Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.

"A history-making manual,interreligious study and names list, with stories by Westerners who entered Hinduism and Hindus who deepened their faith"--Cove

Across America, an increasing number of people are becoming victims of "crack" & other addictive drugs. The destructive effects of addiction have rendered many parents unable to fulfill their obligations & have left grandparents with the responsibility of raising their grandchildren. Dr. Poe focuses in depth on the enormous adjustments that grandparents must make as they struggle to rescue these innocent children from repeating the self-destructive cycle of their parents. Among many other critical issues, she discusses anger, resentment, social isolation, & helplessness that these grandparents & grandchildren feel; the postponement, sometimes forever, of grandparents' cherished personal goals due to the needs of their grandchildren; & the difficulties caused by the grandparents' failing health & diminishing finances. This informative & thought-provoking book should be helpful to anyone, whether professional or participant, who is any way involved with or concerned about this social tragedy. Dr. Poe is a Licensed Marriage, Family, & Child Therapist in Berkeley, California.

Poetry. "I am spending my 39th year practicing uncreativity. On Friday, September 1, 2000, I began retyping the day's NEW YORK TIMES word for word, letter for letter, from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner, page by page." With these words, Kenneth Goldsmith embarked upon a project which he termed "uncreative writing", that is: uncreativity as a constraint-based process; uncreativity as a creative practice. By typing page upon page, making no distinction between article, editorial and advertisement, disregarding all typographic and graphical treatments, Goldsmith levels the daily newspaper. DAY is a monument to the ephemeral, comprised of yesterday's news, a fleeting moment concretized, captured, then reframed into the discourse of literature. "When I reach 40, I hope to have cleansed myself of all creativity"-Kenneth Goldsmith.