Category: BOOKS

The COLOR of LAW

A FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF HOW OUR GOVERNMENT SEGREGATED AMERICA

RICHARD ROTHSTEIN

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“Rothstein has presented what I consider to be the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation.”–WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON

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In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation –that is, through, individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation– the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments– that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as “brilliant” (The Atlantic). Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning , as millions of African Americans moved in a great migration from the South to the North.

As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know now. Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated pubic housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated , the great American suburbanization of the post-World War ll years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violet resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded . Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Milwaukee show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest.

“The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this book.” comments Sherrilyn A. Ifill. Indeed. Rothstein’s invaluable examination demonstrates that only by relearning American urban history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.

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Praise for

THE COLOR OF LAW

“Original and insightful …. The central premise of [Rothstein’s] argument…is that the Supreme Court has failed for decades to understand the extent to which residential racial segregation in our nation is not the result of private decisions by private individuals, but is the direct product of unconstitutional government action. The implications of his analysis are revolutionary.“

—GEOFFREY R. STONE, author of SEX AND THE CONSTITUTION

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“Through meticulous research and powerful human stories. Rothstein reveals a history of racism hiding in plain sight and compels us to confront the consequences of the intentional, decades-long governmental policies that created a segregated America.”

—SHERRILYN A. IFILL, President of the NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND

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“Masterful…Rothstein documents the deep historical roots and the continuing practices in law and social custom that maintain a profoundly un-American system holding down the nation’s most disadvantaged citizens.”

—THOMAS B. EDSALL, author of THE AGE OF AUSTERITY

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“This wonderful, important book could not be more timely …With its clarity and breadth, the book is literally a page-turner.”

–FLORENCE ROISMAN, WILLIAM F. HAREY PROFESSOR OF LAW, INDIANA UNIVERSITY

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“One of those rare books that will be discussed and debated for many decades.”

—WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Author of THE TRULY DISADVANTAGED

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“At once analytical and passionate. The Color of Law discloses why segregation has persisted, even deepened, in the post-civil rights era, and thoughtfully proposes how remedies might be pursued. A must-read.”

—IRA KATZNELSON. Author of the BANCROFT PRIZE-WINNING FEAR ITSELF

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from the cover

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BEGIN AGAIN

JAMES BALDWIN’S AMERICA AND IT’S URGENT LESSONS FOR OUR OWN

EDDIE S. GLAUDE JR.

James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and author of Democracy in Black

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“Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.” JAMES BALDWIN

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We live, according to Eddie S. Glaude Jr., in the after times, when the promise of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a racist president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race.

We have been here before: For James Baldwin, the after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name In The Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair.

In the story of Baldwin’s crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times, this Trumpian era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography–drawn partially from newly uncovered interviews–with history, memoir, and trenchant analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude’s endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bear the tangled web of race, trauma and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.

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“An unparalleled masterpiece of social criticism … Glaude’s stunningly crafted prose–incisive, vulnerable, and beautiful–is as breathtaking as his brilliance. This book is precisely the witness we need for our treacherous times.”

—IMANI PERRY, author of Breathe

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“This book is, undoubtedly, the best treatment we have of Baldwin’s genius and relevance.” —CORNEL WEST, author of Democracy Matters

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“Searing, provocative, and ultimately hopeful … One need not agree with everything in these pages to learn much from them. Begin Again challenges, illuminates, and points us toward if not a more perfect union then at least a more just one.”

—JON MEACHAM, author of The Soul of America

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“Eddie Glaude is such a terrific writer. [His] work is urgent, pained, and strangely hopeful. He is issuing a call to reckoning.”—REBECCA TRAISTER, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger

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“Filled with passion, lyricism, and fire … a timeless and spellbinding conversation between two brilliant writers, thinkers, and active witnesses.”

—EDWIDGE DANTICAT, author of Brother, I’m Dying

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“The magic of Begin Again is that it allows us to ponder Baldwin both in his perilous era and in our own … Remarkable, and remarkably relevant.”

—TRACY K. SMITH, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Life on Mars

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“Powerful and elegant, Begin Again is at times both loving and angry, challenging and uplifting, and always beautiful. Both Baldwin and this book speak directly to today.”

—WALTER ISAACSON, author of Steve Jobs

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“A rugged literary miracle.” —KIESE LAYMON, author of Heavy

From the cover

THE POLITICS INDUSTRY

How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy

KATHERINE M. GEHL AND MICHAEL E. PORTER

OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM IN AMERICA IS BROKEN, RIGHT? WRONG!

The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn’t designed or optimized today to work for us — for ordinary citizens.

Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly — the Democrats and the Republicans — and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America’s key economic and social challenges. In fact, there’s virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected.

In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis — and Porter’s distinctive Five Forces framework — to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today.

Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change — a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation.

The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all.

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Foreword by

US Congressman MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wisconsin) and

US Congresswoman CHRISSY HOULAHAN (D-Pennsylvania)

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“A noted business leader joins America’s preeminent business strategist to diagnose what ails our political system and prescribe a cure. Timely indeed.”

–US Senator MITT ROMNEY (R-Utah)

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“Gehl and Porter’s book is a deep and persuasive analysis of our current political dysfunction and practical steps for change. Let us hope the public and our leaders take heed.”

–Former US Senator EVAN BAYH (D-Indiana)

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“Gehl and Porter are true experts. They provide not just analysis or endless commentary but a plan for real change — all for the better. This is a fresh look at American politics.”

–BUD SELIG, Commissioner Emeritus, Major League Baseball

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from the jacket

THE ISIS PAPERS

THE KEYS TO THE COLORS

by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing

During the course of the struggle of African people against European racism, brutality and domination, many innovative thinkers have risen from our ranks. The greatest and most courageous scholars have devoted their lives to the pursuit of an explanation for the virtually inherent animosity most white people appear to have toward people of color. Unlike her predecessors, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a brilliant , Washington, D.C. psychiatrist has rejected conventional notions about the origin and perpetuation of racism. Dr. Welsing’s theories, lectures and scientific papers have provoked controversy for over twenty years. Now the compilation of her work in The Isis Papers is destined to change the course of history.

Legrand Clegg

Chief Deputy City Attorney

City of Compton, California

from the back cover

THE WASHINGTONS OF WESSYNGTON PLANTATION

BY JOHN F. BAKER JR.

Stories of My Family’s Journey To Freedom

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A groundbreaking work of history and a deeply personal journey of discovery, The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation is an uplifting story of survival and family that gives fresh insight into American slavery and its ongoing legacy.

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When John F. Baker Jr. learned that a photograph in his seventh grade social studies textbook showed his great-great grandparents, he began his lifelong research project that would become The Washingtons Of Wessyngton Plantation, the fruit of more than thirty years of archival and field research as well as DNA testing spanning 250 years.

Baker’s vivid and captivating book is the most accessible and exciting work of African American history since Roots, revealing not only his own African American family’s story but the history of a plantation and the descendants of the enslaved who labored there and the family who owned them. Founded in 1796, Wessyngton Plantation covered 15,ooo acres and held 274 captives, whose labor made it the largest tobacco plantation in America. In addition to his research of birth registers, letters, diaries, and more. Baker conducted dozens of interviews–three of his subjects were more than one hundred years old–and discovered caches of historic photographs and paintings, which bring this compelling history to life.

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“Riveting …. The importance of Baker’s research can’t be overstated.”

—Kirkus Reviews

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JOHN F. BAKER JR. is a recipient of a national award from the American Association for State and Local History. This book is his first. For more information about his research, go to his website at www.wessyngton.com

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A FULL DOCUMENTARY ON– THE WASHINGTONS OF WESSYNGTON PLANTATION– IS AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING ON ( YOU TUBE)

INHERITING THE TRADE

A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History

By Thomas Norman DeWolf

In 2001, at forty-seven, Thomas DeWolf was astounded to discover that he was related to the most successful slave-trading family in American history, responsible for transporting at least 10,000 Africans to the Americas. His infamous ancestor, U.S. senator James DeWolf of Bristol, Rhode Island, curried favor with President Jefferson to continue in the trade after it was outlawed. When James DeWolf died in 1837, he was the second-richest man in America.

When Katrina Browne, Thomas DeWolf’s cousin, learned about their family’s history, she resolved to confront it head-on, producing and directing a documentary feature film, Traces Of The Trade: A Story from the Deep North.

Inheriting the Trade is Tom DeWolf’s powerful and disarmingly honest memoir of the journey in which ten family members retraced the steps of their ancestors and uncovered the hidden history of New England and the other northern states.

Their journey through the notorious Triangle Trade — from New England to West Africa to Cuba–proved life-altering, forcing DeWolf to face the horrors of slavery directly for the first time. It also inspired him to contend with the complicated legacy that continues to affect black and white Americans, Africans, and Cubans today.

Inheriting the Trade reveals that the North’s involvement in slavery was as common as the South’s. Not only were black people enslaved in the North for over two hundred years, but the vast majority of all slave trading in America was done by northerners. Remarkably, half of all North American voyages involved in the slave trade originated in Rhode Island, and all the northern states benefited.

With searing candor, DeWolf tackles both the internal and external challenges of his journey — writing frankly about feelings of shame, white male privilege, the complicity of churches, America’s historic amnesia regarding slavery — and our nation’s desperate need for healing. An urgent call for meaningful and honest dialogue, Inheriting the Trade illuminates a path toward a more hopeful future and provides a persuasive argument that the legacy of slavery isn’t merely a southern issue but an enduring American one.

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“In ongoing efforts to promote racial reconciliation, this contemporary white family’s journey stands out. It represents the kind of honesty and courage that is so urgently needed to forge new ways of talking and thinking about the legacy of slavery.”

—Sherrilyn Ifill, author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century.

“Tom DeWolf’s deeply personal story, of his own journey as well as his family’s, is required reading for anyone interested in reconciliation. Healing from our historic wounds, which continue to separate us, requires us to walk this road together.”

—Myrlie Evers-Williams, civil rights leader, chairman emeritus of the NAACP (1995-98), and author of The Autobiography of Medgar Evers, Watch Me Fly, and For Us, the Living.

“Inheriting the Trade is like a slow-motion mash-up, a first-person view from within one of the country’s founding families as it splinters, then puts itself back together again.”

—Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family

“A candid, powerful, and insightful book about how one family dealt with the infamous slave trade. Jarring in its candor, and revealing in its honest assessment of slavery and the DeWolf family, we must read important books like this if we dare to appreciate every aspect of our history and, as the DeWolf family does, dare to change our judgments about the wretched history of slavery.”

—Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., executive director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School

“Exploring the links between a grand Rhode Island mansion and dungeons in Ghana, Tom DeWolf traces the infernal trade that gave his family, and this country, great wealth and power. His journey into the past forces painful questions to the surface and illuminates our present.”

—-Henry Wiencek, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and author of An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America

“Inheriting the Trade is a compelling invitation to explore how our country and many institutions, including churches, benefited from this dark chapter. Such exploration is essential if we are to move forward to a place of repair and racial reconciliation.”

—Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold, twenty-fifth presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church

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THOMAS NORMAN DEWOLF served on the Oregon Arts Commission for nine years and as a local elected official for eleven. His years of public service focused on the arts, literacy, children’s issues, and restorative justice. Tom and his wife, Lindi, live in Oregon.

Beacon Press, 2008

from the jacket

IMAGINE

Living In A

SOCIALIST USA

Edited by Frances Goldin, Debby Smith,

and Michael Steven Smith

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“The best, most insightful, and most lively work on socialism to appear in a long time.”

-PAUL BUHLE, author of MARXISM IN THE UNITED STATES

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“What are the possibilities inherent in Socialism? What is it? What can it mean to humanity’s future? What would it look like in America? These are the Questions raised in this exquisitely timely book. We must profoundly change the way we live, or we will not survive. A Socialism that we make ourselves could be the answer.”

Alice Walker

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The polar ice caps are melting, hurricanes and droughts ravish the planet, and Earth’s population is threatened by catastrophic climate change. Millions of American jobs have been sent overseas and aren’t coming back. Young African American men make up the majority of America’s prison population. Half of the American population is poor or near poor, living precariously on the brink, while the top one percent owns as much as the bottom eighty. Government police-state spying on its citizens is pervasive. Consequently, as former President Jimmy Carter has said, “we have no functioning democracy.”

Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA is at once an indictment of American capitalism as the root cause of our spreading dystopia and a cri di coeur for what life could be like in the United States if we had economic as well as a real political democraacy. It features thirty-one concise and accessible essays by revolutionary thinkers and activists on various aspects of a new society and, crucially, on how to get from here where we are now to where we want to be, living in a society that is truly fair and just.

from the cover

THE BIBLE

THE BIBLE IS A SELECTIVE GATHERING OF TEXTS WRITTEN BY VARIOUS AUTHORS AND TRANSCRIBED BY VARIOUS SCRIBES MOSTLY FROM THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST. THE BIBLE IS ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY READ BOOKS IN THE WORLD AND IS THE SOURCE OF MUCH HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE AND IS REVERED BY MANY.

THERE ARE NUMEROUS VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. FOLLOWING IS A LISTING OF A FEW:

  • King James Version (1611, KJV) revised in 1769
  • American Standard Version (1901, ASV)
  • Twentieth Century New Testament (1901, TCNT) revised in 1904
  • The New Testament in Modern Speech (1903, NTMS)
  • The Worrell New Testament (1904)
  • Thompson Chain Reference Bible (1908)
  • The Scofield Study Bible (1909) revised 1917
  • A New Translation of the Bible (1928, MNT)
  • The Bible: An American Translation (1935, AAT)
  • The New Testament in the Language of the People (1937, NTLP)
  • Knox Bible (1949, KNOX)
  • Revised Standard Version (1952, RSV)
  • The Daily Study Bible (1954)
  • The New Testament in Modern English (1958, NTME)
  • Wuest Expanded Translation of the New Testament (1959, WET)
  • The Berkeley Version in Modern English (1959, BV)
  • Dake Annotated Reference Bible (1963)
  • The Amplified Bible (1965, AMP)
  • The Jerusalem Bible (1966, JB)
  • The New American Bible (1970, NAB)
  • New English Bible (1970, NEB)
  • New American Standard Bible (1971, NASB or NAS)
  • The Living Bible (1971, TLB)
  • The Good News Bible (1976, GNB or GNT)
  • The New International Version (1978, NIV)
  • New King James Version (1982, NKJV)
  • The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible (1984)
  • Revised English Bible (1989, REB)
  • New Revised Standard Version (1990,NRSV)
  • 21st Century King James Version (1994, KJ21)
  • Contemporary English Version (1995, CEV)
  • New Living Translation (1996, NLT) revised 2004
  • English Standard Version (2001, ESV)
  • The Message (2002, MSG)
  • Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004, HCSB)
  • Today’s New International Version (2005,TNIV)
  • New English Translation (2005, NET)

Some of the above versions do not include the books that are found in the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of the Old Testament but not in the Hebrew Bible. Some modern Bibles sometimes include them in the Old Testament or as an appendix, or sometimes omit them.

Also absent are materials from the Dead Sea Scrolls and The Nag Hammadi Scriptures which include The Gnostic Gospels: The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Judas, Gospel to the Egyptians, Gospel to the Hebrews, The Secret Book of James, The Secret Book of John, etc.

The Bible, in its various versions, will forever be a valued source of REFERENCE and REVERENCE for many.

Jess A., 2020

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THE JEFFERSON BIBLE

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Introduction by Forrest Church

Afterword by Jaroslav Pelikan

“Gives us a preaching Jesus of distinctly human dimensions, without miracles or resurrection. [A] fascinating document, telling us a great deal about a great eighteenth-century mind and its world.”

Charles S. Adams, Religious Studies Review

“These excerpts from the four Gospels are among the most interesting and compelling in all the Scripture. They emphasize Jesus’s ethical lessons of love, reverence, forbearance, reproachment, repentance, and forgiveness.”

Garret Ward Sheldon, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

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We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus. There will be remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.

Thomas Jefferson

Featuring an introduction by Forrest Church, this reissue of The Jefferson Bible offers extraordinary insight into the logic of Thomas Jefferson and the Gospel of Jesus. Working in the White House in 1804, Jefferson set out to edit the Gospels in order to uncover the essence of true religion in the simple story of the life of Jesus. Jefferson was convinced that the authentic message of Jesus could be found only by extracting from the Gospels Jesus’ message of absolute love and service, rather than the miracle of the Annunciation, Virgin Birth, or even the Resurrection. Completed in 1819, this little book is the remarkable result of Jefferson’s efforts.

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Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) was the third president of the United States, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the founder of the University of Virginia. Among his proudest achievements was his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, passed by the General Assembly of Virginia in 1786, which became the first law of its kind in the United States. Also a noted architect and naturalist, Jefferson designed and built his home, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Forrest Church is senior minister of All Souls Church in New York City and author of Lifecraft.

Beacon Press, 1989

THE CURSE OF BIGNESS

ANTITRUST IN THE NEW GILDED AGE

TIM WU

We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms–big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the “curse of bigness” can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself. History suggests that tolerance of inequality and failing to control excessive corporate power may prompt the rise of populism, nationalism, extremist politicians, and fascist regimes. In short, as Wu warns we are in grave danger of repeating the signature errors of the twentieth century.

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” Erudite, energizing, outraging, funny and thorough.”

Cory Doctorow, Boing-Boing

“Wu writes with elegance and clarity, giving readers the pleasing sensation of walking into a stupendously well-organized closet.”

The New York Times

“A bracing intellectual tour de force.”

San Francisco Chronicle

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TIM WU is a policy professor at Columbia Law School, and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He worked on competition policy in the Obama White House and the Federal Trade Commission, served as senior enforcement counsel at the New York Office of the Attorney General, and worked at the Supreme Court for Justice Stephen Breyer. He is the author of The Master Switch (2010) and The Attention Merchants (2016).

from the cover

ADDICTED TO WAR

Why The U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism

an illustrated expose by Joel Andreas, May 2004

“Addicted to War is a witty and devastating portrait of U.S. military policy, a fine example of art serving society.”

Howard Zinn*, Author of A People’s History of the United States

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“Addicted to War should be assigned reading in American schools because it tells the true history of this nation’s culture of war. Because of this book, many young students will think twice before considering enlistment in the military. How different things might have been had my son had a chance to read it. However, it is not too late for many thousands of young Americans.”

Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son, Jesus, died fighting in Iraq, March 2003

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“Addicted to War is an extraordinarily important and powerful little book. Every American should read it.”

Ron Kovic*, Vietnam veteran, author of Born on the Fourth of July

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“Addicted to War is not only a witty and entertaining portrait of our war-dependent economy, but a truly relevant insight not available in the mainstream media, something our children should know before they must make their choice whether or not to become fodder for the military machine.”

Susan Sarandon, Actor

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As a veteran of three wars, World War ll through Vietnam, with 33 years of Army service, I find this book to be the most truthful recitation of our government’s policies available anywhere.”

Col. James Burkholder*, U.S. Army, retired

*Served in the U.S. military