Joshua Cohen

"Deborah Meier offers a fresh take on standardized tests. While others have criticized standards and what they measure. Meier rejects the very idea of a centralized authority that dictates how and what teachers teach. Standardization, she argues, prevents citizens - including teachers - from emerging as thoughtful, responsible adults, seriously engaged with shaping their own schools, classrooms, and communities. As a result, young people can't learn from them how to be thoughtful, responsible adults and good citizens, the primary goal of public education in a democracy."--BOOK JACKET

"Rural spaces," writes Elizabeth Catte, author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, "are often thought of as places absent of things, from people of color to modern amenities to radical politics. The truth, as usual, is more complicated." With activists, historians, and political scientists as guides, Left Elsewhere explores the radical politics of rural America--its past, its priorities, and its moral commitments--that mainstream progressives overlook. This volume shows how these communities are fighting, and winning, some of the left's biggest battles. From novel health care initiatives in the face of the opioid crisis to living wages for teachers, these struggles do not fall neatly into the "puny language," as Rev. William Barber says, of Democrat or Republican. Instead they help us rethink the rural-urban opposition at the heart of U.S. politics. The future of the left, this collection argues, could be found elsewhere.--Publisher's website

Proposes a Universal Basic Income (UBI) policy, under which all adult members of society would be guaranteed a basic income.

BROOKE GORDON was wary of her new assignment. Directing commercials was a fine art, and she was more than good at it, but working with an athlete...? PARKS JONES was a novice in front of the camera but a master of the game of baseball. At the game of love he was a pro. Brooke was unwilling to get involved with someone she had to work with, so Parks suggested a compromise: On the set, she was the boss, but off it, he decided the rules of the game.

In this collection of essays, Joshua Cohen locates ideas about democracy in three far-ranging contexts. First, he explores the relationship between democratic values and history. He then discusses democracy in connection with the views of defining political theorists in the democratic tradition: John Locke, John Rawls, Noam Chomsky, Juergen Habermas, and Susan Moller Okin. Finally, he examines the place of democratic ideals in a global setting, suggesting an idea of "global public reason", terrain of political justification in global politics in which shared reason still plays an essential role. All the essays are linked by his overarching claim that political philosophy is a practical subject intended to orient and guide conduct in the social world. Cohen integrates moral, social-scientific, and historical argument in order to develop this stance, and he further confronts the question of whether a society conceived in liberty and dedicated to equality can endure. At Gettysburg, President Lincoln forcefully stated the question and expressed both hope and concern over this same struggle about an affirmative answer. By enabling us to trace the arc of the moral universe, the essays in this volumeùalong with the companion collection on Philosophy, Politics, Democracyùgive us some reasons for sharing that hope. --Book Jacket.

"When we think of environmental action, we draw upon images from the disaster of Love Canal or from A Civil Action - stories of lone activists fighting the government or some corporation against all odds. In their provocative essay, Sabel, Fung, and Karkkainen demonstrate that an effective alternative is emerging. Before environmental disasters occur, citizen groups are collaborating with experts, business leaders, and local and federal governments to figure out what is best for their own neighborhoods. These examples point to more than successful environmental action: they represent a model of grassroots democracy that can be applied to the needs of any community."--BOOK JACKET.

"A propulsive, incendiary novel about faith, race, class, and what it means to have a home, from Joshua Cohen, "a major American writer" (The New York Times)"-- "This is a novel about two young Israeli soldiers who travel to New York after fighting in the Gaza War and find work as eviction movers. It's an incendiary story of the eviction crisis in poor African-American neighborhoods in America that also shines new light on the world's oldest conflict in the Middle East. 21-year-olds Yoav Tsarkhan and Uri Halifi have just completed their compulsory stint in the Israeli army, fighting in the 2014 Gaza War. In keeping with national tradition, they're entitled to a year of R & R: a gap-year spent abroad. They come to America and begin working for Yoav's distant cousin, David King--a proud American, Republican, Jew, and owner and operator of Moving King Inc., a heavyweight in the Tri-State area's moving and storage industry. Yoav and Uri now must struggle to become reacquainted with civilian life, but it's not easy to move past their militarized selves when their days are spent kicking down doors: Yoav and Uri work as eviction-movers in Brooklyn and Queens, dispossessing delinquent tenants and homeowners who've defaulted on their mortgages. And what starts off as a profitable if eerily familiar job quickly turns violent when they encounter one homeowner who refuses to leave"--

Economics is in a state of "creative ferment," according to lead authors Suresh Naidu, Dani Rodrik, and Gabriel Zucman. A decade after the Great Recession, they argue for a new brand of economics, one divorced from market fundamentalism and focused instead on a more inclusive society. Responses to their ideas--which come from economists, philosophers, political scientists, and policymakers across the political spectrum--showcase just how passionate the debate over the future of economics has become. -- Publishers website