Political activist and writer Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz brought an insightful eye and a sharp analytical mind to probe the problems facing America at the turn of the century. First published in 1992, the hard-hitting essays in this collection scan the connections across a wide range of issues: whether the topic is class, racism, Israel and Palestine, war, anti-Semitism, violence against women or violence by women, the issue is power—in all its complexity. Now in its second edition and no less relevant nearly three decades later, her work—dedicated, persistent—continues to remind us of the strength in community.
Beginning at the intersection of sex, race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, Kaye/Kantrowitz asks hard questions in these essays about power, violence, resistance, and victimhood. ... At the core of
The Issue Is Power
is a smart, engaged observer of the world who invites us to think and act with her.
—from the new foreword byJulie R. Enszer
Here is a book for everyone who dares to want to help make history. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitzis passionate, strategic, pithy, generous, realistic, controversial, unquenchable—like the best of our movements for change. As a writer and lifelong doer, she gives us reasons to believe in achievable justice, and maps for acting on that belief.
—Adrienne Rich
If we ever needed people like Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz—people who think strategically, whose writing is rooted in activism, and who have the courage to explore ideas in public—it is now…this essay urges activists to write, to speak, to organize, to take a moral stance and to put their talents to turning the tide.
— Women’s Review of Books