Narrative of Power: Essays for an Endangered Century

Offering a feminist perspective on a wide range of topics, Randall is alternately passionate, angry, and humorous.
Looking at the choices we face in this war on terror, she writes, "In this picture we are asked to align ourselves, to take sides. But what if we believe there are other choices? Feminists have long been good at envisioning alternative choices. It is way past time for us to do so again."
About her father who succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, she offers a portrait of a man struggling to maintain a dignity even as his memory fades and of herself struggling to maintain a connection.
In true form, Randall rails against the media, exposing the conservative bias in a Frontline program’s apparently objective perspective on homeless women.
In a provocative essay on shame, Randall links the emotion as a tool for domination—of women in the sciences, and the shame in certain areas of the country if you refuse to fly the flag. And most recently, Randall writes, of an administration trying to shame the world into ignoring international law. "Shame," Randall writes, "seems to be working wonders again."
From musings on the power of language to the pride of Cuban women, from an interpretation of a Hopi Message to a provocative question, "Can poetry save the world?," Randall intrigues, invites, and cajoles us to imagine a better life—and then to create it.
In 1985, Margaret Randall was ordered deported under the ideological exclusion clause of the 1952 McCarranWalter Act after her writing was judged "subversive." After lengthy court battles she won the right to retain her citizenship. Randall is the author of over 100 books of poetry and nonfiction including When I Look in the Mirror and See You: Women, Terror, and Resistance; Sandio’s Daughters, Sandio’s Daughters Revisited; and The Price You Pay: The Hidden Cost of Women’Relationship to Money.