The 2016 presidential campaign was one fraught with anger and mistrust across the political spectrum. In the days and weeks following the election, many may seek to open a dialogue in the spirit of continuing the conversation on the tough issues facing both the United States and the international community. We offer the following book recommendations for those who want to move forward in a constructive way.

In Conversation, essayist Stephen Miller chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its current endangered state in America. He discusses how our technology and our forthrightness as well as our fear of being judgmental may diminish the art of conversation.

In Dignity Donna Hicks explains the elements of dignity, how to recognize dignity violations, how to respond when we are not treated with dignity, how dignity can restore a broken relationship, why leaders must understand the concept of dignity, and how choosing dignity as a way of life can lead to a safer and more humane world for all.

In On Toleration, Michael Walzer shows how power, class, and gender interact with religion, race, and ethnicity in the different regimes and discusses how toleration works—and how it should work—in multicultural societies like the United States.

Nobility of Spirit is a spiritual journey to the source of values such as truth, freedom, and dignity, that must be sustained in order for civilization to flourish. Rob Riemen calls for all of us to “be brave” as we battle those forces—terror, hate, and ignorance—that are conspiring against humanity.

In In One World Now, philosopher Peter Singer addresses such essential concerns as climate change, economic globalization, foreign aid, human rights, immigration, and the responsibility to protect people from genocide and crimes against humanity, whatever country they may be in.

Lewis Perry examines the causes that have inspired civil disobedience, the justifications used to defend it, disagreements among its practitioners, and the controversies it has aroused at every turn. In Civil Disobedience, Perry discusses what civil disobedience is and what the dilemmas are for those who choose to use it.

With Grand Strategies, Charles Hill offers a powerful work on the practice of international relations that defines what it is to build a civil society through diplomacy, justice, and lawful governance and describes how these ideas emerge from and reflect human nature.