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From a leading prison abolitionist, a moving memoir about coming of age in Brooklyn and surviving incarceration―and a call to break free from all the cages that confine us. Marlon Peterson grew up in 1980s Crown Heights, raised by Trinidadian immigrants. Amid the routine violence that shaped his neighborhood, Marlon became a high-achieving and devout child, the specter of the American dream opening up before him. But in the aftermath of immense trauma, he participated in a robbery that resulted in two murders. At nineteen, Peterson was charged and later convicted. He served ten long years in prison. While incarcerated, Peterson immersed himself in anti-violence activism, education, and prison abolition work. In Bird Uncaged, Peterson challenges the typical “redemption” narrative and our assumptions about justice. With vulnerability and insight, he uncovers the many cages―from the daily violence and trauma of poverty, to policing, to enforced masculinity, and the brutality of incarcerat

An honest reckoning with the Forever War, masculinity, and the violence of American hegemony abroad, at home, and on the psyche, from a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who came to question his belief in the U.S.'s democratizing missionIn the winter of 2006, Lyle Jeremy Rubin arrived at Marine Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia. He'd joined the Marines convinced he was fulfilling his duty to his country. He believed the “war on terror” was necessary to national security, and would help to bring democracy and freedom to Afghanistan. And he sought a version of manhood that he thought military service could provide. Honorably discharged in 2011, Rubin returned to the United States with none of his ideals, about himself or his country, intact.Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body is a story of profound personal and political change. Rubin, a supervisor of men ordered to kill, shares his experiences on training bases in North Carolina, California, and Afghanistan, tracking his inc

Why doesn't the United States dominate soccer internationally? And how can it? Which is the best soccer nation on Earth? Who has the most passionate fans? What impact does soccer have on suicide rates? Which sport will dominate the Earth―NFL or the English Premier League? Why are the people who run soccer clubs so dumb?These are some of the questions every soccer fanatic has asked themselves. Soccernomics answers them all. Written with an economist's brain and a soccer writer's skill, it applies high-powered analytical tools to everyday soccer topics, looking at data and revealing counterintuitive truths about the world's most loved game. It all adds up to a revolutionary new way of looking at soccer that could change the way the game is played.Written with an economist's brain and a soccer writer's skill, Soccernomics applies high-powered analytical tools to everyday soccer topicsWhy doesn't the United States dominate soccer internationally? And how can it? Which is the best soccer na

A recent history of the Democratic party that identifies the chronic errors that lead Dem politicians to act like also-rans even when they're in power―and urgently argues against a return to the status quoIn Chaotic Neutral, political scientist Ed Burmila tracks the evolution (or devolution) of the Democratic Party―from the New Deal era to the pandemic, when, even in the midst of a genuine national crisis, the Dems could not manage to pass sweeping progressive legislation.Why did the Democrats initially abandon their principles, and why haven’t they been able to grasp that they need a new strategy in the face of decades of diminishing returns? Political scientist Ed Burmila has some idea and he breaks it to us, tracing the party’s metamorphosis from bold defender of labor rights, civil rights, and a robust social safety net to timorous, pragmatic, ideology-free, regulation-averse lifestyle brand. Chaotic Neutral takes a systematic approach, using historical narrative to identify ten mi

The gripping origin story of Pong, Atari, and the digital icons who defined the world of video games.A deep, nostalgic dive into the advent of gaming, Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master returns us to the emerging culture of Silicon Valley. At the center of this graphic history, dynamically drawn in colors inspired by old computer screens, is the epic feud that raged between Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and inventor Ralph Baer for the title of “father of the video game.” While Baer, a Jewish immigrant whose family fled Germany for America, developed the first TV video-game console and ping-pong game in the 1960s, Bushnell, a self-taught whiz kid from Utah, put out Atari’s pioneering table-tennis arcade game, Pong, in 1972. Thus, a prolonged battle began over who truly spearheaded the multibillion-dollar gaming industry, and around it a sweeping narrative about invention, inspiration, and the seeds of digital revolution.

The thrilling narrative of an unlikely friendship and a Guatemalan migrant-hacker's journey, revealing the chaos and cruelty U.S. immigration policies have unleashed even beyond our borders In 2015, several years before migrant caravans were making headlines, Levi Vonk, a young anthropologist and journalist, went to Mexico to live and work with migrants, in defiance of the conservative politics of his Southern hometown. There he made a friend who would change the course of his life--and quite possibly the course of Mexican history along with it.Axel Kirschner was a lifelong New Yorker, all Queens hustle and bravado, having been brought to the U.S from Guatemala at only a year old. But he was also undocumented. When he met Levi in Mexico in 2015, after being deported for a minor traffic violation, Axel was fighting to get home to his young kids in Queens. While on its surface, Axel's story is an archetypal one, Vonk soon discovered that he was harboring a secret: Axel was a hacker. This

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth--the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries--from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete--Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny