American Purgatory

In this explosive new book, historian Benjamin D. Weber reveals how the story of American prisons is inextricably linked to the expansion of American power around the globe.

Weber’s brilliantly documented text is supplemented by original maps highlighting the global geography of prison imperialism, as well as illustrations of key figures in this history by the celebrated artist Ayo Y. Scott. For readers of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, here is a bold new effort to tell the full story of prisons and incarceration—at home and abroad—as well as a powerful future vision of a world without prisons.

Ayo Scott