Book Selections

Following his resignation in the wake of criticism for his social media posts, a former law professor discusses "cancel culture" and his proposed solutions to perceived "radicalism" in American higher education.;"A high-profile law professor who endured cancel culture firsthand discusses radicalism in American law schools"-- Provided by publisher.

"A legal commentator and former litigator's argument for repealing ten laws he believes are making life worse for Americans"-- Provided by publisher.

"Even as anti-racism practices seemed to be gaining momentum, the nation shows signs of falling back into long-standing patterns of racial injustice and inequality. Leaders who introduce anti-racist approaches to their organizations often face backlash from white colleagues and skepticism from colleagues of color, leading to paralysis. In What Might Be, Susan Sturm explores how to navigate the contradictions built into our racialized history, relationships, and institutions. She offers strategies and stories for confronting racism within predominantly white institutions, describing how change agents can move beyond talk to build the architecture of full participation. Sturm argues that although we cannot avoid the contradictions built into efforts to confront racism, we can make them into engines of cross-racial reflection, bridge building, and institutional reimagination, rather than falling into a Groundhog Day-like trap of repeated failures. Drawing on her decades of experience researching and working with institutions to help them become more equitable and inclusive, Sturm identifies three persistent paradoxes inherent in anti-racism work. These are the paradox of racialized power, whereby anti-racism requires white people to lean into and yet step back from exercising power; the paradox of racial salience, which means that effective efforts must explicitly name and address race while also framing their goals in universal terms other than race; and the paradox of racialized institutions, which must drive anti-racism work while simultaneously being the target of it. Sturm shows how people and institutions can cultivate the capacity to straddle these contradictions, enabling those in different racial positions to discover their linked fate and become the catalysts for long-term change" --

In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are so deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. When conflict and division are everyday realities, our instincts tell us to close ranks, to find the safety of those like us, and to blame others. This book profoundly shows that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential. Through the practice of embodied mindfulness--paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in an open, nonjudgmental way--we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our own biases, and become less reactive when triggered.

"After decades of union decline and rising inequality, an inspiring wave of workplace organizing--from Starbucks stores to Amazon warehouses to southern auto factories--has thrust unionization into the national spotlight. By analyzing this surge and telling the stories of the courageous workers driving it forward, We Are the Union makes a case for how to overcome business as usual in both corporate America and organized labor. Eric Blanc shows that recent struggles have developed a new organizing model, worker-to-worker unionism, which builds scalable power by giving rank-and-filers an unprecedented degree of leadership. Through digital tools and ambitious campaigns, young worker leaders are turning the labor movement back into a movement--and they're winning. Rigorously researched and compellingly written, We Are the Union illustrates how this new grassroots approach can exponentially grow the power of working people to overcome economic exploitation, racial injustice, and authoritarianism at work and beyond."--Publisher's description.

"The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling phenomenon: People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America's booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one. In this gripping and deeply reported book, Brian Goldstone plunges readers into the lives of five Atlanta families struggling to remain housed in a gentrifying, increasingly unequal city. Maurice and Natalia make a fresh start in the country's "Black Mecca" after being priced out of DC. Kara dreams of starting her own cleaning business while mopping floors at a public hospital. Britt scores a coveted housing voucher. Michelle is in school to become a social worker. Celeste toils at her warehouse job while undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Each of them aspires to provide a decent life for their children--and each of them, one by one, joins the ranks of the nation's working homeless. Through intimate, novelistic portraits, Goldstone reveals the human cost of this crisis, following parents and their kids as they go to sleep in cars, or in squalid extended-stay hotel rooms, and head out to their jobs and schools the next morning. These are the nation's hidden homeless--omitted from official statistics, and proof that overflowing shelters and street encampments are only the most visible manifestation of a far more pervasive problem"--

"Beginning with a jaw-dropping rumination on a centuries-old painting featuring a white man with a Black man's leg surgically attached (with the expired Black leg-donor in the foreground), contracts law scholar and celebrated journalist Patricia J. Williams uses the lens of the law to take on core questions of identity, ethics, and race. With her trademark elegant prose and critical legal studies wisdom, Williams brings to bear a keen analytic eye and a lawyer's training to chapters exploring the ways we have legislated the ownership of everything from body parts to gene sequences--and the particular ways in which our laws in these areas isolate nonnormative looks, minority cultures, and out-of-the-box thinkers. At the heart of 'Wrongful Birth' is a lawsuit in which a white couple who use a sperm bank sue when their child 'comes out Black'; 'Bodies in Law' explores the service of genetic ancestry testing companies to answer the question of who owns DNA. And 'Hot Cheeto Girl' examines the way that algorithms give rise to new predictive categories of human assortment, layered with market-inflected cages of assigned destiny. In the spirit of Dorothy Roberts, Rebecca Skloot, and Anne Fadiman, The Miracle of the Black Leg offers a brilliant meditation on the tricky place where law, science, ethics, and cultural slippage collide"--

"From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an empire that doesn't consider you fully human. On October 25th, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: "One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." This tweet was viewed more than ten million times. One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture that has occurred for Black, brown, Indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in Western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse"--

"A leading political scientist examines the dramatic rise in violent extremism around the globe and sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States. Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country. Perhaps surprisingly, both autocracies and healthy democracies are largely immune from civil war; it's the countries in the middle ground that are most vulnerable. And this is where more and more countries, including the United States, are finding themselves today. Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs--where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them--and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won't look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind. In this urgent and insightful book, Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face--and the knowledge to stop it before it's too late"--

"Since its acquisition by the US in 1898, Puerto Rico has served as a testing ground for the most aggressive and exploitative US economic, political, and social policies. The devastation that ensued finally grew impossible to ignore in 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Maria, as the physical destruction compounded the infrastructure collapse and trauma inflicted by the debt crisis. In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter. He also shows how it has become a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the frontlines of climate change, hamstrung by internal political corruption and the US federal government's prioritization of outside financial interests. Taking readers from San Juan to New York City and back to his family's home in the Luquillo Mountains, Morales shows us the machinations of financial and political interests in both the US and Puerto Rico, and the resistance efforts of Puerto Rican artists and activists. Through it all, he emphasizes that the only way to stop Puerto Rico from being bled is to let Puerto Ricans take control of their own destiny, going beyond the statehood-commonwealth-independence debate to complete decolonization." --

"This volume presents essays evaluating the similarities and differences between the legal, political, ethical, and practical landscapes confronted by the death penalty abolition movement at the time of the Furman v. Georgia decision and subsequent reversal and those confronted by the same movement today"--

"This is a book about hope, struggle, and possibility in the context of gendered violences of racial capitalism on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border"--;Near Tijuana, Baja California, the autonomous community of Maclovio Rojoas demonstrates what is possible for urban place-based political movements. More than a community, Maclovio Rojas is a women-led social movement that works for economic and political autonomy to address issues of health, education, housing, nutrition, and security. Border Women and the Community of Maclovio Rojas tells the story of the community's struggle to carve out space for survival and thriving in the shadows of the U.S.-Mexico geopolitical border. This ethnography by Michelle Téllez demonstrates the state's neglect in providing social services and local infrastructure. This neglect exacerbates the structural violence endemic to the border region--a continuation of colonial systems of power on the urban, rural, and racialized poor. Téllez shows that in creating the community of Maclovio Rojas, residents have challenged prescriptive notions of nation and belonging. Through women's active participation and leadership, a women's political subjectivity has emerged Maclovianas. These border women both contest and invoke their citizenship as they struggle to have their land rights recognized, and they transform traditional political roles into that of agency and responsibility. This book highlights the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as a space of resistance, conviviality, agency, and creative community building where transformative politics can take place. It shows hope, struggle, and possibility in the context of gendered violences of racial capitalism on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border"--

The American Library Association (ALA) today released the highly anticipated Top 10 Most Challenged Books List.

"This concise but comprehensive book engagingly lays out answers to myriad questions about free speech principles and current controversies, including those pertaining to hate speech, disinformation, and social media. Nadine Strossen, one of America's leading free speech scholars and advocates, focuses on modern First Amendment law, explaining the historic factors that propelled its evolution toward more speech protection -- in particular, the civil rights movement. She highlights the many cases in which robust speech-protective principles have aided advocates of racial justice and other human rights causes. The book also shows how these rulings reflect universal, timeless values that benefit everyone, regardless of identity or ideology. Correcting prevalent misunderstandings, the book explains that the First Amendment sensibly permits government to outlaw the speech that is the most dangerous, while outlawing the censorship that is the most dangerous. The book's lively question-and-answer format clearly and memorably presents free speech tenets, citing colorful episodes and eloquent language from landmark Supreme Court opinions. It will be illuminating to a wide range of readers, from those who know nothing about free speech law, to experts who seek a well-organized summary of major doctrines, as well as insights into their background and rationales." --

"Fearless Speech emphasizes the distinction between what speech a democratic society should protect and what speech a democratic society should promote. The First Amendment has been legally deployed most visibly and effectively to promote powerful antidemocratic interests: misogyny, racism, religious zealotry, and corporate self-interest, in other words, reckless speech. Franks argues we need to focus on fearless speech--speakers who have called out injustice and hold the powerful accountable"--

In 1987, Women’s History Month was formally recognized by presidential proclamation as a monthlong celebration to honor women’s contributions, accomplishments, and voices throughout U.S. history. The following books spotlight extraordinary women from the distant and not-so-distant past—women both imagined and real, both famous and little-known, coming from diverse cultures, countries, and continents.

"Adversity comes in many forms, and can make us feel alone in our pain, even years after the fact. But as wellness coach and licensed therapist Minaa B. observes, we can't heal in isolation. The best way to move past individual trauma is through connection and community-healing ourselves and one another. In this powerful and practical guide, Minaa shares therapeutic tools, client stories, and actionable insights to help you on your healing journey, along with reflections from her personal experiences. Each chapter focuses on a common emotional struggle-from overcoming dysfunctional family patterns to developing emotional maturity, finding our village, navigating racial trauma, and moving past isolation and despair. Through her unique mix of deeply honest personal stories, proven practices, and prompts for writing and reflection, Minaa helps readers finally face their struggles, get unstuck, and transform their thinking-to claim agency in their own lives and circumstances, and to use that power to help heal a broken world"--

Become Ungovernable is a provocative new work of political thought setting out to reclaim "freedom", "justice", and "democracy", revolutionary ideas that are all too often warped in the interests of capital and the state. Revealing the mirage of mainstream democratic thought and the false promises of liberal political ideologies, H.L.T. Quan offers an alternative approach: an abolition feminism drawing on a kaleidoscope of refusal praxes, and on a deep engagement with the Black Radical Tradition and queer analytics. With each chapter anchored by episodes from the long history of resistance and rebellions against tyranny, Quan calls for us to take up a feminist ethic of living rooted in the principles of radical inclusion, mutuality and friendship as part of the larger toolkit for confronting fascism, white supremacy, and the neoliberal labor regime.

"Ethical, pondering, and wondrous, adrienne maree brown's Loving Corrections is a collection of love-based adjustments and reframes to grow our movements for liberation while navigating a society deeply fractured by greed, racism, and war. In this landmark book, brown invigorates her influential writing on belonging and accountability into the framework of "loving corrections": a generative space where rehearsals for the revolution become the everyday norm in relating to one another. Filled with practical wisdom on how to be a trustworthy communicator while providing bold visions for a shared future, Loving Corrections can speak to everyone caught in the crossroads of our political challenges and potential. No matter how new to the struggle, or how numerous our failures, brown's indispensable writing is an invitation to us all."--

"Courage in the People's House tells the gripping stories of nine individuals who served in the US House of Representatives--the "People's House"--During a span of over one hundred years, from the 1870s to the 1990s. From the first African American to serve in the House, to immigrants elected at the dawn of the 20th century, all were trailblazers who made significant contributions to the country"--

"How a national grassroots network fought a resurgence of the KKK and other fascist groups during the Reagan years, and how it laid the groundwork for today's anti-fascist/anti-racist movements."--

"Grounded in the lives of some of its most committed nonviolent activists, Incarcerated Resistance tells a story of anti-war resistance, what it means to "go to jail for justice" in the contemporary United States, and shows how identity matters in both the activation of prison witness, and as a key shaper of individual experience"--

We owe it to our fellow humans - and other species - to save them from the catastrophic harm caused by climate change. Philosopher Elizabeth Cripps approaches climate justice not just as an abstract idea but as something that should motivate us all. Using clear reasoning and poignant examples, starting from irrefutable science and uncontroversial moral rules, she explores our obligations to each other and to the non-human world, unravels the legacy of colonialism and entrenched racism, and makes the case for immediate action. The second half of the book looks at solutions. Who should pay the bill for climate action? Who must have a say? How can we hold multinational companies, organisations - even nations - to account? Cripps argues powerfully that climate justice goes beyond political polarization. Climate activism is a moral duty, not a political choice.

In response disparate groups quickly came together to organize against white nationalist violence and right-wing organizing throughout the Rose City and the Pacific Northwest. It Did Happen Here compiles interviews with dozens of people who worked together during the waning decades of the twentieth century to reveal an inspiring collaboration between groups of immigrants, civil rights activists, militant youth, and queer organizers. This oral history focuses on participants in three core groups: the Portland chapters of Anti-Racist Action and Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, and the Coalition for Human Dignity. Using a diversity of tactics—from out-and-out brawls on the streets and at punk shows, to behind-the-scenes intelligence gathering—brave antiracists unified on their home ground over and over, directly attacking right-wing fascists and exposing white nationalist organizations and neo-Nazi skinheads. Embattled by police and unsupported by the city, these citizen activists eventually drove the boneheads out of the music scene and off the streets of Portland. This book shares their stories about what worked, what didn’t, and ideas on how to continue the fight.

"Our focus is on trauma as it impacts and applies to lawyers and clients in practice, legal education, courts and judges, and the legal system and profession as a whole. This book gives voice to only some of the many traumatic experiences that arise in all aspects of law. Unless we hear these voices, we cannot begin to address the many legal, ethical, moral, educational, juridical systems or other issues they raise even where we have tools to do so. The pursuit of justice means voices of trauma in the legal system deserve to be heard, individually and collectively, even when it's difficult to listen"--

"In the post-World War II period, students rebelled against the archaic university. In student-led movements, they fought for the new kinds of public the university needed to serve--women, minorities, immigrants, indigenous people, and more--with a success that had a profound impact on the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century. Because of their efforts, ethnic studies, women's studies, and American studies were born, and minority communities have become more visible and important to academic debate. Less than fifty years since this pivotal shift in the academy, however, the university is fighting back. In We Demand, Roderick A. Ferguson shows how the university, particularly the public university, is moving away from "the people" in all their diversity. As more resources are put toward STEM education, humanities and interdisciplinary programs are being cut and shuttered. This has had a devastating effect on the pursuit of knowledge, and on interdisciplinary programs born from the hard work and effort of an earlier generation. This is not only a reactionary move against the social advances since the '60s and '70s, but part of the larger threat of anti-intellectualism in the United States."--Provided by publisher.

In this compelling book, distinguished activist lawyer Francis Boyle sounds an impassioned clarion call to citizen action against Bush administration policies both domestic and international. Boyle, who has spent his career defending civil resisters, offers the only guide available on how to use international law, constitutional law, and the laws of war to defend peaceful non-violent protesters against governmental policies that are illegal and criminal. He focuses especially on the aftermath of 9/11 and the implications of the war on Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, the war on Iraq, the doc

"How can we build a better world? And why do so many people with privilege end up making things worse when they try to help? It's called the savior mentality, and Jordan Flaherty finds it in FBI informants, anti-sex-work crusaders, Teach For America corps members, and out-of-touch journalists. No More Heroes celebrates grassroots challenges to these saviors and highlights movements focused on real, systemic change from the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter." -- Publisher's description

Since the civil rights era, the doctrine of nonviolence has enjoyed near-universal acceptance by the US Left. Today protest is often shaped by cooperation with state authorities-even organizers of rallies against police brutality apply for police permits, and anti-imperialists usually stop short of supporting self-defense and armed resistance. How Nonviolence Protects the State challenges the belief that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. In a call bound to stir controversy and lively debate, Peter Gelderloos invites activists to consider diverse tactics, passionately arguing that exclusive nonviolence often acts to reinforce the same structures of oppression that activists seek to overthrow. Contemporary movements for social change face plenty of difficult questions, but sometimes matters of strategy and tactics receive low priority. Many North American activists fail to scrutinize the role of nonviolence, never posing essential questions: Is nonviolence effective at ending systems of oppression? Does nonviolence intersect with white privilege and the dominance of North over South? How does pacifism reinforce the same power dynamic as patriarchy? Ultimately, does nonviolence protect the state? Peter Gelderloos is a radical community organizer. He is the author of Consensus: A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social, and Environmental Groups and a contributor to Letters From Young Activists. He is the co-facilitator of a workshop on the prison system, and is also involved in independent media, copwatching, anti-oppression work, and anarchist organizing.

Flash mobs-whether as a fun and irreverent group activity or advertising/promotional pitch-present a need for organizers to be aware of the legal issues they may encounter. This, the first book of its kind to discuss the legal side of flash mobs, presents the reader with everything he or she needs to know about where the law stands on all issues related to the planning and execution of flash mobs, including: - Legal implications of planning flash mobs - Protecting participants and bystanders - Confrontations by authorities - Using flash mobs as an effective marketing tool, and numerous case studies Flash mobs are meant to be fun and solely for the entertainment of the participants and their unsuspecting audience, but the legal side of flash mobs must always be considered. This ground-breaking book is a must-read for anyone involved in the creation, promotion, and execution of flash mobs.