Books published by Beacon Press

Debunking the lethal logic behind the pervasive myths that have framed the gun control debateThe gun lobby’s remarkable success in using engaging slogans to frame the gun control debate has allowed it to block lifesaving gun legislation for decades. But is there any truth to this bumper-sticker logic? Dennis Henigan exposes the mythology and misguided thinking at the core of these pro-gun catchphrases, which continue to have an outsized influence on public attitudes toward guns and gun control. He counters the gun lobby’s messages by weaving together the most compelling current research and insights drawn from the grim reality of deadly gunfire in our homes and communities. Henigan charts a new path toward ending the American nightmare of gun violence.Myths Include:“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”“An armed society is a polite society.”“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”“Gun control doesn’t work because criminals don’t follow the law.”“Gun manufacturers shouldn’t be responsible for gun crime, any more than Budweiser is responsible for drunk driving.”“We don’t need new gun laws. We just need to enforce the ones we have.”“Gun control is a slippery slope to complete gun bans.”

Boston Firsts is about everything (well, almost!) that happened first in Boston and changed life elsewhere: from the first lighthouse and public library to the first madam and ready-made suit. Boston-based journalist and essayist Lynda Morgenroth has written forty original essays on the city's long history of innovation, from the colonial era to the present. These lively takes on Boston's innovative history range from the first use of ether in publicly performed surgery to the first school desegregation court case to the one-and only-automatic bargain basement.Consider this: Ice cut from Boston ponds and shipped to hot climates became a worldwide industry. A controversial kidney transplant between twin brothers marked the start of organ transplantation. The glorious Massachusetts 54th Regiment was the first black army regiment in U.S. history. First newspaper, novel, subway, telephone, gay marriage-the beat goes on!Ranging from advances in science and engineering-the smallpox inoculation and the Boston Harbor cleanup-to innovations in culture and society-Fannie Farmer's cookbook and the YMCA-the collection investigates, celebrates, and integrates America's workshop of ideas.

A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious linesIn this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples. Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonalityin their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today.

Lalu Nathoy's father called his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his "e;thousand pieces of gold,"e; yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. Polly, as Lalu is later called, is sold to a brothel, sold again to a slave merchant bound for America, auctioned to a saloonkeeper, and offered as a prize in a poker game. This biographical novel is the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for independence and dignity in the American West.

A personal and moral inquiry into the crime we do our best to ignore: the rape of adult menWhen Raymond M. Douglas was an eighteen-year-old living in Europe, he was brutally raped by a Catholic priest. He eventually moved to the United States and became a highly regarded historian, writing with great care about the violent expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe after the Second World War, and parsing the complicated moral questions of these actions. But until now, Douglas has been silent about his own experience of trauma.In On Being Raped, Douglas recounts this painful event and his later attempts to seek help to lay bare the physical and psychological trauma of a crime we still don't openly discuss: the rape of adult men by men. With eloquence and passion, he examines the requirements society implicitly places upon men who are victims of rape, examines the reasons for our resounding silence around this issue, and reveals how alarmingly prevalent this kind of sexual violence truly is.An insightful and sensitive analysis of a type of bodily violation that we either joke about or ignore, On Being Raped promises to open an important dialogue about male rape and what needs to be done to provide adequate services and support for victims. ';But before that can happen,' writes Douglas, ';men who have been raped will have to come out of the shadows...A start has to be made somewhere. This is my attempt at one.'

A prominent and esteemed critic challenges widely held beliefs about children and parenting, revealing that underlying each myth is a deeply conservative ideology that is, ironically, often adopted by liberal parents.Somehow a set of deeply conservative assumptions about children-what they're like and how they should be raised-has congealed into the conventional wisdom in our society. Parents are accused of being both permissive and overprotective, unwilling to set limits and afraid to let their kids fail. Alfie Kohn systematically debunks these beliefs, not only challenging erroneous factual claims but also exposing the troubling ideology that underlies them. Complaints about pushover parents and coddled kids are hardly new, he shows, and there is no evidence that either phenomenon is especially widespread today-let alone more common than in previous generations. Moreover, new research reveals that helicopter parenting is quite rare and, surprisingly, may do more good than harm when it does occur. The major threat to healthy child development, Kohn argues, is parenting that is too controlling rather than too indulgent.With the same lively, contrarian style that marked his influential books about rewards, competition, and education, Kohn relies on a vast collection of social science data, as well as on logic and humor, to challenge assertions that appear with numbing regularity in the popular press and are often accepted uncritically, even by people who are politically liberal. These include claims that young people • suffer from inflated self-esteem • are entitled and narcissistic • receive trophies, praise, and A's too easily • are in need of more self-discipline and "grit" Kohn's invitation to reexamine these and other assumptions is particularly timely; his book has the potential to change our culture's conversation about kids and the people who raise them.