Description

Book Synopsis
Winner of the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction

Brave, clear-eyed, and passionate, Stakes Is High is the book we need to guide us past crisis mode and through an uncertain future.

The events of the past decade have forced us to reckon with who we are and who we want to be. We have been invested in a set of beliefs about our American identity: our exceptionalism, the inevitable rightness of our path, the promise that hard work and determination will carry us to freedom. But in Stakes Is High, Mychal Denzel Smith confronts the shortcomings of these stories -- and with the American Dream itself -- and calls on us to live up to the principles we profess but fail to realize.
 
In a series of incisive essays, Smith exposes the stark contradictions at the heart of American life, holding all of us, individually and as a nation, to account. We've gotten used to looking away, but the fissures and casual violence of institutional oppression are ever-present.
 
There is a future that is not as grim as our past. In this profound work, Smith helps us envision it with care, honesty, and imagination.

Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream

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    A Paperback / softback by Mychal Denzel Smith

    £13.29

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    RRP £13.99 – you save £0.70 (5%)

    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Mon 9 Nov 2026.

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      Book details

      Publisher Bold Type Books
      Published 10 March 2022
      ISBN-13 9781568588742
      978-1568588742
      ISBN-10 1568588747
      Also in:
      Ethnic studies / Ethnicity Political science and theory Social discrimination and social justice

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Winner of the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction

      Brave, clear-eyed, and passionate, Stakes Is High is the book we need to guide us past crisis mode and through an uncertain future.

      The events of the past decade have forced us to reckon with who we are and who we want to be. We have been invested in a set of beliefs about our American identity: our exceptionalism, the inevitable rightness of our path, the promise that hard work and determination will carry us to freedom. But in Stakes Is High, Mychal Denzel Smith confronts the shortcomings of these stories -- and with the American Dream itself -- and calls on us to live up to the principles we profess but fail to realize.
       
      In a series of incisive essays, Smith exposes the stark contradictions at the heart of American life, holding all of us, individually and as a nation, to account. We've gotten used to looking away, but the fissures and casual violence of institutional oppression are ever-present.
       
      There is a future that is not as grim as our past. In this profound work, Smith helps us envision it with care, honesty, and imagination.

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