“Fear and Fury”: A Book Discussion with Heather Ann Thompson
Tuesday, April 14, 2026 @ 12:50 pm - 2:00 pm
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Author Event: Heather Ann Thompson presents Fear and Fury
The UC Berkeley Criminal Law & Justice Center invites you to join us for a discussion with distinguished historian Heather Ann Thompson about her new book Fear and Fury: The Reagan 80s, The Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage (2026).
Tuesday, April 14th, 12:50-2:00 PM
Room 110, Berkeley Law
*Lunch will be provided
The first 10 students to RSVP will receive a free copy of the book!
Heather Ann Thompson is a Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize-winning historian at the University of Michigan. Her groundbreaking 2016 book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy received seven major book prizes, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and is currently being adapted for television.
In her latest work, Thompson examines the 1984 New York City subway shooting of four Black teenagers by Bernhard Goetz and its profound impact on American politics, policing, and race relations during the Reagan era. Drawing on her extensive expertise in the history of mass incarceration and criminal justice, Thompson illuminates how this single incident helped catalyze a resurgence of white rage that continues to shape our society today.
Thompson’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, among other publications. She currently co-runs the Carceral State Project at the University of Michigan and is a recent Guggenheim Fellow.
Please RSVP HERE before 4/7/26
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