New Books in Public Policy

Lynne B. Sagalyn, "Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change" (MIT Press, 2023)

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is it about Times Square that has inspired such attention for well over a century? And how is it that, despite its many changes of character, the...

Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman, "The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The image of the sheriff is deeply embedded in American culture – from pacifist Jimmy Stewart in Destry Rides Again and gun averse Roy Scheider in...

Jonathan Maskit, "Bicycle" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

29 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle prom...

Gergely Gosztonyi, "Censorship from Plato to Social Media: The Complexity of Social Media’s Content Regulation and Moderation Practices" (Springer, 2023)

22 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In many countries, censorship, blocking of internet access and internet content for political purposes are still part of everyday life. Will filtering...

Beng Huat Chua, "Public Subsidy, Private Accumulation: The Political Economy of Singapore's Public Housing" (NUS Press, 2024)

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The achievement of Singapore’s national public housing program is impressive by any standard. Within a year of its first election victory in 1959, t...

Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a p...

Joy Knoblauch, "The Architecture of Good Behavior: Psychology and Modern Institutional Design in Postwar America" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2020)

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by the rise of environmental psychology and increasing support for behavioral research after the Second World War, new initiatives at the fed...

Celebrating Constitution Day, Part. 2: A Conversation with Julia Mahoney

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this conversation, we dive into key issues shaping the legal landscape today: the complexities of constitutional interpretation, the evolving role ...

Danny Sriskandarajah, "Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World" (Headline Press, 2024)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World (Headline Press, 2024) is Danny Sriskandarajah‘s radical manifesto for change designed to ins...

Kevin J. McMahon, "A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many scholars and members of the press have argued that John Roberts’ Supreme Court is exceptional. While some emphasize the approach to interpretin...

Michael L. Walker, "Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail" (Oxford UP, 2022)

15 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jails are the principal people-processing machines of the criminal justice system. Mostly they hold persons awaiting trial who cannot afford or have b...

Josh Cowen, "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers" (Harvard Education Press, 2024)

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

School vouchers are often framed as a way to help students and families by providing choice, but evidence shows that vouchers have a negative impact o...

Anthony Michael Kreis, "Rot and Revival: The History of Constitutional Law in American Political Development" (U California Press, 2024)

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the great divides in American judicial scholarship is between legal scholars who take the justices at their word and assume that those words de...

Raquel Velho on Disability, Infrastructure, and London's Public Transport System

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Raquel Velho, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a...

Judge Frederic Block, "A Second Chance: A Federal Judge Decides Who Deserves It" (The New Press, 2024)

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The police officer who brutalized Abner Louima. A purveyor of child pornography. These are some of the defendants to have come before U.S. District Co...

Jonathan Gienapp, "Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique" (Yale UP, 2024)

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The legal theory of constitutional originalism has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the US Supreme Court has tilted with the weigh...

Manuela Moschella, "Unexpected Revolutionaries: How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy" (Cornell UP, 2024)

01 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Unexpected Revolutionaries: How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Manuela Moschella investig...

Tadashi Dozono, "Discipline Problems: How Students of Color Trouble Whiteness in Schools" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Angel, a Black tenth-grader at a New York City public school, self-identifies as a nerd and likes to learn. But she’s troubled that her history clas...

Elizabeth A. Wahler and Sarah C. Johnson, "Creating a Person-Centered Library: Best Practices for Supporting High-Needs Patrons (Bloomsbury, 2023)

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Creating a Person-Centered Library: Best Practices for Supporting High-Needs Patrons (Bloomsbury, 2023) provides a comprehensive overview of various ...

Joanna Wuest, "Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars often narrate the legal cases confirming LGBTQ+ rights as a huge success story. While it took 100 years to confirm the rights of Black Americ...

Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria, "Mumbai on Two Wheels: Cycling, Urban Space, and Sustainable Mobility" (U Washington Press, 2024)

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mumbai is not commonly seen as a bike-friendly city because of its dense traffic and the absence of bicycle lanes. Yet the city supports rapidly expan...

Hope Bohanec, "The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs" (Lantern Publishing, 2023)

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As consumers become increasingly aware of the animal agriculture industry’s cruelty and environmental devastation, clever industry marketers are ada...

James Barrera, "'We Want Better Education!': The 1960s Chicano Student Movement, School Walkouts, and the Quest for Educational Reform in South Texas" (Texas A&M UP, 2023)

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 'We Want Better Education!': The 1960s Chicano Student Movement, School Walkouts, and the Quest for Educational Reform in South Texas (Texas A&M ...

Damaging Rationality: Exxon-Funded Legal Research and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is part #3 of a the (ir)Rational Alaskans, a Cited Podcast mini-series that re-examines the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In the la...

Gary Mucciaroni, "Answers to the Labour Question: Industrial Relations and the State in the Anglophone World, 1880–1945" (U Toronto Press, 2024)

24 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the mid-nineteenth century, public officials, reformers, journalists, and other elites have referred to “the labour question.” The labour qu...

Bruce W. Dearstyne, "Progressive New York: Change and Reform in the Empire State, 1900-1920: A Reader" (SUNY Press, 2024)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, New York State was a hotbed of change. Cities grew as immigrants arrived from Europe and African Am...

Lost in Ideology: A Conversation with Jason Blakely

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as it appears to be today then, Jason Blakely argues in his...

Peter Allen, “The Political Class: Why It Matters Who Our Politicians Are” (Oxford UP, 2018)

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who is in charge? In The Political Class: Why It Matters Who Our Politicians Are (Oxford University Press, 2018), Peter Allen, a Reader in Comparati...

Maria Dimova-Cookson, "Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty" (Routledge, 2019)

19 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Maria Dimova-Cookson's new book Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty (Routledge, 2019) offers an analysis of the distinction between positive and ...

Stephanie L Canizales, "Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States" (U California Press, 2024)

18 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, thousands of youth endure harrowing unaccompanied and undocumented migrations across Central America and Mexico to the United States in pur...

Raj Jayadev, "Protect Your People: How Ordinary Families Are Using Participatory Defense to Challenge Mass Incarceration" (New Press, 2023)

18 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over two million Americans are currently in prison or jail. Another 4.5 million are on probation or parole. And nearly one in two Americans have a fam...

Shaun S. Yates, "Over-Efficiency in the Lower Criminal Courts: Understanding a Key Problem and How to Fix it" (Policy Press, 2024)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In our pursuit of efficiency in the lower criminal courts, have we lost sight of quality justice? Through the critical examination of original stenogr...

12 Angry Alaskans: Re-Examining the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Case

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is part #2 of a the (ir)Rational Alaskans, a Cited Podcast series that re-examines the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Last episode, th...

Matthew Archer, "Unsustainable: Measurement, Reporting, and the Limits of Corporate Sustainability" (NYU Press, 2024)

16 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, companies have felt the pressure to be transparent about their environmental impact. Large documents containing summaries of yearly e...

Anthony Abraham Jack, "Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price" (Princeton UP, 2024)

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. But wh...

Ana Raquel Minian, “Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration” (Harvard UP, 2018)

13 Aug 2024

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...

Spencer Piston, “Class Attitudes in American Politics: Sympathy for the Poor, Resentment of the Rich, and Political Implications” (Cambridge UP, 2018)

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It has long been a truism that Americans’ disdain for poor people–our collective sense that if they only worked harder or behaved more responsibly...

Arif Hasan, "The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing" (Oxford UP, 2022)

10 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing (Oxford UP, 2022) sheds light on the global population living in slums, which has increased from...

Daniel Kahneman’s Forgotten Legacy: Investigating Exxon-Funded Psychological Research

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the unprecedented Exxon Valdez oil spill, a jury of ordinary Alaskans decided that Exxon had to be punished. However, Exxon fought back against ...

Laura Zurowski et al., "City Steps of Pittsburgh: A History & Guide" (History Press, 2024)

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Pittsburgh, the elevation varies wildly, fluctuating 660 feet from highest to lowest points throughout the area and making it one of the hilliest c...

Katherine Hempstead, "Uncovered: The Story of Insurance in America" (Oxford UP, 2023)

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Historically, the insurance industry in America has been fragmented. As a result, there have been debates and conflicts over the proper roles of feder...

Jessica S. Henry, "Smoke But No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened" (U California Press, 2021)

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica Henry's Smoke But No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened (U California Press, 2021) explores a shocking but all-too...

David Pozen, "The Constitution of the War on Drugs" (Oxford UP, 2024)

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. government's decades-long "war on drugs" is increasingly recognized as a moral travesty as well as a policy failure. The criminalization of s...

Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg and Hélène Tigroudja, "Women’s Human Rights and the Elimination of Discrimination" (Brill/Nijhoff, 2016)

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite global undertakings to safeguard the full enjoyment of human rights, culture, traditional practices and religion are widely used to discrimina...

Kirsten Moore-Sheeley, "Nothing But Nets: A Biography of Global Health Science and Its Objects" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Distributed to millions of people annually across Africa and the global south, insecticide-treated bed nets have become a cornerstone of malaria contr...

Patrick McKelvey, "Disability Works: Performance After Rehabilitation" (NYU Press, 2024)

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1967, the US government funded the National Theatre of the Deaf, a groundbreaking rehabilitation initiative employing deaf actors. This project ali...

Francine Banner, "Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems" (U California Press, 2024)

21 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Francine Banner is a fascinating cultural...

Matt Stoller, "Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy" (Simon & Schuster, 2020)

20 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Matt Stoller explains how authoritarianism and populism ...

Ujju Aggarwal, "Unsettling Choice: Race, Rights, and the Partitioning of Public Education" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

20 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What do universal rights to public goods like education mean when codified as individual, private choices? Is the “problem” of school choice actua...

Kevin Loughran, "Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City" (Columbia UP, 2022)

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A new kind of city park has emerged in the early twenty-first century. Postindustrial parks transform the derelict remnants of an urban past into dist...

Seth A. Berkowitz, "Equal Care: Health Equity, Social Democracy, and the Egalitarian State" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Health inequity is one of the defining problems of our time. But current efforts to address the problem focus on mitigating the harms of injustice rat...

Kevin Leo Nadal, "Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System" (Lexington Book, 2020)

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout US history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of ...

Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but wh...

Maya Pagni Barak, "The Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trial" (NYU Press, 2023)

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants are moved through immigration court. With a national backlog surpassing one million cases, court hearings...

Monika Krause, "Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Dr. Monika Krause asks about the concrete material rese...

Angela Garcia, "The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City's Anexos" (FSG, 2024)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Based on over a decade of research, a powerful, moving work of narrative nonfiction that illuminates the little-known world of the anexos of Mexico Ci...

Laura Robson, "Human Capital: A History of Putting Refugees to Work" (Verso, 2023)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When Americans and other citizens of advanced capitalist countries think of humanitarianism, they think of charitable efforts to help people displaced...

Premal Dharia et al., "Dismantling Mass Incarceration: A Handbook for Change" (FSG Originals, 2024)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, a searching national conversation has called attention to the social and racial injustices that define America’s criminal system. T...

Jessie Abrahams, "Schooling Inequality: Aspirations, Opportunities and the Reproduction of Social Class" (Bristol UP, 2024)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite a mass expansion of the higher education sector in the UK since the 1960s, young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds rema...

Ailbhe O'Loughlin, "Law and Personality Disorder: Human Rights, Human Risks, and Rehabilitation" (Oxford UP, 2024)

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Law and Personality Disorder: Human Rights, Human Risks, and Rehabilitation (Oxford UP, 2024), Dr Ailbhe O'Loughlin considers the controversia...

Felicia Arriaga, "Behind Crimmigration: ICE, Law Enforcement, and Resistance in America" (UNC Press, 2023)

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, dozens of counties in North Carolina have partnered with federal law enforcement in the criminalization of immigration--what many hav...

Amy Schiller, "The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong—And How to Fix It" (Melville House, 2023)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Amy Schiller, who spent a number of years working in both political and major gift fundraising, has a new book detailing some of the fundamental probl...

Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider, "The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual" (The New Press, 2024)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A perfectly timed book for the educational resistance—those of us who believe in public schools Culture wars have engulfed our schools. Extremist gr...

Emily Zackin and Chloe N. Thurston, "The Political Development of American Debt Relief" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A political history of the rise and fall of American debt relief. Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing...

Stephanie DeGooyer, "Before Borders: A Legal and Literary History of Naturalization" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)

22 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can the novel be a way to understand the development of nation-state borders? An important work in the intersections of law, literature, history,...

Postscript: The Supreme Court’s Decisions on Bump Stocks and Mifepristone

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of our occasional series, Postscript, we focus on the Supreme Court’s recently published decisions in two cases, about guns and abo...

Jorge Almazán et al., "Emergent Tokyo:: Designing the Spontaneous City" (Oro Editions, 2024)

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If ancient Kyoto stands for orderly elegance, then Tokyo, within the world’s most populated metropolitan area, calls to mind–– jam-packed chaos....

Rhodri Davies, "What Is Philanthropy For?" (Bristol UP, 2023)

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, philanthropy, the use of private assets for the public good, has come under renewed scrutiny. Do elite philanthropists wield too much...

Alex V. Barnard, "Conservatorship: Inside California's System of Coercion and Care for Mental Illness" (Columbia UP, 2023)

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is involuntary psychiatric treatment the solution to the intertwined crises of untreated mental illness, homelessness, and addiction? In recent years,...

Dasha Kiper, "Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain" (Random House, 2023)

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve ever worked with dementia patients before, you know how unique and bizarre the experience can be, and how little the stereotypes actually ...

Daniel Scott Souleles et al., "People before Markets: An Alternative Casebook" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

People before Markets:: An Alternative Casebook (Cambridge UP, 2022) presents twenty comparative case studies of important global questions, such as ...

Stephen Marr and Patience Mususa, "DIY Urbanism in Africa: Politics and Practice" (Zed Books, 2023)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Protracted economic crises, accelerating inequalities, and increased resource scarcity present significant challenges for the majority of Africa's urb...

Stephanie Ternullo, "How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics" (Princeton UP, 2024)

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past several decades, predominantly White, postindustrial cities in America’s agriculture and manufacturing centre have flipped from blue t...

Robert G. Boatright, "Reform and Retrenchment: A Century of Efforts to Fix Primary Elections" (Oxford UP, 2024)

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Until 1900, most political parties in the United States chose their leaders – either in back rooms with a few party elites making decisions or in co...

Kathleen Day, "Broken Bargain: Bankers, Bailouts, and the Struggle to Tame Wall Street" (Yale UP, 2019)

10 Jun 2024

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 should...

Gizem Zencirci, "The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty in Turkey" (Syracuse UP, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since coming to power in 2002, Turkey’s governing party, the AKP, has made poverty relief a central part of their political program. In addition to ...

Manisha Anantharaman, "Recycling Class: The Contradictions of Inclusion in Urban Sustainability" (MIT Press, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What types of coalitions can deliver social justice within sustainability initiatives? And how can we avoid reproducing unjust distributions of risk a...

Nicholas Tampio, ed., "Democracy and Education" (Columbia UP, 2024)

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916) transformed how people around the world view the purposes of schooling. This new edition makes Dewey's...

Mark Robert Rank, "The Random Factor: How Chance and Luck Profoundly Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us" (U California Press, 2024)

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s comforting to think that we can be successful because we work hard, climb ladders, and get what we deserve, but each of us has been profoundly ...

Weh Yeoh, "Redundant Charities: Escaping the Cycle of Dependence" (Koan Press, 2023)

02 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Weh Yeoh's Redundant Charities: Escaping the Cycle of Dependence (Koan Press, 2023) presents a transformative approach to charitable work. Drawing o...

Aya Gruber, "The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration" (U California Press, 2020)

02 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Aya Gruber, a professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School, has written a history of how the women’s movement in America has shaped the...

Richard E. Ocejo, "Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City" (Princeton UP, 2024)

02 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some twenty-eight thousand people located sixty miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley. Li...

Ronald R. Sundstrom, "Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction" (Oxford UP, 2024)

01 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It is widely acknowledged that the United States is in the grip of an enduring housing crisis. It is less frequently recognized that this crisis amoun...

Anne Kim, "Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor" (The New Press, 2024)

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poo...

Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp, "Disability Worlds" (Duke UP, 2024)

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Disability Worlds (Duke UP, 2024), Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp chronicle and theorize two decades of immersion in New York City’s wide-ranging...

Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What makes Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) uniquely Latinx? And how can university leaders, staff, and faculty transform these institutions into ...

Tom Mueller, "How to Make a Killing: Blood, Death and Dollars in American Medicine" (Norton, 2023)

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dialysis is a medical miracle, a treatment that allows people with kidney failure to live when otherwise they would die. It also provides a captive cu...

The Social Acceptance of Inequality

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of International Horizons, Francesco Duina, Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Bates College and Luca Storti, Associate Profess...

Carola Binder, "Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A sweeping history of the United States’ economy and politics, in Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy (U Chicago Press, 2024)...

Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, "The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels" (Crown, 2024)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, people who died destitute or alone were buried in potters’ fields—a Dickensian end that even the most hard-pressed families tried t...

Premilla Nadasen, "Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" (Haymarket Books, 2023)

25 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the COVID pandemic, billions of dollars in relief aid was sent out to help us ride out the storm, although many people who struggled through it...

Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" (Routledge, 2023)

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For 40 years, this classic text has taken the issue of economic inequality seriously and asked: Why are our prisons filled with the poor? Why aren't t...

Mark Robert Rank, "The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity" (Oxford UP, 2023)

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The paradox of poverty amidst plenty has plagued the United States throughout the 21st century--why should the wealthiest country in the world also ha...

Joseph E. Stiglitz, "The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society" (Norton, 2024)

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest book, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society (W. W. Norton, 2024), Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz rethinks the natur...

Ryan Reft, "Heroin and Chocolate City: Black Community Responses to Drug Addiction in the Nation’s Capital, 1967-1973" (2024)

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ryan Reft is a historian in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, where he oversees collections pertaining to 20th and 21st century dom...

Elise Andaya, "Pregnant at Work: Low-Wage Workers, Power, and Temporal Injustice" (NYU Press, 2024)

19 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The low-wage service industry is one of the fastest-growing employment sectors in the US economy. Its workers disproportionately tend to be low-income...

Matthew Berland and Antero Garcia, "The Left Hand of Data: Designing Education Data for Justice" (MIT Press, 2024)

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Educational analytics tend toward aggregation, asking what a “normative” learner does. In The Left Hand of Data: Designing Education Data for Ju...

Liliana Doganova, "Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology" (Princeton UP, 2024)

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Dr. Liliana Doganova’s book D...

Maria Cristina Garcia, "State of Disaster: The Failure of U. S. Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change" (UNC Press, 2022)

12 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Natural disasters and the dire effects of climate change cause massive population displacements and lead to some of the most intractable political and...

Alissa Quart, "Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream" (Ecco Press, 2023)

11 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard an...