Social Civics

We are a nation of immigrants, never more than now. In recent decades, the numbers have skyrocketed, thanks to people coming from many continents—especially Asia, Africa, and South America. Just like their predecessors, they face countless obstacles, including political hatred. And yet, just like their predecessors, they work hard. They persist. And they become us. Veteran journalist, broadcaster, and interviewer Ray Suarez has crisscrossed the country to speak to new Americans from all corners of the globe, and to record their stories.

More citizen involvement is needed in our government processes to ensure the voices of the people are heard over the money of paid lobbyists, unions, and coalitions, both in Washington, DC, and in state capitals across the country. Too often our public officials seem removed from the people who hired them to be their representatives and fail to work on their behalf.

Generations of Americans have regarded schools as essential for developing the knowledge and civic values necessary for sustaining democracy. Yet, as Matthew D. Nelsen argues in The Color of Civics, traditional approaches to civic education are not living up to their promise for many students, particularly students of color from disadvantaged communities. Drawing on lessons from students and teachers in Chicago, The Color of Civics reimagines the democratic purpose of civic education.

Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico. Yet he has come under partisan fire for applying those same principles to Donald Trump during the course of his many appearances in national media outlets as an expert resource on civil and constitutional law. The Case Against Impeaching Trump seeks to reorient the debate over impeachment to the same standard that Dershowitz has continued to uphold for decades: the law of the United States of America, as established by the Constitution.

From the Women's March in DC to #BlackLivesMatter rallies across the country, there has been a rising wave of protests and social activism. These events have been an important part of the battle to combat racism, authoritarianism, and xenophobia in Trump's America. However, the struggle for social justice continues long after the posters and megaphones have been packed away. After the protests are heard, how can we continue to work toward lasting change?

What does it mean to be an engaged American in today's divided political landscape, and how do we restore hope in our country? In a collection of "civic sermons" delivered at gatherings around the nation, popular advocate for active citizenship Eric Liu takes on these thorny questions and provides inspiration and solace in a time of anger, fear, and dismay over the state of the Union. Here are 19 stirring explorations of current and timeless topics about democracy, liberty, equal justice, and powerful citizenship.

Many of us are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy, our privacy, and our hard-won civil rights. If you're Black in the US, this is not new. As Colorlines editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin show, Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In this audiobook, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight white supremacy. It's a must-listen for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.

Americans are distraught as tightly held economic and political power drowns out their voices and values. Legendary Diet for a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappé and organizer-scholar Adam Eichen offer a fresh, surprising response to this core crisis. This intergenerational duo opens with an essential truth: It's not the magnitude of a challenge that crushes the human spirit. It's feeling powerless - in this case, fearing that to stand up for democracy is futile. It's not, Lappé and Eichen argue.

Exploring the full sweep of federalism from the founding to today, Kettl focuses on pivotal moments when power has shifted between state and national governments - from the violent rebalancing of the Civil War, when the nation almost split in two, to the era of civil rights a century later, when there was apparent agreement that inequality was a threat to liberty and the federal government should set policies for states to enact. Despite this consensus, inequality between states has only deepened since that moment.

The idea and practice of civility has always been wielded to silence dissent, repress political participation, and justify violence upon people of color. Although many progressives today are told that we need to be more polite and thoughtful, less rancorous and angry when we talk about race in America, civility maintains rather than disrupts racial injustice.

During his years as a public official, Mitchell Weiss was told that government can't do new things or solve tough challenges - it's too big and slow and bureaucratic. Sadly, this is what so many of us have come to believe. But in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, he and his city hall colleagues raced to support survivors in new, innovative ways. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit and savvy in government is growing, transforming the public sector's response to big problems at all levels.

In this sweeping and provocative work, political economist William Davies draws on a 400-year history of ideas to reframe our understanding of the contemporary world. He argues that global trends decades and even centuries in the making have reduced a world of logic and fact into one driven by emotions - particularly fear and anxiety. This has ushered in an age of "nervous states", both in our individual bodies and our body politic.

On a tranquil summer night in July 2012, a trio of elderly peace activists infiltrated the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Nicknamed the "Fort Knox of Uranium", Y-12 was reputedly one of the most secure nuclear weapons facilities in the world, a bastion of warhead parts that harbored hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium - enough to power thousands of nuclear bombs. The activists - a house painter, a Vietnam war veteran, and an 82-year-old Catholic nun - penetrated the complex's exterior with alarming ease.

From rediscovering an ancestral village in China to experiencing the realities of American life as a Nigerian, the search for belonging crosses borders and generations. Selected from the archives of Catapult magazine, the essays in A Map Is Only One Story highlight the human side of immigration policies and polarized rhetoric, as 20 writers share provocative personal stories of existing between languages and cultures.

The biggest “tragedy of the commons” is the misconception that commons are failures - relics from another era rendered unnecessary by the market and state. Think Like a Commoner dispels such prejudices by explaining the rich history and promising future of the commons - an ageless paradigm of cooperation and fairness that is re-making our world.

Legal luminary Burt Neuborne argues that the structure of the First Amendment as well as of the entire Bill of Rights was more intentional than most people realize, beginning with the internal freedom of conscience and working outward to freedom of expression and finally freedom of public association. This design, Neuborne argues, was not to protect discrete individual rights - such as the rights of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

The "boiling frog" is a metaphor for a society that has been lulled to sleep while perilous forces and corrupt leaders have endangered the world. We stand at an unprecedented crossroads in human history, where the choices and actions we take regarding climate change, income inequality, and technological innovations can either save or sink us as a species.

In the 2018 best seller The Case Against Impeaching Trump, Alan Dershowitz lamented how American political discourse has devolved into hypocrisy and the criminalization of political differences. Arguments to impeach Trump failed Dershowitz’s “shoe on the other foot test”, or his political golden rule: Democrats must do unto Republicans what they would have Republicans do unto them, and vice versa. Since then, we’ve only become more divided. The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump includes and expands upon Dershowitz’s 2018 book.

Almost 250 years ago, our Founders thought We the People were the solution. Today, it looks like we have become the problem. What happened, and what can We the People do about it? Every day, the news delivers the same story: as a nation, we are so divided, we spend more time picking fights than solving our most urgent problems. It’s exhausting and exasperating. In Remaking the Space Between Us, Smith invites us to see what lies behind this story: a growing trend in which more and more of us are seeking refuge in like-minded groups while distancing from groups different from our own.

In austerity Britain, disabled people have become the favourite target. From social care to the benefits system, politicians and media alike have made the case that Britain's 12 million disabled people are a drain on the public purse. In Crippled, leading commentator Frances Ryan exposes the disturbing reality, telling the story of those most affected by this devastating regime. This includes a paralysed man forced to crawl down the stairs because the council wouldn't provide accessible housing and the young girl with bipolar forced to turn to sex work to survive.