Collection: Politics

A major hardcover compendium of nonfiction by one of America's most brilliant essayists, timed to the celebration of his centenary

Novelist, essayist, and public intellectual James Baldwin is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. This Everyman's Library collection includes his bestselling, galvanizing essay The Fire Next Time--which gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement of the 1960s and still lights the way to understanding race in America today--along with three additional brilliant works of nonfiction by this seminal chronicler and analyst of culture. From No Name In the Street's extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies to the "passionate, probing, controversial" (The Atlantic) Nobody Knows My Name and the incisive criticism of American movies in The Devil Finds Work, Baldwin's stunning prose over and over proves relevant to our contemporary struggle for equality, justice, and social change.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

An intimate and revelatory eyewitness account of two generations of students in China's heartland, chronicling a country in the midst of tumultuous change through the prism of its education system

More than twenty years after teaching English to China's first boom generation at a small college in Sichuan Province, Peter Hessler returned to Sichuan to teach the next generation. At the same time, Hessler and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners in a student body of about two thousand. Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with more than a hundred of his former students, who were now in their forties. By reconnecting with these individuals--members of China's "Reform generation" --while teaching current undergrads, Hessler was able to gain a unique perspective on China's incredible transformation over the past quarter-century.

In the late 1990s, almost all of Hessler's students were the first member of their extended families to become educated. Their parents were subsistence farmers who could offer little guidance as their children entered a brand-new world. By 2019, when Hessler arrived at Sichuan University, he found a very different China and a new kind of student--an only child whose schooling was the object of intense focus from a much more ambitious and sophisticated cohort of parents. Hessler's new students have a sense of irony about the regime but mostly navigate its restrictions with equanimity, and embrace the astonishing new opportunities China's boom affords. But the pressures of this system of extreme "meritocracy" at scale can be gruesome, even for much younger children, including his own daughters, who give him and his wife an intimate view into the experience at their local school.

In Peter Hessler's hands, China's education system is the perfect vehicle for examining what's happened to the country, where it's going, and what we can learn from it, for good and ill. At a time when anti-Chinese rhetoric in America has grown blunter and uglier, Other Rivers is a tremendous, indeed an essential gift, a work of enormous human empathy that rejects cheap stereotypes and shows us China from the inside out and the bottom up, using as a measuring stick this most universally relatable set of experiences. As both a window onto China and a distant mirror onto America and its own education system, Other Rivers is a classic, a book of tremendous value and compelling human interest.

Learn about the amazing life of the former world No. 1 tennis player who fought for gender equality in sports! Billie Jean King's legacy as a tennis star, a feminist, and an LGBTQ+ trailblazer shines through in this addition to the #1 New York Times Best-Selling Series.

Billie Jean King grew up in a family of athletes. It was no surprise when she quickly began to excel at tennis. She became the top female singles player in the world and won 129 career singles titles, including Wimbledon and the US Open. Beyond being an excellent athlete, Billie Jean King used her voice to stand up for other women playing tennis who were not paid nearly as much as male players. In 1973, Billie Jean captured the world's attention when she beat Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes," proving women were just as good at tennis as men. She went on to found the Women's Tennis Association, and thanks to her efforts, women athletes worldwide were finally able to be taken seriously and paid fairly.

Tension in our personal relationships are at an all-time high. Dialogue-when it happens at all-is heated. It isn't that we've lost hope in what faith and politics can accomplish in our world. It's that in our polarizing times, faith and politics seem to be leading more to rage than actual change. It's discouraging, disheartening, and disappointing. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Civility is not a pipe dream. Nuance is not unrecoverable. Peace is possible. And it can all start right here, right now, with us.

For those who are looking for a better way to engage on the topics that mean the most to them,

for those who are looking to build a bridge with the people politics and religion has isolated them from,

for those who won't settle for the growing space between us and who believe there's a better way,

this book is for you.

"Sexual diversity is part and parcel of nature's unrelenting passion for diversity in all living things. Thus, queerness is not a crime against nature; it is rather a gift from nature. As such, it is something that's normal, useful, and wholly desirable within society." - From the Introduction

Synopsis: QUEERS & CIVILIZATION documents the distinctive and prodigious contributions queer people have made to the progress of civilization. The book cites more than 150 examples of notable historical figures who made signal and constructive contributions to civilization and who happened to be queer.

The examples range from Alexander the Great to Malcolm X - from the fearless, sword-toting Lesbian matriarchies of yore - the Amazons - to the fearless, rock-throwing Black transgendered women - Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson - who instigated the Stonewall Riot in 1969.

These examples run the gamut from queer Islamic poets, to queer Japanese samurai, and to queer Chinese Emperors - in fact, the entire Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) which constituted China's golden age.

In modern times, the book shows how tiny groups of queers - sexual radicals all - made epic strides in social progress. Examples include the Bloomsbury Group (London, 1907-1930), the Harlem Renaissance (New York City, 1920s-1930s), and the Beat Generation (San Francisco, the late 1950s).

To close, I show how these strides were made by queers who sagely relied on art, not politics; on social movements, not political parties; and on changes in cultural and social values, not on election outcomes. This model of social change - politics by other means - endures and flourishes still. The world can be made safe for diversity!

'Phenomenal ... Offers us possibilities for rescuing the concept of democracy from its fatal entanglement with racial, heteropatriarchal capitalism' -- Angela Y. Davis

'Embraces the unruliness of collective struggle, and recognizes freedom not as a destination but practice--an abolitionist, feminist, anticapitalist, antiracist, radically inclusive practice' -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

'A compelling and inspiring book that belongs in our movements and our classrooms' -- Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism Without Borders

'An elegantly written masterpiece' -- Barbara Ransby, author of Making All Black Lives Matter

Become Ungovernable is a provocative new work of political thought setting out to reclaim "freedom", "justice", and "democracy", revolutionary ideas that are all too often warped in the interests of capital and the state. Revealing the mirage of mainstream democratic thought and the false promises of liberal political ideologies, H.L.T. Quan offers an alternative approach: an abolition feminism drawing on a kaleidoscope of refusal praxes, and on a deep engagement with the Black Radical Tradition and queer analytics.

With each chapter anchored by episodes from the long history of resistance and rebellions against tyranny, Quan calls for us to take up a feminist ethic of living rooted in the principles of radical inclusion, mutuality and friendship as part of the larger toolkit for confronting fascism, white supremacy, and the neoliberal labor regime.

H.L.T. Quan is a political theorist, award-winning filmmaker and Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Quan is the author of Growth Against Democracy and editor of Cedric J. Robinson.

At a moment when our democratic abilities seem to have eroded, and political, economic, and technological forces have weakened the capacity for collective action, People, Power, Change is a once-in-a-generation book for anyone who wants to create real and lasting change.

Marshall Ganz is one of the world's leading authorities on democratic organizing, and this book is the culmination of his decades of teaching, research, and work. In People, Power, Change, Ganz distills for students, practitioners, and activists the principles he has gleaned over the last half-century of creating collective action.

Ganz explores the forces, craft, and learned skill of organizing and provides an actionable framework for how to actually do it. He focuses the book on the creation and substance of relationships, the fuel of values and narrative, the resources and power of strategy, the necessity of structure, and the accountability of action. Across these five organizing ideas, Ganz weaves in his personal experiences from a lifetime of organizing in iconic social movements and campaigns to illustrate how collective action actually works and to build the practices and skills that must be developed to do it with intention and with success.

Born in 1955, Lydia R. Otero knew they were queer the moment their consciousness had evolved enough to formulate thoughts. Nicknamed La Butch by their family, Otero shares a unique perspective: displaced by their queerness, but rooted in place through their relationship with Tucson, Arizona. In this book, which combines personal memoir and the historical archive, Otero takes readers to a world that existed on the physical and social margins and describes how a new freeway created a barrier that greatly influenced formative aspects of Otero's childhood. The author examines the multiple effects of environmental racism, while the lack of services and low expectations of the schools Otero attended are further examples of the discrimination directed at brown people. This book offers more self-disclosure than Otero's previous works, as the author's memories and experiences of childhood take center stage. Otero reveals the day-to-day survival mechanisms they depended upon, the exhilaration of first love, and the support they received from key family members

An inspiring and radical celebration of 70 women, girls, and nonbinary people who have changed--and are still changing--the world, from the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall riots through Black Lives Matter and beyond.

With a radical and inclusive approach to history, Modern HERstory profiles and celebrates seventy women and nonbinary champions of progressive social change in a bold, colorful, illustrated format for all ages. Despite making huge contributions to the liberation movements of the last century and today, all of these trailblazers come from backgrounds and communities that are traditionally overlooked and under-celebrated: not just women, but people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, young people, and people of faith. Authored by rising star activist Blair Imani, Modern HERstory tells the important stories of the leaders and movements that are changing the world right here and right now--and will inspire you to do the same.

An embodied guide to being with grief individually and in community--practical exercises, decolonized rituals, and Earth-based medicines for healing and processing loss

We live in a culture that suppresses our ability to truly feel our grief--deeply, safely, and on our own terms. But each person's experience is as unique as the grief itself. Here, Camille Sapara Barton's take on grief speaks directly to the ways that BIPOC and queer readers disproportionately experience unique constellations of loss.

Deeply practical and easy to use in times of confusion, trauma, and pain, Tending Grief includes rituals, reflection prompts, and exercises that help us process and metabolize our grief--without bypassing or pushing aside what comes to the fore. Sapara Barton includes exercises that can be done both alone and in community, including:

• Altar practices to honor and connect with ancestors known and unknown
• Locating, holding, and dancing your grief
• Sharing circles for processing communal loss
• Water, fire, and nature-based rituals
• Honoring the survival utility of numbness--and knowing when it's time to release it
• Peer support and integration
• Herbal medicines and plant-based healing

Sapara Barton honors each and every experience: The loss of displacement from homelands, from severed lineages and ancestral ways of knowing. The grief of colonization and theft. The deep heaviness that burrows into our bodies when society tells us our bodies are wrong. Practical tools and rituals help readers feel into their grief, honor what comes up, and move forward in healing.

Written specifically to center and hold the grief of BIPOC readers, Tending Grief is an invitation to reconnect to what we've lost, to find community in our grief, and to tend to our own suffering for our individual and collective wellbeing.

* 2021 EUREKA! Nonfiction Children's Honor Book *
* 2021 Notable Social Studies Trade Books *

"An enlightening addition to upper elementary and middle school collections for its in-depth look at the Constitution and the U.S. government." - School Library Journal

See the U.S. Constitution in a new light with this bold, modern and accessible illustrated guide to the document that helped define democracy.

With the unprecedented events and actions that have tested the American political system over the last several years, including the violent overtaking of the U.S. Capitol Building, there has never been a better time to take a closer look at the Constitution, the bedrock of U.S. politics. As part of the critical discussion of current events at school and at home, inquisitive minds will have their questions vividly answered - and new ones raised - by a mix of striking illustrations and clear, engaging text, including passages from the Constitution given in plain English.

As well as a detailed history covering the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights and all Amendments, discover how this milestone in American democracy shapes and is shaped by the world at large. We The People shows that, far from a fusty old piece of paper, the U.S. Constitution is a living, evolving rule book that is as relevant today as it has ever been.

• A fresh take on a monumental document, navigating in style its history and its life today.
• Excerpts from the Constitution are presented here in plain English to help young thinkers better understand the role it plays in everyday life.
• Accessible, energetic text accompanied by contemporary, powerful illustrations allows children aged 10 and older to re-think the Constitution in a totally new way.
• A balanced examination that does not shy away from addressing the difficulties of interpreting and adapting the Constitution for the modern world.

We The People takes the Constitution out of its display case, blows off the dust and re-imagines this piece of history for the next generation.

Our leaders swear to uphold it, our military to defend it. It is the blueprint for the shape and function of government itself and what defines Americans as Americans. But how many of us truly know our Constitution?

The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation uses the art of illustrated storytelling to breathe life into our nation's cornerstone principles. Simply put, it is the most enjoyable and groundbreaking way to read the governing document of the United States. Spirited and visually witty, it roves article by article, amendment by amendment, to get at the meaning, background, and enduring relevance of the law of the land.

What revolutionary ideas made the Constitution's authors dare to cast off centuries of rule by kings and queens? Why do we have an electoral college rather than a popular vote for president and vice president? How did a document that once sanctioned slavery, denied voting rights to women, and turned a blind eye to state governments running roughshod over the liberties of minorities transform into a bulwark of protection for all?

The United States Constitution answers all of these questions. Sure to surprise, challenge, and provoke, it is hands down the most memorable introduction to America's founding document.

This deeply-reported narrative illuminates the battle for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Boy Scouts of America, a decades-long struggle led by teenagers, parents, activists, and everyday Americans.

Weaving in his own experience as a scout and journalist, Mike De Socio's Morally Straight tells a story that plays out over the course of twenty-five years, beginning in an era when gay rights were little more than a cultural sideshow; when same-sex marriage was not even on the radar; and when much of the country was recommitting to conservative social mores. It was during this treacherous time that accidental activists emerged, challenging one of America's most iconic institutions in a struggle that would forever change the country's view of gay people and the rights they held in society.

In Morally Straight we meet James Dale, the poster child of Scouting who took his fight for inclusion to the Supreme Court; Steven Cozza, the 12-year-old scout in California who started a movement for inclusion called Scouting for All; Jennifer Tyrrell, the lesbian den mother whose expulsion from the Scouts reignited the gay membership controversy; Zach Wahls, the son of lesbian moms who led the final push for policy change; and an array of other previously unknown Scouters who played smaller--but no less crucial--roles in the fight for full inclusion.

Through original interviews and reporting, Morally Straight braids together these characters and brings to life their collective struggle. This is an essential narrative in the American LGBTQ+ rights movement--and a truly American story about the fight for a better future for our nation's bedrock youth organization.

A collection of over 200 breathtaking photos celebrating the history and cultural impact of the Asian American social justice movement, from a beloved photographer who sought to change the world, one photograph at a time

"For generations, Corky taught us how to see ourselves--as individuals and as a community."--Hua Hsu, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Stay True

Known throughout his lifestyime as the "undisputed, unofficial Asian American photographer laureate," the late photojournalist Corky Lee documented Asian American and Pacific Islander communities for fifty years, breaking the stereotype of Asian Americans as docile, passive, and, above all, foreign to this country. Corky Lee's Asian America is a stunning retrospective of his life's work--a selection of the best photographs from his vast collection, from his start in New York's Chinatown in the 1970s to his coverage of diverse Asian American communities across the country until his untimely passing in 2021.

Corky Lee's Asian America traces Lee's decades-long quest for photographic justice, following Asian American social movements for recognition and rights alongside his artistic development as an activist social photographer. Iconic photographs feature protests against police brutality in New York in the 1970s, a Sikh man draped in an American flag after 9/11, and a reenactment of the completion of the transcontinental railroad of 1869 featuring descendants of Chinese railroad workers, and his last photos of community life and struggle during the coronavirus pandemic. Asian American writers, artists, activists, and friends of Lee reflect on his life and career and provide rich historical and cultural context to his photographs, including a foreword from writer Hua Hsu and contributions from artist Ai Weiwei, filmmaker Renée Tajima-Peña, writer Helen Zia, photographer Alan Chin, historian Gordon Chang, playwright David Henry Hwang, and more.

Featuring never-before-seen photographs alongside his best-known images, Corky Lee's Asian America represents Lee's mission to chronicle a history of inclusion, resistance, ethnic pride, and patriotism. This is a remarkable documentation of vital moments in Asian American history and a timely reminder that it's also a history that we continue to make.

There is enough for everyone. That's the vision woven into the warp and weft of the Bible, through the principles of Sabbath Economics.

This is God's vision of human living, where the world is an abundant gift. It is a vision where we live with gratitude and accept our limits; where forgiveness is not just a spiritual matter but a practical reality for the systems of debt and ownership. It is a vision of good news for the poor.

In this concise and powerful collection of essays, Ched Myers grasps the nettle of Biblical stories and parables we prefer not to take literally, revealing an ancient standard of social justice waiting to be revived.

"Sabbath Economics it is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the subversive, radical, and life-giving aspects of what it means to practice Sabbath and its principles."

-Dr Jayme Reaves, author Safeguarding the Stranger

"In a world of obscene inequality, Ched Myers' words are a timeless challenge to us to live out the red letters of Jesus' teaching and call others to work for Jesus and justice."-Dr Sally & Dave Mann, Red Letter Christians UK"A radical reimagining of our economic life."-Dr Selina Stone, Sunday School for Misfits Podcast"Sabbath Economics grabs the reader by the hand hurtling forward through the many terrains of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament."-Azariah France-Williams, author Ghost Ship: Institutional Racism and the Church of England

This is most popular Islamic text book used in the English speaking world for the past decade. It is now in two parts:

Part One teaches about:

Aqeedah

Fiqh

Islamic manners and morals

Seerah

Part Two teaches about:

Men and women around the Prophet Muhammad

Stories of the prophets

Supplications and invocations

Hadiths

This is a great Islamic book for kids. It is one of the books that is important for learning about Islam.