In this compulsively readable social history, political scientist Stephen Pimpare vividly describes poverty from the perspective of poor and welfare-reliant Americans from the big city to the rural countryside. He focuses on how the poor have created community, secured shelter, and found food and illuminates their battles for dignity and respect.Through prodigious archival research and lucid analysis, Pimpare details the ways in which charity and aid for the poor have been insepara...

In this award-winning history, "the voices of the poor give valuable insights into the experience of poverty" ( Choice ).Winner of the American Political Science Association's Michael Harrington AwardIn this compulsively readable social history, political scientist Stephen Pimpare vividly describes poverty from the perspective of poor and welfare-reliant Americans from the big city to the rural cou...

Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down & Out on the Silver Screen explores how American movies have portrayed poor and homeless people from the silent era to today. It provides a novel kind of guide to social policy, exploring how ideas about poor and homeless people have been reflected in popular culture and evaluating those images against the historical and contemporary reality. Richly illustrated and examining nearly 300 American-made films released between 1902 and 2015,

The social work profession calls on its members to strive for social justice. It asks aspiring and practicing social workers to advocate for political change and take part in political action on behalf of marginalized people and groups. Yet this macro goal is often left on the back burner as the day-to-day struggles of working directly with clients take precedence. And while most social workers have firsthand knowledge of how public policy neglects or outright harms society’s most vulnerab...

The social work profession calls on its members to strive for social justice. It asks aspiring and practicing social workers to advocate for political change and take part in political action on behalf of marginalized people and groups. Yet this macro goal is often left on the back burner as the day-to-day struggles of working directly with clients take precedence. And while most social workers have firsthand knowledge of how public policy neglects or outright harms society’s most vulnerab...

A brilliantly conceived and provocative work from an award-winning historian that examines how seven twentieth-century social movements transformed America.How do social movements arise, wield power, and bring about meaningful change? Renowned scholar Linda Gordon investigates these and other salient questions in this “visionary, cautionary, timely, and utterly necessary book” (Nicole Eustace), narrating how some of America’s most influential twentieth-century soci...

**Winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award · Shortlisted for the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award · A Library Journal Best History Book of the YearA definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins, from a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and the award-winning author of The Slave Ship**As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellu...

**“Mind-blowing and soul-expanding.” —Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an OctopusA behavioral ecologist’s riveting account of his decades-long obsession with octopuses: his discoveries, adventures, and new scientific understanding of their behaviors.**Of all the creatures of the deep blue, none is as captivating as the octopus. In Many Things Under a Rock, marine biologist David Scheel investigates four major mysteries about these elusive beings. How c...

In a quest to advocate for her daughter, Pepper Stetler uncovers the dark history of the IQ test, leading her to question what exactly we are measuring when we measure intelligence.When Pepper Stetler learned that her daughter, Louisa, who has Down Syndrome, would be required to take periodic IQ tests to secure support in school, she asked a simple question: Why? The hunt for an answer set Stetler on a winding, often dark investigation into how the IQ came...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAAH STONE BOOK AWARDA new history of US education through the nineteenth century that rigorously accounts for Black, Native, and white experiences; a story that exposes the idea of American education as “the great equalizer” to not only be a lie, but also a myth that reproduces past harms.Education is the epicenter of every community in the United States. Indeed, few institutions are as pivotal in shaping our lives and ...

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION • FINALIST FOR THE 2026 BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK COMPETITION • A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2025 • One of The Telegraph’s Best Nature Books of 2025An intimate account of an epic walking journey through a tense and shifting Europe in the footsteps of one extraordinary wolf.**In the winter of 2011, a young wolf, named Slavc by the scientists who collared him, left his natal pack's territory in Slov...

“Oligarchy is a system in which a small number of extremely wealthy individuals control the economic, political, and media life of a nation. It is a system in which ordinary people have very little power to determine the future of their country. If you’re an American, it is the system in which you’re living. That must change. In the wealthiest nation on earth we must build a political movement that creates a government that represents all Americans, not just a handful of billionair...