Sociology

Ira Berlin’s Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (2003) is an analytical work of historical research and synthesis that traces the development of American slavery from the 17th century to national Emancipation. Berlin compares the development and conditions of slavery across regions including the North (usually New England and the Mid-Atlantic states), the coastal South (or sections of it most relevant to the corresponding timeline), and the Southern Interior, particularly in the Lower... Read Generations of Captivity Summary

Ghettoside, written by Jill Leovy and published in 2015, follows the investigation of and trial for the murder of Bryant Tennelle, the son of a Los Angeles homicide detective, through the late 2000s. In doing so, the author examines the critical epidemic of black-on-black violence in communities such as South Central Los Angeles in order to explicate the root causes, systemic issues, and contemporary problems that continue to contribute to higher rates of homicide in... Read Ghettoside Summary

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Globalization and Its Discontents (2002) is American economist John E. Stiglitz’s second major work, published shortly after he became a Nobel laureate. It explores and critiques the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) policies between the 1970s and the early 2000s. Since Stiglitz was a senior vice president of the World Bank between 1993 and 1997, he uses insider knowledge to explain certain structural and functional aspects of the IMF that remain opaque to the public. His... Read Globalization and Its Discontents Summary

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007) is a polemical text by English writer Christopher Hitchens. The author argues that religion is a cultural construct that represses people more than it liberates them. He examines religion’s role in sexuality, science, and human dignity and posits that organized religion rarely (if ever) benefits humanity at large. Hitchens was a noted columnist and contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine.Its themes include mass delusions, the misogyny... Read God Is Not Great Summary

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, was written by Dr. Charles King, and published in 2019 by Penguin Random House. King is a professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and the author of 10 books, predominantly on the subject of society, government, and culture in Eastern Europe. Gods of the Upper Air is a New... Read Gods of the Upper Air Summary

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Historian and anthropologist Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) is a multidisciplinary study that uses anthropological, biological, evolutionary, and socio-economic analysis to chart the fates of different peoples throughout human history. Subtitled first as A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years, and later as The Fates of Human Societies, the book seeks to understand why some groups of people have prospered while others have failed to advance to the same extent... Read Guns, Germs, and Steel Summary

Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life by Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, is a sociological study published in 1985 that explores the balance between individualism and community within American society. The authors, who bring a collective background in sociology and theology to their analysis, investigate how Americans navigate the tensions between personal autonomy and social belonging. The book addresses topics such as... Read Habits of the Heart Summary

In their 2009 nonfiction book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, husband-and-wife journalist team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn document what they consider the paramount moral challenge of the 21st century: the oppression of women and girls. The book was an international bestseller, inspired a four-part PBS documentary of the same name, and launched the Half the Sky movement.Like many journalists, when Kristof and WuDunn first began their careers, they... Read Half the Sky Summary

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Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (first published in 2000 and revised in 2011) is a work of historical nonfiction authored by Juan Gonzalez. It provides a comprehensive account of the intersection of Latin American history with US history in the context of ongoing US debates surrounding immigration, which have involved propaganda, mythologizing, and stereotyping, resulting in much fear, anxiety, and anger. Gonzalez seeks to reveal the hidden story behind these stereotypes... Read Harvest Of Empire Summary

Heartland (2018) is both a memoir of Sarah Smarsh’s upbringing in rural Kansas as the daughter of working-class people and an exploration of the class system in America today. The book is subtitled: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth; this hits the core of the book, as Smarsh seeks to use her family’s anecdotes and memories to get to the truth of why mostly honest, hardworking people... Read Heartland Summary

Jeanne Marie Laskas’s Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work was published in 2012 to rave reviews and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as a “Must-Read Best Books.” Laskas is an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh and has written a wide variety of best-selling nonfiction texts. In Hidden America, Laskas explores the way ordinary Americans live by getting to know her... Read Hidden America Summary

American author J. D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, chronicles Vance’s Appalachian upbringing in a poor Scots-Irish working-class culture. As Vance tells the story of his journey from broken Ohio homes to the Marine Corps, Ohio State University, and Yale Law School, he also documents the numerous factors that comprise white, working-class Appalachians’ descent into poverty, addiction, and despair, leaving them ostracized and, often, in danger... Read Hillbilly Elegy Summary

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2015) is a work of popular science by Israeli writer, professor, and futurist Yuval Noah Harari. Published in multiple languages, it is a continuation of the work of Harari’s previous book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. While Sapiens contextualized the advents of modernity within humans’ evolutionary legacy, Homo Deus speculates about what lies in wait for humanity in the distant future. Harari grounds his discussion in an... Read Homo Deus Summary

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How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018) is a nonfiction book by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The authors, who are both professors at Harvard, explore how American democracy is threatened by examining past examples of democratic breakdown. In doing so, they demonstrate how since the end of the Cold War, most democracies die not through violent overthrow of government but a gradual weakening of democratic norms and institutions. Using these insights from history, as... Read How Democracies Die Summary

How Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008) is a nonfiction text by Brooklyn College English professor and Arab-American Moustafa Bayoumi. The title comes from W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1903 text, The Souls of Black Folk, wherein he directed this question toward the African-American experience. Following the stories of seven young ArabAmericans living in Brooklyn, and including their struggles after the 9/11 attacks, Bayoumi’s book suggests that present-day ArabAmericans absorb the... Read How Does It Feel to Be A Problem Summary