Bøker av Deborah Archer

Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling. From collapsing highways to pockmarked roads to unreliable subway systems, the need to rebuild is manifest. But as Deborah N. Archer warns in Dividing Lines, we must not repair our infrastructure without first coming to grips with the troubling history behind it. Archer shows that when government-sanctioned racism was finally deemed illegal after the successes of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, officials across the country turned to infrastructure to protect segregation. Highways could not be run through Black neighborhoods based on the race of their residents, but those neighborhoods' lower property values-a legacy of racial exclusion-could justify their destruction. A new suburb could not be for "whites only," but planners could refuse to extend sidewalks from Black communities into white ones. With immense authority, Archer uncovers the animus built into our everyday environments and explains why existing Civil Rights law is insufficient to address the challenges we face today.

A tragic secret, a broken family, a lost boy - who was Edward, and what happened to him? Life for Jen and her family, including 11 year old, autistic son Ned, hasn't always been easy, but things are improving. Ned is thriving in the right school, and getting the support he needs to navigate his way through an alien and sometimes frightening world. But Jen is troubled by something from her past. She's haunted by a nightmare that has disturbed her since childhood, and she's increasingly uneasy about her relationship with her cold, distant parents - what are they hiding from her? 'Our Lost Boy' follows Jen's search for the truth, taking her back to her childhood home in Yorkshire where shocking memories are reawakened. Jen and her mother, Maureen, have been pulled apart by a tragic secret, but when the truth is out can they mend their broken relationship? Can Jen forgive Maureen, and can Maureen forgive herself? And what about Ned - can the 21st century offer him, and others like him, the future that Edward was denied?