Book review: How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain by Peter S. Goodman Through a gripping exposé of actual events and people caught at every point along the array of the critical supply chain dysfunctions that have affected everyone, Peter S. Goodman brings to life for the reader the lives …
Category Archives: Socioeconomic Policy
White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy
Book Review: White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy by William J. Barber, II In this book, William Barber provides essential corrective focus on the common cause of both Black and white people and all other categories that separate us as well—exposing the fatal error within conservative and progressive …
The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society
Book Review: The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society By Joseph E. Stiglitz In this book Joseph Stiglitz effectively shreds the destructive neoliberal economic dogma that has caused such immense suffering for the past 50 years. Siglitz artfully debunks the theories of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek so that they now no longer …
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The End of Race Politics
Book review: The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America by Coleman Hughes This is a candid conversation that is long overdue. As a person of color himself, Coleman Hughes refutes head on the (perhaps well meaning although dogmatic) assumptions of self declared antiracists such as Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi—to offer …
How Fascism Works
Book review: How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley In this book, Jason Stanley takes an overused and sometimes misrepresented word and puts meat on its bones, as the best designator for social phenomena that are occurring in our own time. It’s written for awareness rather than alarm—although an inadequate response to this awareness would be …
Reconsidering Reparations
Book review: Reconsidering Reparations by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò In this book Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò goes beyond the usual justifications and proposals for reparations to descendants of enslaved people, to straightforwardly propose a world making project. Táíwò calls it the Constructive view. “Reconsidering” does not mean tossing out reparations, and instead expands the scope of the …
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
Book Review: Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, by Heather Cox Richardson The lesson from the long view of history is to never give up in the present. The observations of historian Heather Cox Richardson—who’s been a bulwark of stability throughout and beyond the authoritarianism of the Trump presidency—are cause to take a …
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Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency
Book review: Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency, by Andy Greenberg Real people and actual actions, all rolled together into an exquisite novel that is fully non-fiction. Turn after turn, Andy Greenberg keeps you on the edge of your seat in this fast moving narrative of real world …
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Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
Book review: Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson R. Cowie The title lays bare the real issue: Parse the expression, and then consider the paradox of whether Freedom and Dominion can truly co-exist. In this book Jefferson Cowie illustrates—across centuries of historical fact—that use of the word freedom as …
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American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good
Book review: American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, by Colin Woodard This is required reading for anyone who wants to understand US history, as well as current day cultural and political conflicts. In this book, Colin Woodard provides anthropological ground truth recognizable by most anyone who’s …