Showing titles in Social Classes & Economic Disparity

The death of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have made clear to everyone the vicious reality of racism that persists today. Many of those privileged enough to be distanced from racism are now having to come to terms with the fact that they continue to prosper at the...

The raw and powerful sequel to Once Were Warriors. It is six years since Jake's daughter Grace hanged herself. Jake's wife, Beth, has left him, his son Nig was killed in a gangland fight - his only consolations are drink and his memories. His daughter, Polly, is determined to escape the violence that is destroying the Maoris. But can Jake, too, redeem himself?

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce white supremacy and deepen social inequity. Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, has the potential to hide, speed up, and deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era. 

The leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society "the aspirational class" and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class deepens the ever-wider class divide.

‘Gives you the information you need to begin, or continue, your understanding of what it means to be a true anti-racist ally’ Pippa Vosper Do you want to be an anti-racist ally? This punchy, bite-sized audio guide shows you how, whether you’re using your voice for the first time, or are...

In this, his best-known work, the controversial American economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen appropriates Darwin's theory of evolution to analyze the modern industrial system. For Veblen, the shallowness and superficiality observed in society results from the tendency to believe that true accomplishment lies in arriving at a condition of ostentatious wealth and status.

A powerful and explosive memoir of poverty and politics, and the realities of life in Westminster. Tara Jane O’Reilly grew up on a council estate a mere bus ride away from Parliament, but a world away from the hallowed halls of power. Dropping out of school at sixteen after a childhood marred...

Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.

A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America. We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer...

Musa Okwonga - a young Black man who grew up in a predominantly working-class town - was not your typical Eton College student. The experience moulded him, challenged him...but also made him wonder why a place that was so good for him also seems to contribute to the harm being done to the UK. The more he searched, the more evident the connection became between one of Britain’s most prestigious institutions and the genesis of Brexit, and between his home town in the suburbs of Greater London and the rise of the far right.

As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe - to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile - but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond 'The Family'. Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next.

Villains of All Nations explores the 'Golden Age' of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates. Rediker introduces us to the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger; swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known...

Brought to you by Penguin. The remarkable true story of the man who took on a corporate giant - and won In the early days of the Covid pandemic, warehouse worker Chris Smalls and his colleagues continued showing up as the rest of the world was shutting down. A dedicated and experienced Amazon...

A New York Times bestseller and “a passionate, urgent” (The New Yorker) examination of the growing inequality gap from the bestselling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility. Central to the very idea of America is the principle that we are...

Brought to you by Penguin. The way we think and live, who we vote for and who we fear, has become ever more dictated by our personal identity. In his ground-breaking book, Gary Younge argues that we have recoiled into refuges of race or class, religion or national identity to survive in a state...

Charmain Bynoe, a council housing officer for the London borough of Southwark, inspired the nation when she appeared on the TV series Council House Britain. Now, in The Estate, she shines a light on the challenges faced by so many of our citizens and provides heartwarming and inspirational...

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.

A compelling investigation into the phenomenon of dirty work – labour that society considers essential, but morally compromised. Guards who patrol the wards of America's most violent and abusive prisons. Undocumented immigrants who man the 'kill floors' of industrial slaughterhouses. Roustabouts who drill for oil on offshore rigs. And drone operators who kill people from thousands of miles away.

How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? The ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.

A poignant memoir exploring small town baseball as a lens into what’s right and wrong with modern America—written by an acclaimed journalist and Army Ranger who, after returning from Iraq to a painfully divided country, rediscovered its core values in the bleachers of a minor league ballpark...