Imagination: A Manifesto (A Norton Short)

Benjamin, Ruha

ISBN 10: 1324020970 / ISBN 13: 9781324020974

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2024

About this Item

First Edition/First Printing. This copy of "Imagination" has been SIGNED, pre-publication dated, and placed by Ruha Benjamin on the half-title page. Signed from her appearance in Princeton, NJ on Feburary 5, 2024.

Seller Inventory # 009810

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Imagination: A Manifesto (A Norton Short)
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, New York
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1324020970
• ISBN 13: 9781324020974
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

A Boston Globe Best book of 2024
One of The Millions's Most-Anticipated Books of Winter 2024
One of Greater Good Magazine's Favorite Books for Educators in 2024

In this revelatory work, Ruha Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future.

A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.

Imagination: A Manifesto is her proclamation that we have the power to use our imaginations to challenge systems of oppression and to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable―but all emerged from the human imagination.

The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.

Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison’s instruction: “Dream a little before you think.”

7 illustrations

About the Author

Ruha Benjamin is a professor of African American studies and the founder of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab at Princeton University, and a MacArthur Fellow. The author of the Stowe Prize–winning Viral Justice, as well as Race After Technology and People’s Science, Benjamin lives in Princeton, New Jersey.