Town-building in the Great Plains gets a fresh examination in Harris Stone’s final book. Form and consequences of the inhabitation of the plains landscape are explored, from the rural roads and farms to industrial parks. Beautifully hand-lettered and illustrated throughout, this thought-provoking work will appeal to architects, planners, historians, cultural geographers, and anyone interested in the interplay between people and vernacular form. | more…
In my opinion, American capitalism no longer has any use for, let’s say, 40 percent of the population. These are the descendants of folks who were brought over here in one way or another during the period of capital accumulation. They’re now superfluous human beings. | more…
Samir Amin, one of the most influential economists today, has produced another groundbreaking work. Spectres of Capitalism cuts through the current intellectual fashions that assume a global capitalist triumph, taking the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Marx and Engels’s classic tract, the Communist Manifesto, to focus upon the aspirations of the destitute millions of the post-Cold War era. | more…
In the Shadow of Empire: Canada for Americans invites Americans to take a closer look at their neighbor to the north, challenging the commonly held view that Canada is just like the United States. American-born but a longtime resident of Canada, Joseph K. Roberts brings into focus every major feature of Canada’s politics, from the distinctiveness of a society that does not stigmatize government action to the struggles of indigenous peoples and the quest of French-speaking Quebec for autonomy. | more…
“Labor has finally awakened from a long, deep sleep.” So declared one observer after the victory of John J. Sweeney’s “New Voice” slate in the 1995 contest for leadership of the U.S. trade union federation, the AFL-CIO. Sweeney’s team promised to make organizing its top priority, and new stirrings in labor have brought unprecedented media attention. With a surprisingly popular and victorious nationwide strike at United Parcel Service in 1997, hopes have risen for a new labor movement. | more…
Blues for America combines an historical critique of the “American Century” with journalistic reports and personal anecdotes. Doug Dowd, an economics professor and long-time troublemaker, traces the socioeconomic history of our country decade by decade in a style reminiscent of Dos Passos’ U.S.A. Blues for America is an engrossing read, filled with incisive observations and biting humor. | more…
Over the last few years, I have asked hundreds of college students, “When was the country we now know as the United States first settled?” | more…
Let Them Eat Ketchup! — the title comes from a Reagan administration decision to classify ketchup as a vegetable in federal school lunch programs — explains: how governments define and measure poverty, how and why official definitions of poverty fall short, and the failure to deal with the real suffering and inequality in our “class-free” society. | more…
With unemployment surging to record levels and the economy in freefall, experts are looking to the Great Depression for lessons in stimulating job creation. Then, as now, the system was unable to provide the jobs and financial support desperately needed by millions of people. But then—in the 1930s—the state intervened to create massive employment programs that put people to work on socially useful projects in states, cities, and towns across the country. The scope of these programs was unprecedented and never repeated in the decades that followed. Today, as the severity of the economic crisis increasingly resembles that of the Great Depression, the time for a reappraisal of the New Deal employment programs has never been more necessary. | more…
Millions unemployed… fewer people working harder for less pay and shrinking benefits… the assets of the wealthiest one percent of the population growing as the population below the poverty line swells… the next generation facing an even more bitter future… Why? Most working people cannot answer this question. In this user-friendly book, Michael Yates explains how employment and unemployment are inextricably connected in an economic system where employers are driven by the search for profits. | more…
That there are good and honorable people who believe that the Democratic Party can be turned around. I don’t. Our major task is to change the entire nature of political discussion in the country. In my view that’s just not going to happen within the Democratic Party. | more…
This sequel to the author’s best-selling Columbus: His Enterprise provides, in ten short chapters, a brilliant account of the ongoing war waged by Europeans against the native peoples of the Americas in the five centuries after Columbus arrived. Ranging from the Spanish conquest to the colonization of North America, from the seizure of land from the native inhabitants to present-day military interventions, Koning’s provocative and readable history provides students with a different perspective on U.S. history and a framework for understanding U.S. policy toward indigenous and foreign peoples. | more…