New Books In Public Policy

Today we’ll focus on the history of resistance to the New Deal. In her book Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal (W. W. Norton,2010), Kimberly Phillips-Fein details how many of the most prominent elites had their ideas and practices shaped by groups that were part of organized resistance to the New Deal. She argues that this history helps revise common understandings of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s and after. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In late 2001 Finland became the darling of the education and policy communities, as its students toped the reading literacy, mathematics, and science PISA test rankings. While these results were somewhat of a surprise to Finns, the outcomes persisted throughout subsequent cross-national examinations. Policymakers and educators from across the world have since been fascinated as to how the Scandinavian country created such a successful system. Was it the teachers? The students? The schools? In Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? (Teachers College Press, 2014), Dr. Pasi Sahlberg, visiting professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, explains the nuances of his homeland’s educational system and even its historical foundations in this new updated version. The book offers lessons that can be understood by policymakers in other systems, but also provides a strong counter to the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), which, dubbed by Dr. Sahlberg, is led by cal

The intersection between Spanish-bilingual education and sex education might not be immediately apparent. Yet, as Natalia Mehlman Petrzela shows in her new book, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015), the meeting between these two paradigms of education firmly connects in California during the 1960s and 70s. Under the backdrop of California during an era of the sexual revolution, a dramatic influx of Latinos, and awakened protest movements, Dr. Petrzela, assistant professor at The New School, explores this historical landscape of education and society. From well-known political icons like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, to lesser-known figures such as Ernesto Galarza, and even details from regular people who lived the moment, Classroom Wars provides an in-depth and nuanced look into this interesting intersection in American educational history. Dr. Petrzela joins New Books in Education for the interview and you can follow her on Twitter at

For the past few decades a major focus has been how the Internet, and Internet associated new media, allows for greater social and political participation globally. There is no disputing that the Internet has allowed for more participation, but the medium carries an inherent elitism and the need for expertise, which may limit accessibility. According to some advocates, old media like radio offer an alternative without the limitations of new media systems. In her new book Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism (MIT Press, 2014), Christina Dunbar-Hester, an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, explores the activist organization the Prometheus Project, and its role in advocating for greater community access to low power radio licenses. In an ethnographic examination of the medium of microradio, Dunbar-Hester examines the dichotomy of old versus new media, as well as the use of media for participatory and emancipatory poli

Robert Putnam is the author of Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis (Simon and Schuster, 2015). Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. He has written fourteen books including the best-seller, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Few political scientists command attention like Robert Putnam. For that reason, scholars and the wider public are eager for his take on our current state of affairs. His latest book, Our Kids, paints a grim picture of US life in the twentieth century. The social mobility that Putnam associates with his childhood growing up in Ohio is largely gone, replaced by deep income inequality and increasingly rigid class boundaries. Putnam demonstrates this with a combination of individual stories and supporting social science evidence all that point to education (or inadequate education) as the key determining factor. But in the end Putnam is not a pessimist, instead he sees opportunities for social change. The book e

The health of former NFL players has received plenty of attention in recent years. The suicides of Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, along with stories of retired players in only their 40s and 50s affected by dementia and ALS, have revealed the toll that a professional football career can take on a man’s body and brain. In their new book Is There Life After Football? Surviving the NFL (New York University Press, 2014), James Holstein, Richard Jones, and George Koonce, Jr., discuss the discovery of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy as well as other physical problems that afflict former NFL players. Yet the most stunning finding of their research is not how life in football affects players’ health, but rather how it affects their ability to find and hold a job, to maintain relationships, even to engage in basic social interactions. The research leading to the book began with George Koonce, a nine-year veteran of the NFL. George’s career ended like those of most NFL players, not with a press conference announcing hi

Wikipedia is one of the most popular resources on the web, with its massive collection of articles on an incredible number of topics. Yet, its user written and edited model makes it controversial in many circles. In Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority, and Liberal Education in the Digital Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), Thomas Leitch of the University of Delaware English Department has written a book that challenges many of the criticisms of Wikipedia. Yet he also reviewed the importance of authority as an issue with all research in the twenty first century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contemporary American political culture is arguably more divisive than ever before. Blue states are bluer, red states are redder, and purple states are becoming harder and harder to find. Because of this divisiveness, teaching social studies and civics education has now become an overwhelmingly difficult task. Should a teacher share political leanings? How can teachers ensure that students are learning a wide political spectrum? Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy set out to answer these questions and more in The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education (Routledge 2014), from the Critical Social Thought series. The researchers undertook a massive years-long longitudinal study of high schools in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. From different classroom styles and teacher pedagogy, to impact on students, The Political Classroom offers an in-depth glimpse into the American civics education classroom. Dr. Hess joins New Books in Education for the interview and you can find more helpful resources

Commercial interests are often understood as impinging upon the ethical norms of medicine. In his new book, Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry (University of Chicago Press, 2013), Joe Gabriel shows how the modernization of American medicine was bound up in the ownership, manufacture, and marketing of drugs. Gabriel unearths the early history of intellectual property concerns as they entered the domain of medical practice itself. Through his careful marshaling of evidence, he takes readers back to a time when the norms and legal structures of commercial capitalism in the U.S. were just as much at issue as those of the professionalization of medicine. This fascinating book serves as a pointed reminder that the sources of therapeutic rationale are just as much tied to the production and regulation of therapies as the collective decision-making on ethical practice. Along with my previous interview with Jeremy Greene, this discussion will hopefully

Emilie Cloatre‘s award-winning book, Pills for the Poorest:An Exploration of TRIPS and Access to Medication in Sub-Saharan Africa (Palgrave, 2013), locates the effects–and ineffectualness–of a landmark international agreement for healthcare: the World Trade Organization’s “Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.” Cloatre takes seriously the idea of TRIPS as a technology in Bruno Latour’s meaning of the word–as a material object that anticipates effects in specific settings. Cloatre follows the text from its consolidation in European meeting halls to its use in the former French and British colonies of Ghana and Djibouti. Pills for the Poorest is a significant ethnography of law and healthcare in Africa that shows precisely how this paper tool begat new buildings, relationships, experts, and, indeed, pills, but only in particular places, among certain people, and for particular kinds of pharmaceuticals. Cloatre is a broadly trained scholar and talented researcher who shows the power of Actor Net

The 1960s marked a “new era of vaccination,” when Americans eagerly exposed their arms and hind ends for shots that would prevent a range of everyday illnesses–not only prevent the lurking killers, like polio. Medical historian Elena Conis shows that Americans’ gradual acceptance of vaccination was far from a medical fait accompli: it was–and remains–a political accomplishment that has stemmed from a patchwork of efforts to expose children, in particular, to compulsory vaccine programs. Grown in the culture of postwar American politics, vaccines deliver more than prophylactics. They succor a set of assumptions about economic inequality, racial difference, sexual norms, and gendered divisions of labor. Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization (University of Chicago, 2014) is a timely and accessible social history of American policy and practices towards vaccination that shows how support for vaccination has rarely advanced for medical reasons alone. Learn more about your ad choices. Vi

Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones are the authors of The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill and Jones is the J. J. “Jake” Pickle Regents Chair in Congressional Studies and Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. The Politics of Information picks up where the authors’ last book, The Politics of Attention, leaves off. They explore how information enters into the policy process and how that has evolved over time, focusing on what they call the “paradox of search”. They make extensive use of the publicly available data that they have collected over the last decade called the Policy Agendas Project. They argue that: “Information determines priorities, and priorities determine action” (p. 40). They discover is that the policy process is replete with in

The US Census has been an important American institution for over 220 years. Since 1790, the US population has been counted and compiled, important figures when tabulating representation and electoral votes. The Census has also captured the racial make-up of the US and has become a powerful public policy tool with both data and clout, affecting a range of policies from segregation to affirmative action. In What Is Your Race?: The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans (Princeton University Press 2013), Dr. Kenneth Prewitt provides a broad historical and political overview of the racial counting component of the Census, from its inception to its future. Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University, was formerly the Director the US Census Bureau, and his first-hand experience strengthens the narrative throughout the book. Prewitt’s book follows the historical ebbs and flows of the Census and race politics in the US, which are unequivocally linked. From the early era of coun

Without a doubt, the paramount duty of a municipality, of any size, is the delivery services to its constituents. These services range from the seasonal-think snow removal, to the daily-ensuring traffic lights work, to the critical-think trash removal. Cities, particularly those in large urban areas, are tasked with finding ways to respond to issues important to the people for whom they work. New technology and data collection platforms are assisting municipalities to respond to the needs of citizens, and changing the relationships between the government and the governed. In their new book, The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance (Jossey-Bass 2014), Stephen Goldsmith, Daniel Paul Professor of Practice at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and director of Data-Smart City Solutions, and Susan Crawford, John A. Reilly Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property at Harvard Law School and co-Director of the Berkman center, detail how urban centers are using technologi

Jeff Smith is the author of Ferguson in Black and White (Kindle Single, 2014). Smith is assistant professor of political science at The New School’s Milano Graduate School. Smith writes this book from a position of academic and personal expertise. He grew up in the area and served as a state representative for several years. Ferguson in Black and White provides useful background about the socio-political history of the St. Louis region that set the stage for Michael Brown’s killing and the painful aftermath. Smith writes: “In St. Louis, parochialism is inextricably intertwined with race.” He ends the book with specific recommendations for how to improve conditions in the future for the residents of Ferguson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did a golden age of cultural funding in UK turn to lead? This is the subject of a new cultural history by Robert Hewison. Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain (Verso, 2014) charts the New Labour era of cultural policy, detailing the shift from the optimism of the late 1990s to the eventual crisis of funding and policy currently confronting culture in the UK. The book identifies the faustian pact between government and cultural sector, as increased funding came at the price of delivering economic and social policy agendas and responding to bureaucratic forms of management. The book uses a range of examples to illustrate this problematic bargain, from the disasters of the Millennium Dome and The Public, through an analysis of the 2012 Olympic Games. Alongside the range of cultural policy projects discussed is an exploration of the infrastructure, in particular the government departments and public bodies, which are at the root of the failure of British cultural policy between 1997 and

Conventional thinking tells us that private school education is better than public schooling in the US. Why else would parents pay the hefty price tag often associate with private education, especially at very elite schools? But, Dr. Christopher Lubienski and Dr. Sarah Lubienski question this assumption in their new book, entitled The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2013). In this publication, the authors use two large-scale datasets on mathematics outcomes to isolate the effects of schooling on children and they find that public schools actually score better than their private school counterparts in this measure when the proper variables are held constant. To explain their findings, Lubienski and Lubienski argue that public school usually have better certified teachers and more often teach with more modern pedagogical methods. While the book does not contend that all public schools are great, the authors would like their findings that show

Janet K. Shim‘s new book juxtaposes the accounts of epidemiologists and lay people to consider the roles of race, class, and gender (among other things) in health and illness. Heart-Sick: The Politics of Risk, Inequality, and Heart Disease (New York University Press, 2014) integrates several kinds of sources into a theoretically-informed sociological investigation of inequality and cardiovascular disease, including interviews with epidemiologists and people of color who are dealing in different ways with the disease, participant observation at conferences and health education events, and engagement with discourses of cultural and social theory. Shim considers the points of commonality and divergence among lay and epidemiological communities in terms of how each group conceptualizes the nature of social and cultural difference, the significance of difference for health and disease, and the reliability of different forms of knowledge. In the process, Heart-Sick places these accounts into dialogue with theories

Is there any such thing as a generic drug? Jeremy A, Greene‘s new book Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) treats its subject matter with a learned skepticism that lets the reader see through the eyes of the historical actors who helped define the modern drug industry. By inverting preconceived notions about what we take to be mundane, mass-produced chemical identities, the book offers a broad yet pointed glance at an industry and its attendant regulatory structures that developed alongside modern consumer culture. Claims about the equivalence and lower price of generic medicines, uncoupled from the patents held by major firms, were always hotly contested, and Jeremy’s book shows how debates about branding–or lack thereof–were at the heart of the rationalization of medical practice. Generic opens with evocative stories about the legal and scientific crises and personal tragedies wrought by tense relations between medical science and industry. We then learn about

Paul Loeb is well known in sociology as the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times, and for the previous edition of the book reviewed here. His books are used in college classes all across the country. Paul also has a presence as a public intellectual who takes his ideas to the radio waves, college speakers’ forums, and the Internet. He is the founder of the Campus Election Engagement Project. This new edition of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Perseverance and Hope in Troubled Time (Basic Books; Second Edition, 2014) is a reader with about 50 carefully selected readings, divided into nine groups each of which has its own title. These are short readings of 3-10 pages, each written by a notable political or literary figure. Alice Walker, Pablo Neruda, Desmund Tutu, and Marian Wright Edelman are among the authors. Loeb enlivens the collection with anecdotes recalling his interactions with some of the writers–such as the evening he spent drinking wine with the radical p