Town Politics

Something has gone wrong. We're living in an age of celebratory racism, extreme inequality, uncertainty and fear. We're governed by people who claim to be populist but who seem to hate everyone. There are idiots at the wheel and we're heading for a cliff in a big red bus and no one knows how to...

Metrofix: The Combative Comeback of a Company Town shows what went right and what went wrong when General Electric moved most of its businesses out of Schenectady, New York. Once known as “The City that Lights and Hauls the World” because of its electrical and railroad industries, the Electric City enjoyed decades of dizzying, enviable success. Like other river towns upstate, it was a 20th-century economic powerhouse that fueled the wealth and reputation of the Empire State.

Enrique Krauze, en esta lúcida colección de ensayos - a caballo entre la política, la filosofía, la literatura y la historia - advierte de los peligros de la acumulación del poder en una sola persona y sale en defensa de la democracia, el debate, la pluralidad y la tolerancia. En defensa de la libertad.

Equal parts information and inspiration, After You Vote: A Woman's Guide to Making an Impact, from Town Hall to Capitol Hill is both a primer and call-to-action for women of all ages who want to exercise their voices and engage more fully in civic life. It's the ultimate guide to political engagement, filled with practical (and proven) tactics to make your voice heard and have an influence on the issues you care about most - whatever those may be.

Mals, Italy, has long been known as the breadbasket of the Tyrol. But recently the tiny town became known for something else entirely. A Precautionary Tale tells us why, introducing readers to an unlikely group of activists and a forward-thinking mayor who came together to ban pesticides in Mals by a referendum vote, making it the first place on Earth to accomplish such a feat, and a model for other towns and regions to follow. For hundreds of years, the people of Mals had cherished their traditional foodways and kept their local agriculture organic. Their town had become a mecca for tourists drawn by the alpine landscape, the rural and historic character of the villages, and the fine breads, wines, cheeses, herbs, vegetables, and the other traditional foods they produced.

On Saturday, September 22, 1928, Barbara Griffiths, aged four, strayed into the woods surrounding the upstate village of Massena, New York. Hundreds of people looked everywhere for the child but could not find her. At one point, someone suggested that Barbara had been kidnapped and killed by Jews, and as the search continued, policemen and townspeople alike gave credence to the quickly-spreading rumors. The allegation of ritual murder, known to Jews as "blood libel", took hold.

In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama, began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice.

Recounts the story of America’s last great newspaper war between the New York Daily News and the New York Post, as both papers’ long rivalry turned existential amid the rise of digital news. The story is told through the eyes of the reporters, or “runners”, and photographers who fought the war on the ground in cities across America.

Recounts the story of America’s last great newspaper war between the New York Daily News and the New York Post, as both papers’ long rivalry turned existential amid the rise of digital news. The story is told through the eyes of the reporters, or “runners,” and photographers who fought the war on the ground in cities across America.

Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.

Among many legendary episodes from the life and career of men's basketball coach Dean Smith, few loom as large as his recruitment of Charlie Scott, the first African American scholarship athlete at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Drawn together by college basketball in a time of momentous change, Smith and Scott helped transform a university, a community, and the racial landscape of sports in the South.

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

When a terrorist attack grips the nation, Luke Steele, a military aide to the president of the United States, is reassigned to track down the suspect because the alleged bomber was spotted wearing a state championship ring from Luke’s hometown. Luke has desperately tried to forget his high school years, but he can’t run from them now. Instead, he must face his most formidable assignment yet: leave his post by the president’s side, return to Pine Falls, Virginia, and face every demon from his childhood—including every person and every thought that told him he wasn’t worth anything.

When an old man is found dead on the road - seemingly run over by a Hungarian au pair - police investigator Anna Fekete is certain that there is more to the incident than meets the eye. As she begins to unravel an increasingly complex case, she’s led on a deadly trail where illegal immigration, drugs and ultimately murder threaten not only her beliefs but her life.

Anna Fekete returns to the Balkan village of her birth for a relaxing summer holiday. But when her purse is stolen and the thief is found dead on the banks of the river, Anna is pulled into a murder case. Her investigation leads straight to her own family, to closely guarded secrets concealing a horrendous travesty of justice that threatens them all. How long will it take before everything explodes?

Being a student at Americus High School was the worst experience of Greg Wittkamper's life. Greg came from a nearby Christian commune, Koinonia, whose members devoutly and publicly supported racial equality. When he refused to insult and attack his school's first black students in 1964, Greg was mistreated as badly as they were: harassed and bullied and beaten.

For more than four decades, between 1969 and 2010, the remote former mining town of Trinidad, Colorado, was the unlikely crossroads for approximately 6,000 medical pilgrims who came looking for relief from the pain of gender dysphoria. The surgical skill and nonjudgmental compassion of surgeons Stanley Biber and his transgender protege Marci Bowers made the phrase "going to Trinidad" a euphemism for gender confirmation surgery in the worldwide transgender community.

Winchester, Virginia, is an emblematic American town. As the US economy and American culture have transformed in recent decades, the ground under centuries-old social codes has shifted, throwing old folkways into chaos. Homeplace teases apart the tangle of class, race, and family origin that still defines the town and illuminates questions that now dominate our national conversation - about how we move into the future without pretending our past doesn't exist, about what we salvage, and what we leave behind.

Dufty Dufty Biddle & Dunn is a small firm of provincial solicitors in the English Midland town of Hockham, catering for the legal needs of the local population. No more, no less. Charles Dufty founded the practice fifty years ago, and still acts as a consultant to his son Hugo, the senior resident partner, who has ambitions to expand the firm. The Duftys take on cases which most modern firms wouldn't even look at, yet before you know it the problem is solved.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community's White leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-White classrooms. Meanwhile, Black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.