A review by itsjunghan
Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire by Angela Y. Davis

informative slow-paced

5.0

A series of interviews between Angela Davis and Eduardo Mendieta about abolition, race, gender, the prison and military industrial complexes, capitalism, imperialism, and state violence. I decided to reread Abolition Democracy after it came up in a conversation for my job (educating and organizing foundations to give to abolitionist and anti-criminalization organizing and movement building). It had been 15ish years since I first read it, but given the political and media conversation about the "state of U.S. democracy" it also felt especially timely. In the conversations that comprise the book, Angela Davis builds on W.E.B. DuBois' writing that the mere absence of enslavement is insufficient if new institutions are not created in its place, extrapolating his original concept of abolition democracy to guide organizing that both eliminates the prison industrial complex and envisions a world were prisons and punishment are rendered obsolete. Written in the mid-2000's, the content of Davis and Mendieta's conversations are very *of the time* with a heavy focus on the then-recently released photos of Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib prison tortured by U.S. military personnel. However, because of the exponential increase of imprisonment and policing as part of U.S. domestic and foreign policy over the past 17 years, there are unfortunately still relevant theory and organizing implications for much of what Davis shares. Recommended to everyone, especially those looking for something just beyond intro level that includes a gender lens / analysis and stresses the importance of transnational connection in thought and action.