Tonight at 7 p.m. in the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, the folks at Greater Greater Washington will be hosting a discussion on one of the quintessential books on local politics: Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. The discussion will be moderated by the Post’s Mike DeBonis and feature the book’s two authors, Tom Sherwood and Harry Jaffe, who remain involved in covering, analyzing and parsing local politics for NBC4 and the Examiner (among other outlets), respectively.

I read the book early on in my time in the District, and it served as an invaluable primer on the District’s history and stunted political establishment. Explains GGW’s John Muller:

Dream City probes the pathos of DC that by the late 1950s had become majority black, albeit with two distinct factions. A strong-middle class of largely government workers coexisted with a dependent class less than a generation removed from living in the alleys or deep South. Both divergent groups of the city’s black populace were equally subjugated by Democratic Southern segregationists that controlled all aspects of municipal government.

Due to the city’s status as a step-child of the Federal government, an indigenous political machine, unable to control patronage, was never able to emerge. When the city was awarded home rule in 1973, it was politically wide open as local elections had not been held in nearly a century.

Into this void, up stepped Marion Barry, the perpetual “situationalist,” and the rest is history.

Of course, Dream City isn’t the only book on the District — far from it — nor is it the only one you should read. (The D.C. Public Library has compiled a list of 50 must-reads.) In no particular order, here’s a few others we’d suggest:

>> Captive Capital: Colonial Life in Modern Washington: This 1974 book by former D.C. journalist Sam Smith nails down one reason the District’s attempts at local governance have generally suffered: “[T]he city has been permitted the externals of self-determination, elections, without its heart, power,” Smith writes. According to Smith, who was born in the District and in 1966 launched the Capitol Hill Gazette (which became the Progressive Review in 1984), the District suffers from what he calls “participatory colonialism,” which infects decision- and policy-making at every level.

>> The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in the New Age of Black Leaders: While Dream City left off at Barry’s 1990 conviction for smoking crack, Jonetta Rose Barras picks up after the mayor-for-life was released from federal prison and kicked off his political comeback. Rosa Barras, who currently writes for the Examiner and contributes to the City Paper, tries to understand how exactly Barry managed to engineer his return to politics, one that began with a Ward 8 seat on the D.C. Council, led to his fourth mayoral term in 1994 and ended with the District under the federal Control Board. Part of it, she argues, was skillful repackaging on Barry’s part; but another significant part — and one that might explain why he remains popular amongst certain residents to this day — was the District’s tortured racial history. “Barry was the heroic target, the victim of white supremacy, the person the government wanted to take down, the man who helped the poor when whites and wealthy African-Americans had turned away,” she explained.

>> Democratic Destiny and the District of Columbia: Federal Politics and Public Policy: This edited volume may be a little on the academic side, but there’s simply no better collection of articles explaining the policies of D.C. mayors from Walter Washington to Anthony Williams and laying out the issues they’ve faced, from schools to affordable housing.

Also: Home Rule or House Rule?: Congress and the Erosion of Local Governance in the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. protests : scenes from home rule to the civil rights movement, City of Magnificent Intentions: A History of Washington, District of Columbia.