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Robert Brenner, The Economics of Global Turbulence Verso, 2006

 

 

 

There is a great deal of debate within the Marxist left about whether the economic crisis is the result of the long-term ill health of the so-called "real economy" or if the system crashed out of its inherent volatility. Noted historian Robert Brenner argues that it has roots in an extended period of stagnation, which he elucidated in a talk at the Berkeley Sociology Colloquium titled "Prosperity and Crisis in the World Economy: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow."

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Carole Joffe, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us Beacon, 2009

 

Nearly half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended and yet, under threat of violence and other constraints, the number of abortion practitioners in many states is beyond inadequate -- in some cases, with just one provider for an entire state -- and state-level laws create enormous hurdles for women wanting to terminate their pregnancies. Sociologist Carole Joffe discusses the rise of the anti-abortion movement, the state of abortion access, and American ambivalence about women's sexuality.

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Kari Lydersen, Revolt on Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover, and What it Says about the Economic Crisis Melville House, 2009

 

As the economic crisis grinds on for working people around the world, two impressive examples of militancy stand out. Kari Lydersen reported on the 2008 occupation of Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors factory as it was unfolding and talks about the history on the shop floor which provided fertile ground for action. And Chris Spannos discusses the ongoing resistance in Greece, where generations of Greeks have mobilized wave upon wave of general strikes and actions in opposition to austerity measures there.

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Alyssa Katz, Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us Bloomsbury, 2009

 

The meltdown of the US housing market is visible to anyone living in northern or central California, where foreclosed houses dot our urban, rural, and suburban landscapes. Journalist Alyssa Katz describes how the idea of owning one's own house has been actively fostered by a government wanting to generate private economic growth and abandon public housing.

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Jonathan Metzl, The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease Beacon, 2009

The diagnosis of mental illness has always been colored by social biases, but a striking shift occurred during the turmoil of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Jonathan Metzl describes how African American men became disproportionately diagnosed with schizophrenia, which was reclassified as a disease of the violent, and how that skewed diagnosis continues to this day.

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Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space U. of Georgia Press, 3rd ed.

We may take for granted the vast geographical inequalities of wealth in our world, but we shouldn't. According to pioneering geographer Neil Smith, they are actively produced by capitalism. In a seminal work, Smith provides a fully formed theory of uneven geographic development and how it helps us understand capitalism's ability to endure.