In these essays, interviews and speeches, Angela Y. Davis illuminates connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles. She highlights connections and analyses today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Facing a world of injustice, Davis challenges us to build the movement for human liberation.

On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder. This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand of government officials. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou. Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides.

Avery Gordon's first book, Ghostly Matters, was widely acclaimed as a work of striking sociological imagination and social theory. Keeping Good Time, her much anticipated second book, brings together essays by Gordon that were 'written to be read aloud'. Her eloquent voice in this book further establishes her place among literary sociological writers of a new generation. Keeping Good Time explores the meaning of being a politically engaged scholar during deeply troubled times. The book's essays consider the role of education during war time, the costs of imprisonment and repression, the power of utopianism in an age of globalization, the complexities of gendered racism, the politics of culture, and the practice of theory as it emerges from everyday life.

Avery Gordon's first book, Ghostly Matters, was widely acclaimed as a work of striking sociological imagination and social theory. Keeping Good Time, her much anticipated second book, brings together essays by Gordon that were 'written to be read aloud'. Her eloquent voice in this book further establishes her place among literary sociological writers of a new generation. Keeping Good Time explores the meaning of being a politically engaged scholar during deeply troubled times. The book's essays consider the role of education during war time, the costs of imprisonment and repression, the power of utopianism in an age of globalization, the complexities of gendered racism, the politics of culture, and the practice of theory as it emerges from everyday life.

In the last two decades, historians have increasingly sought to understand how environments, 'built' and otherwise, architectural surroundings, landscapes, and conceptual 'places' and 'spaces' have affected the nature and scope of political power, cultural production and social experience . The essays in this collection expand upon this already rich field of inquiry by combining an analytical approach sensitive to questions of gender with an exploration of ideas of political space. The volume demonstrates how the gendered and political meanings of space-be that space domestic or public, rural or urban, real or imagined, or a combination of all these and more-are fashioned through the movement of historical actors through space and time. Whether in delineating the gendered and politicized space of the pulpit; the sickroom; the Irish farmyard; the London suffrage atelier; the domestic space created by the wireless; the lesbian 'scene' of rural Canada; the eighteenth-century ladies' 'closet'; or the public space within the 'public history' of historic houses, the volume demonstrates how the meanings of these spaces are not fixed, but are challenged and reformulated. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

In the last two decades, historians have increasingly sought to understand how environments, 'built' and otherwise, architectural surroundings, landscapes, and conceptual 'places' and 'spaces' have affected the nature and scope of political power, cultural production and social experience . The essays in this collection expand upon this already rich field of inquiry by combining an analytical approach sensitive to questions of gender with an exploration of ideas of political space. The volume demonstrates how the gendered and political meanings of space-be that space domestic or public, rural or urban, real or imagined, or a combination of all these and more-are fashioned through the movement of historical actors through space and time. Whether in delineating the gendered and politicized space of the pulpit; the sickroom; the Irish farmyard; the London suffrage atelier; the domestic space created by the wireless; the lesbian 'scene' of rural Canada; the eighteenth-century ladies' 'closet'; or the public space within the 'public history' of historic houses, the volume demonstrates how the meanings of these spaces are not fixed, but are challenged and reformulated. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

Winner of the Women's History Network Book Prize, 2013 This book examines women's experiences of motherhood in England in the years between 1945 and 2000. Based on a new body of 160 oral history interviews, the book offers the first comprehensive historical study of the experience of motherhood in the second half of the twentieth century. Motherhood is an area where a number of discourses and practices meet. The book forms a thematic study looking at aspects of mothers' lives such as education, health care, psychology, labour market trends and state intervention. Looking through the prism of motherhood provides a way of understanding the complex social changes that have taken place in the post-war world. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in the field of twentieth-century British social history. However it will also be of interest to scholars in related fields and a general readership with an interest in British social history. 'A fascinating survey of women's experience of motherhood', 'eminently readable', 'a solid and thoughtful study', 'an outstanding piece of oral history', and 'ambitiously wide ranging'. The judging panel for the Women's History Network Book Prize, 2013. -- .

"With the publication of the present volume, there will finally be available a representative selection of the thoughts of the leading woman of European socialism."--Angela Davis, from the introduction

"Clara Zetkin's arguments in support of women workers contain a logic which can be effectively employed today."--Angela Davis, from the foreword to the 1984 edition

Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist who organized the first International Women's Day.

Philip S. Foner was one of the most prominent Marxist historians in the United States.

Angela Davis is a world-renowned scholar and author of "Are Prisons Obsolete?"

With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly, the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable.
In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration," and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

"I believe that Marcuse's ideas can be as valuable today as they were fifty years ago."-Angela Y. Davis, from the foreword Herbert Marcuse was one of the twentieth century's most unlikely pop stars: a celebrity philosopher. In the 1960s, his argument for a "principled utopianism" catalyzed the idealism of a rebellious generation, and Marcuse became an intellectual guide for activists and revolutionaries around the world. From his early studies with Martin Heidegger, to his flight from Nazi Germany with Frankfurt School colleagues, to his status as a countercultural icon, readers are introduced to the development of Marcuse's philosophical theories and the political realities that shaped his work. Marcuse's advocacy for a more humane, sustainable world was grounded in a personal knowledge of authoritarianism's violence, and the risk of its resurgence. Perennially relevant, radical, and inspiring, Marcuse's concept of a "Great Refusal"-the protest against that which is-is a guide for our times. Praise for Herbert Marcuse, Philosopher of Utopia: "Nick Thorkelson's exploration of the ideas and personality of Herbert Marcuse is exactly the sort of comic book I have longed to read. It is engaging, artful, and explores the world of revolutionary ideas. Books like this keep the fire going inside."-Joe Sacco, author of Footnotes in Gaza "A warm, funny, richly detailed biography. Thorkelson has found a powerful graphic style and narrative voice that animate Marcuse's life and his theory of rebellion. As both personal saga and primer on radical political philosophy, it could not be more relevant to today's resistance movement."-Dan Wasserman, editorial cartoonist for The Boston Globe "Marcuse's energizing sense of critique, hope, politics, and utopian vision are more necessary than ever, especially for the emerging generations of young activists."-Henry A. Giroux, author of American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism "A riotous romp through 20th-century philosophy. The story of a man who exists at the eye of storm of ideas, of movements and of social strategies. With workers and students on the streets of Paris once more, Marcuse's life and work has never been more relevant."-Kate Evans, author of Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography "Philosopher of Utopia is art on the attack! A perfect celebration of this unique public intellectual done through a fusion of skill and imagination, Thorkelson's book provides access to the genius and the grit of this master of the dialectic."-Lowell Bergman, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Distinguished Chair in Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley "[This book] confirms my belief that our medium can convey the most complex ideas while being witty and entertaining at the same time."-Sharon Rudahl, author of A Dangerous Woman: A Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman

The trial of Angela Davis is remembered as one of America's most historic political trials, and no one can tell the story better than Davis herself. Opening with a letter from James Baldwin to Angela, and including contributions from numerous radicals and commentators such as Black Panthers George Jackson, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins, this book is not only an account of Davis's incarceration and the struggles surrounding it, but also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of the prison system of the United States and the figure embodied in Davis's arrest and imprisonment-the political prisoner. Since the book was written, the carceral system in the US has grown from strength to strength, with more of its black population behind bars than ever before. The scathing analysis of the role of prison and the policing of black populations offered by Davis and her comrades in this astonishing volume remains as relevant today as the day it was published.

In July 1988, the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to bring an end to the brutal eight-year war with Iraq. Over the next two months, under the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, political prisoners around the country were secretly brought before a tribunal panel that would later become known as the Death Commission. They were not told what was happening and did not know that one 'wrong' answer concerning their faith or political affiliation would send them straight to the gallows. Thousands of men and women were condemned to death, many buried in mass graves in Khavaran Cemetery in the vicinity of Tehran. Through eyewitness accounts of survivors, research by scholars and memories of children and spouses of the deceased, Voices of a Massacre reconstructs the events of that bloody summer. Over thirty years later, the Iranian government has still not officially acknowledged that they ever took place.

Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, three women - Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors - came together to form an active response to the systemic racism causing the deaths of so many African-Americans. They simply said: Black Lives Matter; and for that, they were labelled terrorists. In this empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and award-winning author and journalist asha bandele recount the personal story that led Patrisse to become a founder of Black Lives Matter, seeking to end the culture that declares Black life expendable. Like the era-defining movement she helped create, this rallying cry demands you do not look away. With foreword by Angela Davis.

An unforgettable account of defiance against political terror by one of South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid activists
An invaluable testimonial of the excesses of the apartheid system, "117 Days" presents the harrowing chronicle of journalist Ruth First's isolation and abuse at the hands of South African interrogators after her arrest in 1963. Upon her arrest, she was detained in solitary confinement under South Africa's notorious ninety-day detention law. This is the story of the war of nerves that ensued between First and her Special Branch captors-a work that remains a classic portrait of oppression and the dignity of the human spirit.

The powerful memoir of one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter which explores how the movement was born, adapted for young adults and featuring brand new content including photos and journal entries A movement that started with a hashtag - #BlackLivesMatter - and spread across the world. From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Khan-Cullors' story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimised by the powerful. In this meaningful, empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, Khan-Cullors and asha bandele seek to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.