The Opportunity Equation: How Citizen Teachers Are Combating the Achievement Gap in America's Schools

Eric Schwarz (Get this book)
Both a practical policy primer and a memoir, Schwarz persuasively demonstrates that the so-called educational achievement gap is rooted in opportunity and resources not willingness or ability and proposes accessible solutions to close the gap. With a keen and forthright eye, he employs his own experience as a child born into privilege to establish that if the advantages lavished on him were available to children from all points on the economic spectrum, achievement and prospects for future accomplishments would also be weighted equally. Schwarz offers an inspiring chronicle of scholarly triumphs and generous citizen activism, as well as a constructive blueprint for boosting achievement without abandoning public education.--Publisher's Weekly

Sustainability: A History

Jeremy L. Caradonna (Get this book)
Caradonna contends that our civilization is at a crossroads: Either we will maintain a business-as-usual approach and face inevitable collapse or adopt the path of sustainability.For the author, sustainability is a broader concept than just conservation. With social justice and human rights as its "social dimension," it covers "a broad range of domains: urbanism, agriculture and ecological design, forestry, fisheries, economics, trade, population, housing and architecture, transportation, business, education, social justice, and soon." Caradonna claims that environmental issues should not be treated separately from political or economic issues. A provocative treatment of an important subject.--Kirkus

Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America

Jonathan Simon (Get this book)
UC Berkeley criminologist Simon offers an eloquent critique of the American prison system and uses several Supreme Court cases to examine the development of new jurisprudence that might end mass incarceration. His sketch of the history of mass incarceration attends to interlocking issues, such as racial politics, the upheavals of the 1960s, and media influence on public opinion. In his case studies, he focuses on the way decisions have addressed human rights violations arising from the prison system, from overcrowding, to the failure to reduce crime, to the torture of being incarcerated with a terminal illness. Simon's accessible and powerful book deserves widespread attention.--Publisher's Weekly

Inequality in America: Race, Poverty, and Fulfilling Democracy's Promise

Stephen Maynard Caliendo (Get this book)
Despite our nation's founding on the ideals of equality, the wealth gap in the U.S. is widening at an alarming rate. Political science scholar Caliendo takes a historical and contemporary look at race and economic inequality in the U.S., drawing on research in a wide range of areas, including economics, education, sociology, psychology, criminal justice, and medicine. He explores the assumptions that are widely held about poverty in the U.S.that it is primarily due to character flaws, that government assistance mostly goes to minorities, and that poverty is urban-centered. Caliendo focuses on the politics behind poverty, the notions that separate liberals and conservatives on issues of privilege, meritocracy, individualism, and economic redistribution. This is a well-researched and insightful perspective on economic inequality and its conflict with American ideals.--Booklist

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

Glenn Greenwald (Get this book)
National Security Agency's vast warrantless surveillance operations last year after receiving top-secret documents from NSA contractor Snowden, who is briefly profiled here. Greenwald's breathless narrative is itself a spy story, complete with encrypted messages, cloak-and-dagger in Hong Kong, a possible CIA break-in at his house, the detainment of his partner on trumped-up terrorism suspicions, and furious wrangles with the mainstream press, which he denounces for its chumminess with officialdom. Greenwald's great reporting highlights the collusion of government, corporations, and media to undermine notions of privacy and democratic participation. --Publisher's Weekly

Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care

Bush, Jonathan (Author), Baker, Stephen (With) (Get this book)
With the assistance of former BusinessWeek senior writer Baker, Bush, nephew of George H.W., offers an alternative to Obamacare based on his own experiences as CEO of athenahealth, Inc. Despite the author's family connections, this is by no means a vitriolic attack on the Affordable Care Act but rather an appraisal of why, in his opinion, it is not up to the necessary task of reforming the American health care system, since escalating costs (whether borne by individuals or government) are not sufficiently addressed. Likely to find its way onto the Republican platform but worthy of serious consideration on its own merits.--Kirkus

A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat

Matthew Kroenig (Get this book)
Kroenig explains why we need to prepare to bomb Iran.This is no neoconservative cheerleading for another Middle East war; Kroenig knows that nobody has the stomach for that. As a former special adviser for Iranian affairs to the secretary of defense, however, he also fully understands the challenge that a militant Iran presents to American foreign policy goals worldwide, particularly the enforcement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, thus, the prevention of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. If one accepts his premises-and not all analysts do-the logic of Kroenig's position is inexorable and the conclusion, as unavoidable as it is unwelcome.Aggressive title aside, this is a carefully argued call for action on a problem that is only going to get worse.--Kirkus