New Sociology Books
- Conspiracy byISBN: 9781421444451Publication Date: 2022-10-25"A well-written and essential tool for those navigating today's complicated geopolitical landscape."--Library Journal Best-selling author Michael Shermer presents an overarching theory of conspiracy theories--who believes them and why, which ones are real, and what we should do about them. Nothing happens by accident, everything is connected, and there are no coincidences: that is the essence of conspiratorial thinking. Long a fringe part of the American political landscape, conspiracy theories are now mainstream: 147 members of Congress voted in favor of objections to the 2020 presidential election based on an unproven theory about a rigged electoral process promoted by the mysterious group QAnon. But this is only the latest example in a long history of ideas that include the satanic panics of the 1980s, the New World Order and Vatican conspiracy theories, fears about fluoridated water, speculations about President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and the notions that the Sandy Hook massacre was a false-flag operation and 9/11 was an inside job. In Conspiracy, Michael Shermer presents an overarching review of conspiracy theories--who believes them and why, which ones are real, and what we should do about them. Trust in conspiracy theories, he writes, cuts across gender, age, race, income, education level, occupational status--and even political affiliation. One reason that people believe these conspiracies, Shermer argues, is that enough of them are real that we should be constructively conspiratorial: elections have been rigged (LBJ's 1948 Senate race); medical professionals have intentionally harmed patients in their care (Tuskegee); your government does lie to you (Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Afghanistan); and, tragically, some adults do conspire to sexually abuse children. But Shermer reveals that other factors are also in play: anxiety and a sense of loss of control play a role in conspiratorial cognition patterns, as do certain personality traits. This engaging book will be an important read for anyone concerned about the future direction of American politics, as well as anyone who's watched friends or family fall into patterns of conspiratorial thinking.
- Contested Americans byISBN: 9781479800537Publication Date: 2023-04-01Reveals the impossible choices and downright terror mixed-status families often face for their loved ones Living in a mixed-status immigrant family might mean that your grandmother could be deported at any moment, your son could be arrested at work, or your mother's deportation hearing is postponed--again. Such uncertainty and fear are the reality of life for mixed-status families--those that include both undocumented immigrants and US citizens. In Contested Americans, Cassaundra Rodriguez explores how members of mixed-status families experience and articulate belonging in the United States. The sixteen million people in the US who fall under this classification share the fear of a family member's possible deportation or the anxiety of leaving behind a child or elderly relative. Rodriguez highlights how different members of the same mixed-status families mediate undocumented statuses while maintaining the collective whole of a family. For many young adults, this may mean negotiating the sponsorship of their immigrant parents, and for the parents, planning for the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of their children in case of deportation. Contested Americans is a timely book, filled with vivid storytelling, that shows how immigration policies, racism, and privilege collide in the backdrop of the lives of millions of mixed-status families.
- Investigating Families byISBN: 9780691235714Publication Date: 2023-10-10How our reliance on Child Protective Services makes motherhood precarious for those already marginalized It's the knock on the door that many mothers fear: a visit from Child Protective Services (CPS), the state agency with the power to take their children away. Over the last half-century, these encounters have become an all-too-common way of trying to address family poverty and adversity. One in three children nationwide--and half of Black children--now encounter CPS during childhood. In Investigating Families, Kelley Fong provides an unprecedented look at the inner workings of CPS and the experiences of families pulled into its orbit. Drawing on firsthand observations of CPS investigations and hundreds of interviews with those involved, Fong traces the implications of invoking CPS as a "first responder" to family misfortune and hardship. She shows how relying on CPS--an entity fundamentally oriented around parental wrongdoing and empowered to separate families--organizes the response to adversity around surveilling, assessing, and correcting marginalized mothers. The agency's far-reaching investigative apparatus undermines mothers' sense of security and shapes how they marshal resources for their families, reinforcing existing inequalities. And even before CPS comes knocking, mothers feel vulnerable to a system that jeopardizes their parenthood. Countering the usual narratives of punitive villains and hapless victims, Fong's unique, behind-the-scenes account tells a revealing story of how we try to protect children by threatening mothers--and points the way to a more productive path for families facing adversity.
- Poverty, by America byISBN: 9780593239919Publication Date: 2023-03-21#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a "provocative and compelling" (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. ONE OF THE CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS' TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Oprah Daily, Time, The Star Tribune, Vulture, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Public Library, Esquire, She Reads, Library Journal "Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch."--The New Yorker Longlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award * Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow. Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.
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