A surprising and revealing look at how today’s elite view their wealth and place in society From TV’s “real housewives” to The Wolf of Wall Street, our popular culture portrays the wealthy as materialistic and entitled. But what do we really know about those who live on “easy street”? In this penetrating book, Rachel Sherman draws on rare in-depth interviews that she conducted with fifty affluent New Yorkers—from hedge fund financiers and artists to stay-at-home mothers—to examine their lifestyle choices and understanding of privilege. Sherman upends images of wealthy people as invested only in accruing social advantages for themselves and their children. Instead, these liberal elites, who believe in diversity and meritocracy, feel conflicted about their position in a highly unequal society. As the distance between rich and poor widens, Uneasy Street not only explores the lives of those at the top but also sheds light on how extreme inequality comes to seem ordinary and acceptable to the rest of us.

When a phony count, a weird artist, and a dazzling blond beauty relentlessly dog his footsteps, hard-hitting private investigator Max Thursday knows his charming personality isn’t the attraction. And as soon as he opens the box he is guarding and finds a hundred grand in cold cash, Thursday has the first clue to a mystery that leads the rugged sleuth headlong into a bloody fight-to-the-finish with a ruthless gang of international smugglers.

From the late ’90s to the mid-2010s, American cities experienced an astonishing drop in violent crime, dramatically changing urban life. In many cases, places once characterized by decay and abandonment are now thriving, the fear of death by gunshot wound replaced by concern about skyrocketing rents. In Uneasy Peace, Patrick Sharkey, “the leading young scholar of urban crime and concentrated poverty” (Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis) reveals the striking effects: improved school test scores, because children are better able to learn when not traumatized by nearby violence; better chances that poor children will rise into the middle class; and a marked increase in the life expectancy of African American men. Some of the forces that brought about safer streets—such as the intensive efforts made by local organizations to confront violence in their own communities—have been positive, Sharkey explains. But the drop in violent crime has also come at the high cost of aggressive policing and mass incarceration. From Harlem to South Los Angeles, Sharkey draws on original data and textured accounts of neighborhoods across the country to document the most successful proven strategies for combating violent crime and to lay out innovative and necessary approaches to the problem of violence. At a time when crime is rising again, the issue of police brutality has taken center stage, and powerful political forces seek to disinvest in cities, the insights in this book are indispensable.

"Sherman's insightful ethnography sheds light on the interactional dimension of symbolic boundaries and class relations as they are lived by luxury hotel clients and the workers who serve them. We learn how both groups perform class through emotion work and deepen our understanding of the role played by "niceness" in constituting equality and reversing hierarchies. As such, Class Acts is a signal contribution to a growing literature on the place of the self concept in class boundaries. It will gain a significant place in a body of work that broadens our understanding of class by moving beyond structural determinants and taking into consideration the performative, emotional, cognitive, and expressive dimensions of inequality."--Michele Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration "Eye-opening, amusing, and appalling, Rachel Sherman's Class Acts explains how class inequality is normalized in the refined atmosphere of luxury hotels. This beautifully observed and engagingly written ethnography describes what kinds of deference and personal recognition money can buy. Moreover, it shows how workers who provide luxury service avoid seeing themselves as subordinate and how those whose whims are catered to are made comfortable with their privilege. Class Acts is a sobering and timely account of the legitimation of extreme inequality in a culture that prizes egalitarianism."--Robin Leidner, University of Pennsylvania "Rachel Sherman provides a penetrating and engrossing study of workers and guests in luxury hotels. Do workers resent the guests? Do guests disdain the workers? Sherman argues neither is true-and explains why."--Julia Wrigley, author of Other People's Children

How coalitions of citizens and experts have been effective in promoting environmental justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor.

Challenging the wisdom about the way capitalism and colonialism joined forces to transform Hong Kong into one of the world's great cities, this book deploys case studies of the clash of interests between alien colonials and their Chinese constituents and the conflict between a pro-business government and its political and social responsibilities.

“A modern suburban fantasy . . . There are quests and complications, conflicts and charms. . . . Card’s back in top form, doing as well as or better than any of his fantasy work so far.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune In a prosperous African American neighborhood in Los Angeles, infant Mack Street is found abandoned in an overgrown park and taken in by a blunt-speaking single woman. Growing up, Mack senses that he is different from most, and knows that he has strange powers. Yet he cannot possibly understand how unusual he is until the day he discovers, beyond a mysterious narrow house no one else can see, an entryway into a magical world. Passing through, Mack is plunged into a realm where time and reality are skewed, a place where his actions seem to have disturbing effects in the “real world.” Whether he likes it or not, Mack has become a player in an epic drama. His reward, if he can survive the trip, is discovering not only who he really is . . . but why he exists. Praise for Magic Street “A great read . . . Card’s take on his characters [is] as sure as ever, his narrative rock solid, his dialogue crackling and authentic.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “[Card] is a master at creating a sense of urgency that keeps you turning pages.”—The Charlotte Observer “Mind-bending . . . Card’s clever tale comes with sharp writing and crisp dialogue.”—The Tampa Tribune “Compelling . . . By the time the ultimate conflict comes into focus, the novel is propelling the reader forward like a bullet.”—Deseret Morning News “A suspenseful fantasy thriller that, during the race to the last page, has one mulling over myth, morals, salvation, and will.”—Booklist