American Furies by Sasha Abramsky
Sasha's Washington D.C. reading of American Furies will be Televised Sunday July 29 at 9:45 PM on Book TV (C-span)
How vengeance has replaced rehabilitation in our prisons—and its terrible costs In this dramatic exposé of U.S. penitentiaries and the communities around them, Sasha Abramsky finds that prisons have dumped their age-old goal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. The new “ideal,” unknown to most Americans, is a punitive mandate marked by a drive toward vengeance.
Surveying this state of affairs—life sentences for nonviolent crimes, appalling conditions, the growth of private prisons, the treatment of juveniles— Abramsky asks: Does the vengeful impulse ennoble our culture or demean it?
What can become of people who are quarantined for years in a violent subculture?
California's Three Strikes law typifies the politics that exploit the grief of victims' families and our fears of violent crime. Brilliantly researched and compellingly told, American Furies shows that the ethos of lock ‘em up and throw away the key” has enormous social costs.
“This is by far the most intelligent and haunting indictment of the American prison system that I have ever read. Sasha Abramsky has shone an incandescent lamp on a shadowy underground universe that holds and in too many cases brutalizes the lives of more than two million Americans. He should be commended for doing so, and his book made required reading for every legislator in the land, bar none.” - Simon Winchester, author of A Crack in the Edge of the World and The Professor and the Madman
“The most urgent book of the season. Sasha Abramsky provides us with an invaluable, if harrowing, audit of the cataclysmic damage inflicted upon American values by American prisons. The lack of compassion in our national life and the gangrened hearts of our politicians pose greater threats to our childrens’ futures than any overseas terrorist conspiracy.” - Mike Davis, professor of history at University of California, Irvine and author of seven books, including Planet of Slums and The Monster at Our Door
“A smart, compassionate and tough-minded look at the rise and impact of the tough-on-crime culture that has made America the world’s foremost jailer. By showing us how we got into this mess, this revelatory book also holds out hope that we might find our way out.” - Nell Bernstein, author of All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated
Sasha Abramsky has written for The Atlantic, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. The author of Conned: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House and Hard Time Blues: How Politics Built a Prison Nation, he has also reported on U.S. prisons for Human Rights Watch. He lives in Sacramento, California.
Individuals can now purchase American Furies by visiting a local bookstore, a favorite on-line bookseller, or our website, www.beacon.org. Orders of 10 or more copies are eligible for discounts. Please contact Katie Spencer at 617-948-6573 or kspencer@beacon.org for more information.
Sasha Abramsky will also be holding a colloquium in the Sociology Department on May 29, 2007 (time and location TBA) and a reading at the Davis Avid Reader at 7:30pm on June 15th.
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