Political Awakenings: Conversations with History in Bloomington, MN

As a kid, Noam Chomsky handed out the Daily-Mirror at his uncle's newsstand on 72nd Street, finding himself in a buzzing intellectual and political hub for European immigrants in New York-an experience that would shape his lifelong interest in radical politics.
In a moment that clarified for her the importance of the law in protecting vulnerable groups, Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and her husband signed their own legal contract, attempting to restore equality to their marriage after the Iranian Revolution effectively erased the legal rights of women.
A Harvard professor and the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout, Elizabeth Warren once set out to expose those fraudulent Americans who were declaring bankruptcy and taking advantage of the system-only to discover, in her research, a very different story of hard-working middle-class families facing economic collapse in the absence of a social safety net.
In this rousing, thoughtful, often funny, and always inspiring volume, a diverse and impressive group of thinkers reflect on those formative experiences that shaped their own political commitments. A fascinating new window into the profound connections between the personal and the political, Political Awakenings will engage readers across generations.