A provocative, necessary book about an ongoing hot-button topic.
A geography professor examines how the U.S. Border Patrol developed into an organization with powers that supersede the Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
Officially established as a federal agency in 1924, the Border Patrol has its roots in the Texas Rangers. “Ostensibly, [the Rangers’] purpose was to protect citizens from attack by Mexican or Native American raids,” writes Jones, “but in practice they often harassed and displaced Native Americans and Mexicans who lived in the region”—not to mention peaceful non-White residents and runaway slaves traveling on the Underground Railroad to Mexico. Jefferson Davis Milton, a former Ranger who was named after the president of the Confederacy, later became the first man hired as a federal officer to patrol the U.S. border, in 1904. But the background history of the Border Patrol accounts for only part of how it evolved from a tiny, underfunded agency with “loosely defined regulations” regarding how far from the border it could operate into a “sophisticated paramilitary force” that surreptitiously made its lethal presence felt during the mass demonstrations that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Jones argues that the agency's unprecedented expansion in the late 20th century was driven by two Supreme Court decisions in the mid-1970s. The first, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975), made racial profiling a legal factor for federal agents roving the border to consider when stopping drivers. The second, United States vs. Martinez-Fuerte, approved the use of interior checkpoints “on highways and interstates within one hundred miles of borders and coastlines.” This well-researched account is disturbing in its demonstration of the unwitting complicity between the American justice system and an organization born of racist violence. Jones also clearly shows the specter of increased—and sanctioned—police power to transform all places within the U.S. into anti-democratic borderlands.
A provocative, necessary book about an ongoing hot-button topic.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64009-520-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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