Harvard Kennedy School brings together a vibrant array of people with a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, ideologies, passions, and identities. Our community is stronger and more effective because of this pluralism.
The Community Voices & Perspectives Collection reflects our School’s commitment to dialogue and understanding, featuring books and films that explore the myriad of experiences, ideas, and histories represented at HKS.
The CVP Collection is driven by recommendations from HKS community members and hosted by Library & Research Services (LRS), with key partnership from the Office of Belonging, Community, & Connection (OBCC).
Featured Collection Items
February is Black History Month.
A powerful novel about racial tensions in LA, following two families, one Korean-American, one African-American grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime. After decades of loss, violence, and injustice, tensions come to a head and force a reckoning that could clear the air or lead to more violence.
Claudia Rankine’s bold new book recounts mounting racial aggression in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named ‘post-race’ society.
How the Word is Passed is Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation. Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not.
Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour de force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth about these warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record.
Activist, journalist, and visionary Claudia Jones was one of the most important advocates of emancipation in the 20th century. In her tireless resistance to capitalism, racism, and sexism, she envisioned an equitable future devoted to peace and humanity -- a vision that we all must continue to fight for today.
New Collection Items
In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women’s rights. And yet, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of. From that unlikely showdown emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria. This is the story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world’s best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria.
In Unmasking Autism, Dr. Devon Price shares his experience with masking and blends history, social science research, prescriptions, and personal profiles to tell a story of neurodivergence that has thus far been dominated by those on the outside looking in. Most masked Autistic individuals struggle for decades before discovering who they truly are. Dr. Price lays the groundwork for unmasking and offers exercises that encourage self-expression.
Democrats have assumed they can rely on the Latino vote, but recent elections have called that into question. In fact, despite his anti-immigrant rhetoric and disastrous border policies, Trump won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than in 2016. Journalist Paola Ramos pulls back the curtain on these voters, traveling around the country to uncover what motivates them to support issues that seem at odds with their self-interest.
These narratives explore coming out to yourself and family and friends, falling in love, recovering from heartbreak, battling body image issues, searching for spaces to be simultaneously queer and South Asian the influence of fanfiction, navigating religion, the demand for perfection, transracial adoption, being transgender and South Asian, gender confirmation surgery, finding community, and so much more.
What isn't counted doesn’t count. And mainstream institutions systematically fail to account for feminicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, including cisgender and transgender women. Against this failure, Counting Feminicide brings to the fore the work of data activists across the Americas who are documenting such murders--and challenging the reigning logic of data science by centering care, memory, and justice in their work.
The ‘pink tax’ has gained widespread recognition in recent years, but what happens when you look at the costs that define a woman’s entire life, especially across racial lines? In The Double Tax, Harvard researcher Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman summarizes the disparities that women face as they navigate life. Only by understanding where the gaps are and where the double tax arises can we begin to even the playing field for all.
This book contains stories by and about some of the most revered and influential judges in the United States. They provide a unique and instructive glimpse into our justice system. You will come across a remarkable array of female jurists: trailblazers, legal entrepreneurs, political strategists and mentors. This is a book about imagination, and what it took and still takes for women to imagine themselves into a structure that didn’t include them.
Featured Resource: Book Displays
LRS curates monthly book displays on heritage months, history months, and special topics. Many displays are collaborations with HKS community members. Explore the full list of HKS Library book displays.