Bernard Rapoport's Book List
"My father taught me three things: one, protect your name; two, never let a book out of your hands; and three, and most important, have a sense of outrage at injustice….That's why from the time I was five years old, beginning at 5:00 am, I was reading a book for an hour or so. It's a habit that I still have at age 90 and a half."
Bernard Rapoport, 2007 [1]
Bernard Rapoport is an avid reader. He shares that passion in a number of ways, from reading to elementary school children in Waco, Texas, to distributing copies of books he recommends. For the past 20 years, B's friends and acquaintances across the country have opened their mail each year to find a book sent to them courtesy of B Rapoport. Today, over 3,000 people are on B's recipient list. Following is the selection of books he has sent over the past 15 years.
2009 Book
A New New Deal: How Regional Activism will Reshape the American Labor Movement (2009)
Amy B. Dean & David B. Reynolds
2008 Book
The Power of Progress: How America's Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our Country (2008)
John Podesta
2007 Book
The Man Who Hated Work…and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Toni Mazzocchi (2007)
Les Leopold
2006 Book
Barn Burning, Barn Building: Tales of a Political Life, from LBJ to George W. Bush and Beyond (2006)
Ben Barnes
2005 Book
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win it Back (2006)
Jeff Faux
2004 Book
Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (2004)
Douglas Brinkley
2003 Book
The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide (2003)
Richard Conniff
2002 Book
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (2002)
Robert A. Caro
2001 Book
After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy (2001)
Seymour Melman
2000 Book
Bowling Alone (2000)
Robert Putnam
1999 Book
Development as Freedom (1999)
Amartya Sen
1998 Book
The Seekers: The Story of Man's Continuing Quest to Understand His World (1999)
Daniel Boorstin
1997 Book
The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century (1997)
Robert D. Kaplan
[1] Bernard Rapoport, "Turning Dreams into Reality," Rapoport Foundation 2007 Annual Report, p. 4.