As the environment heats up and authoritarianism is on the rise, dgivide and conquer has been a very effective technique to keep people from organizing for political or economic change. In her book Common Ground Eileen Flanagan explores how we can come together in spite of difference in race, class and religion.

Homelessness is visible in every city in the United States but the number of people on the streets is just the tip of the iceberg according to journalist and anthropologist Brian

Goldstone. In his new book, There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America , he follows families in Atlanta as they struggle to stay housed. The combination of low wages, skyrocketing housing costs and lax government regulations bear down on working families. Goldstone looks at the causes, magnitude and consequences of the problem with portraits of families who are left off the official statistics because they sleep in cars or squalid extended stay hotels.

Universal education was envisioned as a great equalizer that would fuel a meritocracy. But like so many American ideals it has been tainted by slavery and the Native genocide. Native boarding schools were founded with the goal of eradicating Native culture. Schools set up during Reconstruction taught the newly freed slaves that obedience would be rewarded and any attempts at retribution were forbidden. In her book Original Sins: The Miseducation of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism Eve L. Ewing looks at how the current education system has been shaped by its history.