Summer Reading 2024: Upper School

If you're hunting for straightforward answers as to how the election process actually works, why it matters, or how you can get involved, then this is the book for you! Civics education and information about how our government functions is necessary whether you're a longtime voter or a soon-to-be voter. Too often, the presidential election can seem like a series of horse-race stories about who's leading the polls and who said what when. With social media and online news making it easier to spread false information (even by accident), it's even harder to know what's accurate. This newly revised edition cut through all that noise with statistics, anecdotes from recent elections, and clear nonpartisan analysis and explanations.

Why do conservatives, liberals, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong? About the future of the United States? About what's most important in the upcoming election? If you're tired of having (or avoiding!) awkward conversations or angry back-and-forth's, read The Righteous Mind. Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt (Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU and author of The Anxious Generation) shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding both why you hold your moral beliefs and why many people disagree with you.

Carol Anderson, Professor of African American Studies at Emory University, adapts her National Book Award long-listed title for young adults, enlisting the help of Chapin alum and celebrated author Tonya Bolden ('76). After the election of Barack Obama, a rollback of voting rights occurred, punctuated by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that undid the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision allowed districts with a history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. This book follows the stunning aftermath of that ruling and explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. It also explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans. Complete with a discussion guide, photographs, and information about getting involved with elections in teens' own community, this is an essential explanation of the history of voting rights--and a call to action for a better future.

Accessible to readers of all ages thanks to illustrator Kati Lacker's style, Tommy Jenkin's Drawing the Vote is a panoptic history of voting in the United History. Jenkins identifies events and trends that led to the unprecedented results of the 2016 presidential election that left American political parties more estranged than ever. At a time when many citizens are experiencing challenges and apathy about voting and skepticism concerning our bitterly divided government, Drawing the Vote seeks to offer some explanation for how we got here and how every American can take action to make their vote count.

The tale begins during Reconstruction when the radical Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to seek the presidency in 1872. Although women could not yet vote, Woodhull boldly staked her claim to the White House, believing she might thereby advance women's equality. Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith came into political office through the "widow's mandate." Among the most admired women in public life when she launched her 1964 campaign, she soon confronted prejudice that she was too old (at 66) and too female to be a creditable presidential candidate. Democratic Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ignored what some openly described as the twin disqualifications of race and gender in her spirited 1972 presidential campaign. She ran all the way to the Democratic convention, inspiring diverse followers and angering opponents, including members of the Nixon administration who sought to derail her candidacy. In her book, UNH Professor of History Ellen Fitzpatrick helps to illuminate today's political landscape through the stories of three remarkable women who pushed the notion of what it means to be a candidate for President, well beyond the accepted and conventional boundaries of their times.