Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

Forrest's fresh take on social justice organizing is a must-read volume for academics of social movements and organizers alike. Though social movement theory has long focused on how movements materialize, few works consider how organizing tactics may impact the relative success or failure of movements--past emphasis focused more on the role of structural conditions or political opportunities. Using a city of great relevance to the present moment, Minneapolis, Forrest (politics, Oberlin College) provides a detailed explanation of why social justice organizers might repeatedly fall short of their aims and offers insights into how organizers can improve their chances of attaining what he calls abolitionist goals--efforts to dismantle systemic oppression rather than merely make reforms in the lives of certain groups. Indeed, neoliberalism and capitalist realism created conditions in which organizing for social justice is challenging, but the author demonstrates that groups are capable of advocating for broadscale change. This is sociology at its best--Forrest offers a robust explanation of the structural conditions that create political hazards for progressive groups and concrete examples and explanations of ways to circumvent these barriers to achieve a more egalitarian society.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.

Drawing on his previous fieldwork and internship experiences, Smith (Bentley Univ.) presents a compelling and readable ethnography about social service workers who provide services for homeless people. He follows specific workers in a specific location, infusing the book with a local feel that adds a powerful dimension to a difficult topic. His emphasis is on the challenges and the long-term success that these workers have in placing and helping clients sustain housing in a constantly changing bureaucratic environment. This unique perspective is refreshing because of the author's professional experience and his attention to detail. The chapter on methodology will be invaluable to social scientists and social work students. Each chapter is well referenced, pulling extensively from the literature through in-depth interviews and copious field notes to illuminate the creative methods social service workers use to build relationships and obtain housing for people who may not meet the current policy definitions of eligibility. Though the book focuses on social service workers, there is much to learn here about homeless people, poverty, social inequality, and social policy.Summing Up: Essential. Undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals.

This book is an excellent treatment of a very important topic: the role of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the great gun debates taking place across the US, especially the sources and nature of its political power. Schwartz (political science, Univ. of the Fraser Valley, Canada) is a skilled ethnographer and writer. His detailed descriptions of the NRA annual meeting, gun classes, range visits, and the NRA museum bring readers inside an organization and culture that remain enigmatic to many social scientists and reviled by many Americans. The scholarly framing employs collective memory theory, but readers not familiar with that field or its academic debates will still benefit from this valuable, well-executed study. This book will interest students of all levels as well as scholars, but also anyone who wants to understand contemporary American gun culture and politics.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

This is a fascinating, insightful meta-analysis of news coverage, focusing on the way US social movements appear in mainstream news reporting of the pre-digital 20th century. Written by sociologists Amenta (Univ. of California, Irvine) and Caren (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), with the participation of other scholars in specific chapters, the book relies heavily on counts and statistical analysis, looking carefully at what sort of movements and institutions garner attention. In the preface Amenta states that "[they] address which movements and organizations received the most news attention when they received it and why" (p. xii). Two of the six chapters look in depth at how news coverage hobbled the Townsend Plan, a private version of Social Security proposed in the 1930s, and how it aided the aims of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Far broader than a study of one newspaper or region, the book looks at news reporting across the country. An appendix catalogues the volume's methodology, which really should be read carefully before the text itself. This quantitative study of media is striking scholarship--it made this reviewer wish for similar studies of television and digital media. A crucial resource for any institution with a communications or journalism program.Summing Up: Essential. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.