Böcker utgivna av Beacon Press

A moving and surprisingly funny memoir about finding the right balance between anger and compassion';Why aren't you angry?' people often asked Martin Moran after he told his story of how he came to forgive the man who sexually abused him as a boy. At first, the question pissed him off. Then, it began to haunt him. Why didn't he have more anger? Why had he never sought redress for the crime committed against him? Was his fury hidden, buried? Was he not man enough? Here he was, an adult in mid-life, with an established acting career, a husband. A life. And yet the question of rage began to obsess him.As the narrative jumps from dream to memory to theory, from Colorado to New York to Johannesburg, Moran takes us along on his quest to understand the role of rage in our lives. Translating for an asylum seeker and survivor of torture, he wonders how the man is not consumed with the wrong done him, only to shortly thereafter find himself in a wild confrontation with his fuming stepmother at his father's funeral. He admires a pedestrian's furious put-down of a careless driver, and then, observing with a group of sex therapists at an S&M dungeon, he finds himself unexpectedly moved by the intimacy of the interchanges. Hiking the Rockies with his troubled younger brother, he's confronted by the anger and the love that seem to exist simultaneously and in equal measure between them.With each encounter, we move more deeply into the human complexities at the heart of this book: into how we wrong and are wronged, how we seek redress but also forgiveness, how we yearn to mend what we think broken in us and liberate ourselves from what's past. It is in this landscape of old wounds and complicated loves that Moran shows us how rage may meet compassion and our traumas unexpectedly open us to the humanity of others.

Why Social Security is not only sustainable but should be substantially expandedSocial Security is bankrupting us. It's outdated. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's stealing from young people. These are some of the biggest myths and lies about one of the most successful programs in our nation's history. Three-quarters of Americans depend heavily on Social Security in their elderly years and nearly half would be living in poverty without it. But as important and popular as it is, Social Security has become a political football. A well-financed campaignsupported by conservatives, special interest groups, and even leading Democratshas lobbied for cuts and significant ';entitlement reform,' falsely proclaiming that Social Security is going broke. Policy expert Steven Hill argues that Social Security should not only be defended, it should be substantially expanded. Here he proposes how we can double the monthly benefit and how to pay for it by closing many of the tax loopholes and deductions that disproportionately favor the wealthy few.

A funny, candid, and original coming-of-age story told through sugar addictionShe doesn't drink or do drugs, but like millions of other Americans, Lisa Kotin has a substance abuse problem. Kotin is addicted to sugar. My Confection is a darkly funny and candid memoir of where sugar took this teenage mime when she left her San Francisco Bay Area home in pursuit of artistic greatness. From the strict macrobiotic house where she is kicked out for smuggling Snickers, to her early days of Overeaters Anonymous meetings where she is bewildered by the idea of submitting to a higher power, to the stylish shrink who suggests she figure out how many minutes of tennis equal the calories in one jelly donut, to the men she unwraps and consumes like cheap chocolate bars, Kotin careens from romantic disasters to caloric catastrophes. Original and surprisingly affecting, this portrait of a sugar addict has nothing to do with losing weight or getting fit but rather with coming out of the (sugar) closet, finding allies who understand, and learning how to live healthfully, in spite of her compulsion.

A look back at the cultural and political force of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, in celebration of her hundredth birthdayArtist–Rebel–PioneerPulitzer-Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the great American literary icons of the twentieth century, a protege of Langston Hughes and mentor to a generation of poets, including Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Elizabeth Alexander.Her poetry took inspiration from the complex portraits of black American life she observed growing up on Chicago's Southside—a world of kitchenette apartments and vibrant streets. From the desk in her bedroom, as a child she filled countless notebooks with poetry, encouraged by the likes of Hughes and affirmed by Richard Wright, who called her work ';raw and real.'Over the next sixty years, Brooks's poetry served as witness to the stark realities of urban life: the evils of lynching, the murders of Emmett Till and Malcolm X, the revolutionary effects of the civil rights movement, and the burgeoning power of the Black Arts Movement. Critical acclaim and the distinction in 1950 as the first black person ever awarded a Pulitzer Prize helped solidify Brooks as a unique and powerful voice.Now, in A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun, fellow Chicagoan and award-winning writer Angela Jackson delves deep into the rich fabric of Brooks's work and world. Granted unprecedented access to Brooks's family, personal papers, and writing community, Jackson traces the literary arc of this artist's long career and gives context for the world in which Brooks wrote and published her work. It is a powerfully intimate look at a once-in-a-lifetime talent up close, using forty-three of Brooks's most soul-stirring poems as a guide.From trying to fit in at school (';Forgive and Forget'), to loving her physical self (';To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals'), to marriage and motherhood (';Maud Martha'), to young men on her block (';We Real Cool'), to breaking history (';Medgar Evers'), to newfound acceptance from her community and her elevation to a ';surprising queenhood' (';The Wall'), Brooks lived life through her work.Jackson deftly unpacks it all for both longtime admirers of Brooks and newcomers curious about her interior life. A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun is a commemoration of a writer who negotiated black womanhood and incomparable brilliance with a changing, restless world—an artistic maverick way ahead of her time.

Debunking the lethal logic behind the pervasive myths that have framed the gun control debateThe gun lobby’s remarkable success in using engaging slogans to frame the gun control debate has allowed it to block lifesaving gun legislation for decades. But is there any truth to this bumper-sticker logic? Dennis Henigan exposes the mythology and misguided thinking at the core of these pro-gun catchphrases, which continue to have an outsized influence on public attitudes toward guns and gun control. He counters the gun lobby’s messages by weaving together the most compelling current research and insights drawn from the grim reality of deadly gunfire in our homes and communities. Henigan charts a new path toward ending the American nightmare of gun violence.Myths Include:“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”“An armed society is a polite society.”“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”“Gun control doesn’t work because criminals don’t follow the law.”“Gun manufacturers shouldn’t be responsible for gun crime, any more than Budweiser is responsible for drunk driving.”“We don’t need new gun laws. We just need to enforce the ones we have.”“Gun control is a slippery slope to complete gun bans.”

Boston Firsts is about everything (well, almost!) that happened first in Boston and changed life elsewhere: from the first lighthouse and public library to the first madam and ready-made suit. Boston-based journalist and essayist Lynda Morgenroth has written forty original essays on the city's long history of innovation, from the colonial era to the present. These lively takes on Boston's innovative history range from the first use of ether in publicly performed surgery to the first school desegregation court case to the one-and only-automatic bargain basement.Consider this: Ice cut from Boston ponds and shipped to hot climates became a worldwide industry. A controversial kidney transplant between twin brothers marked the start of organ transplantation. The glorious Massachusetts 54th Regiment was the first black army regiment in U.S. history. First newspaper, novel, subway, telephone, gay marriage-the beat goes on!Ranging from advances in science and engineering-the smallpox inoculation and the Boston Harbor cleanup-to innovations in culture and society-Fannie Farmer's cookbook and the YMCA-the collection investigates, celebrates, and integrates America's workshop of ideas.

A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious linesIn this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples. Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonalityin their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today.

Lalu Nathoy's father called his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his "e;thousand pieces of gold,"e; yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. Polly, as Lalu is later called, is sold to a brothel, sold again to a slave merchant bound for America, auctioned to a saloonkeeper, and offered as a prize in a poker game. This biographical novel is the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for independence and dignity in the American West.

The story of one of the Boston area's most famous attractions, the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and how its founders and ';residents' have influenced American cultureWhen Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded, in 1831, it revolutionized the way Americans mourned the dead by offering a peaceful space for contemplation. This cemetery, located not far from Harvard University, was also a place that reflected and instilled an imperative to preserve and protect nature in a rapidly industrializing culturelessons that would influence the creation of Central Park, the cemetery at Gettysburg, and the National Parks system. Even today this urban wildlife habitat and nationally recognized hotspot for migratory songbirds continues to connect visitors with nature and serves as a model for sustainable landscape practices. Beyond Mount Auburn's prescient focus on conservation, it also reflects the impact of Transcendentalism and the progressive spirit in American life seen in advances in science, art, and religion and in social reform movements. In The Lively Place, Stephen Kendrick celebrates this vital piece of our nation's history, as he tells the story of Mount Auburn's founding, its legacy, and the many influential Americans interred there, from religious leaders to abolitionists, poets, and reformers.

A prominent and esteemed critic challenges widely held beliefs about children and parenting, revealing that underlying each myth is a deeply conservative ideology that is, ironically, often adopted by liberal parents.Somehow a set of deeply conservative assumptions about children-what they're like and how they should be raised-has congealed into the conventional wisdom in our society. Parents are accused of being both permissive and overprotective, unwilling to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. Alfie Kohn systematically debunks these beliefs, not only challenging erroneous factual claims but also exposing the troubling ideology that underlies them. Complaints about pushover parents and coddled kids are hardly new, he shows, and there is no evidence that either phenomenon is especially widespread today-let alone more common than in previous generations. Moreover, new research reveals that helicopter parenting is quite rare and, surprisingly, may do more good than harm when it does occur. The major threat to healthy child development, Kohn argues, is parenting that is too controlling rather than too indulgent.With the same lively, contrarian style that marked his influential books about rewards, competition, and education, Kohn relies on a vast collection of social science data, as well as on logic and humor, to challenge assertions that appear with numbing regularity in the popular press and are often accepted uncritically, even by people who are politically liberal. These include claims that young people • suffer from inflated self-esteem • are entitled and narcissistic • receive trophies, praise, and A's too easily • are in need of more self-discipline and "grit" Kohn's invitation to reexamine these and other assumptions is particularly timely; his book has the potential to change our culture's conversation about kids and the people who raise them.

A paradigm-shifting blend of science, religion, and philosophy for agnostic, spiritual-but-not-religious, and scientifically minded readers Many people are fed up with the way traditional religion alienates them: too easily it can perpetuate conflict, vilify science, and undermine reason. Nancy Abrams, a philosopher of science, lawyer, and lifelong atheist, is among them. And yet, when she turned to the recovery community to face a personal struggle, she found that imagining a higher power gave her a new freedom. Intellectually, this was quite surprising. Meanwhile her husband, famed astrophysicist Joel Primack, was helping create a new theory of the universe based on dark matter and dark energy, and Abrams was collaborating with him on two books that put the new scientific picture into a social and political context. She wondered, ';Could anything actually exist in this strange new universe that is worthy of the name ';God?'' In A God That Could Be Real, Abrams explores a radically new way of thinking about God. She dismantles several common assumptions about God and shows why an omniscient, omnipotent God that created the universe and plans what happens is incompatible with sciencebut that this doesn't preclude a God that can comfort and empower us. Moving away from traditional arguments for God, Abrams finds something worthy of the name ';God' in the new science of emergence: just as a complex ant hill emerges from the collective behavior of individually clueless ants, and just as the global economy emerges from the interactions of billions of individuals' choices, God, she argues, is an ';emergent phenomenon' that arises from the staggering complexity of humanity's collective aspirations and is in dialogue with every individual. This God did not create the universeit created the meaning of the universe. It's not universalit's planetary. It can't change the world, but it helps us change the world. A God that could be real, Abrams shows us, is what humanity needs to inspire us to collectively cooperate to protect our warming planet and create a long-term civilization.

An education leader relates how his experiences with the civil rights movement led him to develop programs promoting educational success in science and technology for African Americans and others. In Holding Fast to Dreams, 2018 American Council on Education (ACE) Lifetime Achievement Award winner Freeman Hrabowski recounts his journey as an educator, a university president, and a pioneer in developing successful, holistic programs for high-achieving students of all races. When Hrabowski was twelve years old, a civil rights leader visited his Birmingham, Alabama, church and spoke about a children's march for civil rights and opportunity. That leader was the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and that march changed Hrabowski's life. Until then, Freeman was a kid who loved school and solving math problems. Although his family had always stressed the importance of education, he never expected that the world might change and that black and white students would one day study together. But hearing King speak changed everything for Hrabowski, who convinced his parents that he needed to answer King's call to stand up for equality. While participating in the famed Children's Crusade, he spent five terrifying nights in jailduring which Freeman became a leader for the younger kids, as he learned about the risk and sacrifice that it would take to fight for justice. Hrabowski went on to fuse his passion for education and for equality, as he made his life's work inspiring high academic achievement among students of all races in science and engineering. It also brought him from Birmingham to Baltimore, where he has been president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for more than two decades. While at UMBC, he co-founded the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which has been one of the most successful programs for educating African Americans who go on to earn doctorates in the STEM disciplines.