Mizzou Must-Reads: Nonfiction
 

Each generation of whites and Indians will have to read and reread Vine Delori's Manifesto for some time to come, before we absorb his special, ironic Indian point of view and what he tells us, with a great deal of humor, about U.S. race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists. This book continues to be required reading for all Americans, whatever their special interest.

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, made a nine-month journey throughout America, studying the life and institutions of the evolving nation. Tocqueville looked to the democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France. His became one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and democracy.

The Elements of Style, the classic style manual, is a little book that makes a big impact on writing.

The classic collection of thirty-on essays by one of the greatest essayists of our time.

To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Schlosser, a National Magazine Award-winning journalist, charts the fast food industry's enormous impact on our health, landscape, economy, politics and culture as he transforms the way America thinks about what it eats.

On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. Hersey tells what happened on that day through the memories of survivors, this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic. Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, John Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told.

November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by shotgun. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he brings poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

A landmark work of photojournalism; renowned for fusion of social conscience and artistic radicality. In the summer of 1936, Agee and Evans set out to explore the daily lives of sharecroppers in the South. This record of place, the people who shaped the land and the rhythm of their lives, is recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.

Acclaimed journalist Ted Conover's in-depth report of his first-hand account of life inside the penal system. When Conover's request to shadow a recruit at the New York State Corrections Officer Academy was denied, he decided to apply for a job as a prison officer. The result of his year there is this remarkable look at one of America's most dangerous prisons, where drugs, gang wars, and sex are rampant, and where the line between violator and violated is often unclear.

Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages - how can anyone survive or prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts.

Brooks covered the Middle East through wars and insurrections, yet for her, headline events were the backdrop to a less obvious but more enduring drama: the daily life of Muslim women. This is her journey toward understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. Brooks' analysis illustrates how Islam's texts have been misused to justify repression of women, and warped the original message of a once liberating faith.

Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't--which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance.

The sense of time -- a contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in the vast, ever-evolving country of China -- is brilliantly illuminated by Hessler in Oracle Bones, a book that explores the human side of China's transformation. In a narrative that moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

A vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War. Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness and illuminates the stunning courage and private conflict, the deals, maneuvers, betrayals, and rivalries that determined history behind closed doors, at boycotts and sit-ins, on bloody freedom rides, and through siege and murder.

In the book which won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, Dillard writes in the form of a journal, trying to understand God by chronicling the seasons along Tinker Creek in Virginias Blue Ridge Mountains, and by exploring the paradoxical coexistence of beauty and violence.

New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly & unexpectedly. These are social epidemics, & the moment they take off, they reach their critical mass, or, the Tipping Point. Gladwell analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail, & the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., isolated himself from the demands of the civil rights movement, and labored over his final manuscript. He lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America's future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education, demanding an end to global suffering, asserting that humankind-for the first time-has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.