Search results for ""Basic Books""

A luminous exploration of the nature of thoughts, from daydreams to the voices in our heads At the moment you caught sight of this book, what were you thinking? Was your thought a stream of sensations? Or was it a voice in your head? Did you ask yourself, "I wonder what that's about?" Did you answer? And what does it mean if you did? When someone says they hear voices in their head, they are often thought to be mentally ill. But, as Charles Fernyhough argues in The Voices Within, such voices are better understood as one of the chief hallmarks of human thought. Our inner voices can be self-assured, funny, profound, hesitant, or mean; they can appear in different accents and even in sign language. We all hear them-and we needn't fear them. Indeed, we cannot live without them: we need them, whether to make decisions or to bring a book's characters to life as we read. Studying them can enrich our understanding of ourselves, and our understanding of the world around us; it can help us understand the experiences of visionary saints, who might otherwise be dismissed as schizophrenics; to alleviate the suffering of those who do have mental health problems; and to understand why the person next to us on the subway just burst out laughing for no apparent reason. Whether the voices in our heads are meandering lazily or clashing chaotically, they deserve to be heard. Bustling with insights from literature, film, art, and psychology, The Voices Within offers more than science; it powerfully entreats us all to take some time to hear ourselves think.

Read more less

We can't stop natural disasters but we can stop them being disastrous. One of the world's foremost risk experts tells us how. Year after year, floods wreck people's homes and livelihoods, earthquakes tear communities apart, and tornadoes uproot whole towns. Natural disasters cause destruction and despair. But does it have to be this way? In The Cure for Catastrophe, global risk expert Robert Muir-Wood argues that our natural disasters are in fact human ones: We build in the wrong places and in the wrong way, putting brick buildings in earthquake country, timber ones in fire zones, and coastal cities in the paths of hurricanes. We then blindly trust our flood walls and disaster preparations, and when they fail, catastrophes become even more deadly. No society is immune to the twin dangers of complacency and heedless development. Recognizing how disasters are manufactured gives us the power to act. From the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 to Hurricane Katrina, The Cure for Catastrophe recounts the ingenious ways in which people have fought back against disaster. Muir-Wood shows the power and promise of new predictive technologies, and envisions a future where information and action come together to end the pain and destruction wrought by natural catastrophes. The decisions we make now can save millions of lives in the future. Buzzing with political plots, newfound technologies, and stories of surprising resilience, The Cure for Catastrophe will revolutionize the way we conceive of catastrophes: though natural disasters are inevitable, the death and destruction are optional. As we brace ourselves for deadlier cataclysms, the cure for catastrophe is in our hands.

Read more less

Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious--or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of everyday objects we often take for granted. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide of the modernist kitchen, but also the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks. Blending history, science, and anthropology, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be, and how their influence has shaped modern food culture. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.

Read more less

On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took centre stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades,with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world.As Prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire , the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union,weakened by infighting and economic turmoil,might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, mouldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate.Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided,and haunted,American foreign policy ever since.

Read more less

Did the arms race of the 1930s cause the Second World War? In Cry Havoc, historian Joseph Maiolo shows, in rich and fascinating detail, how the deadly game of the arms race was played out in the decade prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. In this exhaustively researched account, he explores how nations reacted to the moves of their rivals, revealing the thinking of those making the key decisions--Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, Stalin, Roosevelt--and the dilemmas of democratic leaders who seemed to be faced with a choice between defending their nations and preserving their democratic way of life. An unparalleled account of an era of extreme political tension, Cry Havoc shows how the interwar arms race shaped the outcome of World War II before the shooting even began.

Read more less

Although it was the first permanent English settlement in North America, Jamestown is too often overlooked in the writing of American history. Founded thirteen years before the Mayflower sailed, Jamestown's courageous settlers have been overshadowed ever since by the pilgrims of Plymouth. But as historian James Horn demonstrates in this vivid and meticulously researched account, Jamestown-not Plymouth-was the true crucible of American history. Jamestown introduced slavery into English-speaking North America; it became the first of England's colonies to adopt a representative government; and it was the site of the first white-Indian clashes over territorial expansion. As we approach the four-hundredth anniversary of Jamestown in 2007, A Land As God Made It offers the definitive account of the colony that give rise to America.

Read more less

All school children know the story of the fatal duel between Hamilton and Burr - but do they really? In this remarkable retelling, Thomas Fleming takes the reader into the post-revolutionary world of 1804, a chaotic and fragile time in the young country as well as a time of tremendous global instability.The success of the French Revolution and the proclamation of Napoleon as First Consul for Life had enormous impact on men like Hamilton and Burr, feeding their own political fantasies at a time of perceived Federal government weakness and corrosion. Their hunger for fame spawned antagonisms that wreaked havoc on themselves and their families and threatened to destabilize the fragile young American republic. From that poisonous brew came the tangle of regret and anger and ambition that drove the two to their murderous confrontation in Weehawken, New Jersey.Readers will find this is popular narrative history at its most authoritative, and authoritative history at its most readable.

Read more less

Do we have free will? How can we know anything? What is justice? Why is there evil in the world? What is the source of truth? Is it possible for God not to exist? Can we really believe what we see? These are some of the questions that have intrigued the world's greatest thinkers over the ages. They are questions that make us think about the way we live, work, relate to each other, and see the world. In elegant and accessible prose, the eminent philosopher Leszek Kolakowski explores the essence of these ideas and their ongoing relevance as he introduces us to the great figures of Western thought: from Socrates to St. Augustine, Descartes to Nietzsche, and beyond. Reflecting on the great issues that animate our lives--good and evil, truth and beauty, faith and the soul, free will and consciousness--Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? offers a guided tour of Western philosophy by one of the world's greatest living experts.

Read more less

The conventional view of grieving--encapsulated by the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - is defined by a mourning process that we can only hope to accept and endure. In The Other Side of Sadness, psychologist and emotions expert George Bonanno argues otherwise. Our inborn emotions - anger and denial but also relief and joy - help us deal effectively with loss. To expect or require only grief-stricken behaviour from the bereaved does them harm. In fact, grieving goes beyond mere sadness and it can actually deepen interpersonal connections and even lead to a new sense of meaning in life.

Read more less

As a scientist, David Linden had devoted his career to understanding the brain processes and behaviors that are common to us all. That is, until a few years ago, when he found himself on OKCupid. Looking through that vast catalog of human difference, he got to thinking, where does it all come from? Why does one person have perfect pitch, a taste for hoppy beer, and an aversion to bathroom selfies? That is, what makes you, you, and me, me?In Unique, David Linden tells a riveting and accessible story of human individuality. Exploring topics that touch all of our lives-among them sexuality, gender identity, food preferences, biological rhythms, mood, personality, memory, and intelligence-Linden shows that human individuality is not simply a matter of nature versus nurture. Rather, it is a product of the complex, and often counterintuitive, interplay between our genetic blueprints and our experiences. Experience isn't just the how your parents reared you, but the diseases you have had, the foods you have eaten, the bacteria that reside in your body, the weather during your early development, and the technology you've been exposed to. Drawing all those factors together, Linden argues that human individuality is key to how we live as individuals and groups and explores how questions of individuality are informing social discussions of morality, public policy, religion, healthcare, education, and law.Like Carl Zimmer's She Has Her Mother's Laugh and Robert Sapolsky's Behave, Unique unveils a new vista on the intricacies of human existence. But, for all its brilliance and insight, this is no weighty academic tome. Told with Linden's unusual combination of authority and openness, seriousness of purpose and a great sense of humor, Unique sets a new standard for what popular science can be.

Read more less

An incisive account of the tumultuous relationship between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and of the origins of our wealthy yet highly unequal nationIn the history of American politics there are few stories as enigmatic as that of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison's bitterly personal falling out. Together they helped bring the Constitution into being, yet soon after the new republic was born they broke over the meaning of its founding document. Hamilton emphasized economic growth, Madison the importance of republican principles.Jay Cost is the first to argue that both men were right--and that their quarrel reveals a fundamental paradox at the heart of the American experiment. He shows that each man in his own way came to accept corruption as a necessary cost of growth. The Price of Greatness reveals the trade-off that made the United States the richest nation in human history, and that continues to fracture our politics to this day.

Read more less

Starting around 70 years ago, white flight out of America's major cities caused rapid urban decline. Now we are witnessing a resurgence of American urbanism said to be the result of white people's return. But this account entirely passes over the stable immigrant communities who arrived and never left: as whites fled for the suburbs and exurbs in increasing numbers, Latin Americans immigrated to urban centres in even greater numbers. Barrio America charts the vibrant revival of American cities in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, arguing that we should attribute this revival to the influx of Latin American immigrants -- both legal and not.An award-winning historian and son of immigrants, Andrew Sandoval-Strausz recounts this untold history by focusing on the largest immigrant barrios in two of the nation's largest cities: Chicago's Little Village and Dallas's Oak Cliff. These neighbourhoods were once classic examples of urban crisis: they reached their peak prosperity around 1950, afterwards losing residents, jobs, and opportunity, which destabilised urban public order. But after 1965, when Lyndon Johnson overturned the restrictive 1924 immigration law and a major agricultural crisis was convulsing Mexico, these neighbourhoods saw a record number of incoming Latin Americans. The nation's urban barrios are regularly portrayed as decaying districts plagued by crime and disorder, but in reality, over the past several decades, areas with growing immigrant populations have become some of the most dynamic, stable, and safe neighbourhoods in their cities. The new immigrants brought with them three distinctive cultural traditions -- penchants for public spaces, walking, and small entrepreneurship -- that have changed the American city for the better.Drawing on dozens of oral histories with migrantes themselves, Sandoval-Strausz places immigrant voices at the centre of the narrative, emphasising the choices of Latin American newcomers, the motivations that brought them to the United States, and the hopes that lay before them, their families, and their communities. Barrio America demonstrates how migrants have used their labour, their capital, and their culture to build a new metropolitan America.

Read more less

Where mountains meet ocean in Alaska's Alexander Archipelago, white skeletons of dead yellow cedar trees stand prominently amidst a verdant landscape of old-growth forests. Researchers spent nearly three decades deciphering the cause of the majestic species' death and uncovering climate change as the culprit. Lauren E. Oakes, a young scientist at Stanford University, was one of them. But even as she set to record the demise of a species, she soon found herself immersed in an even bigger, and totally unexpected, story: how the people of Alaska were adapting to the tree's disappearance, and how the tree itself, seemingly doomed, was adapting to a changing world. In Search of the Canary Tree is the story of six years that Oakes and her team spent in the Alaskan wilds, studying thousands of trees and saplings along the archipelago of southeast Alaska. Far from losing faith in the survival of our woodlands, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again after years of destruction and decomposition. And, through deep encounters with loggers, naturalists, Native weavers, and enthusiasts of the yellow cedar, Oakes discovered how the people of Alaska were determined to develop new relationships with the emerging environment. Where many scientists and commentators have found in climate change an unmitigated disaster, Oakes found beacons of hope even in the disorienting death of a species. Above all else, Oakes shows us that, although we can respond to climate change with either fear or denial, we can also find in it a new world, and one that doesn't necessarily have to be for the worst. Eloquent, insightful, and deeply heartening, In Search of the Canary Tree shows how human and natural resilience can help preserve ourselves, even in our rapidly changing world.

Read more less

The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation's first HBCUs In The Devil's Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the "Devil's Half Acre." When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into "God's Half Acre," a school where Black men could fulfil their dreams. It still exists today as Virginia Union University, one of America's first Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A sweeping narrative of a life in the margins of the American slave trade, The Devil's Half Acre brings Mary Lumpkin into the light. This is the story of the resilience of a woman on the path to freedom, her historic contributions, and her enduring legacy.

Read more less

In Fall 1939, Richard Feynman, a brash and brilliant recent graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler's Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. The prim and proper Wheeler timed their interaction with a watch placed on the table. Feynman caught on, and for the next meeting brought his own cheap watch, set it on the table next to Wheeler's, and also began timing the chat. The two had a hearty laugh and a lifelong friendship was born.At first glance, they would seem an unlikely pair. Feynman was rough on the exterior, spoke in a working class Queens accent, and loved playing bongo drums, picking up hitchhikers, and exploring out-of-the way places. Wheeler was a family man, spoke softly and politely, dressed in suits, and had the manners of a minister. Yet intellectually, their roles were reversed. Wheeler was a raging nonconformist, full of wild ideas about space, time, and the universe. Feynman was very cautious in his research, wanting to prove and confirm everything himself. Yet when Feynman saw merit in one of Wheeler's crazy ideas and found that it matched experimental data, their joint efforts paid off phenomenally.The brilliance and originality of each physicist stimulated the other's imagination, leading to a rethinking of the nature of time and reality that proved essential for late-20th century breakthroughs in particle physics. Instead of a linear flow, Feynman's concept of "sum over histories" showed how the path a particle takes is a blend of all possible options that a particle could follow. Wheeler's attempts to remake particle physics from the ground up, spurred the now landmark idea of wormholes, and influenced his student Hugh Everett's conception of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. The two thinkers pioneered the use of doodles and diagrams in explaining quantum interactions, giving birth to the now essential Feynman diagrams that show possible backward- and forward-in-time paths for particles. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.As The Quantum Labyrinth reveals in a riveting read, together, Feynman and Wheeler made sure that quantum physics would never be the same again.

Read more less

In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean's premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise. By the 130s BC, however, Rome's leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between politicians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars--and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus. The death of Rome's Republic was not inevitable. In Mortal Republic, Watts shows it died because it was allowed to, from thousands of small wounds inflicted by Romans who assumed that it would last forever.

Read more less

In Insane, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to reveal how America's tough-on-crime policies have transformed it into a warehouse for people with mental illness, one where prisoners are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. She takes readers from the overwhelmed mental health units of the Los Angeles County Jail to the women's prisons of Oklahoma, which have one of the fastest-growing populations of people with mental illness in the country. She introduces us to ordinary people whose untreated mental illnesses drive them repeatedly into the justice system-and in some cases, to their deaths. Investigating police departments, courts, jails, and emergency health care facilities across the country, Roth provides the first nationwide account of this mental health crisis-and uncovers the hidden forces behind it. She also surveys a range of efforts to address the problem, making the case for a large-scale overhaul of mental health care and criminal justice. Insane is a galvanizing wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned about the plight of our most vulnerable.

Read more less

A celebrated historian recounts Hubert Humphrey’s role as a liberal hero of twentieth-century America   Hubert Humphrey was liberalism’s most dedicated defender, and its most public and tragic sacrifice. As a young politician in 1948, he defied segregationists and forced the Democratic Party to commit itself to civil rights. As a senator in 1964, he made good on that commitment by helping pass the Civil Rights Act. But as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president, his support for the war in Vietnam made him a target for both Right and Left, and he suffered a shattering loss in the presidential election of 1968.   Though Humphrey’s defeat was widely seen as the end of America’s era of liberal optimism, he never gave up. Even after his humiliation on the most public stage, he crafted a new vision of economic justice to counter the yawning political divisions consuming American politics. This biography reveals a deep-dyed ide

Read more less

From a Bancroft Prize winner, a harrowing portrait of Black workers and white hypocrisy in nineteenth-century Boston Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation’s hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, however, the city was far from a beacon of equality. In No Right to an Honest Living, historian Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small: a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning most of them to poverty. Still, Jones finds, some Black entrepreneurs ingeniously created their own jobs and forged their own career paths. Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston—and the United States—from securing true equality for all.

Read more less

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are the two most iconic figures of the Civil Rights movement. To most Americans, Malcolm and Martin represent contrasting political ideals -- self-defense vs. non-violence, anger vs. pacifism, separatism vs. integration, the sword vs. the shield. The Civil Rights movement itself has suffered the same fate: while non-violent direct action is remembered today as an unalloyed good and an unassailable part of our democracy, the movement's combative militancy has been either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, acclaimed historian Peniel Joseph offers a dual biography of Malcolm and Martin and a more nuanced narrative that pushes us to completely reconsider these two leaders as well as the era they came to define. The Sword and the Shield reimagines Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. not as antagonists, but as two political revolutionaries who confronted the same problem from different perspectives. Examining their political lives next to one another provides a more complicated, but ultimately more satisfying, understanding of these men and the times they shaped. Despite markedly different family histories, religious affiliations, and class backgrounds, Malcolm and Martin found common ground on a wide range of issues. Each inspired the other to engage political views that he had rejected in the past. Malcolm's push to connect pan-Africanism to an international human rights agenda mirrored the multiculturalism that Martin eloquently articulated at the March on Washington. Similarly, the anti-war activism and anti-poverty campaigns of Martin's final years unleashed a stinging critique of racism, militarism, and materialism that echoed Malcolm's impassioned anti-colonialism. In short, King was more revolutionary, and Malcolm more pragmatic, than we've been told. This will stand as the definitive dual history of these two lives for years to come.

Read more less

In The Ledger and the Chain, prize-winning historian Joshua D. Rothman tells the disturbing story of the Franklin and Armfield company and the men who built it into the largest and most powerful slave trading company in the United States. In so doing, he reveals the central importance of the domestic slave trade to the development of American capitalism and the expansion of the American nation.Few slave traders were more successful than Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who ran Franklin and Armfield, and none were more influential. Drawing on source material from more than thirty archives in a dozen states, Rothman follows the three traders through their first meetings, the rise of their firm, and its eventual dissolution. Responsible for selling between 8,000 and 12,000 slaves from the Upper South to Deep South plantations over a period of eight years in the 1830s, they ran an extensive and innovative operation, with offices in New Orleans and Alexandria in Louisiana and Natchez in Mississippi. They advertised widely, borrowed heavily from bankers and other creditors, extended long term credit to their buyers, and had ships built to take slaves from Virginia down to New Orleans. Slavers are often misremembered as pariahs of more cultivated society, but as Rothman argues, the men who perpetrated the slave trade were respected members of prominent social and business communities and understood themselves as patriotic Americans.By tracing the lives and careers of the nation's most notorious slave traders, The Ledger and the Chain shows how their business skills and remorseless violence together made the malevolent entrepreneurialism of the slave trade. And it reveals how this horrific, ubiquitous trade in human beings shaped a growing nation and corrupted it in ways still powerfully felt today.

Read more less

Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children panic about their future, and adults wonder if it is even ethical to bring new life into the world.Enough, argues bestselling author Bjorn Lomborg. Climate change is real, but it''s not the apocalyptic threat that we''ve been told it is. Projections of Earth''s imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics. In panic, world leaders have committed to wildly expensive but largely ineffective policies that hamper growth and crowd out more pressing investments in human capital, from immunization to education.False Alarm will convince you that everything you think about climate change is wrong -- and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, pla

Read more less

A physician's 'provocative' (Boston Globe) and 'timely' (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times Book Review) account of how right-wing backlash policies have deadly consequences — even for the white voters they promise to help In election after election, conservative white Americans have embraced politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, right-wing policies put these voters' very health at risk—and in the end, threaten everyone's well-being. Physician and sociologist Jonathan M. Metzl travels across America's heartland seeking to better understand the politics of racial resentment and its impact on public health. Interviewing a range of Americans, he uncovers how racial anxieties led to the repeal of gun control laws in Missouri, fueled massive cuts to schools and social services in Kansas, and stymied healthcare reform across the country. Although such measures promised to restore g

Read more less

How rhetoric—the art of persuasion—can help us navigate an age of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and political acrimony The discipline of rhetoric was the keystone of Western education for over two thousand years. Only recently has its perceived importance faded.  In this book, renowned rhetorical scholar Robin Reames argues that, in today’s polarized political climate, we should all care deeply about learning rhetoric. Drawing on examples ranging from the destructive ancient Greek demagogue Alcibiades to modern-day conspiracists like Alex Jones, Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and “journalists” convince us to believe what we believe—and to talk, vote, and act accordingly. Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by authority figures who don’t have our best interests at heart. It also grants us rare ins

Read more less

The definitive book on how systemic racism in America really works, revealing the vast and often hidden network of interconnected policies, practices, and beliefs that combine to devastate Black lives In recent years, condemnations of racism in America have echoed from the streets to corporate boardrooms. At the same time, politicians and commentators fiercely debate racism’s very existence. And so, our conversations about racial inequalities remain muddled.    In Metaracism, pioneering scholar Tricia Rose cuts through the noise with a bracing and invaluable new account of what systemic racism actually is, how it works, and how we can fight back. She reveals how—from housing to education to criminal justice—an array of policies and practices connect and interact to produce an even more devastating “metaracism” far worse than the sum of its parts. While these systemic connections can be difficult to see—

Read more less