Blood in the Water

By Heather Ann Thompson,

Book cover of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

Book description

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • The definitive history of the infamous 1971 Attica Prison uprising, the state's violent response, and the victim's decades-long quest for justice. • Thompson served as the Historical Consultant on the Academy Award-nominated documentary feature ATTICA

“Gripping ... deals with racial conflict, mass incarceration, police brutality and…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Blood in the Water as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Heather Ann Thompson’s Blood in the Water is a tremendously important once-in-a-lifetime study of the Attica prison insurrection in 1971.

At 752 pages, it is investigative and cinematically written, making it one of the most fundamental new works on the American carceral state. The research that went into this book also renders it uniquely significant.

It is rare that a historian can merge such profound and complete analysis with richly detailed storytelling without either suffering. Blood in the Water has raised the bar on studies of the carceral state and permanently advanced our understanding of the ecosystem of prison control…

When Zinn published his book in 1980, the tumultuous events of the recent past were too soon for him to explore in much detail. One of the more horrifying events of the 1970s was the crushing of the Attica prison riot in 1971. Heather Thompson tells this story with great attention paid to the activists fighting for dignity behind bars and the indifference to the lives of prisoners from politicians, the police, and much of the public. With police violence and incarceration major political issues today, Thompson’s book is a must-read to gain historical context that will both inspire and…

The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913

By Ashley Rubin,

Book cover of The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913

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Ashley Rubin Author Of The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913

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Why am I passionate about this?

I have been captivated by the study of prisons since my early college years. The fact that prisons are so new in human history still feels mind-blowing to me. I used to think that prisons have just always been around, but when you realize they are actually new, that has major implications. This is nowhere more clear than at the beginning: how hard it was to get to the point where prisons made sense to people, to agree on how prisons should be designed and managed, and to keep on the same path when prisons very quickly started to fail. It’s still puzzling to me.

Ashley's book list on the origins of American prisons

What is my book about?

What were America's first prisons like? How did penal reformers, prison administrators, and politicians deal with the challenges of confining human beings in long-term captivity as punishment--what they saw as a humane intervention?

The Deviant Prison centers on one early prison: Eastern State Penitentiary. Built in Philadelphia, one of the leading cities for penal reform, Eastern ultimately defied national norms and was the subject of intense international criticism.

The Deviant Prison traces the rise and fall of Eastern's unique "Pennsylvania System" of solitary confinement and explores how and why Eastern's administrators kept the system going, despite great personal cost to…

The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America's Modern Penal System, 1829-1913

By Ashley Rubin,

What is this book about?

Early nineteenth-century American prisons followed one of two dominant models: the Auburn system, in which prisoners performed factory-style labor by day and were placed in solitary confinement at night, and the Pennsylvania system, where prisoners faced 24-hour solitary confinement for the duration of their sentences. By the close of the Civil War, the majority of prisons in the United States had adopted the Auburn system - the only exception was Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, making it the subject of much criticism and a fascinating outlier. Using the Eastern State Penitentiary as a case study, The Deviant Prison brings to light…


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