New Books in Public Policy
Episodes
Tina Sikka, "Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable" (Springer, 2019)
21 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How can feminist theory help address the climate crisis? In Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (Springer Verlag...
Richa Kaul Padte, "Cyber Sexy: Rethinking Pornography" (Penguin Viking, 2018)
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Parents, teachers, feminists, conservatives, lawyers, the concerned citizen – pornography raises everyone's hackles. Author Richa Kaul Padte approac...
Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more de...
Joseph Jarvis, "The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care" (Scrivener Books, 2018)
15 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
American’s pay double what every other developed nation in the world pays for healthcare. Does that mean that we are the healthiest? No. In fact, we...
Pat Garofalo, "The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs" (Thomas Dunne, 2019)
13 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Politicians love to woo entertainment corporations to their states and cities through subsidies and tax cities. But Pat Garofalo argues that such ince...
David Colander and Craig Freedman, "Where Economics Went Wrong: Chicago's Abandonment of Classical Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2018)
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you are reading this, you have probably run into the "Chicago" model at some point or another, in terms of public policy, orthodox modern finance, ...
Darren Barany, "The New Welfare Consensus: Ideological, Political and Social Origins" (SUNY Press, 2018)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The 1996 repeal of Aid to Families with Dependent Children -- the New Deal-era relief program for poor women with children -- was a seminal moment in ...
Rick Van Noy, "Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As climate change politics abound, Dr. Rick Van Noy’s Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South (University of Georgia Press, ...
Farhana Shaikh, "From Imposter to Impact: Arts Leadership in the 21st Century" (Dahlia Publishing, 2019)
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What are the characteristics of the 21st Century arts leader? In From Imposter to Impact: Arts Leadership in the 21st Century (Dahlia Publishing, 2019...
Janis Powers, "Health Care: Meet The American Dream" (River Grove Books, 2018)
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
American health care is the most expensive in the world, yet it produces some of the worst outcomes among developed nations. Many people offer unreali...
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, "State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation" (Oxford UP, 2019)
15 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Back on the podcast for the second time in two years is Alex Hertel-Fernandez. You might recall his last book Politics at Work which examined the way ...
David Ray Papke, "Containment and Condemnation: Law and the Oppression of the Urban Poor" (Michigan State UP, 2019)
15 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The law does things, writes David Ray Papke, and it says things, and if we are talking about poor Americans, especially those living in big cities, wh...
Debra Thompson, "The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census" (Cambridge UP, 2016)
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Debra Thompson, in her award-winning* book The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census (Cambridge University Press, 20...
Nathan Holmes, "Welcome to Fear City: Crime Film, Crisis, and the Urban Imagination" (SUNY Press, 2018)
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The so-called Urban Crisis of the 1970s continues to loom large in narratives of US urban politics and history, but what can we learn about the period...
Peter Hotez, "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Peter Hotez is a pediatrician-scientist who develops vaccines for neglected tropical diseases affecting the worlds poor. He is also the father of ...
Danyel Reiche, "Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games" (Routedge, 2016)
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Danyel Reiche, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the American University of Beirut, and the author of Success and ...
Leigh Goodmark, "Decriminalizing Domestic Violence: A Balanced Policy Approach to Intimate Partner Violence" (U California Press, 2018)
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to the efforts of activists concerned that the problem of “battered women” was being ignored -- and treated as a private, family matter rat...
Steven Attewell, "People Must Live by Work: Direct Job Creation in America, from FDR to Reagan" (U Penn Press, 2018)
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There’s lot of talk these days, at least in some circles on the left, of a Universal Basic Income. There’s also talk in many of the same circles o...
George R. Boyer, "The Winding Road to the Welfare State: Economic Insecurity and Social Welfare Policy in Britain" (Princeton UP, 2019)
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The creation of the postwar welfare state in Great Britain did not represent the logical progression of governmental policy over a period of generatio...
Hidetaka Hirota, "Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy" (Oxford UP, 2018)
23 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hidetaka Hirota is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Advanced Study at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Prior to his current position, he ...
Dave Chase, "The Opioid Crisis Wake Up Call: Health Care is Stealing the American Dream. Here is How We Take It Back" (Health Rosetta Media, 2018)
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The opioid crisis in America is considered by many to be the worst national public health crisis in the last 100 years. In his new book, The Opioid Cr...
Clarence Taylor, "Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City" (NYU Press, 2018)
18 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his most new book Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City (NYU Press, 2018), Clarence Taylor, ...
Rodrigo Zeidan, "Economics of Global Business" (MIT Press, 2018)
18 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I spoke with Professor Rodrigo Zeidan of New York University, Shanghai. He has just published Economics of Global Business (MIT Press, 2018), a great ...
Alexander S. Dawson, "The Peyote Effect: From the Inquisition to the War on Drugs" (U California Press, 2018)
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Peyote occupies a curious place in the United States and Mexico: though prohibited by law, its use remains permissible in both countries for ceremonia...
Kathleen Day, "Broken Bargain: Bankers, Bailouts, and the Struggle to Tame Wall Street" (Yale UP, 2019)
11 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Think that today's debates about the role of the Federal Reserve Bank, financial regulation, "too big to fail", etc. are new? Think again. Who shoul...
Judith Eve Lipton and David P. Barash, "Strength through Peace: How Demilitarization Led to Peace and Happiness in Costa Rica" (Oxford UP, 2019)
10 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Costa Rica is the only full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarized. Its military was abolished in 1948, with the keys to...
Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan, "Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means" (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2019)
09 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan are authors of Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2019). Herd is a Pro...
William D. Green, "The Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity in Minnesota, 1860–1876" (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At a speech before the unveiling of the Freedman’s Monument in 1876, Fredrick Douglass stated, “You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are on...
Megan Finn, "Documenting Aftermath: Information Infrastructures in the Wake of Disasters" (MIT Press, 2018)
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Megan Finn's Documenting Aftermath: Information Infrastructures in the Wake of Disasters (MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating examination of how informa...
Robert Chiles, "The Revolution of ’28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal" (Cornell UP, 2018)
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Traditionally Al Smith’s 1928 presidential campaign is remembered mainly for being the first time a Catholic was nominated as the candidate for a ma...
New Books in Political Science Year in Review: 2018
31 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
To wrap up the year and look ahead to 2019, we talked about the books we loved. There were so many great books in 2018, that we had the chance to ment...
Ashley Jardina, "White Identity Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
27 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the themes of the era of Donald Trump is whiteness and white identity. From his first steps into the public eye, Trump used race to frame his p...
George Lakey, "How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning" (Melville House, 2018)
26 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“One-off” protests don’t change the world; sustained direct action campaigns do. That’s one of the many insights from George Lakey in his new ...
Laura McEnaney, "Postwar: Waging Peace in Chicago" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When World War II ended, Americans celebrated a military victory abroad, but the meaning of peace at home was yet to be defined. From roughly 1943 onw...
Joshua Eyler, "How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College Teaching" (West Virginia UP, 2018)
12 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What is learning? There is a robust body of literature that seeks to tell us what the most effective classroom techniques and strategies are, but Josh...
McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...
Julian Meyrick, Robert Phiddian and Tully Barnett, "What Matters?: Talking Value in Australian Culture" (Monash UP, 2018)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How should we value culture? In What Matters? Talking Value in Australian Culture (Monash University Press, 2018), Professors Julian Meyrick, Robert ...
Rob Reich, "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better" (Princeton UP, 2018)
05 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How political are private foundations? Are they good or bad for democracy? Such are the big questions taken up by Rob Reich in his new book Just Givin...
Amanda H. Lynch and Siri Veland, "Urgency in the Anthropocene" (MIT Press, 2018)
03 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Amanda Lynch and Siri Veland’s Urgency in the Anthropocene(MIT Press, 2018) is a fascinating and trenchant analysis of the core beliefs and ideas th...
Oli Mould, "Against Creativity" (Verso, 2018)
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Can every aspect of society be 'creative'? In Against Creativity (Verso, 2018), Oli Mould, a lecturer in geography at Royal Holloway, University of Lo...
Keisha Lindsay, "In a Classroom of Their Own: The Intersection of Race and Feminist Politics in All-Black Male Schools" (U Illinois Press, 2018)
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
According to most experts, boys have more trouble in schools than girls. Further, African-American boys have even more trouble than, say, white boys. ...
Sohini Kar, "Financializing Poverty: Labor and Risk in Indian Microfinance" (Stanford UP, 2018)
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Is microfinance the magic bullet that will end global poverty or is it yet another a form of predatory lending to the poor? In her new book Financiali...
Julie L. Rose, “Free Time” (Princeton UP, 2018)
26 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Though early American labor organizers agitated for the eight-hour workday on the grounds that they were entitled to “eight hours for work, eight ho...
Shobita Parthasarathy, “Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Shobita Parthas...
Randy Shaw, “Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America?” (U California Press, 2018)
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why is housing so expensive in so many cities, and what can be done about it? Join us as we speak with long-time San Francisco housing activist Randy ...
Bryan Caplan, “The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money” (Princeton UP, 2018)
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Pretty much everyone knows that the American healthcare system is, well, very inefficient. We don’t, so critics say, get as much healthcare bang for...
James M. Turner and Andrew C. Isenberg, “The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump” (Harvard UP, 2018)
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It wasn’t always this way. From the Theodore Roosevelt’s leadership on natural resource conservation to Richard Nixon’s creation of the Environm...
Andrew C. A. Elliott, “Is That a Big Number?” (Oxford UP, 2018)
09 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew C. A. Elliott‘s Is That a Big Number? (Oxford University Press, 2018) is a book that those of us who feast on numbers will absolutely adore,...
Andrew L. Yarrow, “Man Out: Men on the Sidelines of American Life” (Brookings Institution Press, 2018)
09 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the era of #MeToo, Brett Kavanaugh, and Donald Trump, masculinity and the harmful effects that follow certain versions of masculinity have become n...
Kristina C. Miler, “Poor Representation: Congress and the Politics of Poverty in the United States” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been an article of faith among scholars and activists alike that poor Americans are ignored in national politics. But what if that conventional...
Mike Ananny, “Networked Press Freedom: Creating Infrastructures For a Public Right to Hear” (MIT Press, 2018)
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Networked Press Freedom: Creating Infrastructures For a Public Right to Hear (MIT Press, 2018), journalism professor Mike Ananny provides a new fr...
Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro, “Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities” (Princeton UP, 2017)
02 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The vast chasm between classical economics and the humanities is widely known and accepted. They are profoundly different disciplines with little to s...
J. Obert, A. Poe, A. Sarat, eds., “The Lives of Guns” (Oxford UP, 2018)
01 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What if guns “are not merely carriers of action, but also actors themselves?” That’s the question that animates and unites Jonathan Obert‘s an...
Nathan K. Finney and Tyrell O. Mayfield, “Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics” (Naval Institute Press, 2018)
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics (Naval Institute Press, 2018), edited by Nathan K. Finney and Tyrell O. Mayf...
Adam Reich and Peter Bearman, “Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart” (Columbia UP, 2018)
29 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When we hear about the “future of work” today we tend to think about different forms of automation and artificial intelligence—technological inn...
Pamela Woolner, ed., “School Design Together” (Routledge, 2014)
29 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Pamela Woolner, senior lecturer in education at Newcastle University, joins us in this episode to discuss her edited volume, School Design Together (R...
Chloe Thurston, “At the Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination, and the American State” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
24 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year, we heard from Suzanne Mettler and her book on the politics of policies hidden from view. Mettler explained that most Americans are ...
Stella M. Rouse and Ashley D. Ross, “The Politics of Millennials: Political Beliefs and Policy Preferences of America’s Most Diverse Generation” (U Michigan Press, 2018)
22 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Millenial generation, those born between the early 1980s and late 1990s, are the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in US history. Th...
Charlotte Greenhalgh, “Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain” (U California Press, 2018)
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What role did elderly Britons have in shaping the twentieth-century welfare state? In her new book, Aging in Twentieth-Century Britain (University of ...
Daniel E. Ponder, “Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State” (Stanford UP, 2018)
04 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Ponder’s new book, Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State (Stanford University Press, 2018), is an important and t...
Bill Ivey, “Rebuilding an Enlightened World: Folklorizing America” (Indiana UP, 2018)
02 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Ivey’s Rebuilding an Enlightened World: Folklorizing America (Indiana University Press, 2018) advances the idea that we are entering a post-enl...
Candice Delmas, “A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil” (Oxford UP, 2018)
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
According to a long tradition in political philosophy, there are certain conditions under which citizens may rightly disobey a law enacted by a legiti...
Nicholas Carnes, “The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office and What We Can Do About It” (Princeton UP, 2018)
28 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2018, much attention has been drawn to candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Randy Bryce: candidates for Congress who’ve made a living doi...
Ken Ilguas, “This Land is Our Land: How We Lost the Right to Roam and How to Take It Back” (Plume, 2018)
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Author, journalist and sometime park ranger Ken Ilgunas has written an argument in favor a “right to roam.” This concept, unfamiliar to most Ame...
Elana Buch, “Inequalities of Aging: Paradoxes of Independence in American Home Care” (NYU Press, 2018)
24 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How are the vulnerabilities of older adults in need of care and their care workers intertwined? In Inequalities of Aging: Paradoxes of Independence in...
Joshua Sharfstein, “The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times” (Oxford UP, 2018)
21 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein has learned a lot as from his years of experience as a public health leader. He has dealt with everything from a rabid raccoon, ...
Alyshia Gálvez, “Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico” (U. California Press, 2018)
19 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The North American Free Trade Agreement—or NAFTA, as we Americans call it—is very much in the news of late, primarily because President Trump has ...
Freeden Blume Oeur, “Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Male Public Schools” (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
13 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How do schools empower but also potentially emasculate young black men? In his new book, Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Ma...
J. Lester, C. Lochmiller, and R. Gabriel, “Discursive Perspectives on Education Policy and Implementation” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
13 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The study of education policy is a scholarly field that sheds light on important debates and controversies revolving around education policy and its i...
Michelle Perro and Vincanne Adams, “What’s Making Our Children Sick?” (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017)
23 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Pediatrician and integrative medicine practitioner Michelle Perro, MD, has been treating an increasing number of children with complex chronic illness...
Devin Fergus, “Land of the Fee: Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class” (Oxford UP, 2018)
23 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Politicians, economists, and the media have put forth no shortage of explanations for the mounting problem of wealth inequality – a loss of working ...
Richard S. Hopkins, “Planning the Greenspaces of Nineteenth-Century Paris” (LSU Press, 2015)
22 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning in the mid-1800s, Paris experienced an unprecedented growth in the development of parks, squares, and gardens. This greenspace was part of N...
Ana Raquel Minian, “Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration” (Harvard UP, 2018)
22 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, the Mexican government acted to alleviate rural unemployment by supporting the migration of able-bodied men. Millions crossed into the U...
Beth Macy, “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America” (Little, Brown & Company, 2018)
21 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“Appalachia was among the first places where the malaise of opioid pills hit the nation in the mid-1990s, ensnaring coal miners, loggers, furniture ...
Lessie B. Branch, “Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America” (U Massachusetts Press, 2018)
17 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2018) takes as its point ...
Paul Offit, “Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren’t Your Best Source of Health Information” (Columbia UP, 2018)
17 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
You should never trust celebrities, politicians, or activists for health information. Why? Because they are not scientists! Scientists often cannot co...
Matthew T. Hora, “Beyond the Skills Gap: Preparing College Students for Life and Work” (Harvard Education Press, 2016)
17 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How can educators ensure that young people who attain a postsecondary credential are adequately prepared for the future? Matthew T. Hora and his co-au...
Julie A. Cohn, “The Grid: Biography of an American Technology” (MIT Press, 2017)
15 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Though usually a background concern, the aging U.S. electric grid has lately been on the minds of both legislators and consumers. Congress wants to en...
Steven Alvarez, “Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies” (SUNY Press, 2018)
14 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I speak with Steven Alvarez about his book, Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies (SUNY Pr...
Thomas Mulligan, “Justice and the Meritocratic State” (Routledge Press, 2018)
13 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Mulligan’s new book, Justice and the Meritocratic State (Routledge Press, 2018), posits a theory of justice that is based on the allocation o...
Jacob Levine, “Cannabis Discourse: Facts and Opinions in Context” (Jacob Levine, 2018)
13 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What is the landscape of our cannabis knowledge? In his new book Jacob Levine author of the Cannabis Discourse: Facts and Opinions in Context (Jacob ...
Timothy J. Lombardo, “Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and Populist Politics” (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)
10 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump is not sui generis. Populist impulses and political actors have been pulsating in the American soul since the nation’s foundi...
Suzanne Mettler, “The Government-Citizen Disconnect” (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2018)
09 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the paradoxes of US politics today is the widely dispersed benefits, but overall distrust, of government. Citizens enjoy many types of social p...
Annie Lowrey, “Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World” (Crown, 2018)
08 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How can we end the scourge of poverty? How we can sustain ourselves once robots eliminate the need for many jobs? Annie Lowrey offers an answer in th...
Heather Schoenfeld, “Building the Prison State: Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration” (U Chicago Press, 2018)
08 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How did prisons become a tool of racial inequality? Using historical data, Heather Schoenfeld’s new book Building the Prison State: Race and the P...
Robert N. Gross, “Public vs. Private: The Early History of School Choice in America” (Oxford UP, 2018)
06 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There are numerous political debates about education policy today, but some of the most heated surround vouchers, charter schools, and other questions...
Simone Wesner, “Artists’ Voices in Cultural Policy: Careers, Myths and the Creative Profession after German Unification” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)
03 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why is the artist’s voice missing from cultural policy? In Artists’ Voices in Cultural Policy: Careers, Myths and the Creative Profession after G...
Katherine Benton-Cohen, “Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy” (Harvard UP, 2018)
30 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1907 the U.S. Congress created a joint commission to investigate what many Americans saw as a national crisis: an unprecedented number of immigrant...
Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik, “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It” (Penguin, 2018)
26 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How can we learn from large system failures? In their new book Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It (Penguin Press, 2018), Chri...
Edward Khantzian, “Treating Addiction: Beyond the Pain” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018)
23 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Treatment of addiction often focuses on abstinence or ‘harm reduction.’ While many people benefit greatly from such approaches, the underlying pai...
David Peter Stroh, “Systems Thinking For Social Change” (Chelsea Green, 2015)
20 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
While Systems Thinking has enjoyed an increasing amount of societal influence through work of such practitioner/authors as Peter Senge, it is also tru...
Eric Winsberg, “Philosophy and Climate Science” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
16 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that there is a warming trend in the global climate that is attributable to human activit...
Stephen C. Yeazell, “Lawsuits in a Market Economy: The Evolution of Civil Litigation” (U Chicago Press, 2018)
10 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen C. Yeazell‘s Lawsuits in a Market Economy: The Evolution of Civil Litigation (University of Chicago Press, 2018) is an in-depth look at the ...
Warren Treadgold, “The University We Need: Reforming American Higher Education” (Encounter Books, 2018)
06 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Though many Americans, Republicans especially, regard universities as heavily disposed to the political left, few people understand how much this matt...
Linda Ross Meyer, “Sentencing in Time” (Amherst College Press, 2017)
03 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
If you look at the history of punishment (at least in the West), what you’ll see is that we’ve gone from a penal regime that used (inter alia) phy...
Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey, “Waste of a Nation: Growth and Garbage in India” (Harvard UP, 2018)
29 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Is India facing a waste crisis? As its population, cities and consumption grow what are the implications for the health, well being and everyday lives...
Adam Tanner, “Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records” (Beacon Press, 2017)
28 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Personal health information often seems locked-down: protected by patient privacy laws, encased in electronic record systems (EHRs) and difficult to s...
Steven Alvarez, “Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning From Bilingual After-School Programs” (NCTE, 2017)
25 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I speak with Steven Alvarez about his book, Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning From Bilingual After-School Programs (Nationa...
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, “Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration” (Columbia UP, 2017)
25 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Who benefits from mass incarceration in the U.S.? In her new book Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Colu...
Amanda Huron, “Carving Out the Commons: Tenant Organizing and Housing Cooperatives in Washington, D.C.” (University of Minnesota Press, 2018)
21 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Is modern capitalism too far advanced in the U.S. to create common property regimes? Are there models for what an Urban Commons might look like? Join ...