The newest book by Joel Berg--an internationally recognized leader and media spokesman in the fields of hunger, poverty, food systems, and U.S. politics, and the director of Hunger Free America--America We Need to Talk: A Self-Help Book for the Nation is both a parody of relationship and self-help books and a serious analysis of the nation's political and economic dysfunction. Explaining that the most serious--and most broken--relationship is the one between us, as Americans, and our nation, the book explains how, no matter who becomes our next president, average Joes can channel their anger at our hobbled system into concrete actions that will fix our democracy, rebuild our middle class, and restore our stature in the world as a beacon of freedom and hope. Starting with the belief that it's irresponsible for Americans to blame the nation's problems solely on "the politicians" or "the system," Joel makes a case for how it's the personal responsibility of every resident of this country to fix it. The American people are in a relationship with their government and their society, and, as in all relationships, it's the responsibility of both sides to recognize and repair their problems.

What is a religion? That is the question that Richard Kent Evans attempts to answer in this book. He does so through the story of MOVE, a little-known group with a fascinating story. MOVE emerged in Philadelphia in the early 1970s. It was a small, mostly African American group devoted to the teachings of John Africa. In 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department -- working in concert with federal and state law enforcement -- attacked a home that "MOVE people" as they preferred to be known, shared in West Philadelphia. Hundreds of police officers and firefighters laid siege to the building using tear gas, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, and improvised explosives. Most infamously, a police officer riding in a helicopter dropped a bomb containing C-4 explosives, which he had acquired from the FBI, onto the roof of the MOVE house. The bomb started a fire, which officials allowed to spread in hopes of chasing the MOVE people out of the house. Police officers fired upon those who tried to escape the flames. Eleven MOVE people died in the attack, including John Africa. Five of those who died were children. In this book, Richard Kent Evans tells the story of MOVE -- a story that has been virtually lost outside of Philadelphia. What was MOVE? Many MOVE members thought of themselves as belonging to a religion, and they sought legal recognition. But to others, including other religious groups like the Quakers and, more importantly, the courts, MOVE was anything but a religion. Evans dives deep into how we decide what constitutes a genuine religious tradition, and the enormous consequences of that decision.

In the 1980s, America witnessed an explosion in the production, popularity, and influence of literary works by people of color and a decade-long economic downturn that severely affected America's inner cities and the already disadvantaged communities of color that lived there. Marked by soaring levels of unemployment, homelessness, violence, drug abuse, and despair, this urban crisis gave the lie to the American dream, particularly when contrasted with the success enjoyed by the era's iconic stockbrokers and other privileged groups, whose fortunes increased dramatically under Reaganomics. In Urban Triage, James Kyung-Jin Lee explores how these parallel trends of literary celebration and social misery manifested themselves in fictional narratives of racial anxiety by focusing on four key works: Alejandro Morales's The Brick People, John Edgar Wideman's Philadelphia Fire, Hisaye Yamamoto's "A Fire in Fontana," and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities. Each of these fictions, he finds, addresses the decade's racial, ethnic, and economic inequities from differing perspectives: Morales's revisions of Chicano identity, Yamamoto's troubled invocation of the affinities between African Americans and Asian Americans, the problematic connections between black intellectuals and the black community aired by Wideman, and Wolfe's satirization of white privilege. Drawing on the fields of literary criticism, public policy, sociology, and journalism, Lee deftly assesses the success with which these multicultural fictions engaged in the debates over these issues and the extent to which they may actually have alienated the very communities that their creators purported to represent. Challenging boththe uncritical celebration of abstract multiculturalism and its simpleminded vilification, Lee roots Urban Triage in specific instances of multiracial contact and deeply informed readings of works that have been canonized within ethnic studies and of those that either remain misunderstood or were misguided from the start. James Kyung-Jin Lee is assistant professor of English and Asian American studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

This landmark exposé of the dark history of repressive police operations in American cities offers a richly detailed account of police misconduct and violations of protected freedoms over the past century. In an incisive examination of undercover work in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia as well as Washington, D.C., Detroit, New Haven, Baltimore, and Birmingham, Donner reveals the underside of American law enforcement.

It was local! It was national! It was international! All over the country and all over the world reporting was non-stop about a black mayor in Philadelphia who allowed a bomb to be dropped on members of MOVE who were also black. Eleven people were killed, six adults and five children. Whether your TV was turned on in the middle of the day, or the middle of the night, it was there. Reportedly the Tribune de Geneve, a Swiss newspaper called it "Blunder American Style", while a Japanese headline read "Police Drop Bomb on Black Extremists". A team of newspaper and TV reporters from Russia came into Philly looking for my sister LaVerne and I. They'd seen us on TV, couldn't find us when they got here, so called WHAT, a black Talk station here. Someone from the station called me, said they were here, but wouldn't give them our number instead took theirs.

Seymour Mandelbaum's extended reflection on communities and the myths that sustain them is a plea for a communitarian sensibility. Communities are critically important in maintaining and adapting public moral orders. Seymour Mandelbaum's extended reflection on communities and the myths that sustain them is a plea for a communitarian sensibility. Communities are critically important in maintaining and adapting public moral orders. To do so, they must recruit, socialize, and discipline members; distinguish between members and strangers; collect resources; and cultivate a domain of competence. The communitarian sensibility is a disposition to assess the impact of innovative opportunities and compelling moral claims on the design, repair, and dissolution of communities and communal fields with a healthy skepticism about unlikely strategies. The book is divided into three parts. The first part sets out the role of communities in the creation of moral orders and discusses the implications of three prevalent myths about community. The second part discusses six terms—theory, story, time, city, tool, and plan—that figure prominently in both professional and lay constructions of public orders. The third part presents two cases in which ambiguous moral claims for redemption and justice challenge the pluralism of the open myth. One concerns exclusionary zoning in New Jersey, the other the 1985 attack on the MOVE compound in West Philadelphia. Mandelbaum's blending of moral philosophy and concrete examples concludes with an account of citizenship in liberal republics.

A landmark work by twelve leading critics and community leaders—essential reading for anyone interested in the history of American race relations. Ignited by the infamous shooting of Amadou Diallo, unarmed and innocent, at the hands of New York City police officers, journalist Jill Nelson was moved to assemble this landmark anthology on the topic of police violence and brutality: an indispensable collection of twelve "groundbreaking" (Ebony) essays by a range of contributors—among them academics, historians, social critics, a congressman, and an ex-New York City police detective. This "important and valuable book" (Emerge) places a centuries-old issue in much-needed historical and intellectual context, and underscores the profound influence police brutality has had in shaping the American identity. "[S]hould be read by anyone concerned about ending brutality, and should be required reading in police academies throughout America!"—Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Harvard Law School "Without hysteria or hyperbole, [Nelson] examines the issue of police abuse in literary form."—Emerge "A memorable and useful contribution to an increasingly volatile national dialogue."—Publishers Weekly "[N]ot only timely, but explores and exposes the sickness of this unbalanced, uncivilized Western pastime thoroughly."—Chuck D of Public Enemy, author of Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality

Dinty W. Moore asks: What would the world be like if eternal damnation was not hanging constantly over our sheepish heads? Why do we persist in believing something that only makes us miserable?

This unique guide will provide an overview of radical U.S. political movements on both the left and the right sides of the ideological spectrum, with a focus on analyzing the origins and trajectory of the various movements and the impact that movement ideas and activities have had on mainstream American politics. The work is organized thematically, with each chapter focusing on a prominent arena of radical activism in the United States. The chapters will trace the chronological development of these extreme leftist and rightist movements throughout U.S. history. Each chapter will include a discussion of central individuals, organizations, and events as well as their impact on popular opinion, political discourse and public policy. For movements that have arisen multiple times throughout U.S. history (nativism, religious, radical labor, separatists), the chapter will trace the history over time but the analysis will emphasize its most recent manifestations. Sidebar features will be included in each chapter to provide additional contextual information to facilitate increased understanding of the topic.