Nation Books – serie

Kathie Klarreich, a white Jewish girl from the West Coast, arrived in Haiti as a naïve twenty-something in the late 1980s. There she worked for a fair trade organization. Weeks became months, and months became years, as Klarreich, despite the spiraling political violence, became enthralled by the island, its lifestyle and traditions, to the extent that she started to grow dreads, attend Voodoo masses and started to file reports for the Christian Science Monitor and its attendant radio station. Klarreich saw civil violence, mass slaughter, coups, and U.S. intervention all up-close, and on a daily basis as a reporter. Often risking life and limb, accused of being a CIA agent by her enemies, she lost a man she loved due to an assassin's bullet,but she established credentials, contacts and developed an unsparing eye that led major news organizations such as The New York Times, ABC, CNN, Fresh Air and Time magazine to regard her as nonpareil throughout the turbulent decade. This compelling memoir interweaves shattering political events with an intensely personal narrative about the Haitian musician Klarreich eventually marries (and has a child with), who turns out to be as enthralling and complicated as the political events she covered.

Opening with a powerful letter to former Tacoma police chief David Brame, who shot his estranged wife before turning the gun on himself, Norm Stamper introduces us to the violent, secret world of domestic abuse that cops must not only navigate, but which some also perpetrate. Former chief of the Seattle police force, Stamper goes on to expose a troubling culture of racism, sexism, and homophobia that is still pervasive within the twenty-first-century force then he explores how such prejudices can be addressed. He reveals the dangers and temptations that cops face, describing in gripping detail the split-second life-and-death decisions. Stamper draws on lessons learned to make powerful arguments for drug decriminalization, abolition of the death penalty, and radically revised approaches to prostitution and gun control. He offers penetrating insights into the "blue wall of silence," police undercover work, and what it means to kill a man. And, Stamper gives his personal account of the World Trade organization debacle of 1999, when protests he was in charge of controlling turned violent in the streets of Seattle. Breaking Rank reveals Norm Stamper as a brave man, a pioneering public servant whose extraordinary life has been dedicated to the service of his community.

Though known for its fierce polemics and contrarian political voices, one of the most abiding and popular features of The Nation magazine , and something Republicans would consider subscribing to the magazine for , are Frank Lewis' weekly crossword puzzles which have appeared in the magazine since 1947. This new collection of Lewis' work , the first in over a decade , will delight Lewis fans and crossword puzzlers alike with his trademark cryptic, punning and anigram-atic style.

Women shouldn't be discriminated against simply because they are mothers...but they are! The Motherhood Manifesto shares the heartfelt stories of mothers in America who dream of jobs with flexibility and benefits, mothers who can't afford their children's health and childcare expenses, and mothers who, time and time again, are penalized for raising a new generation. From professional women who hit the maternal wall, to childcare workers who can't afford quality care for their own children, this book captures what it means to be a mother in America today. This ground-breaking book also celebrates the successes of companies that have discovered the value of good family policies, families who are making it work, model childcare programs, and legislation that supports families.

Everyone in the world knows what Bill Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky, or what happened to Brad and Jennifer, Katie and Tom. These factoids mysteriously capture the world's attention. But there's a flip side to this: fog facts. Fog facts are known but not known, the sort of things that journalists and political junkies know, but somehow the world does not. The "Downing Street Memo" is a fine example. This document revealed that the head of British intelligence had been informed by his Washington counterparts that the White House was cooking the books on the information it was using to justify a war in Iraq. Yet this was not big news in America. Why? In Fog Facts, Larry Beinhart tackles this question and shows how soft-core, public relations-style political lying has been raised to an art form.

In February, 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur (the western region of Sudan) after years of oppression took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government and allied militias answered the rebellion with mass murder, rape and the wholesale destruction of villages and livelihood, resulting in one of the world's largest humanitarian and political crises. Up to 2 million people were displaced 400,000 people killed. In October and November, 2004, after watching woefully inadequate media coverage on the crisis in Darfur, a team of three independent filmmakers trekked to Darfurian refugee camps in eastern Chad and crept across the border into Darfur. They met dozens of Darfurians, and spoke with them about their history, hopes and fears, and the tragedy they are living. Refugees and displaced peoples, civilians and fighters resisting the Sudanese government, teachers, students, parents, children and community leaders provide the heart of Darfur Diaries. Their stories and testimonies, woven together through the personal experience of the filmmakers, and conveyed with political and historical context, provide a much-needed account to help understand Darfur. These are people whose lives, homes, safety and rights deserve to be protected as vigilantly as those of peoples all over the world.

Christianity in America has become almost synonymous with right-wing fanaticism, conservative politics and , courtousy of Mel Gibson , a brutally sadistic version of the religious experience. Millions of devout Christians, like Dan Wakefield, are appalled by this distortion of their faith, which only three decades ago stood for peace, equality, healing, and compassion for society's outcasts , the issues that made up the Ministry of Jesus. How did it come to pass that the Jesus of the New Testament, the Jesus who preached the Sermon on the Mount, has in effect been hijacked by right-wingers and the Republican Party? How is it that mainline Christian denominations and leadership, both Catholic and Prostestant, have remained remarkably silent on the issues of the war in Iraq, the civil rights erosion of the Patriot Act, the growth of poverty and the fact of over 40 million people without health insurance? The Hijacking of Jesus tells the whole sorry tale, from the Goldwater campaign of 1964 to George Bush's stunning re-election in 2004.

Early in Ann Louise Bardach's Cuban voyage she came across Cartas de Presidio or The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Luis Conte Aguero, who was the recipient of most of these letters, they are cited in every important work from Hugh Thomas' opus Cuba to Tad Szulc's Fidel biography, and everything in between and since. These twenty-one letters (nine to Conte Aguero, six to his late sister and close collabourator, Lidia, one to his wife Mirta, one to his comrade in combat, Melba Hernandez letters, one to the great scholar Jorge Manach) are regarded as the single most valuable and revelatory document regarding Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Never before published in English, these letters were written when Castro was imprisoned for his failed attack on the Moncada from 1953 to 1955 and reveal a man of spectacular ambition and steely determination. A man, who despite being incarcerated to serve a lengthy prison term, never wavers in his confidence that he will one day rule Cuba.

Mexican immigration has become one of the most polarizing issues and will remain a central issue in the coming years. Once Mexicans had a sizable presence in a few select states like California, Texas, Arizona and New York today the fastest growing populations are in places like North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia and Tennessee.. What motivates people to risk their very lives, and why don't Mexicans just "play by the rules" and enter legally? How do they cope, living in a strange country among people that speak a language they can't understand? And after everything they have gone through, do they see immigration as a blessing, a curse, or something in between? There's No Jose Here allows Mexicans in the U.S. to speak in their own words. The central narrative follows Enrique, a 34-year-old livery cab driver who came to the US illegally at the age of 16 and has since seen his daughter lead poisoned, his mother abandoned in Mexico by his father, his cousin murdered on the streets of Brooklyn, and his best friend deployed to Iraq. This book gives readers a look into these stories as people struggle to survive in a new and often hostile land.

What Isn't There is Jocelyn Lieu's own interpretation of what 9/11 meant to her and to New York City. It presents her kaleidoscope of memories of the unforeseen consequences of September 11, when an unprecedented act of violence collided with her day to day life as a mother and a writer. This retelling of the experience of a woman who lived near Ground Zero restores the event back in the realm of lived experience where it belongs.

American democracy is seemingly in retreat. Voting rates are at an all time low, citizens are disillusioned, and inequality continues to soar. But there is also a belief that change is possible. Calling All Radicals argues that we can reclaim our democracy in the old fashioned way , through grassroots organizing. Gabriel Thompson draws upon his own experience of working within local communities to demonstrate its immediate impact. Some examples: When a brother and sister were being evicted from their home of 73 years, the community responded by staging a protest in front of the landlord's home , gaining media attention and forcing the owner to allow them to stay. With children in Central Brooklyn suffering from lead poisoning, Thompson designed a campaign that trained inner-city high school students to test neighbourhood homes and found that 1 in 3 were dangerous , forcing NYC officials to act by pushing through citywide legislation that held landlords responsible for implementing more proactive steps to fix hazards. Calling All Radicals argues that everyone is capable of community organizing. It explains the key tactics of organizing, leadership development, conducting research, and working effectively with the media.

The 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France was a down-and-dirty game, marred by French superstar Zidane's head-butting of Italian defender Materazzi. But viewers were also exposed to the poetry, force, and excellence of the Italian game as operatic as Verdi and as cunning as Machiavelli, it seemed to open a window into the Italian soul. John Foot's epic history shows what makes Italian soccer so unique. Mixing serious analysis and comic storytelling, Foot describes its humble origins in northern Italy in the 1890s to its present day incarnation where soccer is the national civic religion. A story that is reminiscent of Gangs of New York and A Clockwork Orange, Foot shows how the Italian game , like its political culture , has been overshadowed by big business, violence, conspiracy, and tragedy, how demagogues like Benito Mussolini and Silvio Berlusconi have used the game to further their own political ambitions. But Winning at All Costs also celebrates the sweet moments , the four World Cup victories, the success of Juventus, Inter Milan, AC Milan, the role soccer played in the resistance to Nazism, and the great managers and players who show that Italian soccer is as irresistible as Italy itself.

America's economy is in meltdown. Banks have failed, foreclosures are sweeping the housing market, and stocks have suffered their worst losses since the Great Depression. Faced with a complex and spiraling crisis, the government has poured billions of taxpayer cash into a bailout with no end in sight. At every step of the way, The Nation , America's oldest weekly magazine, has tackled the most urgent questions facing the nation's leaders and its citizens with clarity and insight. Meltdown draws together nearly twenty years of the best of their coverage of the financial crisis and explores what steps President Obama and his new administration must take to ensure a more secure future for everyone. Contributors include: William Greider on Alan Greenspan's flawed ideology Robert Sherrill on why the bubble popped Thomas Frank on the rise of market populism Christopher Hayes on the coming foreclosure tsunami Barbara Ehrenreich on the implosion of capitalism Kai Wright on how the subprime crisis is bankrupting black America Naomi Klein on Bush's final pillage Joseph E. Stiglitz on Henry Paulson's shell game Jesse Jackson on trickle-down economics Katrina vanden Heuvel and Eric Schlosser on why America needs a New New Deal

Selected by Guernica magazine as an "Editors' Picks: Best of 2013"Unfurling like a medieval book of days, each page of Eduardo Galeano's Children of the Days has an illuminating story that takes inspiration from that date of the calendar year, resurrecting the heroes and heroines who have fallen off the historical map, but whose lives remind us of our darkest hours and sweetest victories.Challenging readers to consider the human condition and our own choices, Galeano elevates the little-known heroes of our world and decries the destruction of the intellectual, linguistic, and emotional treasures that we have all but forgotten.Readers will discover many inspiring narratives in this collection of vignettes: the Brazilians who held a smooch-in" to protest against a dictatorship for banning kisses that undermined public morals" the astonishing day Mexico invaded the United States and the sacrilegious" women who had the effrontery to marry each other in a church in the Galician city of A Coruña in 1901. Galeano also highlights individuals such as Pedro Fernandes Sardinha, the first bishop of Brazil, who was eaten by Caeté Indians off the coast of Alagoas, as well as Abdul Kassem Ismael, the grand vizier of Persia, who kept books safe from war by creating a walking library of 117,000 tomes aboard four hundred camels, forming a mile-long caravan.Beautifully translated by Galeano's longtime collabourator, Mark Fried, Children of the Days is a majestic humanist treasure that shows us how to live and how to remember. It awakens the best in us.

Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion , Chris Hedges- who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class - investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges' message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as sublime madness" , the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this sublime madness."From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion.