Book Selections

"Collins views American society as being trapped in the so-called prisoner's dilemma. According to this classic piece of game theory, two prisoners whose interests would normally be aligned are put in a situation that compels them to betray their solidarity with each other. As Collins tells it, all of us are prisoners, and if we banded together we could create policies that would lead to a better, happier world. But those leading the Anti-Civil Rights Movement, such as Edward Blum, have repeatedly found ways to split coalitions-to pit marginalized groups against each others-whenever those coalitions have threatened the power of conservative elites to set the political and legal agenda. One of the central tools in the conservative arsenal has been affirmative action, which has had a long history of dividing the Asian American and Black American communities, going back to the anti-busing sentiment among Chinese Americans in San Francisco in the early 1970s. In 2013, the same year he helped gut the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County v. Holder case, Blum created the Students for Fair Admissions and brought a suit against Harvard University for discriminating against Asian Americans-the latest in a long string of prisoner dilemmas designed to undermine social progress. Collins's groundbreaking work is a field guide to the personalities, funding, and dilemmas that characterize the war between the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Civil Rights Movement-between the forces represented, respectively, by Thurgood Marshall and the one who replaced him on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas. Reading this book helps readers better understand the battles that have been fought in the past, but also where the next fight might take place, and what might be necessary in order to win"--

Why it's time to enshrine the right to vote in the Constitution Throughout history, too many Americans have been disenfranchised or faced needless barriers to voting. Part of the blame falls on the Constitution, which does not contain an affirmative right to vote. The Supreme Court has made matters worse by failing to protect voting rights and limiting Congress’s ability to do so. The time has come for voters to take action and push for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee this right for all.Drawing on troubling stories of state attempts to disenfranchise military voters, women, African Americans, students, former felons, Native Americans, and others, Richard Hasen argues that American democracy can and should do better in assuring that all eligible voters can cast a meaningful vote that will be fairly counted. He shows how a constitutional right to vote can deescalate voting wars between political parties that lead to endless rounds of litigation and undermine voter confidence in elections, and can safeguard democracy against dangerous attempts at election subversion like the one we witnessed in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.The path to a constitutional amendment is undoubtedly hard, especially in these polarized times. A Real Right to Vote explains what’s in it for conservatives who have resisted voting reform and reveals how the pursuit of an amendment can yield tangible dividends for democracy long before ratification.

"The Myth of American Idealism offers a timely and comprehensive introduction to the incisive critiques of U.S. power that have made Noam Chomsky a "global phenomenon," one of the most widely known public intellectuals of all time. Surveying the history of U.S. military and economic activity around the world, Chomsky and his co-author Nathan J. Robinson vividly trace the way the American pursuit of global domination has wrought havoc in country after country--without, ironically, making Americans any safer. And they explore how dominant elites in the United States have pushed self-serving myths about this country's commitment to "spreading democracy," while pursuing a reckless foreign policy that served the interest of few and endangered all too many. Chomsky and Robinson range across the globe, offering penetrating accounts of Washington's relationship with the Global South, its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--all justified with noble stories about humanitarian missions and the benevolent intentions of American policy makers. The same kinds of myths that have led to repeated disastrous wars, they argue, are now driving us closer to wars with Russia and China that imperil humanity's future. Examining nuclear proliferation and climate change, they show how U.S. policies are continuing to exacerbate global threats. For well over half a century, Noam Chomsky has committed himself to exposing governing ideologies and criticizing his country's unchecked use of military power. At once thorough and devastating, urgent and provocative, The Myth of American Idealism offers a highly readable entry to the conclusions he has come to after a lifetime of thought and activism"--

"A blistering expose of Clarence Thomas and the conservative regime of corruption that has usurped the Supreme Court -- by a Democratic activist and former Republican political operative. Public confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted to new lows in the last few years -- and for good reason. In the past three decades, six conservative justices have gained a supermajority through questionable means: a dubious intervention in a presidential election, perjury during Senate testimony, and a GOP Senate Leader's unethical blockade of a Supreme Court nomination. Behind this strategic dismantling of our Supreme Court is a vast, well-funded political machine--backed by the extreme right-wing Federalist Society, the notoriously secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei, and GOP megadonors operating from behind closed doors. Armed with an insider's perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican party itself. Stench investigates the ethics scandals that surround Clarence Thomas and his wife, the rightwing activist Ginni Thomas, culling new material from Thomas' accusers, along with original reporting and Brock's first-hand knowledge of the inner workings of the GOP. Stench is a staggering expose, one that only Brock could write--exhaustive in its research and revelatory in its access to the world of what has effectively become the Thomas Court"--

"In the midst of her groundbreaking career in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm once declared, 'Everyone--with the exception of the black woman herself--has been interpreting the black woman.' Edited by the leading scholar dedicated to the study of Chisholm's legacy, Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words gives readers a rare opportunity to engage with the Congresswoman's powerful ideas through the power of her own voice. The introduction by Dr. Zinga A. Fraser, Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women's Activism and author of a forthcoming book on Chisholm and Black Congressional women's political legacy, provides insight into Chisholm's role as a public intellectual and Black feminist during the Civil Rights and Black Power era"--

"This work identifies our two-party, comparatively non-representative form of democracy as the main culprit of why American politics are so dysfunctional-and shows us how to fix it"--

"...To understand contemporary antisemitism, Lappin argues, it is essential to recognize the way in which its antecedents have become deeply embedded in Western and Middle Eastern cultures over millennia. This allows hostility to Jews to cross political boundaries easily, left and right, in a way that other forms of racism do not. Combatting antisemitism effectively requires a new progressive politics that addresses its root causes. The New Antisemitism is crucial reading for anyone concerned with the social pathologies unleashed by our current economic and political discontents"--

"If you're woke, you're left. If you're left, you're woke. We blur the terms, assuming that if you're one you must be the other. That, Susan Neiman argues, is a dangerous mistake. The intellectual roots and resources of wokeism conflict with ideas that have guided the left for more than 200 years: a commitment to universalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress. Without these ideas, Neiman argues, they will continue to undermine their own goals and drift, inexorably and unintentionally, towards the right. In the long run, they risk becoming what they despise. One of the world's leading philosophical voices, Neiman makes this case by tracing the malign influence of two titans of twentieth-century thought, Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt, whose work undermined ideas of justice and progress and portrayed social life as an eternal struggle of us against them. A generation schooled with these voices in their heads, raised in a broader culture shaped by the ruthless ideas of neoliberalism and evolutionary psychology, has set about changing the world. It's time they thought again."--

"In today's political climate, it's hard not to get discouraged. Isolated, doom scrolling, lacking a sense of purpose or community... it's easy to become overwhelmed by the dire state of American democracy and do nothing, because why try when the odds are never in our favor? At this fragile moment in history, Emily Amick, lawyer and former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, alongside New York Times bestselling author and Betches Media cofounder Sami Sage, want to reframe civic engagement as a form of self-care: an assertion of one's values and self-respect. This book is not just about voting, but about claiming your singular place in your country and community"--

"Based on the Du Bois Lectures delivered at Harvard in 2011, We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For argues for the importance of self-cultivation in pursuit of justice as a critical feature of Black politics, what Eddie S. Glaude Jr. calls Black democratic perfectionism. Building on the political scientist Adolph Reed's work on 'Black custodial politics' Glaude critiques our impulse to outsource political needs to a professional class of politicians that purportedly represent us. Instead, he affirms the capacities of ordinary people to cultivate a better self and a better world by locating the prophetic and the heroic not in the pulpit but in the pew"--

"Why We Vote is a bold and sometimes daring reconstruction of judicial doctrine giving expression to the democratic aspirations of the Constitution. It shifts the focus from equal protection to the freedom that democracy generates-the right of those who are ruled to choose their rulers. It explains why the protection of that right requires the extension of the franchise to all citizens. It provides the grounds for the rules that facilitate, as a purely practical matter, the exercise of the right to vote, ensure that the vote of one is equal to that of another, and guarantees feasible access to the ballot for independent candidates and new political parties"--

"Terrorism on Trial examines the contemporary role that U.S. domestic courts play in the global war on terror and their use as a weapon of war. Retheorizing terrorism as political violence, Nicole Nguyen invites readers to carefully consider the role of power and politics in the making of armed resistance, addressing the root causes of political violence, with a goal of building toward a less violent and more liberatory world"--

"Congressman John Lewis was a paragon of the Civil Rights Movement and political leadership for decades. A hero we won't soon forget, Lewis was a beacon of hope and a model of humility whose invocation to "good trouble" continues to inspire millions across our nation. In his last year on earth, even while battling cancer, he dedicated time to share his memories, beliefs, and advice-exclusively immortalized in these pages-as a message to the generations to come. Organized by topic ranging from justice, courage, faith, and forgiveness to the pandemic, environment, marriage, money, and even death, and many more besides, Carry On collects the late Congressman's thoughts for readers to draw on whenever they are in need of guidance. John Lewis had great confidence in our future, even as he died in the midst of one of our country's most challenging years to date. With this book, we can continue to learn from his perseverance, dedication, profound insight, and unwavering ability to see the good in life, and live up to the legacy he has left us"--

"In his classic book Devil's Bargain, Joshua Green chronicled how the forces of economic populism on the right, led by the likes of Steve Bannon, turned Donald Trump into their flawed but powerful vessel. In The Rebels, he gives an epic account of the long struggle that has played out in parallel on the left, told through an intimate reckoning with the careers of the three political figures who have led the charge most prominently. Based on remarkable inside sourcing and razor-sharp analysis, The Rebels uses the grand narrative of a political party undergoing tumult and transformation to tell an even larger story about the fate of America. For many years, as Green recounts, the Democrats made their bed with Wall Street and big tech, relying on corporate money for electioneering and embracing the worldview that technological and financial innovation and globalization were a powerful net good, a rising tide lifting all boats. Yes, there were howls of pain, but they were written off by most of the elites as the moaning of sore losers mired in the past. There were always some Democratic politicians representing the old labor base who resisted the new dispensation, but these figures never made it very far on a national level. For one thing, they didn't have the money. But as income inequality ballooned, widening the gulf between the wealthy elite and everyone else, pressures began to build. With the 2008 crisis, those forces finally erupted into plain sight, turning this book's protagonists into national icons. At its heart, The Rebels tells the riveting human story of the rise and fight of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from the financial crisis on, as outrage over the unfairness of the American system formed a flood tide of political revolution. That same tide that would sweep Trump into office was blunted on the left, as the Democratic party found itself riven by culture war issues between its centrists and its progressives. But the winds behind economic populism still howl at gale force. Whether the Democrats can bridge their divisions and home in on a vision that unites the party, and perhaps even the country, in the face of the most violently deranged political landscape since the Civil War will be the ultimate test of the legacies of all three characters" --

"The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan's war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey's exacting work exposes the undeniable links between the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement and the consequences we live with today--a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality. When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack's destruction and devastating legacy. Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a "crack house"; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and a sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and lastly, Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark's most legendary group of drug traffickers"--

"In 1971, Eddie Conway, Lieutenant of Security for the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party, was convicted of murdering a police officer and sentenced to life plus thirty years behind bars. Paul Coates was a community worker at the time and didn't know Eddie well - the little he knew, he didn't much like. But Paul was dead certain that Eddie's charges were bogus. He vowed never to leave Eddie - and in so doing, changed the course of both their lives. For over forty-three years, as he raised a family and started a business, Paul visited Eddie in prison, often taking his kids with him. He and Eddie shared their lives and worked together on dozens of legal campaigns in hopes of gaining Eddie's release. Paul's founding of the Black Classic Press in 1978 was originally a way to get books to Eddie in prison. When, in 2014, Eddie finally walked out onto the streets of Baltimore, Paul Coates was there to greet him. Today, these two men remain rock-solid comrades and friends ' each, the other's chosen brother. When Eddie and Paul met in the Baltimore Panther Party, they were in their early twenties. They are now into their seventies. This book is a record of their lives and their relationship, told in their own voices. Paul and Eddie talk about their individual stories, their work, their politics, and their immeasurable bond"--

"An in-depth look at how U.S. Latino advocacy groups are using ethnoracial demographic projections to bring about political change in the present. For years, newspaper headlines, partisan speeches, academic research, and even comedy routines have communicated that the United States is undergoing a profound demographic transformation--one that will purportedly change the "face" of the country in a matter of decades. But the so-called browning of America, sociologist Michael Rodrguez-Muiz contends, has less to do with the complexion of growing populations than with past and present struggles shaping how demographic trends are popularly imagined and experienced. Offering an original and timely window into these struggles, Figures of the Future explores the population politics of national Latino civil rights groups. Based on eight years of ethnographic and qualitative research, spanning both the Obama and Trump administrations, this book investigates how several of the most prominent of these organizations--including UnidosUS (formerly NCLR), the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Voto Latino--have mobilized demographic data about the Latino population in dogged pursuit of political recognition and influence. In census promotions, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and policy advocacy, this knowledge has been infused with meaning, variously serving as future-oriented sources of inspiration, emblems for identification, and weapons for contestation. At the same time, Rodrguez-Muiz considers why these political actors have struggled to translate this demographic growth into tangible political gain and how concerns about white backlash have affected how they forecast demographic futures. Figures of the Future looks closely at the politics surrounding ethnoracial demographic changes and their rising influence in U.S. public debate and discourse."--Amazon.com.

"Voter suppression has plagued America since its inception, and so has the issue of identity-who is really American and what that means. When tied together, as they are in our modern politics, citizens are harmed in overt, subtle, and even personal ways. Stacey Abrams experienced the effects firsthand, running one of the most unconventional races in modern politics as the Democratic nominee for the governorship in Georgia and the first black woman major party nominee in American history. Abrams did not become governor, but she will not concede. And the reason she won't is because democracy failed voters. However, fixing suppression isn't enough unless we understand how it works and how identity plays a pivotal role. Suppression and identity altered the 2016 presidential election-and will do the same in 2020. But progress can win, and here Abrams lays out how. In Our Time Is Now, Abrams draws on extensive national research from her voter rights organization, Fair Fight Action, and her 2020 Census effort, Fair Count, as well as moving and personal anecdotes from her own life. Abrams weaves together the experiences of those who have fought for the vote and the right to be seen throughout our nation's history, linking them with how law and policy deny real political power. So much hangs in the balance for the 2020 election, and the stakes could not be higher. Our Time Is Now will galvanize those seeking change. It will be a critical book by the expert on fair voting and access that will show us where we fall short, who America is now, and most importantly, empower us to become the democracy we're meant to be"--

This is the epic story of how African-Americans, in the six decades following slavery, transformed themselves into a political people--an embryonic black nation. As Steven Hahn demonstrates, rural African-Americans were central political actors in the great events of disunion, emancipation, and nation-building. At the same time, Hahn asks us to think in more expansive ways about the nature and boundaries of politics and political practice. Emphasizing the importance of kinship, labor, and networks of communication, A Nation under Our Feet explores the political relations and sensibilities that developed under slavery and shows how they set the stage for grassroots mobilization. Hahn introduces us to local leaders, and shows how political communities were built, defended, and rebuilt. He also identifies the quest for self-governance as an essential goal of black politics across the rural South, from contests for local power during Reconstruction, to emigrationism, biracial electoral alliances, social separatism, and, eventually, migration. Hahn suggests that Garveyism and other popular forms of black nationalism absorbed and elaborated these earlier struggles, thus linking the first generation of migrants to the urban North with those who remained in the South. He offers a new framework--looking out from slavery--to understand twentieth-century forms of black political consciousness as well as emerging battles for civil rights. It is a powerful story, told here for the first time, and one that presents both an inspiring and a troubling perspective on American democracy.

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the "long Civil Rights movement," Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. In this book, Robin D. G. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals. After discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.

An account of the Flint water crisis shows that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water is part of a broader struggle for democracy. When Flint, Michigan, changed its source of municipal water from Lake Huron to the Flint River, Flint residents were repeatedly assured that the water was of the highest quality. At the switchover ceremony, the mayor and other officials performed a celebratory toast, declaring "Here's to Flint!" and downing glasses of freshly treated water. But as we now know, the water coming out of residents' taps harbored a variety of contaminants, including high levels of lead. In Flint Fights Back, Benjamin Pauli examines the water crisis and the political activism that it inspired, arguing that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water was part of a broader struggle for democracy. Pauli connects Flint's water activism with the ongoing movement protesting the state of Michigan's policy of replacing elected officials in financially troubled cities like Flint and Detroit with appointed "emergency managers." Pauli distinguishes the political narrative of the water crisis from the historical and technical narratives, showing that Flint activists' emphasis on democracy helped them to overcome some of the limitations of standard environmental justice frameworks. He discusses the pro-democracy (anti-emergency manager) movement and traces the rise of the "water warriors"; describes the uncompromising activist culture that developed out of the experience of being dismissed and disparaged by officials; and examines the interplay of activism and scientific expertise. Finally, he explores efforts by activists to expand the struggle for water justice and to organize newly mobilized residents into a movement for a radically democratic Flint.

"A bold call for the American Left to extend their politics to the issues of Israel-Palestine, from a New York Times bestselling author and experts on U.S. policy in the region"--

"Politicians often extoll the common sense of running government like a business. Indeed, business acumen was arguably the principal qualification of then-candidate Donald Trump to become president of the United States. Likening government to a business, however, invites another analogy: voters as employers. Employers are constrained by practical and legal considerations in choosing employees. For example, it's almost impossible to imagine a board of directors selecting Donald Trump as its CEO after the revelation of the Access Hollywood tape on which he boasted of grabbing women by their genitalia without their consent. The reputational and legal exposure for the business would be too great. Yet American voters elected Trump as the nation's CEO"--

Examines how free speech in the United States has been corrupted by the politically powerful and how the contemporary landscape of social media and social polarization have eroded the safeguards built into the Constitution to protect speech.

"Williams applies an economic analysis to the problems black Americans have faced in the past and present to show that free-market resource allocation, as opposed to political allocation, is in the best interests of minorities"--Jacket.

The Persistence of the Color Line is the first book by a major African-American public intellectual on racial politics and the Obama presidency. Renowned for his cool reason, Randall Kennedy gives us shrewd and keen essays on the complex relationship between "the first black president" and his African-American constituency. Kennedy tackles hot-button issues including: the nature of racial opposition to Obama; whether Obama has any special responsibility to African-Americans; the increasing irrelevance of traditional racial politics and the consequences thereof; electoral politics and cultural chauvinism; black patriotism and its antithesis (essentialism and rebellion); differences between Obama's presentation of himself to blacks and whites and the challenges posed by the dream of a post-racial society; the far from simple symbolism of Obama as leader of the Joshua generation in a country that has elected only three black senators and two black governors. Kennedy eschews the critical excesses of both the left and the right, offering a gimlet-eyed view of Obama's triumphs and travails, his strengths and weaknesses, as they pertain to the troubled history of race in America--

Reveals how presidents deploy a rhetoric that attempts to attract many racial and ethnic groups, but ultimately directs itself to an archtypal white, Middle-American swing voter.

The phenomenon of "identity politics" represents one of the primary impasses of the left, and has occasioned the reignition of frustrating debates between the partisans of race and class ad infinitum. In Mistaken Identity, Asad Haider reaches for a different approach one rooted in the rich legacies of the black freedom struggle. Drawing from the words and deeds of black revolutionary theorists, he argues that identity politics is not synonymous with anti-racism, but instead amounts to the neutralisation of its movements. It marks a retreat from the crucial passage from identity to solidarity, and from individual recognition to collective struggle against an oppressive social structure. Mistaken Identity is a political and theoretical tour de force, an urgent call for alternative visions, languages, and practices against the white identity politics of right-wing populism. The idea of universal emancipation now seems old-fashioned and outmoded. But if we are attentive to the lines of struggle that lie outside the boundaries of the state, we will see that it has been placed on the agenda once again.

Like the canaries that alerted miners to a poisonous atmosphere, issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities. Addressing these issues is essential. Ignoring racial differences--race blindness--has failed. Focusing on individual achievement has diverted us from tackling pervasive inequalities. Now, in a powerful and challenging book, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres propose a radical new way to confront race in the twenty-first century. Given the complex relationship between race and power in America, engaging race means engaging standard winner-take-all hierarchies of power as well. Terming their concept "political race," Guinier and Torres call for the building of grass-roots, cross-racial coalitions to remake those structures of power by fostering public participation in politics and reforming the process of democracy. Their illuminating and moving stories of political race in action include the coalition of Hispanic and black leaders who devised the Texas Ten Percent Plan to establish equitable state college admissions criteria, and the struggle of black workers in North Carolina for fair working conditions that drew on the strength and won the support of the entire local community. The aim of political race is not merely to remedy racial injustices, but to create truly participatory democracy, where people of all races feel empowered to effect changes that will improve conditions for everyone. In a book that is ultimately not only aspirational but inspirational, Guinier and Torres envision a social justice movement that could transform the nature of democracy in America.

"A radical spirit of change has overtaken American politics, making once-unthinkable reforms-like abolishing the Electoral College-seem possible. Two of the last five elections were won by candidates who lost the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire electoral system into question. Political passions are already high, and they will reach a boiling point as we enter the 2020 race. The message from the American people is clear: we need major reform, and we need it now. In Let the People Pick the President, New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman makes a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College, and choosing presidents based on a national popular vote. He uncovers the Electoral College's controversial origins, profiles the many attempts to reform it over the years, and explains why it is now essential for us to remove this obsolete system and finally make every citizen's vote matter. Wegman addresses objections from both sides of the aisle and presents an airtight argument that moving toward a national popular vote would reduce voter apathy and political polarization, increase voter turnout, and restore belief in our democratic system. Abolishing the Electoral College is the keystone reform that must be accomplished to improve our politics; Wegman shows that this once-lofty goal can be achieved, and charts a path to accomplishing it"--