Search results for ""the new press""

The progressive economics writer redefines the national conversation about American freedom “Mike Konczal [is] one of our most powerful advocates of financial reform‚ [a] heroic critic of austerity‚ and a huge resource for progressives.”—Paul KrugmanHealth insurance, student loan debt, retirement security, child care, work-life balance, access to home ownership—these are the issues driving America’s current political debates. And they are all linked, as this brilliant and timely book reveals, by a single question: should we allow the free market to determine our lives? In the tradition of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, noted economic commentator Mike Konczal answers this question with a resounding no. Freedom from the Market blends passionate political argument and a bold new take on American history to reveal that, from the earliest days of the republic, Americans have defined freedom as what we keep free from the control of the market. With chapters on the history of the Homestead Act and land ownership, the eight-hour work day and free time, social insurance and Social Security, World War II day cares, Medicare and desegregation, free public colleges, intellectual property, and the public corporation, Konczal shows how citizens have fought to ensure that everyone has access to the conditions that make us free. At a time when millions of Americans—and more and more politicians—are questioning the unregulated free market, Freedom from the Market offers a new narrative, and new intellectual ammunition, for the fight that lies ahead.

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A groundbreaking collective work of history by a group of incarcerated scholars that resurrects the lost truth about the first women’s prisonWhat if prisoners were to write the history of their own prison? What might that tell them—and all of us—about the roots of the system that incarcerates so many millions of Americans? In this groundbreaking and revelatory volume, a group of incarcerated women at the Indiana Women’s Prison have assembled a chronicle of what was originally known as the Indiana Reformatory Institute for Women and Girls, founded in 1873 as the first totally separate prison for women in the United States. In an effort that has already made the national news, and which was awarded the Indiana History Outstanding Project for 2016 by the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project worked under conditions of sometimes-extreme duress, excavating documents, navigating draconian limitations on what information incarcerated scholars could see or access, and grappling with the unprecedented challenges stemming from co-authors living on either side of the prison walls. With contributions from ten incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women, the result is like nothing ever produced in the historical literature: a document that is at once a shocking revelation of the roots of America’s first prison for women, and also a meditation on incarceration itself. Who Would Believe a Prisoner? is a book that will be read and studied for years to come as the nation continues to grapple with the crisis of mass incarceration.

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Former policy maker and Harvard Law professor Peter Edelman pens a incisive investigation into the dire state of America's poor.

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A first-of-its kind collection of the most vivid reporting about the most lethal addiction crisis everJust a few years ago, the opioid crisis could be referred to as a silent epidemic, but it is no longer possible to argue that the scourge of opiate addiction being overlooked. This is in large part thanks to the extraordinary writings featured in this volume, which includes some of the most impactful reporting in the United States in recent years addressing the opiate addiction crisis. American Epidemic collects, for the first time, the key works of reportage and analysis that provide the best picture available of the origins, consequences, and human calamity associated with the epidemic.Spirited, informed, and eloquently written, American Epidemic will serve as an essential introduction for anyone seeking insight into the deadliest drug crisis in American history.

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From a leading scholar on conservatism, the extraordinary chronicle of how the transformation of the American far right made the Trump presidency possible—and what it portends for the future Since Trump's victory and the UK's Brexit vote, much of the commentary on the populist epidemic has focused on the emergence of populism. But, Lawrence Rosenthal argues, what is happening globally is not the emergence but the transformation of right-wing populism. Rosenthal, the founder of UC Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies, suggests right-wing populism is a protean force whose prime mover is the resentment felt toward perceived cultural elites, and whose abiding feature is its ideological flexibility, which now takes the form of xenophobic nationalism. In 2016, American right-wing populists migrated from the free marketeering Tea Party to Donald Trump's "hard hat," anti-immigrant, America-First nationalism. This was the most important single factor in Trump's electoral victory and it has been at work across the globe. In Italy, for example, the Northern League reinvented itself in 2018 as an all-Italy party, switching its fury from southerners to immigrants, and came to power. Rosenthal paints a vivid sociological, political, and psychological picture of the transnational quality of this movement, which is now in power in at least a dozen countries, creating a de facto Nationalist International. In America and abroad, the current mobilization of right-wing populism has given life to long marginalized threats like white supremacy. The future of democratic politics in the United States and abroad depends on whether the liberal and left parties have the political capacity to mobilize with a progressive agenda of their own.

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Two leading figures from the world of finance show how progressives can take their money away from conservative financial institutions and put it to good, lasting social useThe U.S. financial system may be working for some people, but it isn''t working for most of us who care about progressive causes. In fact, our financial system taps your money to pay for a conservative agenda. It''s a heads-they-win, tails-you-lose game when the fees you pay to use your credit card finance fossil fuels even when you buy green products. Conservative money muscle shapes our culture, society, politics, and public policy.In this bold call to action, two leaders from the world of progressive finance propose a strategy to challenge this conservative dominance of the financial sector: organized progressive money. It''s a $10 trillion plan for a full- service, market-scale progressive financial system. Mestrich and Pinsky explain how progressives can take control with finan

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The extraordinary story of how Georgia State University tore up the rulebook for educating lower-income studentsGeorgia State . . . has been reimaginedamid a moral awakening and a raft of data-driven experimentationas one of the South''s more innovative engines of social mobility.The New York TimesWon''t Lose This Dream is the inspiring story of a public university that has blazed an extraordinary trail for lower-income and first-generation students in downtown Atlanta, the birthplace of the civil rights movement.Over the past decade Georgia State University has upended the conventional wisdom that large numbers of students are doomed to fail simply because of their economic background or the color of their skin. Instead, it has harnessed the power of big data to identify and remove the obstacles that previously stopped them from graduating and completely transformed their prospects. A student from a mediocre h

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A beautiful and engaging guide to global warming’s impacts around the world Our planet is in peril. Seas are rising, oceans are acidifying, ice is melting, coasts are flooding, species are dying, and communities are faltering. Despite these dire circumstances, most of us don’t have a clear sense of how the interconnected crises in our ocean are affecting the climate system, food webs, coastal cities, and biodiversity, and which solutions can help us co-create a better future. Through a rich combination of place-based storytelling, clear explanations of climate science and policy, and beautifully rendered maps that use a unique ink-on-dried-seaweed technique, The Atlas of Disappearing Places depicts twenty locations across the globe, from Shanghai and Antarctica to Houston and the Cook Islands. The authors describe four climate change impacts—changing chemistry, warming waters, strengthening storms, and rising seas—using the metaphor of the ocean as a body to draw parallels between natural systems and human systems. Each chapter paints a portrait of an existential threat in a particular place, detailing what will be lost if we do not take bold action now. Weaving together contemporary stories and speculative “future histories” for each place, this work considers both the serious consequences if we continue to pursue business as usual, and what we can do—from government policies to grassroots activism—to write a different, more hopeful story. A beautiful work of art and an indispensable resource to learn more about the devastating consequences of the climate crisis—as well as possibilities for individual and collective action—The Atlas of Disappearing Places will engage and inspire readers on the most pressing issue of our time.

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A powerful argument against idealizing the F.B.I. and overlooking its troubling record for the sake of short-term political convenience.The New York Times Book Review A former FBI undercover agent and whistleblower gives us a riveting and troubling account of the contemporary FBIessential reading for our timesImpressively researched and eloquently argued, former special agent Mike German''s Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide tells the story of the transformation of the FBI after the 9/11 attacks from a law enforcement agency, made famous by prosecuting organized crime and corruption in business and government, into arguably the most secretive domestic intelligence agency America has ever seen.German shows how FBI leaders exploited the fear of terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 to shed the legal constraints imposed on them in the 1970s in the wake of Hoover-era civil rights ab

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How Bill de Blasio's mayoral victory triggered a seismic shift in the nation's urban political landscapeand what it portends for our cities in the futureIn November 2013, a little-known progressive stunned the elite of New York City by capturing the mayoralty by a landslide. Bill de Blasio''s promise to end the Tale of Two Cities had struck a chord among ordinary residents still struggling to recover from the Great Recession. De Blasio''s election heralded the advent of the most progressive New York City government in generations. Not since the legendary Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s had so many populist candidates captured government office at the same time. Gotham, in other words, had been suddenly reclaimed in the name of its people. How did this happen? De Blasio''s victory, journalist legend Juan González argues, was not just a routine change of government but a popular rebellion against corporate-friendly policies that had dominated New Yor

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The education wars have been demoralizing for teachers. . . . After the Education Wars helps us to see a better way forward.Cathy N. Davidson, The New York Times Book ReviewAfter the Education Wars is an important book that points the way to genuine reform.Diane Ravitch, author of Reign of Error and The Death and Life of the Great American School SystemA bestselling business journalist critiques the top-down approach of popular education reforms and profiles the unexpected success of schools embracing a nimbler, more democratic entrepreneurialismIn an entirely fresh take on school reform, business journalist and bestselling author Andrea Gabor argues that Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and other leaders of the prevailing education-reform movement have borrowed all the wrong lessons from the business world. After the Education Wars explains how the market-based measures and carrot-and-stick incentives inform

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Washington''s progressive champion explains how we can achieve a truly inclusive America that works for all of usIn November 2016, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the first Indian American woman to serve in that role. Two years later, the fast-rising Democratic star and determined critic of President Donald Trump, according to Politico''s Playbook 2017 Power List, won reelection with more votes than any other member of the House. Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, proved her progressive bonafides when she introduced the most comprehensive Medicare-for-all bill to Congress in February.Behind the story of Jayapal''s rise to political prominence lie over two decades of devoted advocacy on behalf of immigrants and progressive causesand years of learning how to turn activism into public policy that serves all Americans. Use the Power You Have is Jayapal''s

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Journalist Any McSmith brings together the stories of artists who worked at great risk during Stalinist Russia, one of the most oppressive regimes in world history.

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In writing his Self-Portrait of Black America, anthropologist, folklorist, and humanist John Gwaltney went in search of "Core Black People"—the ordinary men and women who make up black America—and asked them to define their culture. Their responses, recorded in Drylongso, are to American oral history what blues and jazz are to American music. If the people in William H. Johnson's and Jacob Lawrence's paintings could talk, this is what they would say.

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A beautifully written, deeply provocative inquiry into the intersection of animal and disability liberation—and the debut of an important new social criticHow much of what we understand of ourselves as “human” depends on our physical and mental abilities—how we move (or cannot move) in and interact with the world? And how much of our definition of “human” depends on its difference from “animal”?Drawing on her own experiences as a disabled person, a disability activist, and an animal advocate, author Sunaura Taylor persuades us to think deeply, and sometimes uncomfortably, about what divides the human from the animal, the disabled from the nondisabled—and what it might mean to break down those divisions, to claim the animal and the vulnerable in ourselves, in a process she calls “cripping animal ethics.”Beasts of Burden suggests that issues of disability and animal justice—which have heretofore primarily been presented in opposition—are in fact deeply entangled. Fusing philosophy, memoir, science, and the radical truths these disciplines can bring—whether about factory farming, disability oppression, or our assumptions of human superiority over animals—Taylor draws attention to new worlds of experience and empathy that can open up important avenues of solidarity across species and ability. Beasts of Burden is a wonderfully engaging and elegantly written work, both philosophical and personal, by a brilliant new voice.

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In the past few years, a new generation of progressive intellectuals has dramatically transformed how law, race, and racial power are understood and discussed in America. Questioning the old assumptions of both liberals and conservatives with respect to the goals and the means of traditional civil rights reform, critical race theorists have presented new paradigms for understanding racial injustice and new ways of seeing the links between race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. This reader, edited by the principal founders and leading theoreticians of the critical race theory movement, gathers together for the first time the movement's most important essays.

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“As erudite and sophisticated as hooks is, she is also eminently readable, even exhilarating.” —BooklistIn Art on My Mind, bell hooks, a leading cultural critic, responds to the ongoing dialogues about producing, exhibiting, and criticizing art and aesthetics in an art world increasingly concerned with identity politics. Always concerned with the liberatory black struggle, hooks positions her writings on visual politics within the ever-present question of how art can be an empowering and revolutionary force within the black community.

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A bold agenda for a better way to assess societal well-being, by three of the world''s leading economists and statisticians If we want to put people first, we have to know what matters to them, what improves their well-being, and how we can supply more of whatever that is.Joseph E. Stiglitz In 2009, a group of economists led by Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, French economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen issued a report challenging gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of progress and well-being. Published as Mismeasuring Our Lives by The New Press, the book sparked a global conversation about GDP and a major movement among scholars, policy makers, and activists to change the way we measure our economies.Now, in Measuring What Counts, Stiglitz, Fitoussi, and Martine Durandsummarizing the deliberations of a panel of experts on the measurement of economic perfor

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A moving examination of poverty, its root causes, and how to end it through movement-building by a leading philanthropy executive For the past two decades, the Marguerite Casey Foundation has dedicated its resources to building a movement of low-income families advocating on their own behalf. Now, founding president Luz Vega-Marquis offers a history of the foundation, intertwined with her own history as a Nicaraguan immigrant whose family was exiled, plunged into poverty, and forced to start over in the United States. Ask, Listen, Act is riveting in its description of the evolution of an iconoclastic foundation and of Vega-Marquis herself as she rises from a bookkeeper to become the first Latina to lead a major national foundation. In a powerful counter to the blame-laden narrative we tell ourselves about poverty in this nation, Vega-Marquis explores how the foundation has worked to eliminate poverty through intensive listening, movement building, and the leadership of families who have experienced poverty firsthand. The founder of Hispanics in Philanthropy and a member of numerous philanthropic boards, Vega-Marquis offers a vivid look at the worlds of philanthropy, social change, and, most importantly, the families we are most likely to ignore. Beautifully written and filled with moving stories, Ask, Listen, Act explores the world of philanthropy from the perspective of someone who is at once an insider and an outsider, offering illuminating insights for all. Jacques Books is a bespoke imprint of The New Press, dedicated to publishing culturally significant books that might not otherwise garner the attention of a trade publisher.

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An essential road map to neutralizing the role of racism as a divide-and-conquer political weapon and to building a broad multiracial progressive future.

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A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller - with a new preface by the author.

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A first-of-its kind book of honest reflections and essential advice about life at big law firms for people of colour.

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Now adapted for young readers ages 12 through 18, the national bestseller that makes real American history come alive in all of its conflict, drama, and complexity Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most importantand successfulhistory books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. Now Rebecca Stefoff, the acclaimed nonfiction children''s writer who adapted Howard Zinn''s bestseller A People''s History of the United States for young readers, makes Loewen''s beloved work available to younger students.Essential reading in our age of fake news and slippery, sloppy history, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers'' Edition cuts through the mindless optimism and outright lies found in most textbooks that are often not even really written by their authors. Loewen is, as historian Carol Kammen has said, the history teacher we

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A Washington Post BestsellerAn entirely fresh approach to ending the high school dropout crisis is revealed in this groundbreaking chronicle of unprecedented transformation in a city notorious for its failing schoolsIn eighth grade, Eric thought he was going places. But by his second semester of freshman year at Hancock High, his D''s in Environmental Science and French, plus an F in Mr. Castillo''s Honors Algebra class, might have suggested otherwise. Research shows that students with more than one semester F during their freshman year are very unlikely to graduate. If Eric had attended Hancockor any number of Chicago''s public high schoolsjust a decade earlier, chances are good he would have dropped out. Instead, Hancock''s new way of responding to failing grades, missed homework, and other red flags made it possible for Eric to get back on track.The Make-or-Break Year is the largely untold story of how

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In this impassioned plea for human dignity (Kirkus Reviews) Jonathan Simoncalled one of the outstanding criminologists of his generation by Nikolas Rose of the London School of Economicscharts a surprising path to end mass incarceration in America. Using the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Plata on overcrowding in California prisons as his starting point, Simon suggests that incarcerating people on a mass scale simply cannot be accomplished in comportment with the Eighth Amendment''s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.In an argument that the Los Angeles Review of Books calls unique, Simon contends that because we cannot offer meaningful health care, mental health care, or safe and reasonable prison conditions when prisons are run at many times their maximum capacity, mass incarceration is fundamentally incompatible with humane treatment.Todd Clear, former dean of Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, calls Mass Incarceration

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What do Dr. Seuss, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Andrei Sakharov, and James Michener have in common? They were all published by Bob Bernstein during his twenty-five-year run as president of Random House, before he brought the dissidents Liu Binyan, Jacobo Timerman, Natan Sharansky, and Václav Havel to worldwide attention in his role as the father of modern human rights. Starting as an office boy at Simon & Schuster in 1946, Bernstein moved to Random House in 1956 and succeeded Bennett Cerf as president ten years later. The rest is publishing and human rights history. In a charming and self-effacing work, Bernstein reflects for the first time on his fairy tale publishing career, hobnobbing with Truman Capote and E.L. Doctorow; conspiring with Kay Thompson on the Eloise series; attending a rally for Random House author George McGovern with film star Claudette Colbert; and working with publishing luminaries including Dick Simon, Alfred Knopf, Robert Gottlieb, André Schiffrin, Peter Osnos, Susan Peterson, and Jason Epstein as Bernstein grew Random House from a $40 million to an $800 million–plus “money making juggernaut,” as Thomas Maier called it in his biography of Random House owner Si Newhouse. In a book sure to be savored by anyone who has worked in the publishing industry, fought for human rights, or wondered how Theodor Geisel became Dr. Seuss, Speaking Freely beautifully captures a bygone era in the book industry and the first crucial years of a worldwide movement to protect free speech and challenge tyranny around the globe.

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The fight for a higher minimum wage has become the biggest national labor story in decades. Beginning in November 2012, strikes by fast food workers spread across the country, landing in Seattle in May 2013. Within a year, Seattle had adopted a $15 minimum wage—the highest in the United States—without a bloody political battle. Combining history, economics, and commonsense political wisdom, The Fight for Fifteen makes a deeply informed case for a national $15/hour minimum wage as the only practical solution to reversing America’s decades-long slide toward becoming a low-wage nation. Drawing both on new scholarship and on his extensive practical experiences organizing workers and grappling with inequality across the United States, David Rolf, president of SEIU 775—which waged the successful Seattle campaign—offers an accessible explanation of “middle out” economics, an emerging popular economic theory that suggests that the origins of prosperity in capitalist economies lie with workers and consumers, not investors and employers. A blueprint for a different and hopeful American future, The Fight for Fifteen offers concrete tools, ideas, and inspiration for anyone interested in real change in our lifetimes.

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