Demos Books

Thought leadership and the power of ideas often gain the most currency, and help shape the debate, through the form a book. Recognizing this, we have established the Demos book project, which helps fellows, staff and partner organizations develop their ideas into compelling proposals, manuscripts and finally into published works. In partnership with leading publishing houses, Demos helps authors build a broadcast, print, social media and event platform that elevates their arguments into the public and policy realms.

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What the U.S. Can Learn From China

January 11, 2012

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Ann Lee

While America is still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, a high unemployment rate, and a surge in government debt, China’s economy is the second largest in the world and many predict will surpass the U.S. by 2020. President Obama called China’s rise “a Sputnik moment”—will America seize this moment or continue to treat China as its scapegoat?

Black Tuesday

October 21, 2011

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Nomi Prins

Leila Khan is a beautiful, enterprising immigrant, struggling to find her purpose in a tumultuous America. Her Wall Street diner job introduces her to banker, Roderick Morgan – a haunted alcoholic controlled by his ruthless uncle, bank mogul Jack Morgan. As Leila and Roderick’s flirtations deepen into an illicit affair, Leila becomes a marked woman in more ways than one.

The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good

September 22, 2011

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Robert H. Frank

Who was the greater economist--Adam Smith or Charles Darwin? The question seems absurd. Darwin, after all, was a naturalist, not an economist. But Robert Frank, New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author of The Economic Naturalist, predicts that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics. The reason, Frank argues, is that Darwin's understanding of competition describes economic reality far more accurately than Smith's. And the consequences of this fact are profound.

The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society

August 18, 2011

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Michael Edwards

In the past two decades, '"civil society" has become a central organizing concept in the social sciences. Occupying the middle ground between the state and private life, the civil sphere encompasses everything from associations to protests to church groups to nongovernmental organizations.

Tropic Of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence

May 1, 2011

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Christian Parenti

An investigative journalist’s tough analysis of how some of the world’s most vulnerable states—those with a history of economic and political disasters—are confronting the new crisis of climate change.

Next Generation Democracy

November 9, 2010

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Jared Duval

The challenges of the twenty-first century are of an unprecedented scale. Climate change, financial instability, the housing crisis, the need for health care-all of these are political issues that could be managed with ease if they were occurring on a much smaller scale. But with a huge global population and inextricable connections between the issues, our old tools for change look increasingly blunt. Many of the large bodies we once appointed to manage our common problems-including national governments- have begun to fail at critical moments.

Fortunes of Change

August 9, 2010

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David Callahan

In his new book, Demos co-founder and senior fellow David Callahan contends that something big is happening among the rich in America: they're drifting to the left. When Callahan set out to write a book on the new upper class, he expected to profile a greedy and reactionary elite-the robber barons of a second Gilded Age. Instead, he discovered something else. While many of the rich still back a GOP that stands against taxes and regulation, liberalism is spreading fast among the wealthy.

The Myth of Voter Fraud

June 7, 2010

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Lorraine C. Minnite

Allegations that widespread voter fraud is threatening to the integrity of American elections and American democracy itself have intensified since the disputed 2000 presidential election. The claim that elections are being stolen by illegal immigrants and unscrupulous voter registration activists and vote buyers has been used to persuade the public that voter malfeasance is of greater concern than structural inequities in the ways votes are gathered and tallied, justifying ever tighter restrictions on access to the polls. Yet, that claim is a myth.

A Presidency in Peril

March 10, 2010

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Robert Kuttner

"In A Presidency in Peril, Robert Kuttner explores how and why Candidate Obama's audacity of hope morphed into President Obama's timidity of governing—from his deferential treatment of Wall Street to his misguided attachment to the fantasy of bipartisanship.

Creative Community Organizing

February 8, 2010

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Si Kahn

Creative Community Organizing is a self-teaching guide for activists and organizers based on Si Kahn’s experiences in the Southern Civil Rights Movement, the Brookside Strike by the UMWA, and the Grassroots Leadership’s campaigns to stop the privatization of the Shelby County jail in Memphis and to abolish immigrant family detention. The book also includes reflections on the roles of history and culture in progressive social change efforts.

God's Economy

December 15, 2009

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Lew Daly

President Obama has signaled a sharp break from many Bush Administration policies, but he remains committed to federal support for religious social service providers. Like George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, though, Obama's version of the policy has generated loud criticism-from both sides of the aisle--even as the communities that stand to benefit suffer through an ailing economy.

Inside Obama's Brain

December 1, 2009

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Sasha Abramsky

From the moment he burst onto the national political scene, Barack Obama has fascinated people more than any politician in decades. Many biographers have already retold his story, but no previous book truly explains how his mind works, what passions drive him, or what makes him such an effective leader. This concise profile explores the ideas, inspirations, and experiences that have shaped the president. It quotes a wide network of sources, including many who broke long-standing vows of silence to offer their candid and surprising observations.

It Takes a Pillage

September 1, 2009

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Nomi Prins

If you're still enraged and frustrated with how the bank bailout went bust for the American people, or how Wall Street continues to operate as if the rest of the world doesn't matter, or how the banks are once again rolling in outsized profits and obscene bonuses while average Americans continue to struggle through a bleak landscape of foreclosures and job loss, It Takes a Pillage gives voice to your outrage, and provides a deeper insight into what we really have to be angry about and how we can fight for some real change.

Searching for Whitopia

August 4, 2009

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Rich Benjamin

A prediction making headlines across the United States is fast becoming reality: By 2042, whites will no longer be the American majority. Rich Benjamin, a scholar-adventurer, packed his bags and embarked on an unprecedented 27,000-mile journey throughout the heart of white America -- some of the whitest and fast-growing communities in our nation. This is his story.

Women Lead the Way

August 1, 2009

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Linda Tarr-Whelan

A few “first women” are making key decisions in high places but a few is not enough to have a significant impact. Changing what gets decided takes changing who makes the decisions. But with just 17% of Congressional seats and 14% of Fortune 500 board seats held by women, the leaders defining priorities and solutions continue to look and act much the same as generations ago.   