Drive through a low-income neighborhood and you're likely to see streets lined with pawnshops, check cashers, rent-to-own stores, payday and tax refund lenders, auto title pawns, and buy-here-pay-here used car lots. We're awash in "alternative financial services" directed at the poor and those with credit problems. Howard Karger describes this world as an economic Wild West, where just about any financial scheme that's not patently illegal is tolerated. Taking...

Born in apartheid South Africa, Marisa Handler emigrated to Southern California at the age of twelve. Her gradual realization that injustice existed even in this more open, democratic society spurred a lifelong commitment to activism that would take her around the world and back again. Handler shares intimate details of her life as a global justice activist to offer a revealing perspective on what drives the movement. Tracing her own evolution as...

A factory worker is fired because her boss disagrees with her political bumper sticker. A stockbroker feels pressure to resign from an employer who disapproves of his off-hours political advocacy. A flight attendant is grounded because her airline doesn't like what she's writing in her personal blog. Is it legal to fire people for speech that makes employers uncomfortable, even if the content has little or nothing to do with their job or workplace?...

With one immigrant's story, two authors analyze America's immigration system and suggest better, more human policies. “The Accidental American” calls for a bold new approach to immigration: a free international flow of labor to match globalization's free flow of capital. After all, corporations are encouraged to move anywhere in the world they can maximize their earnings. People shouldn't have to risk exploitation, abuse, and even imprisonment...

In his books Somebodies and Nobodies and All Rise, Robert Fuller exposed rankism-abuse of the power inherent in rank to exploit or humiliate someone of lower rank. In Dignity for All, Fuller and Pamela Gerloff offer a concise, action-oriented guide to the

Tells the story of how a group of Soviet and American doctors came together to stop nuclear proliferation and ended up winning the Nobel Peace Prize and influencing the course of history. This book also sheds light on what really drove and still drives the nuclear arms race, and the importance of citizen involvement in social change efforts.

The spirit of inquiry is the engine of democracy. The democratic process is nothing less than citizens regularly asking what kind of society they want to live in and whom they want to lead them. But more and more people are avoiding the whole messy business of questioning. Americans are instead being trained to look for ready-made answers, with potentially dire implications for the health of our society. In this impassioned new book, Andrea Batista...

Our current economic system-which assumes endless growth and limitless potential wealth-flies in the face of the fact that the earth's resources are finite. The result is increasing destruction of the natural world and growing, sometimes lethal, tension between rich and poor, global north and south. Trying to fix problems piecemeal is not the solution. We need a comprehensive new vision of an economy that can serve people and all of life's commonwealth. Peter...

The story of how and why women's full participation in leadership matters is still seemingly a well-kept secret, "Women Lead the Way" presents tactical guidance to help readers wedge the door open and bring more women into leadership roles within companies