Please Note: The following list of books is not organized according to any personal hierarchy of the relative value of each individual book. Rather it is a list that seriously considers ALL of the books listed here to be of equal intellectual and cultural value and interest, albeit for different reasons. The bottomline on this list is that each one of these books is extraordinary and invaluable in their own right and represents some of the very best writing published in the United States in 2025.
--Kofi Natambu, Editor
Three Or More Is A Riot:
Notes On How We Got Here: 2012-2025
by Jelani Cobb
One World, 2025
Three Or More Is A Riot:
Notes On How We Got Here: 2012-2025
by Jelani Cobb
One World, 2025
You Can’t Kill A Man Because Of the Books He Reads:
Angelo Herndon’s Fight For Free Speech
by Brad Snyder
W.W. Norton and Company, 2025
Angelo Herndon’s Fight For Free Speech
by Brad Snyder
W.W. Norton and Company, 2025
Injustice: How Politics and Fear
Vanquished America’s Justice Department
by Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis
Penguin Press, 2025
Vanquished America’s Justice Department
by Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis
Penguin Press, 2025
The Memoirs Of Robert and Mabel Williams:
African American Freedom, Armed Resistance,
and International Solidarity
Edited by Akinyele Omowale, Gloria Aneb House, and John H. Bracey, Jr.
University of North Carolina Press, 2025
Capitalism and Its Critics:
A History From the Industrial Revolution To AI
by John Cassidy
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
African American Freedom, Armed Resistance,
and International Solidarity
Edited by Akinyele Omowale, Gloria Aneb House, and John H. Bracey, Jr.
University of North Carolina Press, 2025
Capitalism and Its Critics:
A History From the Industrial Revolution To AI
by John Cassidy
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Our Fragile Freedoms: Essays
by Eric Foner
W.W. Norton and Company, 2025
by Eric Foner
W.W. Norton and Company, 2025
Karl Marx in America
by Andrew Hartman
The University of Chicago Press, 2025
Toni At Random:
The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship
by Dana A. Williams
Amistad, 2025
Their Accomplices Wore Robes:
How the Supreme Court Chained Black America
by Andrew Hartman
The University of Chicago Press, 2025
Toni At Random:
The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship
by Dana A. Williams
Amistad, 2025
Their Accomplices Wore Robes:
How the Supreme Court Chained Black America
To the Bottom Of A Racial Caste System
by Brando Simeo Starkey
Doubleday, 2025
We Are Internationalists:
Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation
by Martha Biondi
University of California Press, 2025
Red Scare:
Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making
Of Modern America
by Clay Risen
Scribner, 2025
Blind Persistence:
The History of the Before Columbus Foundation
Edited by Ishmael Reed and Justin Desmangles
Baraka Books, 2025
by Brando Simeo Starkey
Doubleday, 2025
We Are Internationalists:
Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation
by Martha Biondi
University of California Press, 2025
Red Scare:
Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making
Of Modern America
by Clay Risen
Scribner, 2025
Blind Persistence:
The History of the Before Columbus Foundation
Edited by Ishmael Reed and Justin Desmangles
Baraka Books, 2025
Furious Minds:
The Making of the MAGA New Right
by Laura K. Field
Princeton University Press, 2025
Firespitter:
by Laura K. Field
Princeton University Press, 2025
Firespitter:
The Collected Poems of Jayne Cortez
edited by Margaret Busby
Nightboat Books, 2025
Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal
by Mohammad El-Kurd
Haymarket Books, 2025
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
by Omar El Akkad
Alfred Knopf, 2025
Black in Blues:
How A Color Tells the Story Of My People
edited by Margaret Busby
Nightboat Books, 2025
Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal
by Mohammad El-Kurd
Haymarket Books, 2025
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
by Omar El Akkad
Alfred Knopf, 2025
Black in Blues:
How A Color Tells the Story Of My People
y Imani Perry
Ecco, 2025
Ecco, 2025
Mississippi’s Black Cotton
by MacArthur Cotton with John Obee
NewSouth Books, 2025
Democracy and Beauty:
The Political Aesthetics Of W.E.B. Du Bois
by Robert Gooding-Williams
Columbia University Press, 2025
Oceans Of Time:
The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart
(As told to Ethan Iverson)
Cymbal Press, 2025
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
The Second Emancipation:
Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness
by MacArthur Cotton with John Obee
NewSouth Books, 2025
Democracy and Beauty:
The Political Aesthetics Of W.E.B. Du Bois
by Robert Gooding-Williams
Columbia University Press, 2025
Oceans Of Time:
The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart
(As told to Ethan Iverson)
Cymbal Press, 2025
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
The Second Emancipation:
Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness
At High Tide
by Howard W. French
Liveright Publishing, 2025
Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza:
A Reckoning
by Peter Beinart
Alfred A. Knopf, 2025
by Howard W. French
Liveright Publishing, 2025
Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza:
A Reckoning
by Peter Beinart
Alfred A. Knopf, 2025
My Country, Africa:
Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria
by Andrée Blouin
Verso, 2025
Murder the Truth:
Fear, The First Amendment, And
Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria
by Andrée Blouin
Verso, 2025
Murder the Truth:
Fear, The First Amendment, And
A Secret Campaign To Protect the Powerful
by David Enrich
Mariner Books, 2025
Water Mirror Echo:
Bruce Lee and the Making Of Asian America
by Jeff Chang
Mariner Books, 2025
Money, Lies, and God:
by David Enrich
Mariner Books, 2025
Water Mirror Echo:
Bruce Lee and the Making Of Asian America
by Jeff Chang
Mariner Books, 2025
Money, Lies, and God:
Inside the Movement To Destroy American Democracy
by Katherine Stewart
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025
Plundered:
How Racist Policies Undermine
Black Homeownership in America
by Bernadette Atuahene
Little, Brown and Company, 2025
No Race, No Country:
The Politics and Poetics Of Richard Wright
by Deborah Mutnick
University Of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2025
One Man’s Freedom:
Goldwater, King, and the Struggle Over An
American Ideal
by Nicholas Buccola
Princeton University Press, 2025
Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope:
A Tragic Vision Of the Civil Rights Movement
by Brandon M. Terry
Harvard University Press, 2025
Ruth Asawa and the Artist-Mother At Midcentury
by Jordan Troeller
The MIT Press, 2025
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025
Plundered:
How Racist Policies Undermine
Black Homeownership in America
by Bernadette Atuahene
Little, Brown and Company, 2025
No Race, No Country:
The Politics and Poetics Of Richard Wright
by Deborah Mutnick
University Of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2025
One Man’s Freedom:
Goldwater, King, and the Struggle Over An
American Ideal
by Nicholas Buccola
Princeton University Press, 2025
Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope:
A Tragic Vision Of the Civil Rights Movement
by Brandon M. Terry
Harvard University Press, 2025
Ruth Asawa and the Artist-Mother At Midcentury
by Jordan Troeller
The MIT Press, 2025
Jean-Michel Basquiat:
The Making Of An Icon
by Doug Woodham
Thames and Hudson, 2025
Copaganda:
How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
by Alec Karakatsanis
The New Press, 2025
The Containment:
Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle For Racial Justice in the North
by Michelle Adams
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025
The Making Of An Icon
by Doug Woodham
Thames and Hudson, 2025
Copaganda:
How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
by Alec Karakatsanis
The New Press, 2025
The Containment:
Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle For Racial Justice in the North
by Michelle Adams
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025
A Moon Will Rise From The Darkness:
Reports On Israel’s Genocide in Palestine
by Francesca Albanese
Pluto Press, 2025
Reports On Israel’s Genocide in Palestine
by Francesca Albanese
Pluto Press, 2025
NOTE: THE PANOPTICON REVIEW HAS THUS FAR PRESENTED TWENTY OUTSTANDING BOOKS ANNUALLY FROM 2010-2025
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PLEASE CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUAL LINKS TO ACCESS THE LISTINGS OF EACH PREVIOUS CALENDAR YEAR:
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2022
2021
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2017
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2015
2014
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2010