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power73.1Must-Read ScoreDrift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
Rachel Maddow argues that the United States has drifted into a state of perpetual war.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1) - 23
The Coddling of the American Mind72.4Must-Read ScoreThe Coddling of the American Mind
Free-speech lawyer Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argue that rising anxiety and depression among students, and the shouting down of campus speakers, come from three bad ideas taught to a generation: that what doesn't kill you makes you weaker, that you should always trust your feelings, and that life is a battle between good people and evil people.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2018) - 24
What Happened72.3Must-Read ScoreWhat Happened
Hillary Rodham Clinton writes about the 2016 presidential campaign she lost to Donald Trump: what she was thinking and feeling during it, the mistakes she made, what she believes went wrong around her, and how she coped afterward.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2017 - 25
Freezing Order71.4Must-Read ScoreFreezing Order
In 2009, Bill Browder's young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail after exposing a $230 million fraud by Russian officials.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)
