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Anderson, Michelle Wilde. The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America. Avid: S. & S. Apr. 2022. 320p. ISBN 9781501195983. $28. GOVERNMENT/LOCAL

Four decades’ worth of antitax revolution have left U.S. communities large and small, urban and rural, blue and red, diverse and homogeneous without enough money to keep running and no more services to eliminate, properties to sell, bills to fend off, or questionable loans to secure. Stanford professor Anderson, an urban law expert, examines four communities to reveal both the consequences and new ways of coping. Stockton, CA, for instance, has found ways beyond policing to reduce gun violence, while Detroit, MI, is responding to foreclosures and housing loss with targeted efforts to stabilize low-income housing. With a 60,000-copy first printing.

Gajda, Amy. Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy. Viking. Apr. 2022. 400p. ISBN 9781984880741. $30. Downloadable. LAW

In the midst of battles to keep Big Tech from exploiting personal data and journalists from revealing information politicians want kept quiet, Tulane law professor Gadja reminds us that the standoff between the individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know has been around for a long time. Until the advent of investigative reporting in the Sixties, she argues, the tendency was to seek protection for the rich from journalistic scourgings; here she argues for a necessary balance between personal and public need.

Hoffman, Liz. Crash Landing: The Inside Story of How the World’s Biggest Companies Survived an Economy on the Brink. Crown. Apr. 2022. 352p. ISBN 9780593239018. $29. Downloadable. BUSINESS

At beginning of March 2020, the U.S. economy was basking in an 11-year glow, with the Dow Jones sailing toward 30,000 and unemployment hitting rock bottom. Then came the pandemic, with ten million out of work and CEOs begging for help. Hoffman, a senior reporter at the Wall Street Journal, argues that the efficiency-crazed, wage-freezing, growth-on-the-cheap policies pursued by businesses in the last decade especially made the economy’s crash landing worse.

Isen, Tajja. Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service. One Signal: Atria. Apr. 2022. ISBN 9781982178420. $26. RACISM/ESSAYS

Today, U.S. society is striving to tackle systemic racism—and Catapult editor Isen argues that these efforts, whether in Hollywood, publishing, or the law, are merely cosmetic. Here she blends cultural observation with aspects of her personal life to explain what she means, revealing the gap between lip service given and real progress achieved. With a 60,000-copy first printing.

Linden, Eugene. Fire and Flood: The True History of Our Epic Failure To Confront the Climate Crisis—and Our Narrow Path from Here. Penguin Pr. Apr. 2022. 336p. ISBN 9781984882240. $28. Downloadable. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

An award-winning journalist who has been covering climate change since 1988, Linden shows that the reality of climate change unfolded quickly, scientists were slower to catch up, and the public slower still. Finally, there are the resisters: in particular, businesses focused on present profit rather than future danger. He argues, however, that today’s fires and floods (and the attendant insurance issues) may be the wake-up call needed to engage the business world in this issue.

Mounk, Yascha. The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure. Penguin Pr. Apr. 2022. 368p. ISBN 9780593296813. $28. Downloadable. POLITICAL SCIENCE

Born in Germany to Polish Jewish parents, educated at Cambridge and Harvard, and an associate professor in international affairs at Johns Hopkins, Mounk takes on the currently vexed question of whether multiethnic democracies are viable and argues in their favor. He starts by rewriting Hobbes, asserting that the state exists to keep not individuals but groups from killing each other, and goes on to argue that group identity isn’t as us-vs.-them rigid as is often assumed. He then tours the world, starting with two peoples in southeastern Africa who are in conflict in one country and cooperative in the country next door, to show that diverse groups can join harmoniously—as long as they are equal. Therein lies the challenge, and Mounk suggests how we arrive at that hopeful place.

Mufleh, Luma. Learning America: One Woman’s Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children. Mariner: Houghton Harcourt. Apr. 2022. 256p. ISBN 9780358569725. $27. MEMOIR

Born in Jordan to Syrian refugee parents, Mufleh left for the United States after coming out to her parents, who promptly disowned her; though Jordan decriminalized homosexuality in 1951, it remains hostile to the LGBTQ+ community. In Jordan, Mufleh was that rare girl who played soccer, so in Clarkston, GA, she happily started coaching a pick-up team of preteenage girls from Liberia, Afghanistan, and Sudan. When she discovered that they could barely read despite having attended local schools, she responded by growing the team into a nationally acclaimed educational network that since its 2006 inception has helped some 2,000 refugee children from about two dozen countries. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Rabin-Havt, Ari. The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders. Liveright: Norton. Apr. 2022. 336p. ISBN 9781631498794. $26.95. POLITICAL SCIENCE

An aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders from 2017 to 2021 and deputy campaign manager for his 2020 presidential campaign, Rabin-Havt gives readers a you-are-there account of the campaign from its first meeting through Sanders’s heart attack and faceoff with Sen. Elizabeth Warren to his final defeat in the primaries. The aim is to show the candidate’s commitment to working-class concerns and his young supporters and his often-hidden sense of humor. The senator’s fans will love it.

Rankin, Lauren. Bodies On the Line: At the Frontlines of the Fight To Protect Abortion in America. Counterpoint. Apr. 2022. 256p. ISBN 9781640094741. $26. SOCIAL SCIENCE

An expert on abortion rights in the United States, Rankin spent six years as an abortion clinic escort in northern New Jersey. Here she relates the little-known stories of those who volunteer as escorts, risking their safety and indeed their lives to assure continued access to abortion as a basic human right. Important reading with the current challenges to Roe v. Wade.

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