Urban Politics

In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his prize-winning books Rachel and Her Children and Amazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood. For nearly 50 years Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation.

Our planet is suffering from serious environmental problems: coastal flooding due to severe storms caused in part by atmospheric pollution, diminishing natural resources such as clean water, and so on. But while these problems plague planet Earth, two-thirds of our globe is ocean. The seas can be home to pioneers, seasteaders, who are willing to homestead the Blue Frontier. Oil platforms and cruise ships already inhabit the waters; now it's time to take the next step to full-fledged ocean civilizations.

In 2010 former gang leader turned community activist Big Mike Cummings asked UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap to co-lead a group of men struggling to be better fathers in Watts, South Los Angeles. These men, black and brown, from late adolescence to middle age, come together each week to help one another answer the question "how can I be a good father when I've never had one?"

On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers?

Black women have higher rates of premature birth than other women in America. This cannot be simply explained by economic factors, with poorer women lacking resources or access to care. Even professional, middle-class Black women are at a much higher risk of premature birth than low-income White women in the United States. Dána-Ain Davis looks into this phenomenon, placing racial differences in birth outcomes into a historical context, revealing that ideas about reproduction and race today have been influenced by the legacy of ideas which developed during the era of slavery.

Author Thomas Healy resurrects a forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality in this fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”.

"Vieles in seinem Leben hätte anders sein können, wenn er andere Entscheidungen getroffen hätte. Falls nicht ohnehin schon alles von vornherein feststand." So räsoniert der serbische Auftragskiller Vuk, der für den Balkankrieg zu einer hoch spezialisierten Kampfmaschine ausgebildet wurde. Vuk soll für die iranischen Mullahs eine ungeliebte und mit der Fatwa belegte Schriftstellerin während einer Pressekonferenz töten, nachdem der grausame Krieg auf dem Balkan sich dem Ende zuneigt.

Der Guerilla-Kämpfer Vuk, ein bosnischer Serbe, hat unter dem Namen John Ericsson in Amerika eine neue Heimat gefunden. Doch unmittelbar nach dem 11. September 2001 fliegt seine falsche Identität auf. Da ihm wichtige al-Qaida-Mitglieder bekannt sind, wird er von der CIA angeheuert. Auch in Kopenhagen wird mit Hochdruck nach Terroristen gefahndet. Per Toftlund - Vuks früherer Gegenspieler - steht einer zu diesem Zweck gebildeten Task-Force vor, der auch die schöne Palästinenserin Aischa angehört.

Ein authentischer Polit-Thriller mit höchstem Spannungsfaktor: Kurz nach den Terrorangriffen von 9/11 kreuzen sich auf der Suche nach einem gefährlichen Dschihad-Kämpfer erneut die Wege zwischen den früheren Gegenspielern Vuk, einem bosnischen Serben, der einst als Auftragskiller gearbeitet hat, und dem dänischen Polizisten Per Toftlund. Vuk ist mittlerweile im Auftrag der CIA unterwegs, während Toftlund die dänische Task-Force beim Kampf gegen den Terror anführt. Eine spannende Jagd beginnt.

Berlin 1989: David Hasselhoff (Erzähler) ist für seine "Looking for Freedom"-Tour in Berlin. Ebenfalls in der Stadt ist CIA-Agent Nick Harper, der David zum Verwechseln ähnlich sieht. Er soll Stasi-General Hoedel finden, bevor dieser den Mauerfall verhindern kann. Doch kurz nach dem Grenzübertritt wird Nick von Stasi-Agenten überrascht und entkommt nur, weil ihn Hasselhoff-Fan Hildy, die ihn für ihr großes Idol hält, stolz in ihrem Trabi mit nach Hause nimmt. Parallel dazu wird der echte David Hasselhoff von CIA-Agentin Greta mit Nick Harper verwechselt.

In his preface to this reissue of the 1990 book, Challenging the Boundaries of Reform, W. J. Conroy reflects on the recent legacy of Bernie Sanders, his agenda for America, and his appeal to young voters. His audiobook then looks back to identify Sanders’ experience in Burlington by examining several case studies that unfolded amid a conservative trend nationally, an unsympathetic state government, and a hostile city council.

Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.

Forty years ago in China, marriage was universal, compulsory, and a woman's only means to a livelihood. Enter the one-child policy, which despite its horrors, resulted in China's first generations of urban only-daughters - girls who were raised without brothers and pushed to study, achieve, and succeed as if they were sons. Fast forward to the present, where in an urbanized economic powerhouse, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage - or not marry at all - to spawn a label: "leftovers". Unprecedentedly well-educated and goal-oriented, they struggle to find partners.

Baltimore is the setting for (and typifies) one of the most penetrating examinations of bigotry and residential segregation ever published in the United States. Antero Pietila shows how continued discrimination practices toward African Americans and Jews have shaped the cities in which we now live. Eugenics, racial thinking, and white supremacist attitudes influenced even the federal government's actions toward housing in the 20th century, dooming American cities to ghettoization.

Serial killer Neva has been conditioned not to ask questions of the mysterious Network, to remain perfectly incurious and perennially cold-blooded. She must simply execute the targets they text her and live to bury the tale. But then she’s tasked with terminating a fellow assassin and glimpses her own future in her colleague’s fate. When she leaves flowers on the gravesite, someone notices.

After smartphones, smart TVs, smart windows, and other smart products on the horizon, smart cities were the next logical step in trying to create a better, brighter, more sustainable, and economically sound future. A relatively new term, smart cities conjures images of a cooperative, wired, prosperous utopia where citizens of all classes achieve a high quality of life. In this audiobook, we look at the qualities needed for future cities to survive and thrive.

No two days were ever the same for bobby-on-the-beat Martyn Johnson. Come rain or come shine, he patrolled his patch with a sharp eye for troublemakers and a kind word for those in need of a friend. Whether he was pursuing unlikely coal thieves, tracking down peacocks gone AWOL or investigating mysterious flying saucers over Sheffield, PC Johnson faced every new challenge with a smile and a healthy dose of his copper's common sense. In his charming and funny memoir, Martyn Johnson recalls his life on the beat.

White Americans have long been comfortable in the assumption that they are the cultural norm. Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation’s diverse cultural reality, a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a Black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.

Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parents—and finding community in each other.

This Very Short Introduction recounts the history of American culture and its creation by diverse social and ethnic groups. In doing so, it emphasizes the historic role of culture in relation to broader social, political, and economic developments. Across the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as language, region, and religion, diverse Americans have forged a national culture with a global reach, inventing stories that have shaped a national identity and an American way of life.