political aspects

Chronicles the dramatic history of the vote in America and presents an urgent summons to protect and perfect democracy, from the former Attorney General of the United States and a leading voting rights advocate.

"Author Jessica Vitkus interviews today's craftivists as well as scholars who study handmade activism of the past. The full-color book includes interviews, historical context, and over 100 photos that show artists and art in action. Plus directions for a few projects to get you started on your own craftivist journey"--Back cover.

"Erik Edstrom grew up in suburban Massachusetts with an idealistic desire to make an impact, ultimately leading him to the gates of West Point. Five years later, he was deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry lieutenant. Throughout his military career, he confronted atrocities, buried his friends, wrestled with depression, and struggled with an understanding that the war he fought in, and the youth he traded to prepare for it, was in contribution to a bitter truth: The War on Terror is not just a tragedy, but a crime. The deeper tragedy is that our country lacks the courage and conviction to say so. Un-American is a hybrid of social commentary and memoir that exposes how blind support for war exacerbates the problems it's intended to resolve, devastates the people allegedly being helped, and diverts assets from far larger threats like climate change . . . a revolutionary act, offering a blueprint for redressing America's relationship with patriotism, the military, and military spending"--Provided by publisher.

A behind-the-scenes account of the debates, struggles, and emotions that went into the building of the United States Holocaust Museum which opened in Washington D.C. in 1993.

"A New York Times investigative reporter . . . through research, exclusive interviews and on-the-ground reporting, captures the tangible havoc wreaked upon our minds and world by the titans of the tech industry, telling the inside story of how the social networks fundamentally altered the world"--Provided by publisher.

"The rise of so-called cancel culture has enable voices on social media to express disapproval for people's words or actions. Individuals can be 'canceled' for racist statements, sexual misconduct, or other perceived misbehavior. [This book] looks at this phenomenon and the controversy over whether it often goes too far"--Provided by publisher.

"Two powerful phenomena are simultaneously unfolding on Earth: the rise of the climate movement and the rise of women and girls. The People's Climate March and the Women's March. School strikes for climate and the #MeToo movement. Rebellions against extinction and declarations that time's up. More than concurrent, the two trends are deeply connected. From sinking islands to drought-ridden savannas, the global warming crisis places an outsized burden on women, largely because of gender inequalities"--Provided by publisher.

"Anthology of curated essays addressing QAnon and conspiracy theories--why they begin, how they catch fire, and how they affect politics and society"--Provided by publisher.

If you wanted to build a machine that would distribute propaganda to millions of people, distract them from important issues, energize hatred and bigotry, erode social trust, undermine respectable journalism, foster doubts about science, and engage in massive surveillance all at once, youwould make something a lot like Facebook. Of course, none of that was part of the plan. In this fully updated paperback edition of Antisocial Media, Siva Vaidhyanathan explains how Facebook devolved from an innocent social site hacked together by Harvard students into a force that, while it may makepersonal life just a little more pleasurable, makes democracy a lot more challenging. It's an account of the hubris of good intentions, a missionary spirit, and an ideology that sees computer code as the universal solvent for all human problems. And it's an indictment of how "social media" hasfostered the deterioration of democratic culture around the world, from facilitating Russian meddling in support of Trump's election to the exploitation of the platform by murderous authoritarians in Burma and the Philippines. Both authoritative and trenchant, Antisocial Media shows how Facebook'smission went so wrong.

"This book deals with two very large and often amorphous concepts: privacy and surveillance in the context of both government and the marketplace. Both concepts have undergone changes over the millennia of recorded human history, and those changes have dramatically sped up and expanded over the past few centuries, starting with the widespread use of the printing press in the mid- to late-15th century when books and newspapers began to proliferate across Europe and the rest of the "civilized" world by the end of the 17th century. The development of radio, television and the internet in the 20th century heightened the need to define more clearly what both concepts meant and how they applied both to governments (the "public sector") and individual and corporate players (the "private sector"). The Thought Police and Big Brother are terms introduced into the popular lexicon by George Orwell in his novel 1984; Big Brother was the overweening all-powerful government of Orwell's novel, and the Thought Police were those who managed to burrow so deeply into every citizen's behavior, speech and even thoughts that they could control or punish behavior based on the slightest deviations from orthodoxy. Orwell was only slightly off the mark. Big Brother types of government, and Thought Police types of social control, are now widespread in the world and incompatible with democracy, as I'll show in more detail later in the book. Most concerning for Americans and citizens of other "democratic" nations, the mentality of both have heavily infiltrated both American government and corporate sectors, reaching so deeply into the day-to-day details of our lives that the techniques and technologies they use can - and do -not only control, but predict our behavior"--.