Donald Trump's election to the U.S. presidency in 2016, which placed control of the government in the hands of the most racially homogenous, far-right political party in the Western world, produced shock and disbelief for liberals, progressives, and leftists globally. Yet most of the immediate analysis neglects longer-term accounting of how the United States arrived here. Race and America's Long War examines the relationship between war, politics, police power, and the changing contours of race and racism in the contemporary United States. Nikhil Pal Singh argues that the United States' pursuit of war since the September 11 terrorist attacks has reanimated a longer history of imperial statecraft that segregated and eliminated enemies both within and overseas. America's territorial expansion and Indian removals, settler in-migration and nativist restriction, and African slavery and its afterlives were formative social and political processes that drove the rise of the United States as a capitalist world power long before the onset of globalization. Spanning the course of U.S. history, these crucial essays show how the return of racism and war as seemingly permanent features of American public and political life is at the heart of our present crisis and collective disorientation.

Donald Trump's election to the U.S. presidency in 2016, which placed control of the government in the hands of the most racially homogenous, far-right political party in the Western world, produced shock and disbelief for liberals, progressives, and leftists globally. Yet most of the immediate analysis neglects longer-term accounting of how the United States arrived here. Race and America's Long War examines the relationship between war, politics, police power, and the changing contours of race and racism in the contemporary United States. Nikhil Pal Singh argues that the United States' pursuit of war since the September 11 terrorist attacks has reanimated a longer history of imperial statecraft that segregated and eliminated enemies both within and overseas. America's territorial expansion and Indian removals, settler in-migration and nativist restriction, and African slavery and its afterlives were formative social and political processes that drove the rise of the United States as a capitalist world power long before the onset of globalization. Spanning the course of U.S. history, these crucial essays show how the return of racism and war as seemingly permanent features of American public and political life is at the heart of our present crisis and collective disorientation.

Stephanie Hinnershitz reveals the unsung legacy of civil rights activism among foreign and American-born Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino students, who formed crucial alliances based on their shared religious affiliations and experiences of discrimination. Using archival sources that bring forth these students' authentic, passionate voices, Race, Religion, and Civil Rights is a testament to the powerful ways they shaped the social, political, and cultural direction of civil rights movements throughout the West Coast, from Californian college campuses to Alaskan canneries. | Author: Stephanie Hinnershitz | Publisher: Rutgers University Press | Publication Date: Sep 01, 2015 | Number of Pages: 256 pages | Language: English | Binding: Hardcover | ISBN-10: 0813571790 | ISBN-13: 9780813571799

Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism\nThe history of modern liberalism has been hotly debated in contemporary politics and the academy. Here, Judith Stein uses the steel industry--long considered fundamental to the U.S. economy--to examine liberal policies and priorities after World War II. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, she argues that it was the primacy of foreign commitments and the outdated economic policies of the state, more than the nation's racial conflicts, that transformed American liberalism from the powerful progressivism of the New Deal to the feeble policies of the 1990s. Stein skillfully integrates a number of narratives usually treated in isolation--labor, civil rights, politics, business, and foreign policy--while underscoring the state's focus on the steel industry and its workers. By showing how those who intervened in the industry treated such economic issues as free trade and the globalization of steel production in isolation from the social issues of the day--most notably civil rights and the implementation of affirmative action--Stein advances a larger argument about postwar liberalism. Liberal attempts to address social inequalities without reference to the fundamental and changing workings of the economy, she says, have led to the foundering of the New Deal state.

Beginning with the birth of the nation, slavery divided and caused conflict for the United States of America, worsening during the country’s early decades as the practice became more economically vital. Finally, in 1861, the American Civil War erupted after the election of President Abraham Lincoln. Never acknowledging the South’s right to secede, Lincoln and the North fought the South through four long, bloody, destructive years; much longer than anyone thought the war would last. Inside you will read about... ? America in the Antebellum Era ? Secession and the First Shots ? Early Battles and the Turning Point: April 1861-July 1863 ? The United States and the Confederacy ? Women and Blacks in the War ? Military Events, 1863-1865: The War Ends ? Reconstruction ? The Legacy of the Civil War By 1865, more than 700,000 American soldiers and civilians were dead (including Lincoln himself), a race of people had been freed from bondage, and an entire country needed to rebuild. The Civil War is of such crucial importance to the history of the United States not just because of these factors, but also because its legacy still lives on. | Author: Hourly History | Publisher: Independently Published | Publication Date: May 14, 2019 | Number of Pages: 45 pages | Language: English | Binding: Paperback | ISBN-10: 1098674138 | ISBN-13: 9781098674137

Book Synopsis Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siècle progressivist social reformers to post-war sociologists, character, that curiously formable yet equally formidable "stuff," has had a long and checkered history giving shape to the American national identity. Bodies of Reform reconceives this pivotal category of nineteenth-century literature and culture by charting the development of the concept of "character" in the fictional genres, social reform movements, and political cultures of the United States from the mid-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century. By reading novelists such as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman alongside a diverse collection of texts concerned with the mission of building character, including child-rearing guides, muscle-building magazines, libel and naturalization law, Scout handbooks, and success manuals, James B. Salazar uncovers how the cultural practices of representing character operated in tandem with the character-building strategies of social reformers. His innovative reading of this archive offers a radical revision of this defining category in U.S. literature and culture, arguing that character was the keystone of a cultural politics of embodiment, a politics that played a critical role in determining-and contesting-the social mobility, political authority, and cultural meaning of the raced and gendered body. Review Quotes "[Salazar] ably integrates an impressive array of materials into his readings."-- "New England Quarterly""A comprehensive and original study of the various ways the rhetoric of character appeared in American culture."--Debra Bernardi "American Literary Realism""Dense and thought-provoking."--J.J. Benardete "Choice""James Salazar takes the term & characterpervasive and elusiveand accounts for its centrality by showing how it embodies the contradictions of modern America. In a series of intricate literary readings, he analyzes the ways in which the late-nineteenth-century obsession with building & character vivified social distinctions but also, in its instabilities, became the pivot for critique."--Samuel Otter, University of California, Berkeley"Salazar's splendid study gives this term a cultural history, and in the process shows how the rhetoric of character has profound effects on what we do from child-rearing, to physical exercise, to racial exclusion, to immigrant inclusion, and the contours of democratic citizenship itself."--Karen Sánchez-Eppler, Amherst College"This detailed and carefully argued book charts the development of character...drawing on a rich archive of primary sources."--William Gleason "The Journal of American History"

\"Written with an effortless command of history and language, \"Man o' War\" frees thoroughbred racing's greatest icon from nearly a century of mythology and mystery . . . A riveting work, researched meticulously and told brilliantly.\"--Laura Hillenbrand, \"Seabiscuit.\" 16-page photo insert.\nDorothy Ours's Man o' War: A Legend Like Lightning tells the fascinating true story of one of the greatest racehorses who ever lived. His trainer said that managing him was like holding a tiger by the tail. His owner compared him to chain lightning. His jockeys found their lives transformed by him, in triumphant and distressing ways. All of them became caught in a battle for honesty. Born in 1917, Man o' War grew from a rebellious youngster into perhaps the greatest racehorse of all time. He set such astonishing speed records that The New York Times called him a Speed Miracle. Often he won with so much energy in reserve that experts wondered how much faster he could have gone. Over the years, this and other mysteries would envelop the great Man o' War. The truth remained problematic. Even as Man o' War--known as Big Red--came to power, attracting record crowds and rave publicity, the colorful sport of Thoroughbred racing struggled for integrity. His lone defeat, suffered a few weeks before gamblers fixed the 1919 World Series, spawned lasting rumors that he, too, had been the victim of a fix. Tackling old beliefs with newly uncovered evidence, Man o' War: A Legend Like Lightning shows how human pressures collided with a natural phenomenon and brings new life to an American icon. The genuine courage of Man o' War, tribulations of his archrival, Sir Barton (America's first Triple Crown winner), and temptations of their Hall of Fame jockeys and trainers reveal a long-hidden tale of grace, disgrace, and elusive redemption.

During World War I, thousands of rural southern men, black and white, refused to serve in the military. Some failed to register for the draft, while others deserted after being inducted. In the countryside, armed bands of deserters defied local authorities; capturing them required the dispatch of federal troops into three southern states. Jeanette Keith traces southern draft resistance to several sources, including whites' long-term political opposition to militarism, southern blacks' reluctance to serve a nation that refused to respect their rights, the peace witness of southern churches, and, above all, anger at class bias in federal conscription policies. Keith shows how draft dodgers' success in avoiding service resulted from the failure of southern states to create effective mechanisms for identifying and classifying individuals. Lacking local-level data on draft evaders, the federal government used agencies of surveillance both to find reluctant conscripts and to squelch antiwar dissent in rural areas. Drawing upon rarely used local draft board reports, Selective Service archives, Bureau of Investigation reports, and southern political leaders' constituent files, Keith offers new insights into rural southern politics and society as well as the growing power of the nation-state in early twentieth-century America.

The United States has the world's largest prison population, with more than two million behind bars. Alexander says this is mainly due to America's 'war on drugs, ' launched in 1982. In The New Jim Crow, she explains how this government initiative has led to America's black citizens being imprisoned on a colossal scale. She compares this mass detention--with black men up to 50 times more likely to be jailed than white men--to the Jim Crow era segregation that once pervaded the American South. Though the Civil Rights Movement supposedly ended segregation in the early 1960s, the war on drugs opened the door to a new racial caste system. | Author: Ryan Moore | Publisher: Macat Library | Publication Date: Jul 05, 2017 | Number of Pages: 100 pages | Language: English | Binding: Paperback | ISBN-10: 191212887X | ISBN-13: 9781912128877

About the Book "An oral history about Japanese internment during World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, from the perspective of children and young people affected"-- Book Synopsis Four starred reviews! A Kirkus Reviews Best YA Nonfiction of 2021 In this "riveting and indispensable" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) narrative history of Japanese Americans before, during, and after their World War II incarceration, Susan H. Kamei weaves together the voices of over 130 individuals who lived through this tragic episode, most of them as young adults.It's difficult to believe it happened here, in the Land of the Free: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States government forcibly removed more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast and imprisoned them in desolate detention camps until the end of World War II just because of their race. In what Secretary Norman Y. Mineta describes as a "landmark book," he and others who lived through this harrowing experience tell the story of their incarceration and the long-term impact of this dark period in American history. For the first time, why and how these tragic events took place are interwoven with more than 130 individual voices of those who were unconstitutionally incarcerated, many of them children and young adults. Now more than ever, their words will resonate with readers who are confronting questions about racial identity, immigration, and citizenship, and what it means to be an American. Review Quotes Kamei, a lawyer instrumental in achieving redress for those incarcerated following Executive Order 9066, seamlessly combines dozens of personal narratives with detailed historical research. These stories, drawn mostly from works in the public domain, are presented in this volume that covers the bombing of Pearl Harbor through to the redress movement, the 1983 congressional commission findings, and former President Donald Trump's 2017 executive orders restricting travel from many predominantly Muslim countries. The author provides a framework for understanding the lead-up to the decision to intern so-called enemy aliens, along with about 72,000 American citizens of Japanese descent. From there, she shares their harrowing journey to barren desert camps, the harsh realities of life behind barbed-wire fences, and their eventual release during a time when anti-Japanese sentiments still ran high. The use of direct quotes from internees-many of them children and young adults-adds remarkable emotional weight. Many lives were ruined as people's dreams and life goals were crushed, and readers will viscerally connect with their endurance and marvel at how many still maintained faith in the democratic system. The message of awareness of this past injustice and its connection to standing in solidarity with others who face injustice is a compelling theme of this riveting and indispensable work. This landmark historical account shines a light on a part of American history that must be remembered. (author's note, centers and camps, timeline, glossary, abbreviations, contributor notes, sources, excerpt permissions, resources, index) About the Author Susan H. Kamei received her JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. She teaches at the University of Southern California on the legal ramifications of the incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II and how they apply to constitutional issues, civil liberties, and national security considerations today. Norman Y. Mineta and his family spent the years during World War II incarcerated at the Santa Anita Assembly Center and the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. He served the city of San Jose, California, from 1967 to 1974 as a city council member and as its mayor, and went on to represent California's Thirteenth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives from 1974 to 1995. As a member of Congress, Mineta served as chairman of the US House Committee on Public Works and Transportation from 1992 to 1994 and chaired the subcommittees on aviation and surface transportation. In 2000, President Bill Clinton appointed Mineta as US Secretary of Commerce, making him the first Asian American to become a member of a presidential cabinet. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him as US Secretary of Transportation, where he served until 2006. The numerous awards he has received in recognition of his leadership include the Presidential Medal of Freedom--the highest civilian honor in the United States--and the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, awarded for significant public service of enduring value to aviation in the United States. His many civic roles include serving as the chairman of the board of trustees of the Japanese American National Museum.

This volume sheds light on the public intellectual careers and educational contributions of eight distinguished anthropologists, who span the discipline's history to date.\nVisionary Observers explores the relationship between anthropology and public policy, examining the careers of nine twentieth-century American anthropologists who made important contributions to debates about race, ethnicity, socialization, and education. Included are Franz Boas, the founder of American anthropology; Ruth Benedict, who analyzed modern societies during and after World War II; Margaret Mead, anthropology's most recognized public educator; Gene Weltfish, whose \"pragmatic anthropology\" positioned education at the core of culture; Hortense Powdermaker, whose fieldwork embraced Black America, Hollywood, and the Pacific; Solon Kimball, who studied the impact of desegregation; Ruth Landes, who adopted a cultural approach to educating teachers; Jules Henry, who analyzed the institutional consequences of imposing middle-class culture; and Eleanor Leacock, who pioneered \"advocacy anthropology.\" The questions they asked-about culture and human behavior, democracy and inequality, and systemic function and disjunction-and the dilemmas they faced as citizen-scientists are recurrent ones. The topics they addressed illustrate how the lens of American anthropology has long been focused on domestic issues. Through its emphasis on anthropologists as practitioners as well as theorists, this anthology adds a new dimension to the history and development of anthropology in the United States. Jill B. R. Cherneff is a research scholar at the Center for the Study of Women at the University of California at Los Angeles. Eve Hochwald is the principal of Action Research, an educational consulting practice. Sydel Silverman is professor emerita at City University of New York and former president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The contributors to this volume include Jill B. R. Cherneff, Regna Darnell, Richard Handler, Eve Hochwald, Ray McDermott, Alexander Moore, Juliet Niehaus, and Virginia Young.

At first glance, it may be difficult to accept that race and racism play a major role, whether conscious or subconscious, in policymaking. But leaders are products of their upbringing and era, and even some of America's best-educated presidents and secretaries of state have been slave owners, segregationists, or bigots. Some belong to America's distant past, but it was not so long ago that the civil rights movement began to correct America's troubled race relations. While race has rarely served as the primary motivating factor in America's foreign policies, Michael Krenn shows that it has functioned as both a powerful justification for U.S. actions abroad and a significant influence on their shape, direction, and intensity. Portraying nonwhite races as inferior allowed U.S. policymakers to rationalize territorial expansion at the expense of Native Americans and Mexico, to demonize the enemy in wars fought against Filipino insurgents and Japanese soldiers, and to justify intervention in developing nations. Racism made America's leaders soft on European colonialism, and U.S. racial segregation laws were an obstacle to winning hearts and minds in the developing world during the Cold War. Race plays a more subtle role in U.S. foreign relations today, but speeches about turning the war on terror into a crusade, the abuse of detainees in military prisons, and apathy toward genocide in Darfur can be explained, in part, by prejudice. The Color of Empire challenges readers to recognize that American perceptions and prejudices about race have influenced the conduct of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial era to the present. This concise survey is an excellent introduction to the topic for both students and general readers.

Contains adult content. A man who goes by the name Adam - born and raised in the southern United States of America in 1843 when slavery and racial discrimination were traditions. As he lives his long, lonely life, from one war to the next; cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs; he shows anger and violence to others and himself. He cannot escape the terrible deeds he has committed as they continue to catch up with him. He becomes unexpectedly enamoured with New York, jazz music, and a woman whose race he used to hate. He goes to reunite with an old friend as he, finally, needs to tell his secret. Time is always moving forward - years, decades, and centuries. His name is William, and he cannot die. James Wallace Bowey was born in 1993. He is the only son, and the youngest of four. James was a shy and timid child growing up. He found it extremely difficult to engage in conversation with new people. He could, however, talk to himself for hours at a time, finding it the safest way to have a conversation. Going through school to college and other occupations, he was able to improve his confidence in talking to others. Writing was never a path James would have thought to go down. Yet having a slightly uncontrollable imagination, it seemed the perfect platform to share his thoughts. What started as a hobby for the first two years, became an obsession over the next two, and something he had to see through. He was able to find out a few things about himself along the way.

Title: The Great Gatsby By: F. Scott Fitzgerald Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 192 Vendor: Penguin Classics Publication Date: 2021 Dimensions: 8.4 X 5.6 (inches) Weight: 9 ounces ISBN: 0143136127 ISBN-13: 9780143136125 Series: Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Stock No: WW3136125

A must-have new edition of one of the great American novels--and one of America's most popular--featuring a new introduction by Min Jin Lee, the New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko, and a striking new cover that brings the quintessential novel of the Roaring Twenties into the 2020s A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Young, handsome, and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby seems to have everything. But at his mansion east of New York City, in West Egg, Long Island, where the party never seems to end, he's often alone in the glittering Jazz Age crowd, watching and waiting, as speculation swirls around him--that he's a bootlegger, that he was a German spy during the war, that he even killed a man. As writer Nick Carraway is drawn into this decadent orbit, he begins to see beneath the shimmering surface of the enigmatic Gatsby, for whom one thing will always be out of reach: Nick's cousin, the married Daisy Buchanan, whose house is visible from Gatsby's just across the bay. A brilliant evocation of the Roaring Twenties and a satire of a postwar America obsessed with wealth and status, The Great Gatsby is a novel whose power remains undiminished after a century. This edition, based on scholarship dating back to the novel's first publication in 1925, restores Fitzgerald's masterpiece to the original American classic he envisioned, and features an introduction addressing how gender, race, class, and sexuality complicate the pursuit of the American Dream. | Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Philip Mcgowan | Publisher: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: January 05, 2021 | Number of Pages: 240 pages | Language: English | Binding: Paperback | ISBN-10: 0143136127 | ISBN-13: 9780143136125

About the Book An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law Book Synopsis WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTON ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWS' 10 BEST BOOKSLONG-LISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST, CURRENT INTEREST CATEGORY, LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZES "Locking Up Our Own is an engaging, insightful, and provocative reexamination of over-incarceration in the black community. James Forman Jr. carefully exposes the complexities of crime, criminal justice, and race. What he illuminates should not be ignored." --Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative "A beautiful book, written so well, that gives us the origins and consequences of where we are . . . I can see why [the Pulitzer prize] was awarded." --Trevor Noah, The Daily ShowFormer public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in the nation's urban centers. Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness--and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. A former D.C. public defender, Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He writes with compassion about individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas--from the men and women he represented in court to officials struggling to respond to a public safety emergency. Locking Up Our Own enriches our understanding of why our society became so punitive and offers important lessons to anyone concerned about the future of race and the criminal justice system in this country. Review Quotes A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A GQ Book of the Year A Washington Post D.C. Area Bestseller"Timely . . . A masterly account of how a generation of black elected officials wrestled with recurring crises of violence and drug use in the nation's capital . . . A big deal and a major breakthrough . . . Forman's novel claim is this: What most explains the punitive turn in black America is not a repudiation of civil rights activism, as some have argued, but an embrace of it . . . " --Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The New York Times Book Review "Superb and shattering . . . 'How did a majority -black jurisdiction end up incarcerating so many of its own?' This is the exceptionally delicate question that [Forman] tries to answer, with exemplary nuance, over the course of his book. His approach is compassionate . . . The effect, for the reader, is devastating." --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times "Remarkable . . . Forman's beautifully written narrative, enriched by firsthand knowledge of the cops and courts, neither condemns black leaders in hindsight nor exonerates the white-dominated institutions . . . He adds historical nuance to the story of 'mass incarceration' told in . . . The New Jim Crow." --Charles Lane, The Washington Post "Forman's book is brave, offering a nuanced examination of how black communities and their elected representatives wrestled with rising violence and drug addiction; how they came to embrace a war on drugs and aggressive policing tactics years before Reagan's war or the advent of broken windows policing; and how they came to eventually regret the surveillance, forfeiture, and criminal records they helped create . . . Forman's book is a compelling example of how to do local history . . . [A] richly detailed account . . . Incredibly powerful and well-researched . . . Forman is masterful." --Vesla M. Weaver, The Boston Review "Surprising . . . [Forman's] moving, nuanced, and candid account challenges another aspect of the 'New Jim Crow' thesis. He shows that some of the most ardent proponents of tough-on-crime policies in the era that brought us mass incarceration were black politicians and community leaders--many of whom were veterans of the civil rights movement . . . The correctives offered by Forman . . . have consequences not only for how we understand mass incarceration, but for how we go about fixing it." --David Cole, The New York Review of Books "An honest and balanced book . . . Locking Up Our Own doesn't play down the history of racism in our criminal-justice system, but it does explain why racial bias doesn't tell the whole story . . . If we are going to have national 'conversations' about race in the U.S., a book like Locking Up Our Own ought to set the tone. If it did, these debates would be not only more honest but also more civil." --Jason L. Riley, The Wall Street Journal "Revelatory . . . As Forman reminds his readers, black people have long been vigilant, often to no avail, about two kinds of equality enshrined in our nation's ideals: equal protection of the law, and equal justice under the law . . . Locking Up Our Own is a well-timed, nuanced examination of the past . . . [and] makes a powerful case that the African American community was instrumental in creating a monster. We should be grateful that the same community . . . is leading the fight to take the monster down." --Paul Butler, The Atlantic "Poignant and insightful . . . Forman deftly moves between . . . examples of black community support for a law-and-order crackdown and the dire present-day consequences of our increasingly punitive and aggressive war on crime . . . Timely and important." --Richard Thompson Ford, San Francisco Chronicle "Eloquent . . . A gritty, often revelatory work of local history, interspersed with tales of Forman's experiences as a public defender . . . Locking Up Our Own is a sobering chronicle of how black people, in the hope of saving their communities, contributed to the rise of a system that has undone much of the progress of the civil rights era. But, as Forman knows, they could not have built it by themselves, and they are even less likely to be able to abolish it without influential white allies, and dramatic reforms in the structure of American society." --Adam Shatz, London Review of Books"Tightly argued and compellingly readable . . . Forman is ideally suited to tell this tale . . . [and] the story he tells is nuanced . . . Locking Up Our Own is a major contribution to the literature on mass incarceration." --Matt Wasserman, The Indypendent "A breakthrough . . . very engaging and lucidly written." --Andy Martin, The Independent (London) "[Forman] offers an insightful history of black American leaders and their struggle to keep their communities safe from police and criminals alike . . . From both these personal experiences and the history that helped shape them, Forman uncovers the black community's role in waging wars on crime and drugs." --Matt Ford, The Atlantic"Nuanced and insightful . . . Locking Up Our Own relentlessly explores the startling paradox that punitive measures today considered discriminatory were initially supported in the black community on the grounds of self-protection." --Owen Hamill, Seattle Book Review"[Locking Up Our Own] mirrors a Greek tragedy of national proportions in its notes of dramatic irony . . . But there also runs a deeper seam in Forman's examination of crime and race in America, one of great compassion . . . An important book for this era of reanimated black awareness." --Brandon Tensley, Pacific Standard "The big spring book to argue about . . . Forman can catalogue more dysfunctional systems at close range than The Wire did." --Boris Kachka, Vulture "A sharp analysis . . . Forman shows how our nation has gotten to the point where so many citizens--primarily blacks--are imprisoned . . . Writing with authority and compassion, the author tells many vivid stories of the human toll taken by harsh criminal justice policies. He also asks provocative questions . . . Certain to stir debate, this book offers an important new perspective on the ongoing proliferation of America's 'punishment binge.'" --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Forman's comprehensive research and analysis, as well as his compassion and personal experiences, make Locking Up Our Own a powerfully important and accessible glimpse at the U.S.'s punitive criminal justice system." --Jen Forbus, Shelf Awareness "James Forman Jr. masterfully explores why so many African Americans supported tough criminal laws over the past fifty years, and why, more recently, their attitudes began to shift. Combining dramatic stories from his work as a public defender with original historical research, Forman uncovers mass incarceration's hidden history while documenting its human cost. Beautifully written, powerfully argued, and, most of all, deeply empathetic, Locking Up Our Own should be read by everybody who cares about race and justice in America." --Van Jones, author of The Green-Collar Economy and Rebuild the Dream "An absolutely essential read for anyone who wants to understand the politics of crime, race, and incarceration."--Chris Hayes, host of All In with Chris Hayes and author of A Colony in a Nation "Locking Up Our Own is an engaging, insightful, and provocative reexamination of over-incarceration in the black community. James Forman Jr. carefully exposes the complexities of crime, criminal justice, and race. What he illuminates should not be ignored." --Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative "James Forman Jr