"During a time of social upheaval abroad and labor protests in America, we should ask: why do citizens, especially young people, so seldom act to leverage their power, assemble for protests, and build organizations to reclaim the possibilities offered by a future in which democracy matters? Looking at a broad range of topics--from youth and the promise of new media technologies, to declining funding of schools, the economic Darwinism of globalization, and the need for a formative democratic political culture--Henry Giroux's new book is a compelling account of the erosion in recent decades of the very idea of "the social" in America and in other societies. Recent generations have endorsed neoliberal policies, leaving today's young people not only without a voice, but also saddled with a set of economic, political, and social conditions that have rendered them devalued, marginalized, and ultimately disposable. Evidence of the ongoing disinvestment in youth across the globe is all too visible and has come to the forefront today of student protests in a number of countries. Giroux looks to new ways in which citizens must seek social spaces in which the conditions exist for them to narrate themselves as individual and social agents of change. " --Publisher description.