Ben Waber reviewed Against Civility by Alex Zamalin
A Compelling, If Empirically Limited, History of US Racial Progress and Non-Progress
4 stars
This book is a vital, convincing argument that the concept of "civility" in the US only serves to cement current societal structures and hierarchies and that historically only decidedly "uncivil" actions have led to change. This book could stand to be probably twice as long, since while there's a very good history here, the causal links Zamalin posits normally lack anything other than some degree of temporal correlation. It's still quite convincing, but since macro trends aren't explored as quantitatively as I'd like I feel like it's a somewhat limited perspective. Overall, however, this is an extremely important, and unfortunately all the more urgent, perspective that needs to be internalized. Highly recommend
This book is a vital, convincing argument that the concept of "civility" in the US only serves to cement current societal structures and hierarchies and that historically only decidedly "uncivil" actions have led to change. This book could stand to be probably twice as long, since while there's a very good history here, the causal links Zamalin posits normally lack anything other than some degree of temporal correlation. It's still quite convincing, but since macro trends aren't explored as quantitatively as I'd like I feel like it's a somewhat limited perspective. Overall, however, this is an extremely important, and unfortunately all the more urgent, perspective that needs to be internalized. Highly recommend