How much do you really know about former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin? The revelations in Matthew ZenceyÆs account of her tenure will surprise you. Although Palin is widely seen as a conservative social ideologue, her political career in Alaska was marked by a progressive approach that is at odds with her current right-wing Republican identity. A self-described red-meat conservative, the partisan ôpit bull with lipstickö had been a bipartisan, pragmatic, and surprisingly progressive governor who raised taxes on Big Oil and distributed oil revenue to every Alaskan. She also rankled her social-conservative supporters by vetoing an antiûgay rights measure and placing a pro-choice woman on the Alaskan Supreme Court. But her mishandling of accusations of ethics violations made her politically vulnerable at home, and her foray into the partisan brawling of national politics broke apart her bipartisan governing coalition in AlaskaÆs capital. After her failed 2008 bid for the vice presidency, Palin spent one more legislative session trying to run a big-government state while maintaining her national stature as a small-government conservative, but it was politically untenable. With no hope of achieving any major political accomplishments, plus a growing strain on her family life, huge legal bills, and a large book advance in hand, she resigned. Zencey, an editor at the Anchorage Daily News during PalinÆs tenure, shows how the Sarah Palin who was so popular in Alaska is starkly different from the Sarah Palin who is now so popular with the Tea Party.

How much do you really know about former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin? The revelations in Matthew Zencey's account of her tenure will surprise you. A conservative social ideologue, Sarah Palin's political career in Alaska was marked by a progressive fiscal approach that is at odds with her current right-wing Republican identity.

In The First Civil Right is a groundbreaking analysis of root of the conflicts that lie at the intersection of race and the legal system in America. Naomi Murakawa inverts the conventional wisdom by arguing that the expansion of the federal carceral state-a system that disproportionately imprisons blacks and Latinos-was, in fact, rooted in the civil-rights liberalism of the 1940s and early 1960s, not in the period after.

From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats? It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.

"In 2007, Kevin Palau and a few dozen pastors approached Portland's mayor and posed the question: How can we serve you with no strings attached? Officials identified five initial areas of need--hunger, homelessness, healthcare, the environment, and public schools-- and so began a partnership, CityServe, between the city and a band of churches seeking to live out the gospel message. Since then, the CityServe model has spread like wildfire, inspiring communities across the country to take up the cause in their own cities"--Provided by publisher.

In this honest novel set in the racial tinderbox of Chicago in 1969, thirteen-year-old Simon Fleming, the white son of a civil rights activist minister, is sent to a predominately African American high school, feeling charged by his parents to carry out the family's commitment to the community and school integration. Here, he is dropped into a world where gang warfare, drug abuse, and violence are rampant. Simon's quest for survival takes him through a failed student boycott organized by community leaders, as well as through numerous race riots, and brings him into contact with gangbangers, political activists, racist cops, and unlikely new friends. Hey, Liberal! exposes an out-of-touch education system and the universality of racial violence amid a nation moving, inch by hard-fought inch, toward a more culturally diverse and inclusive future.

The hilarious and heartwarming, respectful and thought-provoking memoir of a college student's semester at Liberty University, the "Bible Boot Camp" for young evangelicals, that will inspire believers and nonbelievers alike. No drinking. No smoking. No cursing. No dancing. No R-rated movies. Kevin Roose wasn't used to rules like these. As a sophomore at Brown University, he spent his days fitting right in with Brown's free-spirited, ultra-liberal student body. But when Roose leaves his Ivy League confines to spend a semester at Liberty University, a conservative Baptist school in Lynchburg, Virginia, obedience is no longer optional. Liberty is the late Reverend Jerry Falwell's "Bible Boot Camp" for young evangelicals, his training ground for the next generation of America's Religious Right. Liberty's ten thousand undergraduates take courses like Evangelism 101 and follow a forty-six-page code of conduct that regulates every aspect of their social lives. Hoping to connect with his evangelical peers, Roose decides to enroll at Liberty as a new transfer student, chronicling his adventures in this daring report from the front lines of America's culture war. His journey takes him from an evangelical hip-hop concert to a spring break mission trip to Daytona Beach (where he learns to preach the gospel to partying coeds). He meets pastors' kids, closet doubters, Christian rebels, and conducts what would be the last print interview of Rev. Falwell's life.