Beacon: 545 books
Inferior
How Science Got Women Wrong-and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story
Language: English
Release Date: May 30, 2017
What science has gotten so shamefully wrong about women, and the fight, by both female and male scientists, to rewrite what we thought we knew
For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less...
by Cornel West
Language: English
Release Date: October 31, 2000
Language: English
Release Date: October 31, 2000
The fundamental litmus test for American democracy-its economy, government, criminal justice system, education, mass media, and culture-remains: how broad and intense are the arbitrary powers used and deployed against black people. In this sense, the problem of the twenty-first century remains the...
Fugitive Days
Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist
Language: English
Release Date: June 27, 2002
Bill Ayers was born into privilege and is today a highly respected educator. In the late 1960s he was a young pacifist who helped to found one of the most radical political organizations in U.S. history, the Weather Underground. In a new era of antiwar activism and suppression of protest, his story, Fugitive Days, is more poignant and relevant than ever.
Household Workers Unite
The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement
Language: English
Release Date: August 25, 2015
Telling the stories of African American domestic workers, this book resurrects a little-known history of domestic worker activism in the 1960s and 1970s, offering new perspectives on race, labor, feminism, and organizing.
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In this groundbreaking history of African American domestic-worker organizing,...
The War on Neighborhoods
Policing, Prison, and Punishment in a Divided City
Language: English
Release Date: April 17, 2018
A narrative-driven exploration of policing and the punishment of disadvantage in Chicago, and a new vision for repairing urban neighborhoods
For people of color who live in segregated urban neighborhoods, surviving crime and violence is a generational reality. As violence in cities like New...
Straight
The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality
Language: English
Release Date: January 31, 2012
It's surprising that the term "heterosexuality" is less than 150 years old and that heterosexuality's history has never before been written, given how obsessed we are with it. In Straight, independent scholar Hanne Blank delves deep into the contemporary psyche as well as the historical...
Refinery Town
Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City
Language: English
Release Date: January 17, 2017
The People vs. Big Oil—how a working-class company town harnessed the power of local politics to reclaim their community
Home to one of the largest oil refineries in the state, Richmond, California, was once a typical company town, dominated by Chevron. This largely nonwhite, working-class...
The Heritage
Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism
Language: English
Release Date: May 8, 2018
Following in the footsteps of Robeson, Ali, Robinson and others, today’s Black athletes re-engage with social issues and the meaning of American patriotism
Named a best book of 2018 by Library Journal
It used to be that politics and sports were as separate from one another as church...
Outlaw Marriages
The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples
Language: English
Release Date: May 15, 2012
For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other “for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” for periods of thirty or forty—sometimes...
Tweet Land of Liberty
Irreverent Rhymes from the Political Circus
Language: English
Release Date: August 28, 2012
Elinor Lipman (@elinorlipman) chronicles the 2012 election season with a poem a day—all in 140 characters or less.
A City So Grand
The Rise of an American Metropolis: Boston 1850-1900
Language: English
Release Date: May 4, 2010
Once upon a time, "Boston Town" was an insulated New England township. But the community was destined for greatness. Between 1850 and 1900, Boston underwent a stunning metamorphosis to emerge as one of the world's great metropolises-one that achieved national and international prominence...
Ethical Chic
The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love
Language: English
Release Date: June 19, 2012
In this age of social activism, pinpoint marketing, and immediate information, consumers demand everything from the coffee, computer, or toothpaste they buy: an affordable, reliable product manufactured by a company that doesn't pollute, saves energy, treats its workers well, and doesn't hurt animals—oh,...
by Paul Robeson
Language: English
Release Date: January 1, 1998
Language: English
Release Date: January 1, 1998
Robeson's international achievements as a singer and actor in starring roles on stage and screen made him the most celebrated black American of his day, but his outspoken criticism of racism in the United States, his strong support of African independence, and his fascination with the Soviet Union...
Banned in Boston
The Watch and Ward Society's Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil
Language: English
Release Date: October 13, 2010
“I want to be intelligent, even if I do live in Boston.”
—an anonymous Bostonian, 1929
In this spectacular romp through the Puritan City, Neil Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America,...