Best of
Social-Change

2002

Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor


Evelyn Nakano Glenn - 2002
    Evelyn Nakano Glenn untangles this complex history in a unique comparative regional study from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of World War II. During this era the country experienced enormous social and economic changes with the abolition of slavery, rapid territorial expansion, and massive immigration, and struggled over the meaning of free labor and the essence of citizenship as people who previously had been excluded sought the promise of economic freedom and full political rights.After a lucid overview of the concepts of the free worker and the independent citizen at the national level, Glenn vividly details how race and gender issues framed the struggle over labor and citizenship rights at the local level between blacks and whites in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Asians and haoles (the white planter class) in Hawaii. She illuminates the complex interplay of local and national forces in American society and provides a dynamic view of how labor and citizenship were defined, enforced, and contested in a formative era for white-nonwhite relations in America.

Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation


David A. Nibert - 2002
    Nibert argues persuasively that throughout history the exploitation of other animals has gone hand in hand with the oppression of women, people of color, and other oppressed groups. He maintains that the oppression both of humans and of other species of animals is inextricably tangled within the structure of social arrangements. Nibert asserts that human use and mistreatment of other animals are not natural and do little to further the human condition. Nibert's analysis emphasizes the economic and elite-driven character of prejudice, discrimination, and institutionalized repression of humans and other animals. His examination of the economic entanglements of the oppression of human and other animals is supplemented with an analysis of ideological forces and the use of state power in this sociological expose of the grotesque uses of the oppressed, past and present. Nibert suggests that the liberation of devalued groups of humans is unlikely in a world that uses other animals as fodder for the continual growth and expansion of transnational corporations and, conversely, that animal liberation cannot take place when humans continue to be exploited and oppressed.

You Are Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence


Satish Kumar - 2002
    In it he traces the sources of inspiration which formed his understanding of the world as a network of multiple and diverse relationships. You Are, Therefore I Am is in four parts. The first describes his memories of conversations with his mother, his teacher and his Guru, all of whom were deeply religious. The second part recounts his discussions with the Indian sage Vinoba Bhave, J. Krishnamurti, Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, and E. F. Schumacher. These five great activists and thinkers inspired him to engage with social, ecological and political issues. In the third part Satish narrates his travels in India, which have continued to nourish his mind and reconnect him with his roots.

Laguna de Bay: The Living Lake (Water Series Trilogy, #1)


Reynaldo Gamboa AlejandroEd Lapiz - 2002
    This book is dedicated to the various stakeholder groups and individuals who work tirelessly for the future-oriented environmental conservation of Laguna de Bay.

Development Practitioners and Social Process: Artists of the Invisible


Allan Kaplan - 2002
    A critical account of the politics of aid-giving.

Born to Belonging: Writings on Spirit and Justice


Mab Segrest - 2002
    As she moves from place to place, she speculates on the effects of globalization and urban development on individuals, examines the struggles for racial, economic, and sexual equality, and narrates her own history as a lesbian in the American South. From the principle that we all belong to the human community, Segrest uses her personal experience as a filter for larger political and cultural issues. Her writings bring together such groups as the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, fledging gay rights activists in Zimbabwe, and resistance fighters in El Salvador. Segrest expertly plumbs her own personal experiences for organizing principles and maxims to combat racism, homophobia, sexism, and economic exploitation.

Soul Work: Anti-Racist Theologies in Dialogue


Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley - 2002
    

Embracing the World: Praying for Justice and Peace


Jane Vennard - 2002
    Author Jane E. Vennard helps you understand how to best use your spiritual gifts and graces to serve God as well as the cause of peace and social justice here on earth. Embracing the World reveals the twofold nature of prayer: as both contemplation and action. Vennard explains that prayer is a cycle where prayer leads to service and service leads to reflection and back to God. Throughout the book, she explores many different forms of outward-reaching prayer and includes a wealth of vivid descriptions, helpful explanations, captivating stories, and biblical and theological reflections.

Growing Up Empty: The Hunger Epidemic in America


Loretta Schwartz-Nobel - 2002
    Twenty years after Ronald Reagan declared that hunger was no longer an American problem, Schwartz-Nobel shows that hunger has reached epic proportions, running rampant through urban, rural, and suburban communities, affecting blacks, whites, Asians, Christians and Jews, and nonbelievers alike. Among the people we come to know are the new homeless. Born of the "Welfare to Work" program, these working poor have jobs but do not make enough to support their families, such as the formerly middle-class housewife reduced to stealing in order to feed her children, or the soldier fighting on our front lines while his young wife stands in bread lines and is denied benefits and baby formula at a military health clinic. With skillful investigative reporting and a novelist's humanitarian eye for detail, Schwartz-Nobel portrays a haunting reality of human suffering that need not exist. A call to action, "Growing Up Empty" is advocacy journalism at its best.