Other books that might interest you

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  Prison Industrial Complex For...

  James Braxton Peterson

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  Prison Industrial Complex For Beginners is a graphic narrative project that attempts to distill the fundamental components of what scholars, activists, and artists have identified as the Mass Incarceration movement in the United States.Since the early 1990s, activist critics of the US prison system have marked its emergence as a “complex” in a manner comparable to how President Eisenhower described the Military Industrial Complex. Like its institutional “cousin,” the Prison Industrial Complex features a critical combination of political ideology, far-reaching federal policy, and the neo-liberal directive to privatize institutions traditionally within the purview of the government. The result is that corporations have capital incentives to capture and contain human bodies.The Prison Industrial Complex relies on the “law and order” ideology fomented by President Nixon and developed at least partially in response to the unrest generated through the Civil Rights Movement. It is (and has been) enhanced and emboldened via the US “war on drugs,” a slate of policies that by any account have failed to do anything except normalize the warehousing of nonviolent substance abusers in jails and prisons that serve more as criminal training centers then as redemptive spaces for citizens who might re-enter society successfully.Prison Industrial Complex For Beginners is a primer for how these issues emerged and how our awareness of the systems at work in mass incarceration might be the very first step in reforming an institution responsible for some of our most egregious contemporary civil rights violations.

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  Megrahi: You Are My Jury - The...

  John Ashton

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  “Casts grave doubt on the validity of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s conviction as the Libyan terrorist responsible for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103.” —Arab News“You know me as the Lockerbie bomber. I know that I’m innocent. Here, for the first time, is my true story: how I came to be blamed for Britain’s worst mass murder, my nightmare decade in prison and the truth about my controversial release. Please read it and decide for yourself. You are now my jury.” —Abdelbaset al-Megrahi This long-awaited book argues that, far from being an unrepentant terrorist, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was the innocent victim of dirty politics, a flawed investigation and judicial folly. Based on exclusive interviews with Megrahi himself, and conclusive new evidence, it destroys the prosecution case and puts the Scottish criminal justice system in the dock. Megrahi: You Are My Jury makes a compelling argument that the murderers of the 270 Lockerbie victims were acting on behalf of an entirely different government, rather than Colonel Gadafy and Libya.“Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted ‘Lockerbie bomber,’ who died earlier this year of cancer, never stopped seeking to clear his name, and this book, written by one of the lead researchers on Megrahi’s appeal with the Megrahis’ collaboration, documents perceived weaknesses of the Scottish state’s case . . . Ashton’s analysis of the evidence, though clearly partisan, is exhaustive and fascinating, highlighting how Megrahi’s trial exemplified a rush to judgment viewed by many jurists as a miscarriage of justice.” —Publishers Weekly

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  Monument - Four Presidents Who...

  Robert Dallek

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  From personal correspondence to presidential speeches and documents, Monument: Four Presidents Who Sculpted America explores the written words of the men forever remembered on the face of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. Originally a project to boost tourism, the sculpture received congressional approval in 1925, and construction was completed in 1941, shortly after the death of sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Canterbury Classics has gathered historic documents penned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt into this beautiful leather-bound volume, and added introductions by learned scholars to outline the contribution each president made to the birth, growth, development, and preservation of the United States. Also included is the story of how Mount Rushmore came to be, and a foreword written by historian Robert Dallek. With more than two million visitors annually, Mount Rushmore lives up to its status as a “Shrine of Democracy,” and this rich piece of U.S. history is preserved in this timeless collectible edition.

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  Capitalism's Crisis Deepens -...

  Richard D. Wolff

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  “The leading socialist economist in the country” explores the roots of the Great Recession and its immense impact on working people (Cornel West).   While most mainstream commentators view the crisis that provoked the Great Recession as having passed, these essays from Richard Wolff paint a far less rosy picture. Drawing attention to the extreme downturn in most of capitalism’s old centers, the unequal growth in its new centers, and the resurgence of a global speculative bubble, Wolff—in his uniquely accessible style—makes the case that the crisis should be grasped not as a passing moment, but as an evolving stage in capitalism’s history.  Praise for Richard Wolff and Democracy at Work   “Probably America’s most prominent Marxist economist.” —The New York Times Magazine   “Richard Wolff’s constructive and innovative ideas suggest new and promising foundations for much more authentic democracy and sustainable and equitable development, ideas that can be implemented directly and carried forward. A very valuable contribution in troubled times.” —Noam Chomsky   “Wolff offers a rich and much-needed corrective to the views of mainstream economists and pundits. It would be difficult to come away from this with anything but an acute appreciation of what is needed to get us out of this mess.” —Stanley Aronowitz   “Bold, thoughtful, transformative—a powerful and challenging vision that takes us beyond both corporate capitalism and state socialism. Richard Wolff at his best!” —Gar Alperovitz

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  Troublemaker - Let's Do What It...

  Christine O'Donnell

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  From the moment she upset a heavily-favored incumbent in the primary for the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Joe Biden, Christine O'Donnell made headlines.  Though she didn't win the general election, O'Donnell did win the designation of 2010's Most Covered Candidate.  And what people were talking about wasn't just gossip: they responded to a fresh, unencumbered voice that appealed to voter frustration with politics—and politicians—as usual. 
  America's strength lies in its government "by the people, for the people", but too many of those people feel they are now just labeled featureless residents of "flyover country", told what to think and what they can and cannot do by an entrenched, reigning class of elites.  O'Donnell's candidacy gave hope that the voices of real people—the people—not only can be heard but can also become a force.  Part of this hope is invested in the nascent Tea Party, but most of it is invested in individual voters who are willing to work hard and make sacrifices for what they believe in, not what backroom dealing and a bloated federal government has mandated is good for them. 
  Troublemaker is about where O'Donnell comes from—the Philadelphia suburbs with five kids to a room—and what she weathered in the 2010 election.  But the core of the book is a clear, straightforward discussion of an America that yearns to embrace freedom and opportunity through personal responsibility, and how it is hamstrung and stymied by excessive regulation, taxation, and the sanctimony of a "nanny state."  And Troublemaker will deliver an important, rousing message about what we do with the quiet anger in America today: where we can go, and how strong we can be, from here. Warning readers that challenging the status quo makes the political establishment push back, O'Donnell wants to build a movement that will continue to goad it. 
  It's practical, too, since O'Donnell believes in power through participation: it's not enough to grumble about how things are going; pitch in and try to change things if you care. O'Donnell details how she participated by running for high office as an everywoman, but also shows how attending town council meetings, organizing a petition drive, making an effort to meet a staffer in your local representative's office, or simply reading the minutes from your community board can make a difference.A Macmillan Audio production.

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  The Political Economy of Hope...

  Marcellus William Andrews

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  Popular liberal writing on race has relied on appeals to the value of "diversity" and the fading memory of the Civil Rights movement to counter the aggressive conservative assault on liberal racial reform generally, and on black well-being, in particular. Yet appeals to fairness and justice, no matter how heartfelt, are bound to fail, Marcellus Andrews argues, since the economic foundations of the Civil Rights movement have been destroyed by the combined forces of globalization, technology, and tight government budgets.The Political Economy of Hope and Fear fills an important intellectual gap in writing on race by developing a hard-nosed economic analysis of the links between competitive capitalism, racial hostility, and persistent racial inequality in post-Civil Rights America. Andrews speaks to the anger and frustration that blacks feel in the face of the nation's abandonment of racial equality as a worthy objective by showing how the considerable difficulties that black Americans face are related to fundamental changes in the economic fortunes of the U.S.The Political Economy of Hope and Fear is an economist's plea for unsentimental thinking on matters of race to replace the mixture of liberal hand wringing and conservative mythmaking that currently passes for serious analysis about the nation's racial predicament.

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