What happens inside our prisons?What’s Prison For? examines the “incarceration” part of “mass incarceration.” What happens inside prisons and jails, where nearly two million Americans are held? Bill Keller, one of America’s most accomplished journalists, has spent years immersed in the subject. He argues that the most important role of prisons is preparing incarcerated people to be good neighbors and good citizens when they return to society, as the overwh...

The acclaimed New York Times series on social class in America—and its implications for the way we live our lives.We Americans have long thought of ourselves as unburdened by class distinctions. We have no hereditary aristocracy or landed gentry, and even the poorest among us feel that they can become rich through education, hard work, or sheer gumption. And yet social class remains a powerful force in American life.In Class Matters, a tea...

What's Prison For? examines the “incarceration” part of mass incarceration. Our prisons remain a shameful waste of lives and money, feeding a pathological cycle of poverty, community dysfunction, crime and hopelessness. What is the alternative? This book makes the case for better rehabilitation and examines attempts to assure that people return from prison better equipped than when they arrived for the challenges life presents.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freak...

Essential reading for our times, as women are pulling together to demand their rights— A landmark portrait of women, men, and power in a transformed world.“Anchored by data and aromatized by anecdotes, [Rosin] concludes that women are gaining the upper hand." –The Washington PostMen have been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But Hanna Rosin was the first to notice that this long-held truth is, astonishingly, no lo...

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exac...

Tom Brokaw, known and beloved for his landmark work in American journalism and for the New York Times bestsellers The Greatest Generation and Boom!, now turns his attention to the challenges that face America in the new millennium, to offer reflections on how we can restore America’s greatness.“What happened to the America I thought I knew?” Brokaw writes. “Have we simply wandered off course, but only temporarily? Or have we allowed ourselves to be so div...

“A brilliant and personal deconstruction of institutionalized white supremacy in the United States . . . a beautifully written, heartfelt memoir.” —Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizThe inspiration for the acclaimed documentary film, this deeply personal polemic reveals how racial privilege shapes the daily lives of white Americans in every realm: employment, education, housing, criminal justice, and elsewhereUsing stories from his own life, Tim Wise exa...

Winner of the 2017 J. Anthony Lukas PrizeShortlisted for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Foundation AwardFinalist for the 2017 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism****Longlisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non FictionOn an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of t...

In More or Less, Jeff Shinabarger calls readers to create their own social experiments to answer the question, “What is enough?”It all started with one idea: What would happen if we created a culture in which we gave away whatever was more than enough for us? How would our habits change if we shed the excess of money, clutter, and food in our lives? In More or Less, readers will learn how to draw a line of “enough” in their consumer choices, how t...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • United States Senator Cory Booker, hailed as “one of the key figures for justice and forthrightness in America today” (HuffPost), makes an impassioned case that the virtues of empathy, responsibility, and action must guide our nation toward a brighter future.Raised in northern New Jersey, Cory Booker went to Stanford University on a football scholarship, accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, then studied a...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “An impassioned book, laced with anger and indignation, about how our public education system scorns so many of our children.”—The New York Times Book ReviewIn 1988, Jonathan Kozol set off to spend time with children in the American public education system. For two years, he visited schools in neighborhoods across the country, from Illinois to Washington, D.C., and from New York to San Antonio. He spoke with teachers, p...