“Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years,” by Carl Sandburg, 1939
The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute’s Renewing Illinois program encourages Illinois university students to discuss and debate creative solutions to revitalize the Prairie State. While preparing background materials for the students who will participate in our annual summit, we recognized the need to provide additional sources to allow them to delve more deeply into the history, politics, and literature of Illinois.
To that end, we have compiled a recommended reading list. We asked more than 25 prominent Illinoisans to respond to the question: If you were teaching an “Illinois 101” course to highly motivated undergraduates, what five books you would assign them to read? They can be histories, biographies, novels, or essays. In sum, they would provide a wide-ranging and nuanced understanding of Illinois.
The Institute received a remarkable range of recommendations. We pass them on to all who are looking for a good read during this difficult time.
Richard Durbin, US senator
“Frontier Illinois,” by James Davis, 1998
“Lovejoy: Martyr to Freedom,” by Paul Simon, 1964
“City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America,” by Donald Miller, 1996
“Bloody Williamson,” by Paul Angle, 1969
“Bloody Williamson,” by Paul Angle, 1969
“Henry Horner and his Burden of Tragedy,” by Thomas B. Littlewood, 2007
“Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” by Barack Obama, 1995
Additional Reading
“The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Beating the Curse,” by Tom Verducci, 2017
Jim Edgar, former Illinois governor
“Horner of Illinois,” by Thomas Littlewood, 1969
“Bipartisan Coalition in Illinois,” by Thomas B. Littlewood, 1960
“Clout: Mayor Daley and His City,” by Len O’Connor, 1975
“Bloody Williamson,” by Paul Angle, 1969
“Illinois History: A Reader,” by Mark Hubbard, 2018
Ray LaHood, former US secretary of transportation, former Illinois congressman
“Fixing Illinois: Politics and Policy in the Prairie State,” by James D. Nowlan and J. Thomas Johnson, 2014
“Robert Michel: Leading the Republican House Minority,” edited by Frank H. Mackaman and Sean Q. Kelly, 2019
“The Education of a Senator,” by Everett McKinley Dirksen, 1998
“Paul Simon: The Political Journey of an Illinois Original,” by Robert E. Hartley, 2009
“Seeking Bipartisanship: My Life in Politics,” by Ray LaHood with Frank H. Mackaman, 2015
Sheila Simon, law professor at SIU, former Illinois lieutenant governor
“Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years,” by Carl Sandburg, 1939
“Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” by Barack Obama, 1995
“Song of my life,” by Harry Mark Petrakis, 2014
“Bloody Williamson,” by Paul Angle, 1969
Anything by Gwendolyn Brooks
Glenn Poshard, former Illinois congressman, former president of SIU
“Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years,” by Carl Sandburg, 1939
“Cornhuskers,” by Carl Sandburg, 1918
“Southern Illinois: A Photographer’s Love for the Countryside and its Beauty,” by Ned Trovillion, 1995
“Staley: The Fight for a New American Labor Movement,” by Steven Ashby and C.J. Hawking, 2009
“American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation,” by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, 2000
“Spoon River Anthology,” by Edgar Lee Masters, 1915
“The Little Theatre on the Square: Four Decades of a Small-Town Equity Theatre,” by Beth Conway Shervey, 2000
Paula Wolff, policy advisor, Illinois Justice Project
“Jane Addams, Spirit in Action,” by Louise Knight, 2010
“From Bullet to Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago,” by Jakobi Williams, 2013
“The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation,” by Natalie Moore, 2016
“Frances Willard: A Biography,” by Ruth Bordin, 1986
“Family Properties: How The Struggle Over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago and Urban America,” by Beryl Satter, 2009
“Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois, 1778-1870,” by Frank Cicero Jr., 2018
Jim Nowlan, political columnist, former state representative, former professor at University of Illinois
“Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago,” by Mike Royko, 1971
“Illinois: A History of the Prairie State,” by Robert Howard, 1972
“Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” by William Cronon, 1991
“Trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan, The Stoic,” by Theodore Dreiser, 1972
“Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and War Years,” by Carl Sandburg, 1939
Sam Wheeler, state historian
“Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi,” by Timothy R. Pauketat, 2009
“Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois, 1778-1870,” by Frank Cicero Jr., 2018
“City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America,” by Donald Miller, 1996
“Illinois: A History of the Land and its People,” by Roger Biles, 2005
“Finding a New Midwestern History,” edited by Jon K. Lauck, Gleaves Whitney, and Joseph Hogan, 2018
Additional Reading
“Kaskaskia: The Lost Capital of Illinois,” by David MacDonald and Raine Waters, 2019
“Frontier Illinois,” by James Davis, 1998
“Freedom's Champion: Elijah Lovejoy,” by Paul Simon, 1994
“Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” by William Cronon, 1991
“Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919,” by William M. Tuttle Jr., 1996
“The Illinois Governors: Mostly Good and Competent Men,” by Robert P. Howard, 1988
“Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” Barack Obama, 1995
David Joens, director, Illinois State Archives
“The Illinois Governors: Mostly Good and Competent Men,” by Robert Howard, 1988
“Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois, 1778-1870,” by Frank Cicero Jr., 2018
“Corn Kings & One-Horse Thieves: A Plain-Spoken History of Mid-Illinois,” by James Krohe Jr., 2017
“The Devil in the White City,” by Erik Larson, 2003
“Illinois Vignettes,” by John H. Keiser, 1977
Additional Reading
“Bloody Williamson,” by Paul Angle, 1969
“Boss: Richard J. Daley of Illinois,” by Mike Royko, 1971
“The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair, 1906
“Illinois: A History of the Prairie State,” by Robert Howard, 1972
“The Illinois State Archives: 100 Most Valuable Documents” online exhibit. https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/online_exhibits/100_documents/home.html
Roger Biles, emeritus professor of history at Illinois State University
“Twenty Years at Hull-House,” by Jane Addams, 1910
“Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” by William Cronon, 1991
“The Social Order of a Frontier Community,” by Don Harrison Doyle, 1983
“The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America,” by Nicholas Lemann, 1991
“Illinois: A History of the Land and Its People,” by Roger Biles, 2005
Frank Cicero Jr., attorney at Kirkland and Ellis
“Nathaniel Pope, 1784–1850: A Memoir,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, by Paul Angle, 1936
“French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times,” by Carl Ekberg, 1998
“Confronting Slavery: Edward Coles and the Rise of Anti-Slavery Politics in Nineteenth-Century America,” by Suzanne Cooper Guasco, 2013
“The Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Study in Economic History,” by James William Putnam, 1918
“Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years,” by Paul Simon, 1971
Erika Harold, attorney at Meyer Capel, Republican nominee for Illinois attorney general in 2018
“There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America,” by Alex Kotlowitz, 1991
“Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality,” by Thomas J. Gradel and Dick Simpson, 2015
“The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair, 1906
“The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990,” by Jane H. Adams, 1994
“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, 2012
Chuck Levesque, president, Depaul USA
“Fair Weather,” by Richard Peck, 2001
“Chicago: A Novel,” by Brian Doyle, 2016
“Rootabaga Stories,” by Carl Sandburg, 1922
“The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks,” by Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Elizabeth Alexander, 2005
“City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America,” by Donald Miller, 1996
Greg Shaw, political science professor at Illinois Wesleyan University
“The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,” by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010
“Division Street: America,” by Studs Terkel, 1967
“There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America,” by Alex Kotlowitz, 1991
“The Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois: Paul Powel, Clyde L. Choate, and John H. Stelle,” by Robert Hartley, 2016
“Frontier Illinois,” by James E. Davis, 1998
Christopher Belt, state senator, 57th District
“A. Lincoln,” by Ronald C. White Jr., 2009
“Freedom's Champion: Elijah Lovejoy,” by Paul Simon, 1994
“Freedom's Champion: Elijah Lovejoy,” by Paul Simon, 1994
“A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan,” by Robert Cherny, 1985
“Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America,” by Elliott Gorn, 2001
“Behind the Smile: A Story of Carol Moseley Braun's Historic Senate Campaign,” by Jeannie Morris, 2015
Emanuel 'Chris' Welch, state representative, 7th District
“American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation,” by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, 2000
“Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago,” by Mike Royko, 1971
“Mayor Harold Washington: Champion of Race and Reform,” by Roger Biles, 2018
“Dreams from my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” by Barack Obama, 1995
“Our Culture of Pandering,” by Paul Simon, 2003
LaToya Greenwood, state representative, 114th District
“Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil Rights Movement,” by Harper Barnes, 2008
“Harold, The People’s Mayor: The Biography of Harold Washington,” by Dempsey Travis, 1989
“There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America,” by Alex Kotlowitz, 1991
“The Audacity of Hope,” by Barack Obama, 1995
“A Raisin in the Sun,” by Lorraine Hansberry, 1959
Terri Bryant, state representative, 115th District
“Down Don’t Bother Me: A Novel,” by Jason Miller, 2015
“Sins of the South: Big Secrets in a Small Town,” by Maureen Hughes, 2012
“Roadside History of Illinois,” by Stan Banash, 2013
“When Lincoln Came to Egypt,” by George Smith, 2016
“The State of Southern Illinois: An Illustrated History,” by Herbert Russell, 2012
Mike Lawrence, former director, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute
“Dirksen: Portrait of a Public Man,” by Neil MacNeil, 1970
“Governor Richard Ogilvie: In the Interest of the State,” by Taylor Pensoneau, 1997
“The Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois: Paul Powel, Clyde L. Choate, and John H. Stelle,” by Robert Hartley, 2016
“Bloody Williamson,” by Paul Angle, 1969
“The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America,” by Ethan Michaeli, 2016
Additional Reading
“The Illinois Tax Increase of 1983: Summit and Resolution,” by Joan Parker, 1984
“Freedom’s Champion: Elijah Lovejoy,” by Paul Simon, 1994
“Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois,” by John Bartlow Martin, 1976
“We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent: An Oral History of the Daley Years,” by Milton L. Rakove, 1979
Bernard Schoenburg, political reporter and columnist, State Journal-Register
“Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago,” by Mike Royko, 1971
“Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago,” by Mike Royko, 1971
“Paul Powell of Illinois: A Lifelong Democrat,” by Robert E. Hartley, 1999
“Governor Richard Ogilvie: In the Interest of the State,” by Taylor Pensoneau, 1997
“Golden: How Rod Blagojevich Talked Himself out of the Governor's Office and Into Prison,” by Jeff Coen and John Chase, 2012
“The Illinois Governors: Mostly Good and Competent,” by Robert Howard, 1988
Additional reading
“Dan Walker: The Glory and the Tragedy,” by Taylor Pensoneau and Bob Ellis, 1993
“Len Small: Governors and Gangsters,” by Jim Ridings, 2009
John Shaw, director of Paul Simon Public Policy Institute
“Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,” by William Cronon, 1991
“The Heartland: An American History,” by Kristin L. Hoganson, 2019
“Seeking Bipartisanship: My Life in Politics,” by Ray LaHood with Frank H. Mackaman, 2015
“In the Fullness of Time: The Memoirs of Paul H. Douglas,” 1972
“P.S.: The Autobiography of Paul Simon,” 1994
Additional Reading
“One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, An Unlikely Coach, and A Magical Baseball Season,” by Chris Ballard, 2012
“Played in Peoria,” by Jerry Klein Sr., 1980
“Cleared for Takeoff: A Pilot’s Story of Challenges and Triumphs,” by William R. Norwood, 2014
Did you know? These 29 celebrities went to SIU.
Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone
Melissa McCarthy, an actor and comedian who has been nominated for the best actress Oscar for her role in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" went to SIU. Her husband, Ben Falcone, (left), also an actor, is from Carbondale.
Bob Odenkirk
Bob Odenkirk is an actor, comedian, writer and producer best known for his recent role as Saul Goodman on AMC's "Breaking Bad."
Jenny McCarthy
Jenny McCarthy is a model, actress, and television host.
Jim Belushi
Jim Belushi is an actor best known for his role as Jim Orenthal in the sitcom "According to Jim."
Hannibal Buress
Hannibal Buress (left) is a stand-up comedian, actor and television writer.Â
Brandon Jacobs
Brandon Richard Jacobs is a former American football running back, who spent the majority of his career with the New York Giants.
Curt Jones
Curt Jones is a businessman best known for creating Dippin' Dots, an ice cream snack created by flash freezing ice cream mix in liquid nitrogen.
Darryl Jones
Darryl Jones is a musician best known in his role as bassist for The Rolling Stones.
Justin Hartley
Justin Hartley is an Emmy-nominated actor, known for his roles on "This is Us," "The Young and the Restless" and "Smallville."
Joe Swanberg
Joe Swanberg is an independent film director, producer, writer and actor.
Thelma Mothershed-Wair, Minnijean Brown Trickey and Terrence Roberts
Three of the Little Rock Nine, who as high school students in 1957 integrated Little Rock Central High School, attended SIU: Thelma Mothershed-Wair, Minnijean Brown Trickey and Terrence Roberts. The Little Rock Nine, from left, Elizabeth Eckford, Roberts, Melba Pattillo Beals, Jefferson Thomas, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Brown Trickey, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark and Mothershed-Wair, are pictured in 2005 in Little Rock, Ark., where they gathered on the state Capitol grounds for the unveiling of a monument marking their battle with Gov. Orval Faubus.
David Lee Murphy
David Lee Murphy is a Southern Illinois native best known for his country music.
Dave Steib
Dave Steib was the winning pitcher in the 1983 All-Star at Chicago's Comiskey Park. Steib was a seven-time All-Star during his 16-year career, in which he pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago White Sox. Steib pitched a no-hitter in 1990.
David Selby
David Selby is best known for playing the roles of Quentin Collins on the ABC-TV serial "Dark Shadows."
Dennis Franz
Dennis Franz is an actor best known for his role as Andy Sipowicz in the television series "NYPD Blue."
Dick Gregory
Richard Gregory was an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur.
Jason Frasor
Jason Frasor pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox over his 12-year MLB career.
Jim Hart
Jim Hart (right) is a former American football quarterback in the National Football League. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Joan Higginbotham
Joan Higginbotham (front, center) is an engineer most known for her flight aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-116 as a mission specialist.
Roland Burris
Roland Burris is a politician best known for his position as a United States Senator.
Donald McHenry
Donald McHenry was the United States Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations from September 1979 until Jan. 20, 1981.
Mark Victor Hansen
Mark Victor Hansen is an American inspirational and motivational speaker, trainer and author. He is best known as the founder and co-creator of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" book series.
Randy Daniels
Randy Daniels is a journalist and educator best known for his career as Secretary of State of New York.
Richard Roundtree
Richard Roundtree is an actor best known for his role as private detective John Shaft in the film "Shaft."
Steve Finley
Steve Finley is a former Major League Baseball outfielder.
Walt Frazier
Walt Frazier (left) is an American former basketball player in the National Basketball Association. As their floor general, he led the New York Knicks to the franchise's only two NBA Championships (1970 and 1973), and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987.
Walt Willey
Walt Willey (right) is best known for playing Jackson Montgomery on the soap opera "All My Children."
Steve James
Steve James is a film producer and director of several documentaries, including "Hoop Dreams," "Stevie" and "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail."
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin is a musician best known for her Grammy-winning single "Sunny Came Home."
