Civil Liberties

From royalty to suffragettes and from campaigners to contemporary rebels, Sky News Presenter Sophy Ridge explains the ways that women have changed the face of politics. Sophy Ridge has uncovered the extraordinary stories of the women who have shaped British politics. Never has the role of women in the political world ever been more on the news agenda, and Sophy has interviewed current and former MPs to gain exclusive insight into the role women play in politics at the highest level.

At the heart of America's current social conflict are fundamental questions about our values as a nation. What does it mean to be American? When will women be fully equal? Should gays and lesbians have equal rights? Does racism still exist? What should we do about immigration? As one of the most diverse nations on earth, how can we live together peacefully and productively? Leader-Chivee passionately argues that we must find a way to make our multifaceted diversity an asset, or else it will continue to be our deepest and most painful source of strife.

Human rights, equality, free speech, privacy, the rule of law. These five ideas are vitally important to the way of life we enjoy today. The battle to establish them in law was long and difficult, and Lord Anthony Lester was at the heart of the 30-year campaign that resulted in the Human Rights Act as well as the struggle for race and gender equality that culminated in the Equality Act of 2010. Today, however, our society is at risk of becoming less equal.

The saga of the Freedom Riders is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, 450 Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account.

Deep Conviction features four ordinary Americans who put their reputations and livelihoods at risk as they fought to protect their first amendment right to live their personal beliefs. Though these individuals couldn’t be more different, they share a similar conviction and determination, and the principles of religious freedom apply equally to all of them.

Written in 1791 as a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man is a seminal work on human freedom and equality. Using the French Revolution and its ideals as an example, he demonstrates his belief that any government must put the inherent rights of its citizens above all else, especially politics. After its publication, Paine left England for France and was tried in his absence for libel against the crown.

One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today.

On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro", and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event.

In The Rise of the American Corporate Security State, Beatrice Edwards examines the real reasons to be afraid in twenty-first-century America, and outlines how we can address them. Our first steps in the right direction may be small, but they are important. They are based on the principle that we have a right to know what our government is doing and to speak openly about it.

Dieses Hörbuch ist keine gemütliche Erzählung, sondern ein Schlag ins Gesicht der Illusion, in Freiheit zu leben. Es entlarvt die hässliche Fratze moderner Demokratien, die sich den Anschein von Rechtsstaat und Menschenrechten geben, während sie im Kern auf Angst, Ausgrenzung und Unterdrückung gebaut sind. Politische Verfolgung ist kein Relikt vergangener Jahrhunderte, sie ist das Fundament heutiger Machtstrukturen. Wer widerspricht, wird gebrochen. Wer die Wahrheit ausspricht, wird entrechtet.

Dieses Hörbuch ist kein Thriller, sondern eine Diagnose. Es entlarvt die organisierte Staatskriminalität als Fundament eines Systems, das sich "Demokratie" nennt, aber längst wie ein perfektionierter Polizeistaat funktioniert. Hinter dem Vorhang von Rechtsstaatlichkeit arbeitet eine Maschinerie aus Uniformen, Paragraphen und Befehlsketten, die nicht den Bürger schützt, sondern die Machtzentren des Staates. Die Exekutive überwacht nicht nur Straßen und Plätze, sondern auch Gedanken, Bewegungen und Lebensräume.

Born in Hamburg in the 1930s, Marione Ingram fled Nazi Germany only to find racism as pervasive in the American South as anti-Semitism was in Europe. As a white woman and a Holocaust refugee, Marione was the most unlikely of heroes in the fight for civil rights for African Americans. This is her empowering story - a tale of courage, strength, and determination.

Stellt euch vor, es gibt einen Rundfunkbeitrag und keiner zahlt ihn. Dem Erfolgsautor Heiko Schrang wurde mit Gefängnis gedroht, da er sich aus Gewissensgründen weigerte, den Rundfunkbeitrag zu entrichten. Die Geschichte sorgte für große mediale Aufmerksamkeit, was zur Folge hatte, dass unzählige Menschen sich ermutigt sahen, seinem Beispiel zu folgen.

The people most likely to face discrimination today are those who do not or cannot conform to the whims of society. They are the freaks, geeks, weirdos, and oddballs among us. They do and wear strange things, have strange opinions, and need strange accommodations. Outsiders is filled with stories that demand attention, stories of people whose search for identity has cast them to the margins. Their stories reveal that we have entered a new phase of civil rights and need to refresh our vision.

The glorification of citizenship is a given in today's world, part of a civic narrative that invokes liberation, dignity, and nationhood. In reality, explains Dimitry Kochenov, citizenship is a story of complacency, hypocrisy, and domination, flattering to citizens and demeaning for noncitizens. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Kochenov explains the state of citizenship in the modern world.

The dominant narrative, repeated in the media and from the angry mouths of politicians and activists, is the exact opposite of the reality. They paint a portrait of an America rife with racial and ethnic division, where minorities are mired in a poverty worse than slavery, and white people stand at the top of an unfairly stacked pyramid of privilege. Jason D. Hill corrects the narrative in this powerfully eloquent book. Dr. Hill came to America at the age of twenty from Jamaica and, rather than being faced with intractable racial bigotry, Hill found a land of bountiful opportunity.

Well-known resistance author Claire Wolfe (The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook and the Hardyville Tales) has teamed up with counterintelligence analyst and liberty activist Kit Perez to pen a beginning "how-to" for those who are ready to do more than complain on social media. You'll learn about how to get properly set up, ideas for action ranging from easy to dangerous (but never violent or harmful), and how to find and collaborate with like-minded folks in a way that will help keep you safe and out of jail while still getting stuff done.

In We Can’t Breathe, Jabari Asim disrupts what Toni Morrison has exposed as the “Master Narrative” and replaces it with a story of black survival and persistence through art and community in the face of centuries of racism. In eight wide-ranging and penetrating essays, he explores such topics as the twisted legacy of jokes and falsehoods in black life; the importance of black fathers and community; the significance of black writers and stories; and the beauty and pain of the black body.

Ever since the 2016 election, pundits have been saying our country has never been more divided - that if progressives want to reclaim power, we need to be "pragmatic", reach across the aisle, and look past identity politics. But what if we're getting the story all wrong? In The Marginalized Majority, Onnesha Roychoudhuri makes the galvanizing case that our voices are already the majority - and that our plurality of identities is not only our greatest strength, but is also at the indisputable core of successful progressive change throughout history.

Can free speech coexist with an inclusive campus environment? Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry.