Historian Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor’s recent book details how auctions created the foundations for our modern economic system as it made and unmade people and communities by collectively setting a price on anything for sale.

The new book American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration tells the story of American incarceration, from its roots in racial slavery and colonialism to the present day, through the stories of the people who built resistance and freedom movements from within its confines.