Civic Science

Is democracy in trouble, perhaps even dying? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country's system of governance is being "tested" or is "under attack." But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire? In The Civic Bargain, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober push back against the prevailing pessimism about the fate of democracy around the world. Instead of an epitaph for democracy, they offer a guide for democratic renewal, calling on citizens to recommit to a "civic bargain" with one another to guarantee civic rights of freedom, equality, and dignity.

From her days in second-wave feminist activism to her battle against the precursor to NAFTA to her indefatigable fight for social justice and water rights for all, Maude shares her stories and her expertise to inspire us and show us how we can do it too.

Drawing on her life’s work, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex.

What You Should Know About Politics...But Don't breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why - whether it's the economy, income inequality, Obamacare, foreign policy, education, immigration, or climate change. If you're a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it's the perfect audiobook to brush up on a single topic or listen through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics.

Toxic culture is eroding our sense of belonging, community and well-being. Our capacity to collaborate and innovate together is also being undermined by the rising incivility and divisiveness. We need each other to address the complex challenges facing our cities and communities—from the infrastructure deficit to climate change, homelessness, mental health and addiction issues. To thrive, our local democracies depend on our ability to revive the art of living and working well together.

For over a decade, human rights journalist Agus Morales has journeyed to the sites of the world's most brutal conflicts and spoken to the victims of violence and displacement. To Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Central African Republic. To Central America, the Congo, and the refugee camps of Jordan. To the Tibetan Parliament in exile in northern India. We are living in a time of massive global change, when negative images of refugees undermine the truth of their humiliation and suffering.

Veteran community organizer Paul Born's work has contributed to lowering cancer rates in Maine, improving mental health for young people in Florida, and reducing poverty rates in Canada by 20 percent. In this much-needed new book, he shares stories of how he was able to catalyze local communities and guide them to make significant progress on seemingly intractable community problems.

We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases.

Community shapes our identity, quenches our thirst for belonging, and bolsters our physical, mental, emotional, and economic health. But in the chaos of modern life, community ties have become unraveled, leaving many feeling afraid or alone in the crowd, grasping at shallow substitutes for true community. In this thoughtful and moving book, Paul Born describes the four pillars of deep community: sharing our stories, taking the time to enjoy one another, taking care of one another, and working together for a better world.

In a collection of original essays, the venerated television journalist, Dan Rather, celebrates our shared values and what matters most in our great country, and shows us what patriotism looks like. Writing about the institutions that sustain us, such as public libraries, public schools, and national parks; the values that have transformed us, such as the struggle for civil rights; and the drive toward science and innovation that has made the US great, Rather brings his experience on the frontlines of the world's biggest stories, and offers listeners a way forward.

There is no question that the United States faces dangerous threats from without; the greatest peril to the country, however, comes from within. In The Bill of Obligations, bestselling author Richard Haass argues that, to solve our climate of division and safeguard our democracy, the very idea of citizenship must be revised and expanded. The Bill of Rights is at the center of our Constitution, yet the most intractable conflicts often emerge from cases that, as former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out, “are not about right versus wrong. They are about right versus right.”

The essential guide to local government leadership.

When discrimination is race-based, we call it racism; when it's gender-based, we call it sexism. Somebodies and Nobodies introduces rank-based discrimination - or "rankism" - a form of injustice that everyone knows, but no one sees. It explains our reluctance to confront rankism, shows where analyses based on identity fall short and, using dozens of examples, traces many forms of injustice and unfairness to rankism.

Following the 2016 election, writer Heather Lende was one of thousands of women inspired to take a more active role in politics. Though her entire campaign for assembly member in Haines, Alaska, cost less than $1,000, she won! But tiny, breathtakingly beautiful Haines isn't the sleepy town that it appears to be: from a bitter debate about the expansion of the fishing boat harbor to the matter of how to stop bears from rifling through garbage on Main Street we witness the nitty-gritty of passing legislation and how the polarizing national politics of our era play out in one small town.

Social psychologist Peter T. Coleman explores how conflict resolution and complexity science provide guidance for dealing with seemingly intractable political differences. Deploying the concept of attractors in dynamical systems, he explains why we are stuck in this rut as well as the unexpected ways that deeply rooted oppositions can and do change.

Generations of Americans have regarded schools as essential for developing the knowledge and civic values necessary for sustaining democracy. Yet, as Matthew D. Nelsen argues in The Color of Civics, traditional approaches to civic education are not living up to their promise for many students, particularly students of color from disadvantaged communities. Drawing on lessons from students and teachers in Chicago, The Color of Civics reimagines the democratic purpose of civic education.

You've heard of the "Great Books"? These are their evil opposites. From Machiavelli's The Prince to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, family breakdown, and disastrous social experiments. And yet these authors' bad ideas are still popular and pervasive. Here with the antidote is Professor Benjamin Wiker.

A global exploration of the Internet meme as an agent of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on and offline and how they will save or destroy us all. Using social media-driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today's politics.

In American Rule, Jared Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the foundational myths at the heart of our collective American imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values, which are fed to the public and repeated across generations.

An unflinching look at the aspiring city-builders of our smart, mobile, connected future. We live in a world defined by urbanization and digital ubiquity, where mobile broadband connections outnumber fixed ones, machines dominate a new "internet of things," and more people live in cities than in the countryside.