Reading Group
Theory informs praxis! We engage in ongoing political education in socialist history and thought.
(See also: PDSA’s recommended media resources.)
Currently Reading
A vital guide for collective political action against the climate apocalypse, from bestselling progressive intellectual Malcolm Harris—“a brilliant thinker and writer capable of making the intricacies of economic conditions supremely readable” (Vulture).
New hybrid reading group starts May 13th!
What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis (2025) by Malcolm Harris
- Participate virtually: Google Meet
- Participate in person: Fireside Books & More, 2421 Broadway, Redwood City (by Caltrain station)
Every other Tuesday, 6:30-8pm
- May 13—Intro + Marketcraft (Ch. 1)
- May 27—Public Power (Ch. 2)
- June 10—Communism (Ch. 3)
- June 24—Planetary Crisis (Ch. 4)
- July 8—Conclusion
What to expect: Peninsula DSA’s reading group for What’s Left will kick off with comradely icebreakers followed by an open discussion of the weekly chapter. We have until the bookshop closes at 8pm—–but we might head downtown afterward to keep the conversation going. Light refreshments and KN94 respirators provided. Wearing DSA gear is encouraged. 
BYO book! Please consider ordering your copy of What’s Left from our friendly hosts, Fireside Books & More, by visiting their Bookshop.org storefront or emailing orders[at]firesiderwc.com
Past Reads
2025
- ABCs of Socialism by Jacobin + Verso.
- Ideas for the Struggle (2004, revised 2016) by Marta Harnecker.
- Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) by Vladimir Lenin.
2024
- Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World (2023) by Malcolm Harris.
- San Francisco Reds: Communists in the Bay Area, 1919-1958 (2024) by Robert W. Cherny.
2023
- The Wretched of the Earth (1961) by Frantz Fanon.
2022
- How to Read Marx’s Capital (2021) by Michael Heinrich, in tandem with Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx
- How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2021) by Andreas Malm (Ecosocialism WG crossover!)
- The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (2020) by Vincent Bevins
- Why Marx Was Right (2011) by Terry Eagleton
2021
- “Capitalism and Class Struggle” (2020) by Vivek Chibber, from The ABCs of Capitalism series from Jacobin and Catalyst Journal
- “Capitalism and the State” (2020) by Vivek Chibber, from The ABCs of Capitalism series from Jacobin and Catalyst Journal
- “Understanding Capitalism” (2020) by Vivek Chibber, from The ABCs of Capitalism series from Jacobin and Catalyst Journal
2020
- ‘Disband, Disempower, and Disarm’: Amplifying the Theory and Practice of Police (2018) by Meghan G. McDowell and Luis A. Fernandez
- Mistaken Identity: Mass Movements and Racial Identity (2018) by Asad Haider
- No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane McAlevey
- On Contradiction (1937) by Mao Zedong
- On Practice (1937) by Mao Zedong
- Production for Use (1983) by Pieter Lawrence
- Stalinism and Bolshevism: In Defense of October by Leon Trotsky
- War is a Racket (1935) by Major General Smedley Butler
2019
- Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) by Angela Y. Davis
- Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009) by Mark Fisher
- Civil Disobedience (1849) by Henry David Thoreau
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (2017) by Richard Rothstein
- The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
- In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis (2016) by David J. Madden and Peter Marcuse
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) by Paolo Friere
- “The Strategy of International Class Struggle and the Political Fight Against Capitalist Reaction in 2019” (January 3, 2010) by James Cogan, Joseph Kishore, and David North
- “Toward Transformative Justice: A Liberatory Approach to Child Sexual Abuse and Other Forms of Intimate and Community Violence” (2007) by generation FIVE
2018
- How Nonviolent Struggle Works (2013) by Gene Sharp
- “The Lesser Evil? The Left, the Democrats and 1984” (November 2, 2018) by Mike Davis