beacon press - fall 2015 catalog

Beacon Press

fall books 2015Igniting Hearts and Minds

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Igniting Hearts and Minds

From The Only Woman in the Room

Even in the 1970s, the sexism I experienced was rarely obvious. I grew up in a privileged, loving home with few barriers that might prevent a bright, confident young woman from succeeding in whatever field she took it in her head to enter. All this led me to suspect that the reasons for the scarcity of female physicists must be subtle, and those reasons must lie buried in the psyches of the women who loved science and math but never completed their degrees or, like me, earned their degrees but left their fields. . . . By trying to understand why I didn’t become a physicist, I hoped to gain insights into why so many young women still fail to go on in science and math in the numbers their presence in high school classrooms and their scores on standardized tests predict.

What I discovered shocked me. Although more young women major in physics at Yale than when I attended school there, those young women told me stories of the sexism they had en-countered in junior high and high school that seemed even more troubling than what I had experienced: complaints about being belittled and teased by their classmates and teachers, worries about being perceived as unfeminine or uncool. . . . The same forces that caused me to feel isolated and unsure of myself at Yale continue to hem in young women today, acting like an in-visible electrified field to discourage all but the thickest skinned from following their passion for science, a phenomenon that turns out to be less true in other countries, where women are perceived as being equally capable in science and math as men.

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• Events in New York City; Ann Arbor, MI; Rochester, NY; New Haven, CT; and Portland, OR

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 15

Women’s Studies / Science

$27.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-4657-9

$33.00 Canada

Selling territory: World

Trans.: Author

6 x 9 / 288 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-4661-6

Eileen Pollack

The Only Woman in the RoomWhy Science Is Still a Boys’ Club

A bracingly honest exploration of why there are still so few women in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science

In 2005, when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, asked why so few women achieve ten-ured positions in the hard sciences, Eileen Pollack set out to find the answer. In the 1970s, Pollack had excelled as one of Yale’s first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics. But, isolated, lacking in confidence, and starved for encourage-ment, she abandoned her lifelong dream of becom-ing a theoretical physicist. Years later, she thought back on her experiences and wondered what had changed in the intervening decades, and what chal-lenges remained. Based on six years of interview-ing dozens of teachers and students and reviewing studies on gender bias, The Only Woman in the Room is an illuminating exploration of the cultur-al, social, psychological, and institutional barriers confronting women in the STEM disciplines. Pol-lack brings to light the struggles that women in the sciences are often hesitant to admit and pro-vides hope that changing attitudes and behaviors can bring more women into fields in which they remain, to this day, seriously underrepresented.

Eileen Pollack is the author of the novels Breaking and Entering (a New York Times Editor’s Choice se-lection) and Paradise, New York, as well as two col-lections of short fiction, an award-winning book of nonfiction, and two creative-nonfiction textbooks. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories. She is a professor on the faculty of the Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She divides her time between Manhattan and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Seven civilians were shot by police on September 4, 2005

Steering with his right hand, the ex-marine leans out the window and fires a handgun with his left toward a pack of people he glimpses ahead, gathered at the foot of the bridge. The truck screeches to a halt, sending some in back tumbling over, and officers pour out. They say nothing. One, Anthony Villavaso II, rips nine shots from his AK-47. Pop, pop,

pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Officer Faulcon hits the ground, pumps his shotgun, then fires. He pumps again, then fires. . . . One officer aims his pistol at the back of a slight figure sprinting away from the bridge, and pulls the trigger twice. Another points his rifle toward two men trying to race up and over the bridge for cover, and fires. . . . When the shooting stops, seventeen-year-old James Brissette Jr. is dead, bullets riddling his six-foot, 130-pound body from the heel of his foot to the top of his head. Susan Bartholomew is try-ing to crawl on the pavement, her right arm dangling by a thread. Her daughter’s stomach is shredded by a bullet. Her husband’s head is pierced by shrapnel. Her nephew Jose is shot in the neck, jaw, stomach, elbow, and hand. A paramedic arriving soon after says not to bother with him; the teen is too far gone. . . . Ronald Madison is slumped over the pavement, the back of his white shirt turned red, with seven gunshot wounds in his back. As Madison wheezes his final breaths, . . . Hunter watches his former supervisor Bowen . . . stomp on his back, leaving a boot print upon the slight figure sprawled in pools of blood.

Like every one of the victims, he is black, and unarmed.

Photograph: Billy Metcalf Photography. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

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• Events in New Orleans; Washington, DC; and Miami

ON SALE AUGUST 18

Crime / Sociology

$24.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-3350-0

$29.99 Canada

Selling territory: World English

Trans.: Agent

Illustrations: 8-page photographic insert

6 x 9 / 264 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-3351-7

Ronnie Greene

Shots on the BridgePolice Violence and Cover-Up in the Wake of Katrina

A gripping tale of police brutality, investigating the cover-up of a deadly NOLA cops’ shooting of six unarmed civilians, published on the tenth anniversary of Katrina

Six days after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans, New Orleans Police Department officers opened fire on residents crossing the Danziger Bridge. When the shooting stopped, a mentally challenged man and a seventeen-year-old boy were dead, riddled with gunshot wounds. A mother’s arm was shot off, her daughter’s stomach gouged with a bullet hole, and her husband’s head pierced by shrapnel. Her nephew was shot in the neck, jaw, stomach, and hand. All six of the victims, along with two others arrested at the scene, were black and unarmed. Before the blood dried, the shooters and their supervisors had hatched a cover-up. They would plant a gun, invent witnesses, and charge two of their victims with attempted murder. The NOPD hailed all the shooters on the bridge as heroes.

Shots on the Bridge explores one of the most dra-matic cases of injustice in the last decade. It reveals the fear that gripped the police of a city fallen into anarchy, the circumstances that led desperate survivors to go to the bridge, and the horror that erupted with the gunfire. It dissects the cover-up that nearly buried the truth and the legal maze that, a decade later, leaves the victims still search-ing for justice.

Ronnie Greene is an investigative journalist at the Associated Press. Before joining the AP, Greene was project editor for Breathless and Burdened, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. He is the author of Night Fire: Big Oil, Poison Air, and Margie Richard’s Fight to Save Her Town. He lives in Falls Church, Virginia.

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ON SALE AUGUST 25

Education

$17.00 Paperback Original

978-0-8070-5586-1

$20.00 Canada


All rights: Beacon Press

5½ x 8½ / 192 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-5587-8

Kevin Jennings, editor

One Teacher in Ten in the New MillenniumLGBT Educators Speak Out About What’s Gotten Better . . . and What Hasn’t

Twenty completely new stories of negotiating the triumphs and challenges of being an LGBT educator in the twenty-first century

Following on two successful volumes of original stories published in 1994 and 2004, this all-new collection in the One Teacher in Ten series brings to-gether stories from all over America—and around the world. The result is a rich tapestry of varied experiences. From a teacher who feels he must remain closeted in the comparative safety of New York City public schools to teachers who are out in places as far afield as South Africa and China, the educators in One Teacher in Ten in the New Millen-nium prove that LGBT teachers are as diverse and complex as humanity itself. Voices largely absent from the first two editions—including transgender people, people of color, teachers working in rural districts, and educators from outside the United States—feature prominently in this new collection, giving readers a richer and deeper understanding of the array of experiences of LGBT educators.

Kevin Jennings is the founder of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. Cur-rently he is the executive director of the Arcus Foundation, a leading funder of human rights and conservation work. He lives in New York City.

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ON SALE SEPTEMBER 8

Environment

$27.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-3376-0

$33.00 Canada

Selling territory: USC

Trans., aud.: Author

9 black & white photos

6 x 9 / 256 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-3377-7

Philip Warburg

Harness the SunAmerica’s Quest for a Solar-Powered Future

Going from the inner city to the open desert, a seasoned environmental advocate looks at solar energy’s remarkable ascent and its promise for America’s future

Solar power was once the domain of futurists and environmentally minded suburbanites. Today it is part of mainstream America—and the solar indus-try is absolutely booming, as it adds workers almost twenty times faster than the overall US economy. Beginning in his Boston-area home, where a roof-top solar array meets most of his family’s power needs, Philip Warburg travels the country and in-troduces readers to a surprising array of pioneers who are spearheading America’s solar revolution, from conservative business leaders and politicians to students and professors committed to greening their campuses. Pollution-ravaged urban industrial areas and Native American groups alike are find-ing that solar offers the key to revitalizing their communities—all while weaning the country off of fossil fuels. In Harness the Sun, Warburg argues that solar offers a realistic solution to the urgent problem of transforming our energy sector in a way that meets demand and is technically and eco-nomically viable.

Philip Warburg has served as president of the Conservation Law Foundation, as executive direc-tor of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, and as a senior attorney at the Environmental Law Institute. The author of Harvest the Wind: Ameri-ca’s Journey to Jobs, Energy Independence, and Climate Stability, Warburg lives with his family in Newton, Massachusetts.

An astonishing debut from a fresh voice in American literature

“Deeply alive and exciting and nuanced, a story of injury and years alone in the woods, The Point of Vanishing is all about what it means to see, and how we might ask ourselves to see differently—to live differently in our own bodies, and in the world. Though this book is set largely in the snow and silence, there are embers of hunger and questioning and longing that glow deep in its core and refuse to be cooled. Their heat charges and illumi-nates every moment of these pages. Powerful and ineffable, it feels like a blessing.”

—LesLie JAmison, author of The Empathy Exams

“Axelrod uses his seclusion in the natu-ral solitary world of the North in win-ter to explore how we can have vision without really seeing. Well written with an honesty one can respect, The Point of Vanishing is more than an exploration of the human soul; it is a discovery of how our bodies can compensate and comple-ment for our senses when we experience the partial loss of one.”

—Annie PhiLbrick, Bank Square Books

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• Events in Cambridge, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Vermont; and Portland, ME


Memoir / Nature

$24.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-7546-3

$29.99 Canada


Trans., aud.: Author

5½ x 8½ / 224 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-7547-0

Howard Axelrod

The Point of VanishingA Memoir of Two Years in Solitude

Into the Wild meets Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—a lyrical memoir of a life changed in an instant and of the perilous beauty of searching for identity in solitude

After losing vision in one eye during his senior year at Harvard, Howard Axelrod found himself in a world where nothing was solid, where the smooth veneer of reality had been shattered, and where the distance between how people saw him and how he saw himself had widened into a gulf. Five years later, heartbroken from a love affair in Italy and desperate for a sense of orientation, Axelrod retreated to a small house in the Vermont woods. Miles from the nearest neighbor, he lived with barely any human contact or communication for two years. Whether tending to the woodstove or snow-shoeing through the forest, he devoted his energies to learning to see again—to paying at-tention and to rediscovering what really matters. A gorgeous memoir of solitude in an age of super-ficial connection, The Point of Vanishing probes the profoundly human questions of perception, time, identity, and meaning.

Howard Axelrod’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Shambhala Sun, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. Axelrod has held teaching positions at Harvard, the University of Ar-izona, and Wentworth Institute of Technology. He currently teaches at Grub Street in Boston, where he lives. This is his first book.

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ON SALE AUGUST 25

History

$26.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-1450-9

$32.00 Canada




6 x 9 / 256 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-1451-6

Premilla Nadasen

Household Workers UniteThe Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement

Telling the stories of African American domestic workers, this book resurrects a little-known history of domestic worker activism in the 1960s and 1970s, offering new perspectives on race, labor, feminism, and organizing.

In this ground-breaking history of African Amer-ican domestic worker organizing, scholar and ac-tivist Premilla Nadasen shatters countless myths and misconceptions about a workforce that has been historically misunderstood. Nadasen shows how, in the 1960s and 1970s, African American household workers developed unique strategies for social change and formed unprecedented alliances with activists in both the women’s rights and the black freedom movements. Using compelling per-sonal stories of the leaders and participants on the front lines, Household Workers Unite is a powerful account of the poor women of color whose pas-sionate struggle for higher wages, better working conditions, and respect on the job created a sus-tained political movement.

“A must-read for workers, activists, and historians. With insight and precision, she brings to life the dy-namic women who, in their courageous pursuit of respect and justice, inspired many movements and future generations.”—Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and codirector of the Caring Across Generations campaign

Premilla Nadasen is an associate professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia Universi-ty, and is the author of several books on welfare, including the award-winning Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States. A long-time scholar-activist, Nadasen works closely with domestic workers’ rights organizations, for which she has written policy briefs and served as an expert academic witness. She lives in Mount Vernon, New York.

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• Events in Boston and Western MA

ON SALE OCTOBER 6

Environment

$24.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-8840-1

$29.99 Canada



6 x 9 / 256 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-8841-8

Wen Stephenson

What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each OtherDispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice

An on-the-ground look at some of the “new American radicals” who have laid everything on the line to build a stronger climate justice movement

The international scientific consensus is that we’re in trouble: catastrophic climate change is upon us. In 2010, Wen Stephenson woke up to this reali-ty, and to what he calls “the spiritual crisis at the heart of the climate crisis,” and asked: “What am I going to do about it?” He decided to walk away from his successful career as a mainstream journal-ist and join the growing climate justice movement. In What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other, Stephenson tells his own story of becoming an un-likely radical and the stories of the remarkable and courageous people he has worked alongside: old-school environmentalists and young climate jus-tice organizers; frontline community leaders and Texas tar-sands blockaders; evangelicals, Quakers, and Occupiers. He argues that the movement is less like environmentalism and more like the great human rights and social justice struggles of the past, such as abolitionism and civil rights. This is a movement about human solidarity—and a pro-foundly spiritual struggle on behalf of our fellow human beings.

“This is a young, fascinating, in-motion move-ment, and Wen Stephenson captures it with grace and power. I learned a good deal about things I thought I already understood.” —Bill McKibben, cofounder of 350.org

Wen Stephenson, an independent writer and climate activist, is a frequent contributor to The Nation. A former editor at the Atlantic and Boston Globe, he was most recently the senior producer of NPR’s On Point. He lives with his wife and two chil-dren in Wayland, Massachusetts.

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• Promotion tied to the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps


Poetry

$16.00 Paperback Original

978-0-8070-0027-4

$19.00 Canada

Selling territory: North America

1st ser., 2nd ser., trans., UK, and aud.: New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc.

5½ x 8½ / 208 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-4190-1

Mark Ludwig, editor

LiberationNew Works on Freedom from Internationally Renowned Poets

Foreword by Ha Jin

An exploration of freedom by some of the world’s most celebrated poets, published for the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps

The year 2015 marks the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the conclusion of the Second World War. But around the world, oppressed and imprisoned people are still longing for freedom and asking, “What does it mean to be free?” This collection of poems explores that question.

In honor of the anniversary, some of the world’s top contemporary voices—including Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Richard Blanco—have written never-before-published poems on the theme of liberation as it inspires them personally and creatively. The result is an artistic representa-tion of the universal yearning for freedom span-ning eighty-two poems, twenty-five countries, and countless stories of oppression, imprisonment, and liberation. This collection demonstrates the power of art to heal and to bring attention to freedom as a universal human right.

Mark Ludwig is the founding executive director of the Terezín Music Foundation (TMF), dedicated to preserving and performing the musical legacy of composers imprisoned in the Terezín concentra-tion camp and all artists lost in the Holocaust. By commissioning new works of composers and poets, TMF strives to fill the silence these great artists left and to use their legacy as a vehicle promoting di-alogue and freedom of expression. Mark lives in Boston, where he is also a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

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Michael Bess

Our Grandchildren RedesignedLife in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future

A panoramic overview of biotechnologies that can endlessly boost human capabilities and the drastic changes these “superhuman” traits could trigger

Biotechnology is moving fast. In the coming de-cades, advanced pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetic interventions will boost human phys-ical and mental performance to unprecedented levels. People will have access to pills that make them stronger and faster, informatic devices will in-terface seamlessly with the human brain, and epi-genetic modification may allow people to reshape their own physical and mental identity at will.

The results will no doubt be mixed. People will live longer, healthier lives and will generate stagger-ingly complex forms of knowledge. But these tech-nologies also threaten to widen the rift between rich and poor, to generate new forms of social and economic division, and to force people into con-stant upgrades merely to keep up. Individuals may acquire such extreme capabilities that they will no longer be recognized as unambiguously human.

Award-winning historian Michael Bess provides a clear, nontechnical overview of cutting-edge bio-technology and paints a vivid portrait of a near- future society in which bioenhancement has become a part of everyday life. He surveys the ethical questions raised by the enhancement en-terprise and explores the space for human agency in dealing with the challenges that these technol-ogies will present.

Michael Bess is the Chancellor’s Professor of Histo-ry at Vanderbilt University. He has received major fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Fulbright program. His previous books in-clude Choices Under Fire and The Light-Green Society.

ON SALE OCTOBER 13

Health / Medicine / Science / Technology

$27.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-5217-4

$33.00 Canada

Selling territory: North America

UK, trans: Agent

6 x 9 / 320 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-5218-1

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ON SALE NOVEMBER 10

Religion

$26.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-3347-0

$32.00 Canada


Trans.: Author

6 x 9 / 288 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-3348-7

Deborah Jian Lee

Rescuing JesusHow People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians Are Reclaiming Evangelicalism

An inside look at the young, diverse, progressive Christians who are transforming the evangelical movement

Most of what we think we know about evangelicals is wrong, or is well on its way to being outdated. Generational changes and the shifting racial make-up of evangelical Christians are changing what we think of as evangelical culture and politics. To-day’s young evangelicals are more likely than their elders to accept same-sex marriage, more inclined to think of “pro-life” issues as being about support for the poor, and more accepting of equality be-tween men and women. Those on the leading edge of progressive evangelicalism—white, black, Asian, and Hispanic, as well as straight and LGBTQ, be-lievers—are working to change the substance of evangelicalism and to wrest power away from conservative Christians. In Rescuing Jesus, Debo-rah Jian Lee, a journalist and former evangelical, brings readers deep inside this progressive move-ment and tells the stories of the young women and men at the forefront of it. Given the clout that con-servative evangelicals still hold in national politics, Lee argues, this movement is important not only for the future of evangelicalism but for the future of our country.

Deborah Jian Lee is an award-winning journalist and radio producer. She has taught journalism at Columbia University, is the 2016 Distinguished Visiting Journalist at Cornell College, and has worked as a staff reporter for the Associated Press. She has written for Foreign Policy, Forbes, Slate, GOOD, Reuters, Religion News Service, WBEZ, and others. She lives in Chicago.

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• Promotion tied to Parks’s birthday (February 4)

ON SALE NOVEMBER 24

Biography

$17.50 Paperback

978-0-8070-7692-7

$21.00 Canada




6 x 9 / 336 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-7693-4

Jeanne Theoharis

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa ParksRevised edition

New introduction by the author

Recipient of the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Biography and the 2013

Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians

Presenting a powerful corrective to the popular iconography of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, scholar Jeanne Theoharis exca-vates Parks’s political philosophy and six decades of activism. This revised edition includes a new intro-duction by the author, who reflects on materials in the Rosa Parks estate, purchased by Howard Buffett in 2014 and displayed by the Library of Congress in February 2015. Theoharis contextualizes this rich material—made available to the public for the very first time and including more than seven thousand documents—and deepens our understanding of Parks’s personal, financial, and political struggles.

“Richly informative, calmly passionate and much needed.” —New York Times Book Review

“In the first sweeping history of Parks’s life, Theo-haris shows us . . . [that] Parks not only sat down on the bus; she stood on the right side of justice for her entire life.” —Julian Bond, chairman emeritus, NAACP

“It has taken an astute author to find the real Parks. Even though her refusal to give up her bus seat sparked a revolution, Rosa Parks was no acciden-tal heroine. She was born to it, and Theoharis ably shows us how and why.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Jeanne Theoharis is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and the author or coauthor of four books and articles on the black freedom struggle and the con-temporary politics of race in the United States.

ReveRend BaRBeR and the MoRal Monday Movement

in the newsProtests in North Carolina Challenge Conservative Shift in State Politics

—The New York Times

“Moral Monday” Expands to a Week of Social Justice Action Across US—The Washington Post

Budding Liberal Protest Movements Begin to Take Root in South—The New York Times

Moral Monday Movement Expands to 12 States for Week of Protests—The Huffington Post

Rev. Dr. William Barber II on Today’s Protest Movements—The New York Times Opinion Pages

A Conversation with the Man Behind “Moral Mondays”—MSNBC

Meet the Preacher Behind Moral Mondays—Mother Jones

Photograph: Phil Fonville

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ON SALE JANUARY 19

Memoir / Civil Rights

$24.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-8360-4

$29.99 Canada



6 x 9 / 176 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-8362-8

The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

The Third ReconstructionMoral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justicce Movement

A modern-day civil rights champion tells the stirring story of how he helped start a movement to bridge America’s racial divide.

Over the summer of 2013, Rev. William Barber led more than a hundred thousand people at ral-lies across North Carolina to protest cuts to voting rights and the social safety net, which the state’s conservative legislature had implemented. These protests, which came to be known as Moral Mon-days, have blossomed into the largest social move-ment the South has seen since the civil rights era—and, since then, it has spread to states as di-verse as Florida, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In The Third Reconstruction, Rev. Barber tells the story of how he helped lay the groundwork for the Moral Mondays movement and explores the un-fulfilled promises of America’s multiethnic democ-racy. He draws on the lessons of history to offer a vision of a new Reconstruction, one in which a diverse coalition of citizens—black and white, reli-gious and secular, Northern and Southern—fight side-by-side for racial and economic justice for all Americans. The Third Reconstruction is both a blueprint for activism at the state level and an in-spiring call to action from the twenty-first centu-ry’s most effective grassroots organizer.

The Reverend Dr. William Barber is the president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he lives. Jonathan Wil-son-Hartgrove is an associate minister at the his-torically black St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church and the author of Common Prayer and The New Mo-nasticism. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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• Events in Baltimore and New York City

• Promotion tied to DNA day (April 23)

ON SALE JANUARY 12

Sociology

$27.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-3301-2

$33.00 Canada



6 x 9 / 288 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-3302-9

Alondra Nelson

The Social Life of DNARace, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome

The unexpected story of how genetic testing is affecting race in America

DNA has been a master key unlocking medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life has also been notable. Genealogy is the second most popular hobby in the United States, and the out-pouring of interest in it from the African American community has been remarkable. After personally and professionally delving into the phenomenon for more than a decade, Alondra Nelson realized that genetic testing is being used to grapple with the unfinished business of slavery. It is being used for reconciliation, to establish ties with African an-cestral homelands, to rethink citizenship, and to make unprecedented legal claims for slavery rep-arations based on genetic ancestry. Arguing that DNA offers a new tool for enduring issues, Nelson shows that the social life of DNA is affecting and transforming twenty-first-century racial politics.

“Nelson explores this large, sprawling, fascinat-ing subject with clarity, passion, rigor, and a keen eye for revealing detail. . . . It is a brilliant work.” —Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School and author of The Persistence of the Color Line

Alondra Nelson is Dean of Social Science and pro-fessor of sociology and gender studies at Colum-bia University. She is author of the award-winning book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Science, Boston Globe, and the Guardian. She lives in New York City.

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• Events in New York City and Minneapolis/St. Paul

ON SALE JANUARY 5

Sociology of Death / Grief

$26.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-8062-7

$32.00 Canada

Selling territory: USCOM

UK, trans.: author

6 x 9 / 232 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-8063-4

Ann Neumann

The Good DeathAn Exploration of Dying in America

Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States.

If a good death exists, what does it look like? This question lies at the heart of Neumann’s rigorously researched and intimately told journey along the ultimate borderland of American life: American death. From church basements to hospital wards to prison cells, Neumann charts the social, political, religious, and medical landscape to explore how we die today. The Good Death weaves personal accounts with a historical exploration of the move-ments and developments that have changed the ways we experience death. With the diligence of a journalist and the compassion of a caregiver, Neu-mann provides a portrait of death in the United States that is humane, beautifully written, and es-sential to our greater understanding of the future of end-of-life care.

Ann Neumann is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, the Nation, and Guernica, where she is a contributing nonfiction editor. She is a visiting scholar at the Center for Religion and Media at New York University. She lives in Brook-lyn, New York.

Spring 2014 HighlightsComing in PaperbackComing in Paperback

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Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizAn Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United StatesON SALE AUGUST 115783-4 / $16.95 pb0040-3 / $27.95 hc

Michelle Bamberger and Robert OswaldThe Real Cost of FrackingHow America’s Shale Gas Boom Is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and FoodForeword by Sandra SteingraberON SALE SEPTEMBER 18141-9 / $18.00 pb8493-9 / $26.95 hc

Eric SchwarzThe Opportunity EquationHow Citizen Teachers Are Combating the Achievement Gap in America’s SchoolsForeword by Lawrence SummersON SALE AUGUST 257345-2 / $18.00 pb3372-2 / $26.95 hc

Daisy Hernández A Cup of Water Under My BedA MemoirON SALE SEPTEMBER 86292-0 / $18.00 pb1448-6 / $24.95 hc

Cornel West, in Dialogue with and Edited by Christa BuschendorfBlack Prophetic FireON SALE SEPTEMBER 11810-1 / $16.00 pb0352-7 / $25.95 hc

Amy Jo BurnsCinderlandA MemoirON SALE SEPTEMBER 85227-3 / $16.00 pb3703-4 / $24.95 hc

Spring 2014 Highlights

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Coming in Paperback

Alan WolfeAt Home in ExileWhy Diaspora Is Good for the JewsON SALE OCTOBER 278618-6 / $20.00 pb3313-5 / $27.95 hc

Martin Luther King, Jr.The Radical KingEdited and introduced by Cornel WestON SALE JANUARY 123452-1 / $15.00 pb1282-6 / $26.95 hc

Rafia ZakariaThe Upstairs WifeAn Intimate History of PakistanON SALE JANUARY 58046-7 / $18.00 pb0336-7/ $26.95 hc

J. A. MillsBlood of the TigerA Story of Conspiracy, Greed, and the Battle to Save a Magnificent SpeciesON SALE JANUARY 123064-6 / $20.00 pb7496-1 / $27.95 hc

Kay Whitlock and Michael BronskiConsidering HateViolence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and PoliticsON SALE JANUARY 194295-3 / $20.00 pb9191-3 / $25.95 hc

Lani GuinierThe Tyranny of the MeritocracyDemocratizing Higher Education in AmericaON SALE JANUARY 127812-9 / $18.00 pb0627-6 / $24.95 hc

Coming in Paperback

Coming to PaperbackSummer 2015 Highlights

22

Arthur Browne

One Righteous ManSamuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York

“The magnificent—and moving—story of the first black New York City cop . . . struggling valiantly for dignity in a world more often interested in his marginalization (or worse) . . . forming a tragic but ultimately heroic understanding of the inner work-ings of the greatest city on earth.”—Ken Burns

Lennard J. Davis

Enabling ActsThe Hidden Story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights

“Lennard Davis’s book offers a historic glimpse into the creation of the ADA—legislation that has positively affected the lives of countless Americans living with physical and mental challenges. To ad-equately understand and celebrate this landmark legislation, Enabling Acts is a must-read.” —Senator Bob Dole

Linda K. Wertheimer

Faith EdTeaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance

Veteran education journalist Linda K. Wertheimer travels the nation listening to all sides of the con-troversy surrounding the teaching of religion in public schools, interviewing clergy, teachers, children, and parents who are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, and atheist. Her fascinating inves-tigation reveals a public education system strug-gling to find the right path forward and offers a promising roadmap for raising a generation of reli-giously literate Americans.

ON SALE JUNE 30

African American Studies / Biography

$27.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-1260-4

$32.95 Canada


First ser., aud.: Author

6 x 9 / 328 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-1261-1

ON SALE JULY 14

Disability

$24.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-7156-4

$27.95 Canada



6 x 9 / 296 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-7157-1

ON SALE AUGUST 18

Religion / Education

$25.95 Hardcover

978-0-8070-8616-2

$28.95 Canada



6 x 9 / 224 pages

E-book: 978-0-8070-8617-9

Sales, Ordering, and Subsidiary Rights Information

Coming to PaperbackSummer 2015 Highlights

23

Sales, Ordering, and Subsidiary Rights Information

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Index by Author

Axelrod / Point of Vanishing, The ..............................9

Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove / Third Reconstruction, The ..................................17

Bess / Our Grandchildren Redesigned ........................13

Greene / Shots on the Bridge ......................................5

Jennings / One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium .............................................6

Lee / Rescuing Jesus ..................................................14

Ludwig / Liberation .................................................12

Nadasen / Household Workers Unite ........................10

Nelson / Social Life of DNA, The .............................18

Neumann / Good Death, The ..................................19

Pollack / Only Woman in the Room, The ...................3

Stephenson / What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other ..............................................11

Theoharis / Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, The ..................................................15

Warburg / Harness the Sun ........................................7

Index by Title

Good Death, The / Neumann ..................................19

Harness the Sun / Warburg ........................................7

Household Workers Unite / Nadasen ........................10

Liberation / Ludwig .................................................12

One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium / Jennings ..............................................................6

Only Woman in the Room, The / Pollack ...................3

Our Grandchildren Redesigned / Bess ........................13

Point of Vanishing, The / Axelrod ..............................9

Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, The / Theoharis ..........................................................15

Rescuing Jesus / Lee ..................................................14

Shots on the Bridge / Greene ......................................5

Social Life of DNA, The / Nelson .............................18

Third Reconstruction, The / Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove .............................................17

What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other / Stephenson .......................................................11

Beacon Press

fall books 2015Igniting Hearts and Minds

Beacon Press | Boston, Massachusettswww.beacon.org | www.beaconbroadside.com

on the cover: beacon’s new neighborhoodAfter 160 years on Beacon Hill, we’ve moved to an old mat-tress factory in what used to be Boston’s warehouse district but has recently been rechristened the Innovation District. With a great deal of work, our headquarters have been con-verted to a LEED Platinum certified building.

beacon press - fall 2015 catalog

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