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204 The Michigan Historical Review the IHM Motherhouse underwent a $56 million ecologically sustainable renovation. (93-100) While rooted in Monroe, the IHM Sisters expanded their ministries to Puerto Rico, Brazil, Uganda, and South Africa. The connections made there illuminated the IHM concern to serve “where there is need.” (8392 ) In recent decades the IHM numbers have declined. A common criticism argues that the IHMs eschewed their traditional habits and ways and now face irrelevance. Montemurri shows that, more accurately, the Sisters’ ideals and Michigan pragmatism shaped the changes in ministries. The book closes with another woman taking vows to join the community. (121-24) Montemurri’s experience reporting for the Detroit Free Press shines through her concise, expressive writing. This is her third book on Detroit Catholic subjects for Arcadia Publishing—after Blessed Solanus Casey (2018) and Detroit Gesu Catholic Church and School (2017). While amply illustrated with black and white photographs from the IHM archives, the book avoids the hagiography or apologetics one might expect from a history of a women’s religious order. The subjects themselves make their stories compelling. Montemurri indicates the reality often was not as stiff as the photographs might convey. (53) This visual work will appeal to historians of Detroit and southeastern Michigan as well as anyone taught by a Monroe IHM sister. Jeffrey Marlett The College of Saint Rose Ashley E. Nickels. Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan: Unpacking the Policy Paradox of Municipal Takeovers. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2019. Pp. 272. Paper: $32.95. In Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan, political scientist Ashley E. Nickels explores how municipal takeovers create new modes of political participation. Using Flint as a case study of a small city in crisis, Nickels traces the road that led to the appointment of emergency managers and seeks to uncover how shifts in policy altered the landscape of participatory politics. Responding to the notion that a developmental agenda is apolitical, she argues that it is rooted in politics and alters the ways citizens engage their government. This creates a policy paradox where diverging values are hidden behind a veil of rational decisions and Book Reviews 205 fiscal stability. However, this course of action overwhelms the value of local democracy, citizen participation, and public deliberation. To examine how municipal takeovers affected politics, Nickels’s analysis zooms inward as the book progresses. By placing Flint within the context of other takeovers around the nation, she demonstrates that Michigan gives its emergency managers largely unilateral legal powers to make decisions for cities—despite the state’s reputation of having strong home rule. Indeed, her clear analysis of the various laws that gradually chipped away at protections for city government stands as a major highlight of this work and allows readers to understand how Michigan addresses fiscal mismanagement. Despite writing from a political science perspective, Nickels correctly realizes that Flint’s problems partly stem from its complex past. To analyze socioeconomic and demographic trends, she considers the city’s long relationship with the auto industry. Although General Motors (GM) initially created prosperity for labor and management, Nickels examines its role in worsening racial divides and economic inequality. For example, she explores GM’s policies of moving its plants to the suburbs and outsourcing jobs, which sparked significant white flight from an already segregated city and contributed to Flint’s economic downturn and subsequent municipal takeovers in 2002 and 2011. Because of this history, Nickels writes that Flint’s black residents continue to bear the brunt of this socioeconomic decline. With this historic perspective in place, Nickels relies on interviews and writings from both sides of the policy paradox to craft a vivid image of powerful interests colliding with the needs of citizens. With its ties to GM, Nickels uses the C. S. Mott Foundation as one example of a largely white, affluent organization advocating for the development agenda. As the emergency manager moved decision-making processes behind closed doors, Nickels contends that such organizations ignored the history and needs of people shut out of traditional means of political engagement. In discussing new paths of citizen engagement, Nickels writes, “the grassroots associations used intersectional frames that served to identify...

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