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Liberal Punishment  

Naomi Murakawa’s remarkable book The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America shows how, since the 1940s, liberals have provided legitimacy for the prison state.



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The Assistant Economy  

Welcome to the main artery into creative or elite work—highly pressurized, poorly recompensed, sometimes exhilarating, more often menial. From the confluence of two grand movements in American history—the continued flight of women out of the home and into the workplace, and the rise of the “creative class”—the personal assistant is born.





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Kill Your Idols  

Sonic Youth’s DIY ethic couldn’t sustain itself in the face of a corporate world eager to market youthful anger like any other commodity. But Kim Gordon’s remarkable new book shows that no matter how institutionalized it became, punk offered a radical way of seeing the world.







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The Eco-Optimists  

An optimistic environmentalist may sound like an oxymoron (or perhaps just a moron). Yet a growing number of greens are putting a positive spin on our planetary emergency. Should more of us start thinking like them?