Books published by Beacon Press

A revised and expanded edition of Thich Nhat Hanh's classic introduction to guided meditation for a world in search of mindfulnessIn this revised edition of The Blooming of a Lotus, one of the world's great meditation teachers offers an expanded collection of exercises for practicing mindfulness meditation that will bring both beginning and experienced practitioners into closer touch with their bodies, their inner selves, their families, and the world.In this new edition, readers will find: • A grounded introduction that provides readers with an immersive understanding of mindfulness, and includes guidance on how to use this book for mindful meditative practice • A new chapter of 30 guided meditations from Thich Nhat Hanh's 3-month Rains' Retreat, which guide readers into silent meditation rooted in directed mindfulness • A fresh organization, which groups the meditations thematically, focusing on our relationship with the body, with feelings and emotions, with existential commitment to the self and to others, and with the environment we share with living and nonliving things • A hardcover edition featuring a place-marker ribbon and a paper over board binding for easy use Compassionate and wise, Thich Nhat Hanh's healing words help us acknowledge and dissolve anger and separation by illuminating the way toward the miracle of mindfulness.

A 2022 PROSE Award finalist in Legal Studies and Criminology A 2022 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award FinalistA Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Book of 2021Freakonomics for the law—how applying behavioral science to the law can fundamentally change and explain misbehaviorWhy do most Americans wear seatbelts but continue to speed even though speeding fines are higher? Why could park rangers reduce theft by removing “no stealing” signs? Why was a man who stole 3 golf clubs sentenced to 25 years in prison?Some laws radically change behavior whereas others are consistently ignored and routinely broken. And yet we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime despite its continued failure.Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine draw on decades of research to uncover the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society’s laws. In doing so, they present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior.The Behavioral Code offers a necessary and different approach to battling crime and injustice that is based in understanding the science of human misconduct—rather than relying on our instinctual drive to punish as a way to shape behavior. The book reveals the behavioral code’s hidden role through illustrative examples like:    • The illusion of the US’s beloved tax refund    • German walls that “pee back” at public urinators    • The $1,000 monthly “good behavior” reward that reduced gun violence    • Uber’s backdoor “Greyball” app that helped the company evade Seattle’s taxi regulators    • A $2.3 billion legal settlement against Pfizer that revealed how whistleblower protections fail to reduce corporate malfeasance    • A toxic organizational culture playing a core role in Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal    • How Peter Thiel helped Hulk Hogan sue Gawker into oblivion Revelatory and counterintuitive, The Behavioral Code catalyzes the conversation about how the law can effectively improve human conduct and respond to some of our most pressing issues today, from police misconduct to corporate malfeasance.

Debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and for immigrants, and urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United StatesWhether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US's history of genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today.The author explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity--founded and built by immigrants--was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization, justice, reparations, and social equality. Moreover, Dunbar-Ortiz charges that this feel good‑-but inaccurate--story promotes a benign narrative of progress, obscuring that the country was founded in violence as a settler state, and imperialist since its inception.While some of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, others are descendants of those who were here since time immemorial and others are descendants of those who were kidnapped and forced here against their will. This paradigm shifting new book from the highly acclaimed author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States charges that we need to stop believing and perpetuating this simplistic and a historical idea and embrace the real (and often horrific) history of the United States.

A long-overdue and sober examination of President Ronald Reagan's racist politics that continue to harm communities today and helped shape the modern conservative movement.Ronald Reagan is hailed as a transformative president and an American icon, but within his twentieth-century politics lies a racial legacy that is rarely discussed. Both political parties point to Reagan as the ';right' kind of conservative but fail to acknowledge his political attacks on people of color prior to and during his presidency. Reconsidering Reagan corrects that narrative and reveals how his views, policies, and actions were devastating for Black Americans and racial minorities, and that the effects continue to resonate today.Using research from previously untapped resources including the Black press which critically covered Reagan's entire political career, Daniel S. Lucks traces Reagan's gradual embrace of conservatism, his opposition to landmark civil rights legislation, his coziness with segregationists, and his skill in tapping into white anxiety about race, riding a wave of ';white backlash' all the way to the Presidency. He argues that Reagan has the worst civil rights record of any President since the 1920sincluding supporting South African apartheid, packing courts with conservatives, targeting laws prohibiting discrimination in education and housing, and launching the ';War on Drugs'which had cataclysmic consequences on the lives of Black and Brown people.Linking the past to the present, Lucks expertly examines how Reagan set the blueprint for President Trump and proves that he is not an anomaly, but in fact the logical successor to bring back the racially tumultuous America that Reagan conceptualized.

An economist demonstrates how LGBT equality and inclusion within organizations increases their bottom line and allows for countries' economies to flourishWe know that homophobia harms LGBT individuals in many ways, but economist M. V. Lee Badgett argues that in addition to moral and human rights reasons for equality, we can now also make a financial argument. Finding that homophobia and transphobia cost 1% or more of a country's GDP, Badgett expertly uses recent research and statistics to analyze how these hostile practices and environments affect both the US and global economies.LGBT equality remains a persistent and pertinent issue. The continued passing of discriminatory laws, people being fired from jobs for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, harassment and bullying in school, violence and hate crimes on the streets, exclusion from intolerant families, and health effects of stigma all make it incredibly difficult to live a good life. Examining the consequences of anti-LGBT practices across multiple countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, India and the Philippines, Badgett reveals the expensive repercussions of hate and discrimination, and how our economy loses when we miss out on the full benefit of LGBT people's potential contributions.

An accessible guide for activists, educators, and all who are interested in understanding how the prison system oppresses communities and harms individuals.The United States incarcerates more of its residents than any other nation. Though home to 5% of the global population, the United States has nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners—a total of over 2 million people. This number continues to steadily rise. Over the past 40 years, the number of people behind bars in the United States has increased by 500%.Journalist Victoria Law explains how racism and social control were the catalysts for mass incarceration and have continued to be its driving force: from the post-Civil War laws that states passed to imprison former slaves, to the laws passed under the “War Against Drugs” campaign that disproportionately imprison Black people. She breaks down these complicated issues into four main parts:    1. The rise and cause of mass incarceration    2. Myths about prison    3. Misconceptions about incarcerated people    4. How to end mass incarceration Through carefully conducted research and interviews with incarcerated people, Law identifies the 21 key myths that propel and maintain mass incarceration, including:    • The system is broken and we simply need some reforms to fix it    • Incarceration is necessary to keep our society safe    • Prison is an effective way to get people into drug treatment    • Private prison corporations drive mass incarceration “Prisons Make Us Safer” is a necessary guide for all who are interested in learning about the cause and rise of mass incarceration and how we can dismantle it.

A dramatic retelling of the story of the Transcendentalists, revealing them not as isolated authors but as a community of social activists who shaped progressive American values.Conflagration illuminates the connections between key members of the Transcendentalist circleincluding James Freeman Clarke, Elizabeth Peabody, Caroline Healey Dall, Elizabeth Stanton, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker, and Margaret Fullerwho created a community dedicated to radical social activism. These authors and activists laid the groundwork for democratic and progressive religion in America.In the tumultuous decades before and immediately after the Civil War, the Transcendentalists changed nineteenth-century America, leading what Theodore Parker called ';a Second American Revolution.' They instigated lasting change in American society, not only through their literary achievements but also through their activism: transcendentalists fought for the abolition of slavery, democratically governed churches, equal rights for women, and against the dehumanizing effects of brutal economic competition and growing social inequality. The Transcendentalists' passion for social equality stemmed from their belief in spiritual friendshiptranscending differences in social situation, gender, class, theology, and race. Together, their fight for justice changed the American sociopolitical landscape. They understood that none of us can ever fulfill our own moral and spiritual potential unless we care about the full spiritual and moral flourishing of others.

The inspiring story of a mother who took unimaginable tragedy and used her grief as a force to do good by transforming the lives of others.When Maria Kefalas’s daughter Calliope was diagnosed with a degenerative, uncurable genetic disease, the last thing Maria expected to discover in herself was a superpower. She and her husband, Pat, were head over heels in love with their youngest daughter, whose spirit, dancing eyes, and appetite for life captured the best of each of them.When they learned that Cal had MLD (metachromatic leukodystrophy), their world was shattered. But as she spent time listening to and learning from Cal, Maria developed the superpower of grief. It made her a fearless warrior for her daughter. And it gave her voice a bell-like clarity—poignant and funny all at once.This superpower of grief also revealed a miracle—not the conventional sort that fuels the prayers of friends and strangers but a realization that, in order to save themselves, Maria and Pat would need to find a way to save others. And so, with their two older children, they set out to raise money so that they, in their son PJ’s words, could “find a cure for Cal’s disease.”They had no way of knowing that a research team in Italy was closing in on an effective gene therapy for MLD. Though the therapy came too late to help Cal, this news would be the start of an unexpected journey that would introduce Maria and her family to world-famous scientists, brilliant doctors, biotech CEOs, a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback, and a wise nun, and it would also involve selling 50 thousand cupcakes. They would travel to the FDA, the NIH, and the halls of Congress in search of a cure that would never save their child. And their lives would become inextricably intertwined with the families of 13 children whose lives would be transformed by the biggest medical breakthrough in a generation.A memoir about heartbreak that is also about joy, Harnessing Grief is both unsparing and generous. Steeped in love, it is a story about possibility.