Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2022 -

Lai (ethnic studies, Santa Clara Univ.) finds that Asian Americans have used social media to mobilize swiftly and effectively, overcoming barriers to political participation that might otherwise pose major stumbling blocks to largely immigrant populations. What Lai aptly names connective action enables Asian American groups to coordinate political activity across a wide geographic area, using social media to provide easy ways to communicate in a native language rather than relying on channels in which English is required. Lai's case studies examine both conservative and liberal causes, deftly expanding understanding of the political diversity of Asian Americans. Students will be fascinated to see how media familiar to them can be politically potent and how important timing is--launching one's social media campaign first can greatly increase chances of success. Lai also recognizes that social media is both a new avenue for political participation and a complement to traditional modes: social media can easily mobilize many people, but traditional institutions can then help them engage in politics more effectively. This work is a major contribution to the understanding of political participation, new media, and racial and ethnic studies.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty.

For those transfixed by the Supreme Court's decision on abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization or interested in the signature decision of the Roberts court on campaign financing, Citizens United v. FEC, this book is a must read. The devolution of campaign finance law and the five-decade response to Roe v. Wade are intertwined, and Ziegler (law, Univ. of California, Davis) provides a brilliant analysis of each. Pro-lifers--in particular, lawyer James Bopp--have played prominent roles in election financing jurisprudence. For instance, FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life in 1986 advanced nonprofit electioneering, and FEC v. Beaumont in 2003 prevented North Carolina Right to Life from making direct contributions to candidates. Ziegler reviews the tensions among pro-life activists, many of whom contested Bopp's strategy of challenging campaign finance laws to give pro-lifers more influence in elections. Movement activists united in their agreement that abortion was morally wrong, but they disagreed often on the tactics, whether they should result in a constitutional amendment or incremental rollbacks of abortion rights. In challenging campaign financing laws, Bopp and allies undermined the Republican establishment and set in motion the circumstances that made Dobbs possible.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty and general readers.

This book is both powerful and inquisitorial. Coates, a former federal prosecutor, counters the traditional belief that the American legal system is always fair, just, and equal. By offering her own lived experiences, Coates courageously and unapologetically reveals the biases, prejudices, and sexism that exist among court personnel--the very fabric of the judicial system. Although the title might suggest that the focus of this book is entirely on anti-Black racial discrimination in the legal system, Coates delivers instances of prejudices toward undocumented Latino citizens and white rape victims, accurately showing that injustice in the legal system can affect anyone. This reviewer has practiced criminal defense law for almost 17 years and has experienced nearly every scenario Coates offers, corroborating the author's understanding that justice is not always just. In conclusion, Coates's writing will educate many readers--who may blithely believe that the American judicial system systematically protects their constitutional rights and guarantees adequate legal representation and that officers of the law always uphold the law--that the American judicial system is fraught with implicit biases and, consequently, needs repair.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty, practitioners, general readers.

It is hard to overstate the timeliness of Goldstein's new book. Rather than unifying people, the Constitution as a rallying cry often springs from deep fears and sows greater division. As recently as the January 6 hearings in summer 2022 and stretching back to conflicts that began when the Founders were still alive, the Constitution has been shown to be more than a legislative or courtroom cudgel. Defending this parchment and its supposed sacred principles is embedded in the identity of groups and determines who gets to call themselves true Americans. Although Federalist No. 49 mentions the need for some constitutional "veneration" to support stability, Goldstein (law, Roger Williams Univ.) demonstrates again and again that opposing sides can threaten the viability of the Union while claiming to venerate the same words. The chapter titles of this book alone are sobering: "White Constitution," "Christian Constitution," "Nativist Constitution," "Businessman's Constitution," "Partisan Constitution," and "Violent Constitution." There are occasional episodes of constitutional inclusivity in rhetoric and action throughout these comprehensive histories, but it is far more common in the book for "the Constitution" to support exclusivity, conformity, hierarchy, and repression. Goldstein reminds readers to beware of debates that curdle into battles of national identity and narrow foundational values.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty and general readers.

The redrawing of Congressional and state legislative districts is a process with profound consequences for American elections and public policy. Bullock (Univ. of Georgia) offers an important contribution to understanding the history and contemporary politics of this vital process. In many states, redistricting authority resides in state legislatures. Prior to a series of US Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s, states permitted wide variation in the populations of legislative districts, and some states elected all their US representatives at large in statewide elections. Now, the US courts require that districts be equal in population, compact, contiguous, and respectful of preexisting political subdivisions. Bullock covers all this thoroughly while noting the consequences of recent developments, such as the requirement of racial redistricting in the 1982 Voting Rights Act amendments and the increasing use of independent redistricting commissions in some states. He assesses partisan gerrymandering techniques and notes their use by many state legislatures. More recent controversies about the 2020 census and the policy consequences of redistricting also receive careful attention. This is an essential volume on one of the most significant processes in American politics.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty, professionals, and general readers.

Joassart (San Diego State Univ.) explores food gentrification through consideration of ethnic versus cosmopolitan foodscape perspectives as they relate to a "food apartheid" in the US (p. 63). Through a mixed-methods study that embraces an in-depth, case-study approach, the author exposes and interrogates inequities immigrant communities experience in relation to fluctuating foodscapes and the sociocultural and economic impacts of food gentrification. For instance, the author describes the food apartheid by making visible the challenging working conditions (including food insecurity) faced by food service workers who are predominantly people of color, working class or working poor, women, and immigrants as compared with the mostly white, economically privileged consumers who populate and patronize San Diego's ethnic foodscapes. Ultimately, Joassart calls for food sovereignty as a way to disrupt the displacement of immigrants and people of color that results from gentrification, the latter being due, ironically enough, to expanding cosmopolitan foodscapes that prize "diversity." This book could be a useful text for courses in the disciplines of geography, sociology, food studies, and ethnic studies. Instructors might consider pairing it with Amy Trauger's We Want Land to Live (CH, Feb'18, 55-2309) as an illustration of how food activism may be realized within local neighborhoods.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. General readers.

Scholars have felled a great many forests seeking to educate Americans about the constitutionalism of the early republic, but Amar (Yale Univ.) masterfully shows there is much more to learn, especially when a new and generative approach to the subject is brought to bear on it. Amar emphasizes that understanding the US constitutional conversation, as it unfolded between 1760 and 1840, requires focusing on what those actually engaged in that conversation thought, said, and did at the time. (As such, he downplays James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787.) Especially engaging is chapter 5, which persuasively reorients the focus of the constitutional convention from Madison et al. to George Washington. To his immense credit, Amar ensures that within the highly readable 800-plus pages, readers never lose sight of his main arguments. This book is the first volume in a planned trilogy, which, as Amar explains in the postscript, will analyze the American constitutional conversation through the beginning of the 21st century. This reviewer cannot wait to read volumes 2 and 3.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty and general audiences.

Berman (organizational studies, Univ. of Michigan) provides a thorough, nuanced study of the evolution of American public policy since the 1960s. In the opening chapter, Berman contends that national administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have been unable to move outside the bounds of an economic style. The following three chapters describe how, since WW II, major think tanks and academics at the University of Chicago and Harvard moved from the mathematization of public issues and created in its place an analytical infrastructure that drew heavily from economics. Once this orientation was embedded in the national bureaucracy, courts and prominent scholars reinforced it by accepting cost-benefit analysis and market deregulation. Chapters 7 and 8 illustrate how the liberal social values prominent in the Great Society were marginalized by this economic style and its claims of value neutrality. The penultimate chapter focuses on the Reagan administration's use of this analytic framework to limit and actually reduce some government programs. In her conclusion, Berman suggests three approaches for countering the embedded influence of the economic style. This outstanding work is highly recommended for any course or program in American public policy.Summing Up: Essential. Undergraduates, graduate students, and general readers.