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 Great Broadening: How Vast Expansion of the Policymaking Agenda Transformed American Politics by Bryan D. Jones, Sean M. Theriault and Michelle Whyman
In The Great Broadening: How Vast Expansion of the Policymaking Agenda Transformed American Politics, Bryan D. Jones, Sean M. Theriault and Michelle Whyman set out to prove that the period from the 1960s to the 1980s witnessed a ‘Great Broadening’ of the US government’s involvement in areas that had previously been off limits. Mining rich sources of data to provide insight […]
GalleryBook Review: Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media by Sarah T. Roberts
In Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media, Sarah T. Roberts explores the work conditions and experiences of people employed in ‘commercial content moderation’, drawing on interviews with those tasked with detecting and removing harmful and upsetting online content. As the problems faced by CCM workers reveal the economic, social and political distortions of the digital […]
GalleryBook Review: Taking the Floor: Models, Morals and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room by Daniel Beunza
In Taking the Floor: Models, Morals and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room, Daniel Beunza analyses how the use of economic models and the moral disengagement this has created have significantly transformed the global financial industry through an ethnographic study conducted at an equity derivatives trading room of an international bank located in New York City. This is a significant contribution […]
GalleryBook Review: In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy by Katrina Forrester
In In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy, Katrina Forrester explores how John Rawls’s justice theory became the dominant way of thinking about institutions and individuals in the second half of the twentieth century. This important work sheds light on the conceptual roots of modern political thought while at the same time disclosing its limits, […]
GalleryBook Review: The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism by Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias
In The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism, Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias argue that the quantified world is not a new frontier, but rather the continuation and expansion of both colonialism and capitalism. This book shines in using the theory underpinning the idea of data colonialism to articulate sites of resistance, […]
GalleryBook Review: Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About It by Heather Boushey
In Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About It, Heather Boushey offers an almost encyclopaedic account of inequality’s impact on the US economy, focusing on the way in which inequality obstructs, subverts and distorts. While this is a valuable compilation of the growing evidence that inequality is damaging the US economy, Liam Kennedy argues that the book neglects […]
GalleryBook Review: America’s Covert War in East Africa: Surveillance, Rendition, Assassination by Clara Usiskin
In America’s Covert War in East Africa: Surveillance, Rendition, Assassination, Clara Usiskin offers an analysis of the impact of the ‘War on Terror’ in East Africa, painting a grave picture of its effects. This is an informative and well-written read that shows how counterterrorism operations and policies have created national and regional security apparatuses that have become tools of authoritarian regimes […]
GalleryBook Review: Bluster: Donald Trump’s War on Terror by Peter Neumann
A puzzle surrounds the Donald Trump presidency: for all of his rhetoric surrounding terrorism and counterterrorism, little appears to have changed when it comes to actual policy. In Bluster: Donald Trump’s War on Terror, Peter Neumann delves into this paradox in his comprehensive account of US foreign policymaking under Trump. Jonny Hall finds this an admirable review of the Trump administration’s […]
GalleryBook Review: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff offers a comprehensive account of the new form of economic oppression that has crept into our lives, challenging the boundless hype that has often surrounded the activities of modern technology companies. While the book presents a decent history of the rise […]
GalleryLong Read Review: The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power
In The Education of an Idealist, Samantha Power offers a political memoir that traces her life story from her beginnings as an Irish immigrant to the US through to her work as a war correspondent in the Balkans and her ascent to the White House, where she served as President Barack Obama’s human rights adviser and became the youngest ever US Ambassador […]
