DESA

DESA · Library

The Library

The foundational texts of the movement, read closely. Pick one up where you left off, or start something new.

Socialist & Anarchist Foundations

1840–1910

The foundational texts of class analysis and stateless cooperation — from the Manifesto to Kropotkin, Bakunin, and the utopian socialists.

What is Property?

Proudhon

The Condition of the Working-Class in England

Engels

The Communist Manifesto

Marx & Engels

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Marx

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Marx

Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"

Engels

Progress and Poverty

George

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific

Engels

God and the State

Bakunin

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Engels

A Dream of John Ball

Morris

Feuerbach: The Roots of the Socialist Philosophy

Engels

Looking Backward, 2000-1887

Bellamy

News from Nowhere

Morris

The Conquest of Bread

Kropotkin

Equality

Bellamy

Fields, Factories and Workshops

Kropotkin

The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions

Veblen

Memoirs of a Revolutionist

Kropotkin

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Kropotkin

Anarchism and Other Essays

Goldman

Women's Liberation

1792–1915

The argument for equality, made before it was won — from Wollstonecraft to the New Woman novel.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Wollstonecraft

Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman

Wollstonecraft

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Fuller

The Subjection of Women

Mill

An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony

Anthony

A Doll's House

Ibsen

The Story of an African Farm

Schreiner

The Yellow Wallpaper

Gilman

The Heavenly Twins

Grand

The Daughters of Danaus

Caird

The Woman's Bible

Stanton

Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences 1815-1897

Stanton

Women and Economics

Gilman

The Awakening

Chopin

My Brilliant Career

Franklin

The Convert

Robins

What Diantha Did

Gilman

The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture

Gilman

The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910

Pankhurst

Woman and Labour

Schreiner

My Own Story

Pankhurst

Prisons and Prisoners

Lytton

Herland

Gilman

Black Liberation

1789–1920

Firsthand accounts of bondage, freedom, and the long fight for full citizenship.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Equiano

Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World

Walker

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Douglass

Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Truth

Clotel; or, The President's Daughter

Brown

The Heroic Slave

Douglass

Twelve Years a Slave

Northup

My Bondage and My Freedom

Douglass

Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black

Wilson

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Jacobs

Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House

Keckley

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Douglass

Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted

Harper

Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases

Wells

A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South

Cooper

The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States

Wells

The House Behind the Cedars

Chesnutt

Mob Rule in New Orleans: Robert Charles and His Fight to Death, the Story of His Life, Burning Human Beings Alive, Other Lynching Statistics

Wells

The Marrow of Tradition

Chesnutt

Up From Slavery

Washington

Of One Blood; or, The Hidden Self

Hopkins

Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest

Hopkins

The Souls of Black Folk

Du Bois

The Quest of the Silver Fleece

Du Bois

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Johnson

The Negro

Du Bois

Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil

Du Bois

DESA by Book Club — the iconic, foundational texts of the movement, each with a reading guide, glossary, AI mentor, and comprehension checks built around the source text.

Texts are sourced from Project Gutenberg and in the public domain.

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