Boston Review Books

Boston Review Books are accessible, short books that take ideas seriously. They are animated by hope, committed to equality, and convinced that the imagination eludes political categories. The editors aim to establish a public space in which people can loosen the hold of conventional preconceptions and start to reason together across the lines others are so busily drawing.

Showing results 1-10 of 27

Filter Results OPEN +

Sort by: Per page: ‹12 3 ›

The Story of Cruel and Unusual

by Colin Dayan

ISBN: 9780262551960

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: April 30, 2024

A searing indictment of the American penal system that finds the roots of the recent prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo in the steady dismantling of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment.

Giving Kids a Fair Chance

by James J. Heckman

ISBN: 9780262535052

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: September 8, 2017

A top economist weighs in on one of the most urgent questions of our times: What is the source of inequality and what is the remedy?

After America's Midlife Crisis

by Michael Gecan

ISBN: 9780262527057

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: August 28, 2009

A longtime community organizer outlines a way to reverse the fifty-year decline in social mobility and economic progress.

The Men in My Life

by Vivian Gornick

ISBN: 9780262073035

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: August 22, 2008

Gornick on V. S. Naipaul, James Baldwin, George Gissing, Randall Jarrell, H. G. Wells, Loren Eiseley, Allen Ginsberg, Hayden Carruth, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth and the intimate relationship between emotional damage and great literature.

Immigrants and the Right to Stay

by Joseph H. Carens

With Deborah Chasman

ISBN: 9780262535885

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: April 6, 2018

A proposal that immigrants in the United States should be offered a path to legalized status.

The Road to Democracy in Iran

by Akbar Ganji

With Deborah Chasman

ISBN: 9780262072953

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: March 21, 2008

A famous Iranian dissident calls for universal human rights and democracy based on our common humanity.

Movies and the Moral Adventure of Life

by Alan A. Stone

Foreword by Joshua Cohen

ISBN: 9780262195676

Publisher: The MIT Press

Pub Date: August 17, 2007

Essays on small art films and big-budget blockbusters, including Antonia's Line, American Beauty, Schindler's List, and The Passion of the Christ, that view films as life lessons, enlarging our sense of human possibilities.