tmackell's reviews
177 reviews

i gotta take a break from reading moshfegh this shit is dark lol

an addicting-to-read, complete send-up of the american dream through a fucked up parody of it

this book slaps

helped give me a better idea of what I need to work on in my life and in my relationship with love

yeah ok it's not the most well written critical leftist theory out there or whatever but this book is very well researched and footnoted. packed with statistics, stories, and evidence to illustrate the arguments for ending policing while still being super readable, interesting, and engaging. Helps a lot that it's split into sections that cover specific areas of policing (sex work, borders, schools, drugs, gangs, etc.) with consistent intersectional themes throughout obviously

not the book to read if you want Assata's firsthand account of the incident with the cop on the turnpike or of her escape from prison but she does write about all the repurcussions that these events had on her life; how she was tortured and victimized by cointelpro, in the courtroom, and in prison. she tells the story of her life up until those points and her experience of learning, educating herself and others in the revolutionary struggle. a very honest, human and emotional story but she is still amazingly strong and tough throughout. some really amazing poetry of her's that is relevant to the story caps off each chapter and the ending is beautiful

Desmond's call for a sociology of housing that reaches beyond a narrow focus on policy and public housing, a sociology of displacement and inequality that includes a serious study of exploitation and extractive markets is right up there in revolutionary importance and insight with Talal Asad's calls for an anthropology of the secular. This book is not just a call though but a full on leap into the project that Desmond started in Milwaukee. He makes a pretty damn perfect case for Milwaukee renters representing wider international societal problems. Not just statistical sociology with extensive citations of studies, court records, government data, scholarly papers etc. though there is plenty of that, but also an ethnography of a place and of people, friends, families, neighbors.

i was very moved