#3 in Popular science
The New Jim Crow
- 312
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 8 weeks on the list, peaked at #5
- The Stowe Prize for Writing to Advance Social Justice
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Our view
“The New Jim Crow” argues, with figures, cases and legal history, that America’s mass incarceration is a new form of racial discrimination. Michelle Alexander writes as a civil rights litigator, and some readers describe a lasting change in how they see the justice system and their own part in it. The subject is specifically American and far from comfortable, which is the point.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a 2010 book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States, but Alexander noted that the discrimination faced by African-American males is prevalent among other minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged populations. Alexander's central premise, from which the book derives its title, is that "mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow".
Where the score comes from
The sources average 9.1 across 306 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 68% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Popular science average of 8.3. That is how 8.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 35 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 9.2 | 271 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is The New Jim Crow?
It has 312 pages — shorter than 58% of the ranked books in Popular science.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Popular science — with scores between 8.4 and 8.9, closest to this book.
