The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
Jonathan Kozol

Publisher Comments
“The nation needs to be confronted with the crime that we’re committing and the promises we are betraying. This is a book about betrayal of the young, who have no power to defend themselves. It is not intended to make readers comfortable.”

Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know white children any longer. Second, a protomilitary form of discipline has now emerged, modeled on stick-and-carrot methods of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons but targeted exclusively at black and Hispanic children. And third, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education in our inner-city schools has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.

Filled with the passionate voices of children and their teachers and some of the most revered and trusted leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation is a triumph of firsthand reporting that pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.

Recovering the Sacred
Winona LaDuke

Publisher Comments
When she invites us to “recover the sacred,” prominent indigenous rights activist Winona LaDuke is demanding far more than the rescue of ancient bones and beaded headbands from museums. For LaDuke, only the power to define and access what is sacred will enable Native American communities to define their own destiny.

Basing her explorations on a wealth of Native American research and hundreds of interviews conducted with indigenous scholars and activists, LaDuke examines the connections between sacred sites, sacred objects, and the sacred bodies of her people—past, present, and future—focusing closely on the conditions under which traditional beliefs can be best practiced.

Well aware of the significant gaps between mainstream and indigenous thinking, LaDuke probes the paradoxes that abound for the Native people of the Americas. How, for instance, can the indigenous imperative to honor the Great Salt Mother be carried out when mining threatens not only access to Nevada’s Great Salt Lake, but the health of the lake water itself? While Congress has belatedly moved to “protect” most Native American religious expression, the US government continues to blatantly forward its own interests above the places and natural resources integral to these same “protected” ceremonies.

As LaDuke shows, federal law has achieved neither protection of sacred sites nor repatriation of Native remains—and certainly these laws do not prohibit the more insidious aspects of cultural theft, from the parading of costumed “Indian” mascots to the naming of professional athletic teams. Calling generously on her lyrical sensibility and sharp wit, LaDuke uses these essays not only to indict persisting injustice, but to map paths toward dignity and liberation.

Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit
Vandana Shiva

Publisher Comments
In Water Wars, Vandana Shiva uses her remarkable knowledge of science and society to analyze the historical erosion of communal water rights. Examining the international water trade, damming, mining, and aquafarming, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped of their rights to a precious common good.

In Water Wars, Shiva reveals how many of the most important conflicts of our time, most often camouflaged as ethnic wars or religious wars, such as the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are in fact conflicts over scarce but vital natural resources.

Shiva celebrates the spiritual and traditional role water has played in communities throughout history, and warns that water privatization threatens cultures and livelihoods worldwide. She calls for a movement to preserve water access for all, and offers a blueprint for global resistance based on examples of successful campaigns like the one in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where citizens fought for and retained their water rights.

With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn
Edited by Amber Dawn and Trish Kelly

Publisher Comments
A rebellious anthology of stories about sex and the modern femme: no-holdsbarred queer sex tales that reinvent lesbian erotica in ways that are transgressive and empowering. Starting off where other lesbian erotic anthologies end, these are not your typically delicate, lace-and-feathers kind of stories; instead, they're blunt and hard-hitting and challenge traditional notions of gender roles when it comes to getting off.

The anthologists argue that good, clean lesbian smut is difficult to come by these days, overwhelmed by political correctness and authorial self-censorship. Unabashedly raunchy, these stories prove that femme porn can be sexy and smart at the same time.

Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development

Publisher Comments
Beyond Heroes and Holidays is an interdisciplinary guide for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. Through lessons and readings, the book shares examples of how educators, staff, students, and parents can work together to transform the curriculum, rather than simply adding to current frameworks.

The book also goes beyond the classroom to address such issues as tracking, parent/school relations, and language policies. It includes many readings and lessons for pre- and in-service staff development.