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A groundbreaking look at how America exported mass incarceration
around the globe, from a rising young historian “American
Purgatory will forever change how we understand the rise of mass
incarceration. It will forever change how we understand this
country.” —Clint Smith, bestselling author of How the Word Is
Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America In
this explosive new book, historian Benjamin Weber reveals how the
story of American prisons is inextricably linked to the expansion
of American power around the globe. A vivid work of hidden history
that spans the wars to subjugate Native Americans in the
mid-nineteenth century, the conquest of the western territories,
and the creation of an American empire in Panama, Puerto Rico, and
the Philippines, American Purgatory reveals how “prison
imperialism”—the deliberate use of prisons to control restive,
subject populations—is written into our national DNA, extending
through to our modern era of mass incarceration. Weber also
uncovers a surprisingly rich history of prison resistance, from the
Seminole Chief Osceola to Assata Shakur—one that invites us to
rethink the scope of America’s long freedom struggle. Weber’s
brilliantly documented text is supplemented by original maps
highlighting the global geography of prison imperialism, as well as
illustrations of key figures in this history by the celebrated
artist Ayo Scott. For readers of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim
Crow, here is a bold new effort to tell the full story of prisons
and incarceration—at home and abroad—as well as a powerful
future vision of a world without prisons.
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