In this section you can read reviews of academic books covering the USA, and its continental neighbours, Canada and Mexico. Each weekend we publish two reviews, aiming to cover a wide range of books on all aspects of public policy and politics.
GalleryBook Review: The Quirks of Digital Culture by David Beer
In The Quirks of Digital Culture, David Beer provides a patchwork of quirky vignettes that together create a representative picture of the cultural environment in which we now live, showing how digital culture offers a means of access, insight and possibility while also bringing the payoff of surveillance, manipulation and a sense of inescapability. Ignas Kalpokas highly recommends this accessible […]
GalleryBook Review: Storytelling with Data: Let’s Practice! by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
In Storytelling with Data: Let’s Practice!, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic presents a new guide to data communication, featuring over 100 hands-on exercises and 250 data visualisations to help build skills in impactful data communication grounded in effective storytelling. Intended for anyone committed to improving their ability to communicate data and complemented by a website that enables users to further hone their skills, […]
GalleryBook Review: Ghetto: The History of a Word by Daniel B. Schwartz
In Ghetto: The History of a Word, Daniel B. Schwartz traces the genealogy of the term ‘ghetto’, showing its changing meaning since its origin in the enforced enclosure of the Jewish residents of Venice in 1516 on the island called the Ghetto Nuovo. The book is a welcome addition to historians and urbanists alike in providing new insights into conceptions of […]
GalleryBook Review: Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs edited by Amanda Lashaw, Christian Vannier and Steven Sampson
In Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs, editors Amanda Lashaw, Christian Vannier and Steven Sampson bring together contributors to advance the growing field of NGO anthropology. Written by anthropologists with intimate knowledge of NGOs in different contexts, the chapters offer rich and profound ethnographic analysis that examines the world of NGOs without neglecting their contexts and histories of action. This collection […]
GalleryBook Review: The New Populism: Democracy Stares into the Abyss by Marco Revelli
In The New Populism: Democracy Stares into the Abyss, Marco Revelli explores the definitions, historical development and electoral geography of populism across much of Europe and the United States, focusing particularly on the relationship between populist politics and neoliberalism. While the book provides a wealth of detail on the ideology and history of populism and is particularly strong in examining Italy and […]
GalleryBook Review: Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration by Javier Hidalgo
In Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration, Javier S. Hidalgo makes a clear and engaging case for open borders, arguing that immigration control is unjustly coercive and outlining the responsibilities we have as individuals when it comes to responding to this injustice. This book is essential reading for scholars studying migration and policymakers policing it, writes Mollie Gerver, as […]
GalleryBook Review: Total Urban Mobilisation: Ernst Jünger and the Post-Capitalist City by Krzysztof Nawratek
In Total Urban Mobilisation: Ernst Jünger and the Post-Capitalist City, Krzysztof Nawratek offers a collection of essays exploring the post-capitalist city, positing ‘the accumulation of agency’ as a driver of urban development to act against the logic of capitalist accumulation, drawing on and reclaiming Ernst Jünger’s notion of ‘total mobilisation’. This short yet polyphonic book will be of interest to practitioners […]
GalleryBook Review: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
In a frenetic world obsessed with deliverables and results, Jenny Odell makes the case for How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, arguing not for passivity, wilful ignorance or sloth, but rather for the potential we create by refusing productivity and redirecting our attention to active modes of listening and contemplation. By shining a critical light on the ways in which […]
GalleryBook Review: The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics and the Future of Work by Richard Baldwin
In The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics and the Future of Work, Richard Baldwin provides a new analysis of how automation and globalisation could together shape our societies in the years to come. Drawing on numerous examples to keep readers engaged from cover to cover, this book is a tour de force, writes Wannaphong Durongkaveroj, discussing the past, present and future of globalisation and […]
GalleryBook Review: The Theft of A Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millenials’ Economic Future by Joseph C. Sternberg
In The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials’ Economic Future, Joseph C. Sternberg argues that the predicament facing Millennials today – including job precarity and difficulties entering the housing market – is not of their own doing, but rather the outcome of poor policy decisions taken by the Baby Boomer generation that have only been exacerbated […]
