A Summer Reading List for Minneapolis 2026

We have found success in action here in Minneapolis—but, as ever, greater knowledge, initiative, wisdom, and imagination will serve us in ongoing and future struggles.

13 minutes of reading / Alternative Structures, Anarchism, Education, Minneapolis, Mutual Aid, One World One Struggle / Essays & Analysis, Prefiguration & Permanent Revolution

A Summer Reading List for Minneapolis 2026
by some mutual aid organizers in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
1 June 2026

After the winter we had here in Minneapolis, we are eager to seek potential paths forward, in visionary texts, together with our neighbors. With so many people asking “How do we keep doing this?” and “How do we build upon what we’ve achieved?” we want to look at past experiences with and reflections on resisting empire, and what it could look like to prefigure the next world after/beyond whatever the hell this damn shit is.

We are a few folks who have been living and organizing in Minneapolis over the last decade, have done so in various other locales in previous decades, and participated in different aspects of the recent community response to Operation Metro Surge as it rained violence down on our neighborhoods and beloveds—in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and all around Minnesota.

We hope this list of reading material can support our neighbors in seeing and feeling a sense of real possibility as we emerge from our winter of resistance, community defense and care. May this summer be a time to explore ideas and build new worlds.

—mags and Flowers, with support from a few friends 😉

Using this List

We came up with a handful of topic areas that we think our revolutionary movement would benefit from focusing some attention. In this moment, things may appear bewildering and dangerous, especially because of the way state capitalist and fascist forces continue barreling along without apparent limit or concern. We have found success in action here in Minneapolis, over successive cycles of resistance—but, as ever, greater knowledge, initiative, wisdom, and imagination will serve us in the ongoing and future struggles required to overcome these forces once and for all. 

We are fully aware that this is an incomplete list, and there are entire topic areas we didn’t touch at all. This is not to disparage the absent topics or forms but to lean into what we have read, have not yet but are excited to read, and find most relevant to this specific moment. We also know there are left texts or topics that are currently very centered—we don’t feel like we need to re-center them. 

In each area we offer a short selection of readings of various qualities:

  • Good first reads for folks who might not know where to start with a certain topic
  • Readings on the cutting edge of contemporary analysis that will challenge us and ask us to stretch while still being accessible
  • Recent work that may have perceptible shortfalls but is still worth thinking about how to engage with and build upon

It’s a long list—the idea is not to expect anyone to read them all, but choose which texts feel most useful to you (and hopefully read them with others too). Where possible, we’ll include an audio alternative or supplement, perhaps a select conversation with an author on a podcast, for example.

Last but not least: please do not buy books from Amazon or other corporate shitheads. The Twin Cities metro has an abundance of independent bookstores worthy of your support. As of now, all links go to Moon Palace Books, who we are in conversation with about this project. We will be reaching out to another radical bookstore as well and may update links in the future. 

Circle One

In many ways, these feel like priorities. That is not to say that titles in Circle Two or Three are not important. But these are at the top because they strike at what has often felt missing in the past year and yet is so relevant to our continued struggle and liberation. 

Internationalism

Abolition

  • MPD150 Report: “Enough Is Enough: A 150-Year Performance Review of the Minneapolis Police Department”
    • We can’t talk about abolition in Minneapolis without looking to the critically important work of MPD150. Their report is a must-read for us to understand our own local history and context of policing. Note: the link goes to where you can view the report or link to the audiobook. Print copies are also easy to find at Moon Palace Books. 
    • Solidarity is This podcast episode (Ricardo Levins Morales talks about the report before moving into reflections on recent events in the city)
  • The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
    • While most of us have been focused on defending and caring for our neighbors amidst the occupation by ICE, Minneapolis has both a recent and a long history of movement against policing. This is an accessible introduction to abolition and the argument against police for anyone wanting to begin exploring it. 
  • Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah
    • Abolition and immigrant justice are not separate but intertwined systems of repression and violence. This book delves into policies of both immigration enforcement and incarceration to help us better understand and articulate why we have to fight both. 
    • Death Panel podcast episode

Anti-State Feminism

Circle Two

These are no less important but add to the above by challenging us to look inward: inward at our movements and what they need to grow into; inward at ourselves and our relationships for what we need them to become for the shift required for collective liberation. 

Direct Democracy and Self-Governance

Left Melancholy: What is it? Why is it so important to understand?

  • “Left Melancholy” by Wendy Brown
    • This essay looks to both Walter Benjamin and Stuart Hall as they introduced us to the idea of left melancholy. Brown then expands on that, as many (including Broomfield below) have, subsequently. This is a deeply important concept for us to understand in these times. Will we stay nostalgically attached to past strategies and tactics regardless of whether or not they work? The response to Metro Surge was an example of escaping that and yet, we are already backsliding into ineffective organizing. Can we choose a different path forward?
  • The Utopia of Rulesby David Graeber
    • Four essays examining bureaucracy from an anthropological perspective, and wondering why the left has been unable to overcome its obsession with it. Anyone else notice how a primary role in the response to Operation Metro Surge was “admin”? How do we balance the need for structure with our deep socialization that draws us into conventional, stunting, and overly bureaucratic tendencies?
    • This Is Hell! podcast episode
  • Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
    • How to explain this book besides a must-read? Several of us find ourselves referencing it regularly. Part memoir, part cultural analysis of the strange moment we’re all in, Klein dives into new political lines teaching us about diagonalism, and revealing the breaking boxes of “left” and “right.” 
    • Jewish Currents / On the Nose podcast episode
  • Hope Without Hope by Matt Broomfield
    • This recent book is a fascinating combination of reflections on the Rojavan revolutionary space and what the Western left can learn from it. Broomfield pulls no punches in his assessment of the failed left in the US and Europe, weaving together observations from Rojava with philisophical thought to push us to question our melancholic adherences. For folks newer to movement, we suggest reading this with others who have more experience to help with context/history. 

Collective Life over Individualism

  • Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times by Nick Montgomery and carla bergman
    • This is an absolute modern classic. Top of the all-time list of reads for folks in movement in these times. From the online blurb: “Why do radical movements and spaces sometimes feel laden with fear, anxiety, suspicion, self-righteousness, and competition? Montgomery and bergman call this phenomenon rigid radicalism: congealed and toxic ways of relating that have seeped into social movements, posing as the ‘correct’ way of being radical.” Read it.
  • Mutual Aid and Love in a Fucked Up World both by Dean Spade
    • This is one of the few places that we’ve decided to break from our goal to not center texts that are already being centered in movement. But, the fact is that Dean has good shit to say. It’s both anarchist and accessible. If you haven’t already read these fundamental texts, they’re worth it. 
    • Mutual Aid Podcast episode
  • Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
    • This came strongly recommended from friends and is on our to-read lists. It both sounds like and is touted as “not easy.” But better than feel-good, it challenges us to dig deeper and really show up for ourselves. 
    • Planet: Critical podcast episode

Circle Three

Again, these are not less important but focus in on specific and relevant topics that require more critical thinking.

Technology

Let’s be honest, the left needs to move into a more nuanced conversation about and relationship with digital technology. The books here are suggested in hopes of sparking such a conversation.

Health, Care, Resilience

At this point in history, the left has slipped into some dangerous and fascistic perspectives on health and wellness (Doppelganger touches on this) or at the very least, showed itself incapable of really meeting the collective needs of moments like the Covid-19 pandemic. But there are lessons from our history that show us we are capable of radical and solidary organizing that benefits people’s lives. While there are many more specifically focused books that look at today’s health context, we’ve opted to start with history for now. 

  • Deep Care: The Radical Activists Who Provided Abortions, Defied the Law, and Fought to Keep Clinics Open by Angela Hume
    • The history of the fight for abortion access and control over one’s own reproductive system is a key strand of history that shows us what happens when there is a goal that is collectively worked towards and made possible regardless of the current laws, state apparatus, or rightwing forces. This book traces the history of the movement including its many challenges. 
    • Movement Memos podcast episode
  • Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson
    • In a similar vein to the above, this book traces an important aspect of the work of the Black Panther Party that often goes overlooked. Understanding health as a human right, the party’s focus on healthcare was practical as well as ideological. Understanding how revolutionaries have historically built up care infrastructure is key to reclaiming a people’s collective health today.
  • Tiny Gardens Everywhere: A History of Urban Resilience by Kate Brown
    • This book dropped earlier this year (paperback not until 2027) but the interview on the podcast ep linked was so exciting that we can’t wait to read it. As the intensity of Metro Surge passes, people across neighborhoods are building gardens and talking about food resilience. This book is perfectly timed for exploring how projects like these have nourished entire cities. Let’s go!
    • Death Panel podcast episode

Energy Transition

Of all the overlapping and compounding crises, we cannot ignore the climate crisis. While there are countless texts on it, we choose here to focus on three that get at a very important point: the much-lauded idea of an energy transition doesn’t actually track historically within capitalism. If we are going to build a more resilient world, we must understand the history and context that got us to the one we’re in today.

AntiNote: As an affiliate of the From The Periphery media collective we offer this reading list, compiled by friends with our assistance, in the spirit of mujawara, or “neighboring,” as conceived by The Peoples Want network. It is a concept, or tool of resistance, being explored and developed with a global month of action in June 2026. Follow The Peoples Want social media (Instagram | BlueSky) for more information and to get involved.

Stay tuned for a print edition of this list if you like it and want to help distribute it offline.

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