Collection: Politics

Drawing on interviews with 51 anti-authoritarian organizers to investigates what it means to struggle for "the commons" within a settler colonial context, Unsettling the Commons interrogates a very important debatethat took place within Occupy camps and is taking place in a multitude of movements in North America around what it means to claim "the commons" on stolen land. Travelling back in history to show the ways in which radical left movements have often either erased or come into clear conflict with Indigenous practices of sovereignty and self-determination--all in the name of the "struggle for the commons," the book argues that there are multiple commons or conceptualizations of how land, relationships, and resources are shared, produced, consumed, and distributed in any given society. As opposed to the liberal politics of recognition, a political practice of unsettling and a recognition of the incommensurability of political goals that claim access to space/territory on stolen land is put forward as a more desirable way forward.

England--begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor--is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Romans, its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbors; and for the past millennia, it has harbored a class system like nowhere else on Earth.

This bracing tour of the most powerful country in the United Kingdom reveals an England repeatedly invaded and constantly reinvented--yet always fractured by its very own Mason-Dixon Line. It carries us swiftly through centuries of conflict between Crown and Parliament (starring the Magna Carta), America's War of Independence, the rise and fall of empire, two World Wars, and England's break from the EU. We discover:

• why the American colonists of 1776 believed that they were the true Anglo-Saxons
• how the British Empire was undermined from within
• why Winston Churchill said the UK could only be saved by splitting up England itself
• and how populism spawned Brexit and its "new elite."

The Shortest History of England brings all this and more to prescient life--offering the most direct, compelling route to understanding the country behind today's headlines.

Imam Taymullah Abdur-Rahman's incredible life story weaves the contemporary Black American experience with the Black Muslim American experience and emphasizes the role of interreligious dialogue in the fight for abolition and justice.

By the time he was twelve, Taymullah Abdur-Rahman (born Tyrone Sutton) was a rising pop star, recruited as part of the R&B group Perfect Gentlemen, with a top-ten hit, national teen magazine covers, and an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. However, after his music career peaked, Abdur-Rahman found himself back home, with little to show for his success. He became a teen father struggling to survive in Roxbury, MA. Seeing Islam as a way to discipline himself in an unrelenting environment, he converted. He went on to work in a maximum-security prison as a Muslim chaplain, where he became zealously focused on saving souls instead of understanding the outside forces that lead men to prison.

Later, in his work as the first paid Muslim chaplain at Harvard, Abdur-Rahman began to seek counsel outside of Islam, engaging with Jewish and Christian mentors who opened his eyes to the gifts of interreligious dialogue and helped lead him to what he was truly seeking: enlightenment. With this new framework, he returned to working with prisoners and clearly saw the cyclical effects of systemic racism that keep Black and brown people locked up and without support in America today. A sweeping narrative, American Imam voices the contemporary concerns of Black Muslim Americans in the shadow of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, in the aftermath of 9/11, and in light of the fights for social justice and prison abolition. Abdur-Rahman's story sounds an indelible rallying cry for understanding across race, religion, and cultural divides.

Through this collection of essays, author and activist Reagan Jackson, chronicles her journey into the world of journalism. Art, cinema, social justice, feminism, Black reparations, health & reproductive rights, dance, education-while Jackson's subjects range far and wide, her writing brings an intimacy & immediacy to all.

Modern economies reward activities that extract value rather than create it. This must change to ensure a capitalism that works for us all.

Shortlisted for the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

A scathing indictment of our current global financial system, The Value of Everything rigorously scrutinizes the way in which economic value has been accounted and reveals how economic theory has failed to clearly delineate the difference between value creation and value extraction. Mariana Mazzucato argues that the increasingly blurry distinction between the two categories has allowed certain actors in the economy to portray themselves as value creators, while in reality they are just moving around existing value or, even worse, destroying it.

The book uses case studies-from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma-to show how the foggy notions of value create confusion between rents and profits, reward extractors and creators, and distort the measurements of growth and GDP. In the process, innovation suffers and inequality rises.

The lesson here is urgent and sobering: to rescue our economy from the next inevitable crisis and to foster long-term economic growth, we will need to rethink capitalism, rethink the role of public policy and the importance of the public sector, and redefine how we measure value in our society.

The definitive account of the Chinese government's response to the initial Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which began as an outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019, has claimed millions of lives and caused unprecedented disruptions. Despite its generation-defining significance, there has been a surprising lack of independent research examining the decisions and measures implemented in the weeks leading up to the Wuhan lockdown, as well as the missteps and shortcomings that allowed the novel coronavirus to spread with minimal hindrance.

In Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control, Dali L. Yang scrutinizes China's emergency response to the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, delving into the government's handling of epidemic information and the decisions that influenced the scale and scope of the outbreak. Yang's research reveals that China's health decision-makers and experts had an excellent head start when they implemented a health emergency action program to respond to the outbreak at the end of December 2019. With granular detail and compelling immediacy, Yang investigates the political and bureaucratic processes that hindered information flows and sharing, as well as the cognitive framework that limited understanding of the virus's contagiousness and hampered effective decisions.

Yang's research uncovers that urgent warnings from sources outside Wuhan helped shift the Chinese health leadership's focus towards epidemic control. Once this shift occurred, China's party-state mobilized resources and enforced a lockdown in Wuhan. This lockdown was divided into two phases: providing additional medical resources and enforcing community-level lockdowns and home confinement. The 76-day lockdown contained the virus within China's borders, but the leadership and public later faced the challenge of reopening China in a world still grappling with SARS-CoV-2.

Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control also critiques the Chinese authorities for prioritizing dominance and control in their response to the Wuhan outbreak. This preoccupation led to the suppression, distortion, and neglect of crucial disease information, fostering an atmosphere of organized silence. The punishment of whistleblowers and the banning of the immediate release of research findings on the novel coronavirus further contributed to this silencing. Yang emphasizes the importance of retaining public trust during a pandemic and underscores the need for transparency, openness to new information, and direct communication of risk with the public.

The story of four remarkable women who shaped the intellectual history of the 20th century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch.

On the cusp of the Second World War, four women went to Oxford to begin their studies: a fiercely brilliant Catholic convert; a daughter of privilege longing to escape her stifling upbringing; an ardent Communist and aspiring novelist with a list of would-be lovers as long as her arm; and a quiet, messy lover of newts and mice who would become a great public intellectual of our time. They became lifelong friends. At the time, only a handful of women had ever made lives in philosophy. But when Oxford's men were drafted in the war, everything changed.

As Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch labored to make a place for themselves in a male-dominated world, as they made friendships and families, and as they drifted toward and away from each other, they never stopped insisting that some lives are better than others. They argued that courage and discernment and justice--and love--are the heart of a good life.

This book presents the first sustained engagement with these women's contributions: with the critique and the alternative they framed. Drawing on a cluster of recently opened archives and extensive correspondence and interviews with those who knew them best, Benjamin Lipscomb traces the lives and ideas of four friends who gave us a better way to think about ethics, and ourselves.

Discover our democracy's central document is this fun and interactive book with flaps, wheels, color-changing words, and more!

A 2021 Notable Social Studies Trade Book (NCSS-CBC)

Finalist, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards: The Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book

Explore the U.S. Constitution like never before! Amazing interactive features like color-changing words, flaps, wheels, and a special vocabulary decoder help kids learn about types of government, checks and balances, the Bill of Rights, the amendment process, and more! There's never been a better way--or a more important time--to discover the world-changing importance of this powerful founding document.

"In cheery infographic-style illustrations and chatty but succinct prose, Miles and Pinilla have boiled down the basics of the U.S. Constitution without shortchanging history or legal tradition....Both history geeks and casual students should easily ratify this one."--Publishers Weekly

From the Book:

The Constitution is a special document that was written in 1787. It explains how the United States governement should be set up. It also explains the purpose of that government and how it should protect the freedoms of the people. The Constitution is one of the most important documents ever written in the history of the world.

For more than six decades, Israel and Palestine have been the global focal point of intractable conflict, one that has led to one of the world's most widely reported yet least understood human rights crises. In their own words, men and women from West Bank and Gaza describe how their lives have been shaped by the conflict. Here are stories that humanize the oft-ignored violations of human rights that occur daily in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Fundamentally, Paul Szymanski and Jerry Drew remind us that--more than just simply a clash of weapons--all warfare manifests as a competition between human minds. The same holds true in the battle beyond in outer space. The contests of space warfare will test the knowledge, experience, fears, beliefs, stamina, and will of the people, their military commanders, and their political leadership like never before. It is thus essential to prepare for the military implications of wars that extend into space, to root space warfare in the military thought of the past, to adapt it to the needs of the future, and to complete its integration as an essential part of the Western way of war. Beginning with the word "war" itself, Szymanski and Drew guide the reader through a comprehensive consideration of the levels of warfare as viewed through the eyes of experienced space warfare practitioners. They make relevant centuries-old terms of art, linking the Napoleonic thought of the past to the network-dependent wars of the future and explaining esoteric disciplines like orbital warfare and electromagnetic operations in a way that will appeal to both novices and veterans of the discipline. In so doing, they expand upon the existing lexicon of war, instructing the reader on how to fight and win the coming war in space. Rich in symbology, illustrations, and historical examples, this book could not come at a more critical time for the security of the United States and its Allies.

A New York Times Best Seller! Baltimore, one of our country's quintessential urban war zones, is brought powerfully to life by literary talent, D. Watkins

To many, the past 8 years under President Obama were meant to usher in a new post-racial American political era, dissolving the divisions of the past. However, when seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by a wannabe cop in Florida; and then Ferguson, Missouri, happened; and then South Carolina hit the headlines; and then Baltimore blew up, it was hard to find any evidence of a new post-racial order.

Suddenly the entire country seemed to be awakened to a stark fact: African American men are in danger in America. This has only become clearer as groups like Black Lives Matter continue to draw attention to this reality daily not only online but also in the streets of our nation's embattled cities.

D. Watkins. fought his way up on the eastside (the "beastside") of Baltimore, Maryland--or "Bodymore, Murderland," as his friends call it. He writes openly and unapologetically about what it took to survive life on the streets while the casualties piled up around him, including his own brother. Watkins pushed drugs to pay his way through school, staying one step ahead of murderous business rivals and equally predatory lawmen. When black residents of Baltimore finally decided they had had enough--after the brutal killing of twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray while in police custody--Watkins was on the streets as the city erupted. He writes about his bleeding city with the razor-sharp insights of someone who bleeds along with it. Here are true dispatches from the other side of America.

In this new paperback edition, the author has also added new material in a section title "Bonus Tracks", responding to the rising tide of racial resentment and hate embodied by political figures like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as well as the heartbreaking killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the impact this has had on issues of race in America. This book is essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of the chaos of our current political moment.

This engaging and comprehensive illustrated guide will answer all kids' questions about how the president is elected!

There's never been a timelier moment for kids to learn the importance of voting. Your Vote Matters walks readers through all the ins and outs of voting in America -- and more specifically, voting in presidential elections.

This easy-to-understand guide explains every step in the presidential election process -- from who is eligible to run for president to what the president does once they are sworn into office. Learn about campaigning and debates, the difference between caucuses and primaries, and how the Electoral College works, plus information about who is eligible to vote; the many different ways citizens can vote on (and leading up to) Election Day; what happens after the final ballots are cast; and tips on what to consider when deciding which candidate should get your vote.

Each page of this nonfiction guidebook also features full-color artwork, including photographs, maps, illustrations, charts, and infographics aimed at making the information inside as accessible and kid-friendly as possible.

Your Vote Matters is the perfect book to not only help kids understand how elections work -- but why it's important to participate in every single one.

To the colonized, the term 'research' is conflated with European colonialism; the ways in which academic research has been implicated in the throes of imperialism remains a painful memory.

This essential volume explores intersections of imperialism and research - specifically, the ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and tradition as 'regimes of truth.' Concepts such as 'discovery' and 'claiming' are discussed and an argument presented that the decolonization of research methods will help to reclaim control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.

Now in its eagerly awaited third edition, this bestselling book includes a co-written introduction features contributions from indigenous scholars on the book's continued relevance to current research. It also features a chapter with twenty-five indigenous projects and a collection of poetry.

America's foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging. What is race and why does it matter? What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid?

Drawing on her Norton Lectures, Toni Morrison takes up these and other vital questions bearing on identity in The Origin of Others. In her search for answers, the novelist considers her own memories as well as history, politics, and especially literature. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Camara Laye are among the authors she examines. Readers of Morrison's fiction will welcome her discussions of some of her most celebrated books--Beloved, Paradise, and A Mercy.

If we learn racism by example, then literature plays an important part in the history of race in America, both negatively and positively. Morrison writes about nineteenth-century literary efforts to romance slavery, contrasting them with the scientific racism of Samuel Cartwright and the banal diaries of the plantation overseer and slaveholder Thomas Thistlewood. She looks at configurations of blackness, notions of racial purity, and the ways in which literature employs skin color to reveal character or drive narrative. Expanding the scope of her concern, she also addresses globalization and the mass movement of peoples in this century. National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a foreword to Morrison's most personal work of nonfiction to date.

Tribal college professor emeritus Stephen Wall marshals his broad understanding of both Indigenous and Western legal traditions as well as nearly a half century of experience interfacing with tribal governments in this new volume from Tribal College Press. The first book of its kind, American Indian Tribal Governance: A Critical Perspective is at once a concise topical overview and an expression of self-determination, sovereignty, and decolonization. The book is ideal for use in American Indian studies courses at both tribal colleges and mainstream institutions.

In May 1830, the United States launched an unprecedented campaign to expel 80,000 Native Americans from their eastern homelands to territories west of the Mississippi River. In a firestorm of fraud and violence, thousands of Native Americans lost their lives, and thousands more lost their farms and possessions. The operation soon devolved into an unofficial policy of extermination, enabled by US officials, southern planters, and northern speculators. Hailed for its searing insight, Unworthy Republic transforms our understanding of this pivotal period in American history.