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A review by lllayluh
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
To think this was Gilmore’s first book - a detailed and unique analysis of California’s political economy and geographies of labor, containment, and punishment. Been meaning to read this one for a minute but it overlaps with my own interests in more ways than I realized. Some chapters are more dense than others but it goes into questions of class, history, race, place, and time. It definitely feels like a primer and will look further into the notes for guidance on where to continue this reading.
“If we take to heart the fact that we make places, things, and selves, but not under conditions of our own choosing, then it is easier to take the risk of conceiving change as something both short of and longer than a single cataclysmic event. Indeed, the chronicles of revolutions all show how persistent small changes, and altogether unexpected consolidations, added up to enough weight, over time and space, to cause a break with the old order.”
“If we take to heart the fact that we make places, things, and selves, but not under conditions of our own choosing, then it is easier to take the risk of conceiving change as something both short of and longer than a single cataclysmic event. Indeed, the chronicles of revolutions all show how persistent small changes, and altogether unexpected consolidations, added up to enough weight, over time and space, to cause a break with the old order.”