Feeling frustrated by the current state of affairs or just want to know more about how political systems work? These titles offer insight, stories, legalities, and strategies for effecting change.
Series: Adult Nonfiction - 324.2092 Lic
Becoming a Citizen Activist is a compilation of specific anecdotes of successful social justice struggles led by ordinary people, practical tips for fighting for your cause, and compelling insights into power, politics and the medley of strategies that make change happen. No matter who you are, you’ll finish the book and be inspired to head straight out to better your community and our world.
Adult Nonfiction - 320.513 Kre
Most of us have to "talk across the aisle" once or twice a year, but millions of self-identified liberals live in places where they are regularly outnumbered and outvoted by conservatives. In this uplifting book, Justin Krebs speaks with and tells the stories of atheists, vegetarians, environmentalists, pacifists, and old-fashioned liberals. Krebs weaves these stories together to create a provocative and rollicking taxonomy of strategies for living in a diverse society, with lessons for every participant in our great democratic experiment.
Adult Nonfiction - 322.4097 Nad
A scathing wake-up call derailing the many ways that wealth manipulates American politics, labor, media, environment and the quality of national life today. By telling the success stories of average Americans, the iconic consumer advocate and big-business anti-hero makes the case about how the nation can--and must--be managed by communities, not corporations. Nader at his best--indignant and inspired.
How the history of American voting rights has shaped the way we vote today. Coinciding with the 2020 US presidential election, Drawing the Vote, an original graphic novel, looks at the history of voting rights in the United States and how it affects the way we vote today.
Adult Nonfiction - 320.473 Rag
Series: The everything series
The average citizen knows precious little about the democratic system and the laws that affect their daily lives. This book unravels the complexities of our democracy and provides readers with the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions and take an active role in the management of their country. This book is specially designed to inform and empower the average citizen during this critical election year and provides the keys to understanding the ins and outs of the most powerful democracy in the world.
Adult Nonfiction - 305.4209 Gra
So the presidential election of 2016 happened. You cried, you ranted, you marched. But how do you stay engaged for the long term? How do you keep fighting while also continuing your real life? How do you stay vigilant without being furious? Needing to take action after the election, Emma Gray, Executive Women's Editor at HuffPost, put on her journalist hat and set out to speak with some of the most prominent thought leaders and activists of our time. In all of her conversations, one theme came up again and again: young women are essential to the resistance. Interweaving these interviews with her own experiences covering resistance events in a time when the media has been under assault, Emma has created a down and dirty guide for women of all ages to roll up their sleeves and resist the forces that are a threat to our rights.
Adult Nonfiction - 320.473 Mis
This informative book traces the historic development of the government, the functions of each branch of government, and how they work together. It provides clear and concise definitions of who does what and why. Written in an entertaining, reader-friendly, question-and-answer format, [this book] deciphers the news behind the headlines through well-researched answers to nearly 800 common questions. This handy primer also includes numerous illustrations, graphs, tables, a helpful bibliography, and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness
![Here is your Indiana government, 2019-2020 [39th edition]](https://mcpl.info/files/here-is-your-indiana-govt-231x300.jpg)
351.772 Her
This book includes up-to-date descriptions and contact information for Indiana’s government offices and agencies, responsibilities of all elected and appointed officials, historical timelines, interesting facts, and much more.
305.48896 Kri
Learn about some of the ways that African American women have been contributing to Indiana in this book of interviews.
Adult Nonfiction - 973 Zin
Chronicles United States history from a grassroots perspective and provides an analysis of important events from 1492 through the current war on terrorism.
Adult Nonfiction - 322.4 Wal
Michael Walzer draws on his extensive engagement in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s to lay out the practical steps necessary to keep movement politics alive both in victory and in defeat. What do people need to do when out of outrage or fear of looming disaster they come together to demand change? Should they focus on one or several issues? Should they form coalitions? What can and can’t be accomplished through electoral politics? How can movements operate democratically? Walzer insists not only on the centrality of movement politics to the health of democratic societies but on the deep satisfaction that is to be found there. Political Action is both an indispensable resource for activists and a lasting and inspiring summons to arms.
Adult Nonfiction - 322.4209 Cam
A simple-to-follow, boots-on-the-ground, open-anywhere guidebook that delivers practical tactics for navigating, affecting, and protecting your own personal democracy in a gridlocked, heavily surveilled, and politically volatile United States. With infographics, links to resources and communities, and words of wisdom from people already fighting the good fight, this guidebook is meant to be used and abused. It's designed to move you from idea to action to part-time revolution in a quick, efficient, and effective manner.
Adult Nonfiction - 303.484 Ali
Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky's impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know "the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one." Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.
Adult Nonfiction - 303.61 Fit
For decades, Lisa Fithian's work as an advocate for civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action has put her on the frontlines of change. For anyone who wants to become more active in resistance or is just feeling overwhelmed or hopeless, her book shows how movements that embrace direct action have always been, and continue to be, the most radical and rapid means for transforming the ills of our society. While recognizing that electoral politics, legislation, and policy are all important pathways to change, Shut It Down argues that civil disobedience is not just the only action that remains when all else fails, but a spiritual pursuit that protects our deepest selves and allows us to reclaim our humanity.
Adult Nonfiction - 322.43 Don
Donors, corporations, and committees have the potential to greatly influence political candidates and election results, so the rules surrounding special interest groups and campaign funding should be of great concern to all citizens. Examine opposing viewpoints on some of the key issues and consider for yourself who has--and who should have--a say in the election process.
Adult Nonfiction - 320.0835 Sty
Essays, profiles, and interviews about issues in social and political action, including climate change, immigration, gender and sexual orientation, racism, women's rights, religious freedom, and intersectionality. Also includes practical information about tools for effecting change.
Adult Nonfiction - 320 Lup
Citizens sometimes lack the knowledge that they need to make competent political choices, and it is undeniable that greater knowledge can improve decision making. But we need to understand that voters either don't care about or pay attention to much of the information that experts think is important. Uninformed provides the keys to improving political knowledge and civic competence: understanding what information is important to others and knowing how to best convey it to them.
Adult Nonfiction 363.7052 Lin
We the People offers powerful portraits of communities across the United States that have faced threats from environmentally destructive corporate projects and responded by successfully banning those projects at a local level. Their method is an answer for the frustrations of untold numbers of activists who have been defeated time and again by corporate political power and legal entitlement. This book can teach us to create from the ground up what we want, basing our vision in local control and law. This work is about giving up the illusion of democracy, forging a system of true self-governance, and recognizing in law, that nature possesses legally enforceable rights of its own.
Adult Nonfiction - 204.082 Wom
The world is in crisis and it seems that many are looking to women to heal the planet and our human family. Before women can step into our full potential as leaders and guides in this moment, we must individually reconnect with our deepest wisdom and with our spiritual roots; collectively heal the many dimensions of separation that keep us fragmented and ineffective as agents of social change; and globally reclaim our rightful place as spiritual leaders in service of a balanced and compassionate new paradigm. Through the voices of North American women this book will inspire women to new expressions of their own personal leadership and invite them into powerful collaborative action.