Politics shapes our beliefs, principles, and convictions, from how we interact with the people around us to how we vote for the leaders who appeal to our sense of harmony and morality. For those of us who wish to better understand the world we live in and the ideas that shape it, there is some very insightful literature. These are the best political books worth reading in 2026.
Fascism: A Warning by Albright, Madeleine K.
Madeleine K. Albright’s family fled Communist Czechoslovakia for the United States when she was 11. She earned a doctorate in philosophy and served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., as well as the first woman to serve as secretary of state, under President Bill Clinton. This book can be considered a joint condemnation of both Communism and Fascism, whose common features are collectivism and a failure to recognize the rights of the individual.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder is a historian of twentieth-century Europe. On Tyranny turns to the United States after Trump’s election, examining how American politics is becoming increasingly authoritarian and how to combat the rise of tyranny through local and national politics. Three of the book’s lessons are “Believe in truth,” “Remember professional ethics,” and “Defend institutions.”
Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum
Anyone who has wondered about the entities that are really pulling the strings and controlling the world should read Autocracy, Inc. Autocracies, which include absolute monarchies and dictatorships, concentrate power in one person. Here, Applebaum argues convincingly that autocratic governments collaborate against liberal democracies, even though they do not share a common ideology. Applebaum has written many books that rank among the best political books of the last twenty years. Click here to learn more about Anne Applebaum.
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Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous! by Stéphane Hessel
Having fought with the French Resistance against the Nazis in World War II and survived the concentration camps, Hessel gives us his first-person account. With outrage at its roots, the book shows how Hessel drew inspiration from the seeming contradiction between French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, one of his teachers, and German writer Walter Benjamin, a colleague and close friend of his father.
Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet by Edward Luce
Zbigniew Brzezinski was a Polish-American political scientist and diplomat, best known as national security advisor under President Jimmy Carter. He was also an international relations scholar of the realist school. Here is an in-depth read about the man’s life and the experiences that led to and supported his liberal idealism. Luce’s biography is one of the best political books of 2025.
The Death of Expertise (2nd Edition): The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols
Expertise comes from established knowledge. However, the internet and the modern educational system have fueled anti-authority, anti-expertise, and anti-intellectual trends among the American public. Nichols explains and condemns these trends and concludes that the solution is for experts to hold their own fields accountable and correct systemic failures.
The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy
Anyone wanting to learn about the complicated relationship and conflict between Russia and Ukraine will find a thorough account in this book. The harrowing history begins not with the current war but with the collapse of empires and the tensions that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, asserts Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War.
Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service Edited by Michael Lewis
Often, we think of government as a “what,” a non-living and faceless entity. Thinking of it as a “who” makes it more personal—and personable—because it reminds us that there are people behind it. Through interviews with people in fascinating government jobs, Lewis and his co-writers deliver an important civics lesson about the deeply consequential and beneficial work those people do.
The Message Book Cover Picture by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates set out to write about writing and the English language, but the book goes much further. He challenges conventional narratives about race and shows how the stories we tell, and the ones we don’t, shape, expose, and distort our realities. He does so through pilgrimages to Africa, South Carolina, and Palestine.
Thomas Piketty – Equality: What It Means and Why It Matters
French economist Thomas Piketty is famous for his controversial theory of capitalism and his argument that the concentration of wealth under capitalism creates inequality. Read books like Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Capital and Ideology, A Brief History of Equality, and Capital, Inequality, and Justice to flesh out his ideas with an understanding of how ideology shapes institutions and economic systems.
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis is another economic and political writer, focused on platform capitalism: the digital platforms that power modern Big Tech companies. Although Technofeudalism is the title of one of his books, it’s also a subject he returns to often. His argument is that capitalism is dead and has been replaced by technofeudalism, in which digital platforms dominate traditional capitalist markets. His work explores the idea of digital fiefdoms, where Big Tech platforms collect “cloud rent”: an intangible form of income that is less productive and more parasitic than traditional profit.
Find the Best Political Books on Audiobooks, Amazon/Audible, and Bookstores who are not Amazon.
You might also enjoy books by Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum.
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