4 products
Thomas Geoghegan
The History of Democracy Has Yet to Be Written
9781953368386
Regular price $17.95 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%This book made me laugh out loud and also gave me glimpses of an entire horizon of possibility I hadn't seen before.--Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes
End the filibuster. Abolish the Senate. Make everyone vote. Only if we do this (and then some), says Thomas Geoghegan, might we heal our fractured democracy.
In 2008, Geoghegan―then an established labor lawyer and prolific writer―embarked on a campaign to represent Chicago's Fifth District in Congress, in a special election called when Rahm Emanuel stepped down to serve as President Barack Obama's chief of staff. For ninety days leading up to the election, Geoghegan, a political neophyte at age sixty, knocked on doors, shook hands at train stations, and made fundraising calls. On election night he lost, badly.
But this humbling experience helped him develop a framework for reimagining American government in a way that is truly just, fair, and constitutional. Taking its title from Walt Whitman, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written: How We Have to Learn to Govern All Over Again, combines hilarious tales from his time on the campaign trail with an incisive vision of how we might be able to create an America that fulfills its great promise. In a polarized country, where 100 million citizens don't vote, and those who do are otherwise rarely politically engaged, he makes an impassioned case for the possibility of a truly representative democracy, one built on the ideals of the House of Representatives, the true chamber of the people, and inspired by the poet who gives the book its name.
At once an engaging memoir and a call to arms, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written will inspire and invigorate political veterans and young activists alike.
Lincoln Steffens
The Shame of the Cities
9781948742511
Regular price $14.95 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Lincoln Steffens's Tweed Days in St. Louis, published in McClure's magazine in October 1902, is considered the first work of muckraking journalism, exposing corruption between businessmen, politicians, police officers and other municipal actor, as well as how apathetic citizens allow machine politics to proceed unfettered.
The article also highlights residents who do fight back, including civil rights lawyer Joseph W. Folk and the workers involved in the St. Louis Streetcar Strike of 1900. Tweed Days was so successful that Steffens traveled on to Minneapolis to report The Shame of Minneapolis, which appeared in the same 1903 issue of McClure's as another muckraking classic, Ida Tarbell's The History of the Standard Oil Company.
Steffens would go on to expose machine politics in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. In 1904, McClure's published the series as a book, The Shame of the Cities, which remains stubbornly timely and prescient more than a century later.
Randy Cunningham
Democratizing Cleveland
9781948742276
Regular price $20.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
A trenchant history of Cleveland’s community organizing movements, detailing their origins, campaigns, and legacies.
Randy Cunningham, a founding member of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, spent nearly fifteen years researching grassroots efforts that put neighborhood concerns and voices front and center. In Democratizing Cleveland, he chronicles one of the greatest examples of mass civic and democratic education in Cleveland’s history.
The decade between 1975 and 1985 was a thriving period of social movements and community groups built around civil disobedience. Many of these groups, led by women, were able to unite white and black neighborhoods in a common cause. Cunningham introduces readers to the various groups and the causes they took on, covering topics such as:
Randy Cunningham, a founding member of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, spent nearly fifteen years researching grassroots efforts that put neighborhood concerns and voices front and center. In Democratizing Cleveland, he chronicles one of the greatest examples of mass civic and democratic education in Cleveland’s history.
The decade between 1975 and 1985 was a thriving period of social movements and community groups built around civil disobedience. Many of these groups, led by women, were able to unite white and black neighborhoods in a common cause. Cunningham introduces readers to the various groups and the causes they took on, covering topics such as:
- Insurance and bank redlining
- Community development and urban renewal programs
- The movement’s decline during the Reagan administration
Thomas Geoghegan
The History of Democracy Has Yet to Be Written
9781953368003
Regular price $26.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
“This book made me laugh out loud and also gave me glimpses of an entire horizon of possibility I hadn’t seen before.”—Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
End the filibuster. Abolish the Senate. Make everyone vote. Only if we do this (and then some), says Thomas Geoghegan, might we heal our fractured democracy.
In 2008, Geoghegan―then an established labor lawyer and prolific writer―embarked on a campaign to represent Chicago’s Fifth District in Congress, in a special election called when Rahm Emanuel stepped down to serve as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. For ninety days leading up to the election, Geoghegan, a political neophyte at age sixty, knocked on doors, shook hands at train stations, and made fundraising calls. On election night he lost, badly.
But this humbling experience helped him develop a framework for reimagining American government in a way that is truly just, fair, and constitutional. Taking its title from Walt Whitman, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written: How We Have to Learn to Govern All Over Again, combines hilarious tales from his time on the campaign trail with an incisive vision of how we might be able to create an America that fulfills its great promise. In a polarized country, where 100 million citizens don’t vote, and those who do are otherwise rarely politically engaged, he makes an impassioned case for the possibility of a truly representative democracy, one built on the ideals of the House of Representatives, the true chamber of the people, and inspired by the poet who gives the book its name. At once an engaging memoir and a call to arms, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written will inspire and invigorate political veterans and young activists alike.
“Witty, succinct . . . morally incisive.” —Rick Perlstein, New York Times–bestselling author of Reaganland
“Geoghegan’s punchy political memoir-and-manifesto is hilarious, poignant, and rippling with strong ideas and practical hope for change.” —Congressman Jamie Raskin
End the filibuster. Abolish the Senate. Make everyone vote. Only if we do this (and then some), says Thomas Geoghegan, might we heal our fractured democracy.
In 2008, Geoghegan―then an established labor lawyer and prolific writer―embarked on a campaign to represent Chicago’s Fifth District in Congress, in a special election called when Rahm Emanuel stepped down to serve as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. For ninety days leading up to the election, Geoghegan, a political neophyte at age sixty, knocked on doors, shook hands at train stations, and made fundraising calls. On election night he lost, badly.
But this humbling experience helped him develop a framework for reimagining American government in a way that is truly just, fair, and constitutional. Taking its title from Walt Whitman, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written: How We Have to Learn to Govern All Over Again, combines hilarious tales from his time on the campaign trail with an incisive vision of how we might be able to create an America that fulfills its great promise. In a polarized country, where 100 million citizens don’t vote, and those who do are otherwise rarely politically engaged, he makes an impassioned case for the possibility of a truly representative democracy, one built on the ideals of the House of Representatives, the true chamber of the people, and inspired by the poet who gives the book its name. At once an engaging memoir and a call to arms, The History of Democracy Is Yet to Be Written will inspire and invigorate political veterans and young activists alike.
“Witty, succinct . . . morally incisive.” —Rick Perlstein, New York Times–bestselling author of Reaganland
“Geoghegan’s punchy political memoir-and-manifesto is hilarious, poignant, and rippling with strong ideas and practical hope for change.” —Congressman Jamie Raskin
