Freedom Democracy

Revelations about U.S. policies and practices of torture and abuse have captured headlines ever since the breaking of the Abu Ghraib prison story in April 2004. Since then, a debate has raged regarding what is and what is not acceptable behavior for the world's leading democracy. Within this context, Angela Davis, one of America's most remarkable political figures, gave a series of interviews to discuss resistance and law, institutional sexual coercion, politics, and prison. Throughout, Davis returns to her critique of a democracy compromised by its racist origins and institutions.

Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get? In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated 20th-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable....

This tumultuous global story begins with democracy's radical core idea: We can collaborate, as equals, to determine our own lives and futures. John Keane traces how this concept emerged and evolved, from the earliest "assembly democracies" to European-style electoral democracy to our present system of "monitory democracy." Keane calls this media- and communication-driven system "the most complex and vibrant form of democracy yet"—but it is not invulnerable. At this urgent moment, Keane's book mounts a new defense of a precious global ideal.

Shortly after Trump’s election, two outraged former congressional staffers wrote and posted a tactical guide to resisting the Trump agenda. It went viral, sparking the creation of thousands of local Indivisible groups in red, blue, and purple states, mobilizing millions of people and evolving into a defining movement of the Trump Era. Now the co-executive directors of Indivisible offer a behind-the-scenes look at how change comes to Washington, whether Washington wants it or not. And they explain how we’ll win the coming fight for the future of American democracy.

Alternative Liberties gathers together some of the finest minds in speculative fiction to address the implications of current politics. Adam-Troy Castro answers the classic question “What happens if this keeps on?” in a riveting story of a quiet citizen undergoing an increasingly surreal house arrest. Renowned fantasy author Louise Marley writes from the perspective of a future academic, proposing a Ph.D. thesis about our times. Harry Turtledove, a master of alternate history, gives us the tale of a woman enthralled by the Terrific Leader. In Brenda Cooper’s “A Better President,” ...

It has long been a truism that prior to George W. Bush, politics stopped at the water's edge - that is, that partisanship had no place in national security. In Arsenal of Democracy, historian Julian E. Zelizer shows this to be demonstrably false: Partisan fighting has always shaped American foreign policy and the issue of national security has always been part of our domestic conflicts.

In this Second Edition of Pilgrims and Patriots, Dr. Eddie Hyatt ells the forgotten story of the radical Christians who laid the intellectual and moral foundations of the American republic. He shows clearly that they were not from the established churches of Europe. Instead, they were Radical Reformers who sought a return to the Christianity of the New Testament, and who envisioned a nation founded on faith and freedom. Hyatt shows the vital role of prayer in the founding of the nation, demonstrated by the numerous calls for prayer issued by the Continental Congress and by the daily prayers...

In this dispatch from exile, Hong Kong political activist Nathan Law explores the meaning of freedom - and shows how easily freedoms can be eroded or dismantled. Freedom is fragile - it is not a given, and each generation must fight to protect it, whether in emerging democracies or in the Western world, where freedom is too often taken for granted.

The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. America, a nation founded on the principle of liberty, is also a nation built on African slavery, Native American genocide, and systematic racial discrimination. White Freedom traces the complex relationship between freedom and race from the 18th century to today, revealing how being free has meant being white.

In Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, best-selling author Naomi Wolf illustrates the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells you how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately the nation.

The basis for the film The Post, The Pentagon Papers are a series of articles, documents, and studies examining the Johnson Administration's lies to the public about the extent of US involvement in the Vietnam War, bringing to light shocking conclusions about America's true role in the conflict. With a brand-new foreword by James L. Greenfield, this edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning story is sure to provoke discussion about free press and government deception.

If You Can Keep It is at once a thrilling review of America's uniqueness, and a sobering reminder that America's greatness cannot continue unless we truly understand what our founding fathers meant for us to be. The book includes a stirring call-to-action for every American to understand the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is America. It also paints a vivid picture of the tremendous fragility of that experiment and explains why that fragility has been dangerously forgotten.

The United States is being bombarded with cyber-attacks. From the surge in ransomware groups targeting critical infrastructure to nation states compromising the software supply chain and corporate email servers, malicious cyber activities have reached an all-time high. Russia attracts the most attention, but China is vastly more sophisticated. They have a common interest in exploiting the openness of the Internet and social media—and our democracy—to erode confidence in our institutions and to exacerbate our societal rifts to prevent us from mounting an effective response.

They Know Everything About You is a groundbreaking exposé of how government agencies and tech corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce defense of privacy and democracy. The revelation that the government has access to a vast trove of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a surveillance society. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government.

From one of the most prominent voices on the American left, a galvanizing argument for why we need socialism in the US today. Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to health care, education, and housing and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities.

From gun control to reproductive health, a conservative Supreme Court will reshape the lives of all Americans for decades to come. The time to develop and defend a progressive vision of the US Constitution that protects the rights of all people is now.

From their founding, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) educated as many as 90 percent of Black college students in the United States. Although many are aware of the significance of HBCUs in expanding Black Americans' educational opportunities, much less attention has been paid to the vital role that they have played in expanding American democracy. In The Power of Black Excellence, Deondra Rose provides an authoritative history of HBCUs and the unique role they have played in shaping American democracy since 1865.

The separation of church and state is often treated as a historical principle—something rooted in the Enlightenment, debated by the Founding Fathers, and enshrined in the Constitution. But this idea is not just a relic of the past. It is a vital safeguard of freedom, and it’s under threat today. In a time when Christian Nationalism is on the rise, religious influence is creeping into politics, and civil liberties are being eroded, defending the secular foundation of democracy is more critical than ever. The United States was founded on a radical idea: that people of all faiths—and ...

One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech—hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence—on the internet, and in particular speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of Our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast—including Hillary Clinton, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mark Warner, Cass Sunstein, and others—to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context.

What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.