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Book Synopsis'Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the GalaxyWe human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a journey into paradox. Here is a quantity that turns arithmetic on its head, making it feasible that 1 = 0. Here is a concept that enables us to cram as many extra guests as we like into an already full hotel. Most bizarrely of all, it is quite easy to show that there must be something bigger than infinity - when it surely should be the biggest thing that could possibly be. Brian Clegg takes us on a fascinating tour of that borderland between the extremely large and the ultimate that takes us from Archimedes, counting the grains of sand that would fill the universe, to the latest theories on the physical reality of the infinite. Full of unexpected delights, whether St Augustine contemplating the nature of creation, Newton and Leibniz battling over ownership of calculus, or Cantor struggling to publicise his vision of the transfinite, infinity's fascination is in the way it brings together the everyday and the extraordinary, prosaic daily life and the esoteric.Whether your interest in infinity is mathematical, philosophical, spiritual or just plain curious, this accessible book offers a stimulating and entertaining read.

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Here is the whole of recorded British royal history, from the legendary King Alfred the Great onwards, including the monarchies of England, Scotland, Wales and the United Kingdom for over a thousand years. Fascinating portraits are expertly woven into a history of division and eventual union of the British Isles - even royals we think most familiar are revealed in a new and sometimes surprising light. This revised and shortened edition of The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens includes biographies of the royals of recorded British history, plus an overview of the semi-legendary figures of pre-history and the Dark Ages - an accessible source for students and general readers.

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Book SynopsisNative Americans make up less than one per cent of the total US population but represent half the nation's languages and cultures. Here, in one grand sweep, is the full story of Native American society, culture and religion. Here is everything from the land-based spirituality of their early creation myths and the late rise of Indian Pride, to the 88 uses to which the Sioux put the flesh and bones of the buffalo and the practice of berdache (men adopted as women). The book offers a chronological history of America's indigenous peoples. It covers their dramatic early entry into North America, out of the now submerged continent of Beringia, then in more recent times the 'forgotten wars' of the 16th and 17th centuries, which wiped many tribes from the face of the East Coast, and finally describes to the last struggles of the Cheyenne and the Comanche. Celebrating these peoples' way of life rather than focusing narrowly on the manner of their genocide, it does not ignore uncomfortable facts of the Amerindian past - including the cannibalism believed to have been practised by some tribes and the Native Americans' part in the decimation of North America's buffalo herds.

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Book SynopsisThe 1948 Palestine War is known to Israelis as 'the War of Independence'. But for Palestinians, the war is forever the Nakba, the 'catastrophe'. The war led to the creation of the State of Israel and the destruction of much of Palestininan society by the Zionist forces. For all Palestinians, the Nakba has become central to history, memory and identity. This book focuses on Palestinian internal refugees in Israel and internally displaced Palestinians across the Green LIne. It uses oral history and interviews to examine Palestinian identity and memory, indigenous rights, international protection, the 'right of return', and a just solution in Palestine/Israel. Contributors include several distinguished authors and scholars such as William Dalrymple, Prof. Naseer Aruri, Dr. Ilan Pappe, Prof. Isma'il Abu Sa'ad and Dr. Nur Masalha.Trade Review'In this remarkable book, twelve writers brilliantly evoke the spirit of Edward Said to tell the unvarnished truth about Palestine and Israel.' John Pilger 'This is a work of enormous significance by distinguished scholars of singular courage and integrity. The spirit and legacy of Edward Said are embodied in these papers that seek to rectify grave historical omissions and distortions pertaining to the plight and rights of the Palestinians, particularly in their displacement and exile.' Hanan Ashrawi 'A valuable source to construct a clearer picture of what actually happened to the Palestinian people in the chaotic years of 1947-9.' Political Studies Review 'A wide-ranging collection of invariably interesting essays... the lesson of Catastrophe Remembered is that no two-state solution will be enough to give Palestinians in Israel the dignity denied to them for so long.' Tom Hill, Tribune 'An excellent reader on the subject, bringing together as it does a wide range of essays... Israel's arguments against its critics often include the claim that it is the Middle East's only democracy. This book illustrates why that claim is so shallow, based as it is on a situation which denies full rights to a significant portion of Israeli citizens, denying them everything from adequate water supplies to the validity of their memories and history.' Peace News 'Catastrophe Remembered makes a timely and useful contribution to an important and unfinished discussion.' Neil Caplan, Midwest Jewish Studies AssociationTable of Contents Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Forward: Edward W. Said, Scholar-Activist - Naseer H. Aruri Introduction - Nur Masalha Part I: Evolving Israeli Policies and Indigenous Resistance 1. Present Absentees and Indigenous Resistance - Nur Masalha 2. The State of Israel Versus the Palestinian Internal Refugees - Hillel Cohen 3. Patterns of Internal Displacement, Social Adjustment and the Challenge of Return- Nihad Boqai' 4. Forced Sedentarisation, Land Rights and Indigenous Struggle: The Palestinian Bedouin in the Negev - Isma'el Abu Sa'ad Part II: Palestinian Oral History and Memory 5. "A Muted Sort of Grief": Tales of Refuge in Nazareth (1948-2005) - Isabelle Humphries 6. Kafr Bir'im - William Dalrymple 7. The Nakba, Oral History and the Palestinian Peasantry: The Case of Lubya - Mahmoud 'Issa 8. Unrecognised Villages: Indigenous 'Ayn Hawd Versus Artists' Colony 'Ein Hod - Jonathan Cook 9. The Nakba in Hebrew: Israeli-Jewish Awareness of the Palestinian Catastrophe and Internal Refugees - Eitan Bronstein Part III: Human Rights and International Protection 10. The Real Roadmap to Peace: International Dimensions of the Internal Refugee Question - Ilan Pappé 11. International Protection and Durable Solutions - Terry Rempel Index

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Book SynopsisArran is an archaeological and geological treasure trove of stunning scenic beauty. Its history stretches back to the great stone circles, more than 5,000 years old, whose remnants still decorate the plains of Machrie. Runic inscriptions tell of a Viking occupation lasting centuries. Later, in 1307, King Robert the Bruce began his triumphant comeback from Arran. Subsequently, the island was repeatedly caught up and devastated in the savage dynastic struggles of medieval Scotland. After the 1707 Parliamentary Union, came a new and strange upheaval - unwarlike but equally unsettling: Arran became a test-bed for the new theories of the ideologists of the Industrial Revolution. The ancient 'runrig' style of farming gave way to enclosed fields and labour-saving methods, which eventually lead to the socially disastrous Highland Clearances to Arran, and the misfortune of the times was culminated by the Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845. At last, the area began to settle down through an increasingly stable mixture of agriculture and tourism in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this book, Thorbjorn Campbell gives an original, fascinating and comprehensive account of Arran's long and eventful history.

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Book SynopsisThe film Braveheart had a surprising impact on the political change in Scotland, coinciding with the return of the Scottish Parliament after 300 years. The film was described as 'the most politically influential movie of the 20th century'. 'Better the pen than the sword' said Randall Wallace on being asked how it felt to be partly responsible for the freedom of a nation following the Devolution Referendum. The first written about the movie, this book looks at the life and legacy of William Wallace through his modern portrayal image in the movie.

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Book SynopsisA Change is Gonna Come chronicles more than forty years of black music: from the hopeful, angry refrains of the Freedom movement to the slick pop of Motown; from Woodstock and the 'Summer of Love' to Vietnam and the race riots; from disco inferno to the Million Man March. This is an insightful and riveting study which looks at the place black music occupies in social history, its battle for the desegregation of popular music and its contribution to social change outside the recording studio

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Book SynopsisThis City Now sets out to retrieve the hidden architectural, cultural and historical riches of some of Glasgows working-class districts. Many who enjoy the fruits of Glasgows recent gentrification may be surprised and delighted by the gems which Ian Mitchell has uncovered beyond the usual haunts.Trade ReviewThis book is not only an attempt to reinsert into public consciousness the architectural and cultural delights of Glasgows working-class areas. It also recaptures the social and political history of the working-classes of those districts. Ian Mitchell's affection for his adopted city shines through every page of this book. He has lived in Glasgow exactly the same number of years as I have yet his knowledge and appreciation of the city put me to shame. More importantly the book has inspired me to put on my walking boots and head for Govan Road, Bridgeton Cross and Tollcross Park. I am sure it will have the same effect on many of its readers. From the Foreword by ELEANOR GORDON Professor of Gender and Social History, University of GlasgowTable of ContentsPollokshaws, Govanhill, Gorbals, Govan, Clydebank, Yokerstoun, Partick, Anderston, Maryhill, Possil, Springburn, Dennistoun, Parkhead, Rutherglen and Brigton Cross

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Book SynopsisAn enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged to independence, but less and less able to avoid the harsh realities of wage labor, the identity of "white" came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, "white workers" consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practices on and off the job. Far from simply preserving economic advantage, white working-class racism derived its terrible force from a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforced stereotypes and helped to forge the very identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. Full of insight regarding the precarious positions of not-quite-white Irish immigrants to the US and the fate of working class abolitionism, Wages of Whiteness contributes mightily and soberly to debates over the 1619 Project and critical race theory.Trade ReviewThe Celestine Prophecy of whiteness studies. * SPIN *An extremely important and insightful book. * The Nation *A brilliant account of how white workers in antebellum America constructed a social identity fundamentally premised on their 'whiteness.' -- Steve Fraser * American Historical Review *Compelling. -- John White * Times Higher Education Supplement *Delivers powerful insights into the collective psyche of the U.S. working class. Striking. -- Chris Searle * Morning Star *An important contribution to our understanding of what has often been called 'American exceptionalism.' Sensitive and detailed handling of a wide range of original sources. -- Louis Kushnick * Race and Class *Brilliant. Remarkable for its subtlety, its penetrating and honest analysis. -- Fred Whitehead * People's Culture *Scholarly and thoroughly documented, The Wages of Whiteness is nonetheless a highly readable, compact and compelling narrative. A provocative illumination of the long and tortuous history of racism in the U.S. -- Franklin Rosemont * Heartland Journal *Casts a new light on a broad social, cultural and political landscape. -- Iver Bernstein * Journal of American History *Far and away the best treatment of white working-class racial attitudes in the nineteenth century that I have seen. -- George M. FredricksonAn indispensable addition to our knowledge of American working class formation. -- Joe W. Trotter * Journal of Social History *In this penetrating study of the origins of white working-class racial attitudes, Roediger profoundly illuminates the new labor history. A distinctive extension of the scholarly studies that locate the nexus of American society in race and labor. -- Joseph Boskin * Choice *A timely and important intervention in the current debates over 'race' and ethnicity. Roediger has opened up the question of white identity. -- Catherine Hall * New Left Review *Interesting and useful. Reconstructs how labor in America made racism part of its very being. -- John DeBrizzi * Telos *A brilliant, authoritative, carefully researched study of major importance. -- Michael Rogin * Radical History Review *A real contribution to the study of the dynamic relationship that exists between the variables of race and class. A very engaging and compelling book. Wages of Whiteness will have a broad appeal to students and researchers across a wide array of disciplines. -- Lisa Reilly and Cameron McCarthy * European Journal of Intercultural Studies *A welcome challenge to the old and new mythmakers. -- Noel Ignatiev * Labor [Le Travail] *A significant contribution, particularly necessary for those who want to see the struggle for labor unity across racial lines move forward. -- Paul Mishler * Science and Society *Roediger's lasting contribution ensures that the history of race and class can no longer be written from the perspective of romantic working class heroes, nor can it be written in a spirit of self-righteous 'anger.' -- Barry Goldberg * New Politics *Subtle, serious, commands our attention -- J. Milton Yinger * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Roediger's excellent book is must reading for those interested in American working-class formation. -- Andrew Kim * Critical Sociology *In The Wages of Whiteness David Roediger takes a courageous look at the development of white working-class racism and attempts to unravel its complex skein of economic, cultural, and psycho-political issues. -- Soledad Santiago * Foundation News *Of great originality and yet firmly grounded in a rich and diverse scholarship. There is no denying the enormous achievement of this book. Henceforth there will be no evading the question of racism in our contemplation of working-class formation in America. -- David Brody * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *Offers a compelling understanding of working-class racism. A rich and detailed history that traces notions of whiteness from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth. -- Rhonda Levine * Contemporary Sociology *Much has been written about the sources of racism and the wellsprings of racial conflict but few historians have shown David Roediger's sensitivity to the process by which race figured in defining the very nature of American society. The author's most important contribution is to elucidate how racial identity was critical to the formation of the working class during the nineteenth century. Roediger's central argument is most compelling. -- Ronald Mendel * Labour History Review *David Roediger's fascinating and vital study will satisfy even the most jaded intellectual palate and deserves the widest circulation. -- Martin Crawford * History *The book speaks so clearly to what historians know about the American working class, but with enormous originality. Broadly accessible to a wide audience, it connects the histories of slave labor and free labor thus providing a more profound understanding of American working class formation. Theoretically sophisticated, pulling together subtle but significant connections among race, class and gender. Blindingly revealing and of lasting scholarly value. * Organization of American Historians Prize Committee on awarding Wages the 1992 Merle Curti Prize *At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to those who are not white. -- Neil Irvin PainterPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Although long dismissed as irrelevant or biased, African American views on whiteness are in fact crucial to any intelligent discussion on race. By documenting the history of these views, David Roediger is not only addressing a compelling need, he is enriching the ?eld of Race Studies. -- Toni MorrisonPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a brilliantly disturbing collection of work by black authors who are the often unappreciated foreparents of contemporary debates about the fallacies and functions of whiteness. These writings throw generous light on Fannie Lou Hamer's deliciously cryptic claim: the mistake that whites made with blacks is that they put us behind them leaving blacks little choice, for survival's sake, but to learn and master white culture. Black on White is proof that not only was Hamer right, but that if white Americans are to survive the madness of whiteness, they must now listen to and learn from those who made a glorious art out of a painful necessity. -- Michael Eric Dyson author of Race RulesPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Brilliant, wide-ranging and beautifully executed, Black on White puts to rest any claims that 'whiteness' is a passing fad meant to put white folks at the center again. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Yet another ?ash of brilliance illuminates and largely defines a vital subject area. Black on White deserves the widest reading. -- Sterling Stuckey, Presidential Chair, University of California Riverside and author of Slave CulturePraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:This valuable collection provides a new and badly-needed perspective on America's deep seated problems of racial inequality and antagonism. Much has been written and anthologized to show what whites thought and felt about blacks. This is the ?rst effort to present a range of black opinion on the meaning of whiteness, and it is a notably successful one. -- George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History, Stanford UniversityPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a superb collection of writings by African Americans about the nature of White identity in the United States. David Roediger's informed and inspired introduction and the eloquent and insightful works he has collected expose the ideas, attitudes, and actions that transform the ?ction of white racial identity into an all too real social fact. At a time when white politicians, pundits, and private citizens base many public policies and even more private decisions in the knowledge they claim to have about black people, whiteness seems to disappear. Black on White redirects our focus to the way white people appear to blacks, to the insights, analyses, and interpretations emanating from people who became experts on whiteness out of dire necessity. -- George Lipsitz, University of California, San DiegoPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:An incisive, timely, clear-eyed analysis of race and class in America. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:Brilliant and Insightful [it] explores the ways in which appeals to save the middle class in electoral politics harm the very constituencies they purport to help. -- George LipsitzPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:No contemporary intellectual has better illuminated the interwoven social histories and conceptual dimensions of race and class domination. With this stunning new collection of essays, David Roediger once again demonstrates that he is a vital thinker for all of us seeking to bridge the imperatives of economic and social justice. -- Nikhil Singh, New York UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger's work is always as learned as it is profoundly engaged with the pursuit of social justice. From his signature study of the 'wages of whiteness,' to the analysis of links between settler colonial dispossession, gendered social reproduction, plantation management, and immigrant labor in the making of modern racial capitalism-Roediger's bold commitments to demonstrating the historical and ongoing implications of race and class in the United States are timely, and more necessary than ever. -- Lisa Lowe, Tufts UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:These bracing essays express hard truths and grounded hopes as they help us to rethink a past too much with us still. Portraying a history of oppression and resistance made at the intersections of social identities, Roediger makes sophisticated analyses of culture and political economy accessible to scholars and to activists. -- Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia University School of LawPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:When it comes to thinking about the history of racism, anti-racism and the US working class, David Roediger has no peer. Incisive, provocative, and uncannily timely, Class, Race, and Marxism reckons honestly with the challenges of building class solidarity across the fissures of race, the difficulties of writing about it, and the ways in which the two are entwined. If there is a single lesson here, it is that solidarity is not forever-it is elusive, fragile, and hard as hell. -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great DepressionPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger wades into the fray with refreshing nuance and generosity. * In These Times *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger's book couldn't have appeared at a more timely moment. * Brooklyn Rail *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:A scintillating compilation . Roediger's book explains exactly why even the most sickening atavisms of racism are fully compatible with the capitalist order, with ramifications into the 21st century. -- Alan Wald * Against the Current *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger addresses the challenges that class and race continue to present for U.S. radicals . should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the era of Trumpian politics. This is an important book, with lessons that some way wish to ignore, but at their peril. * Working Class Studies Association C.L.R. James Award *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Studying, understanding, struggling against, and ultimately replacing this centuries-old, foundational, and deep societal reality remains essential, as Roediger, a consistently pathbreaking historian, makes clear in these insightful essays. * Monthly Review *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Amid the cacophony of competing perspectives, David Roediger's Class, Race and Marxism not only expertly evaluates the historical, theoretical, and political stakes of contemporary debates on race and class, but also significantly contributes to scholarship that 'refus[es] to place race outside of the logic of capital.' * Black Scholar Journal *Praise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom persuasively documents the self-emancipation of the enslaved Black folk of the American South. A meticulously researched book, it offers close readings of verbal and visual texts, unfailingly attentive to issues of race, gender, and labor coming together and falling apart. It brilliantly brings together disability studies, race in the Civil War, and the disappearance of the gold standard. A worthy supplement to Du Bois's Black Reconstruction. -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:This sparkling book does more than merely restore and underscore the agency of bold worker-slaves in attempts to make the US democratic and free. It aims artfully at the underlying mechanisms of revolutionary transformation: imagination and solidarity, time, labor and the human body, gender, class and race. In Roediger's hands, these are neither dry nor overly abstract categories. The insurgent history of abolition gets resuscitated and used vividly to address a host of stalled contemporary debates and ossified styles of thought. -- Paul Gilroy, King's College LondonPraise for Seizing Freedom:Sweeping in its scope and filled with brilliant and original insights, this book reminds us of how little still is our appreciation both for what slaves accomplished between 1860 and 1865 and how beholden the national labor movement and the woman suffrage campaigns were to the 'general strike' they won...Evocative and inspiring, Seizing Freedom represents a landmark study by one of the foremost scholars of the history of race and labor in our time that will fundamentally challenge the way we understand the moral and practical power of emancipation. -- Thavolia Glymph, Duke UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom, David Roediger's spellbinding account of black self-emancipation and the array of movements accelerated by this 'general strike of the slaves' as DuBois put it, reminds us that it is never too late to take up the democratic promise of Radical Reconstruction. -- Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa CruzPraise for How Race Survived US History:Sometime in the US of the past quarter-century, calling policies and the people who dream them up racist became a worse offense than for them to be racist. This inversion, always dressed in self-righteous indignation, is actually part of the social evolution of white supremacy. David Roediger's book details in sharp and readable prose how race survived US history. It is a must-read for all who strive to understand-and abolish-what underlies the strangely strident rhetoric enveloping everything from presidential contests to prison expansion. -- Ruth Wilson GilmorePraise for How Race Survived US History:In a trenchant, broad-ranging analysis, the leading US historian of racism, David Roediger, demonstrates white supremacy's incredible staying power against major societal forces that should long ago have dismantled it. Not capitalism, not emancipation, not labor movements, not mass immigration, not the civil rights movement, not colorblind liberalism, and not the Barack Obama presidential campaign-not one of these forces separately, and not all of them together-have been able to destroy the deep structures of white racism in the United States. -- Joe R. FeaginPraise for How Race Survived US History:David Roediger's bold and brilliant book presents an extraordinary new framework for understanding the persistence of racism in the history of the United States. This book is a wake-up call and a warning, an appeal for understanding and action. It offers a clear and convincing demonstration that white supremacy is not merely a relic of the past but rather a perpetually renewed and infinitely renewable resource for inequality and injustice in the present. -- George LipsitzPraise for How Race Survived US History:A staggering re-interpretation of the whole course of American history in which the skeletons in the closet walk again. From genocide and massacre to lynching to the coded tongue of liberalism, the bankruptcy of white supremacy is found in the racialized structures maintained by the enclosures of incarceration and the foreclosures of impignoration -- Peter LinebaughPraise for How Race Survived US History:An extremely timely argument about the enduring significance of 'race' in American society, as well as a sophisticated polemic against the complacent assumption that the Obama phenomenon spells the end of American racism. -- Richard SeymourPraise for Colored White:David Roediger has been showing us all for years how whiteness is a marked and not a neutral color in the history of the United States. Colored White . . . marks yet another advance. In the burgeoning literature on whiteness this book stands out for its groundedness, its analytic clarity, and its scope. -- Michael RoginPraise for Colored White:No other writer on whiteness can match Roediger's historical breadth and depth; his grasp of the formative role played by race in the making of the nineteenth-century working class, in defining the contours of twentieth-century US citizenship, and in shaping the meaning of emerging social identities and cultural practices in the twenty-first century. -- George LipsitzPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Whiteness Studies can enable us to see American history in a wholly new light, and for the development of the field we must thank Roediger . . . full of thought-provoking observations. * Boston Globe *Praise for Working toward Whiteness:A tour de force. Roediger marshals vast knowledge extending from social and labor history to popular culture and the role of the state. This book will be the point of departure for future studies of whiteness. -- Rudolph J. VecoliPraise for Working toward Whiteness:This book is a major achievement by all standard. A more than worthy successor to Roediger's groundbreaking The Wages of Whiteness, this new book tells in rich detail how the 'new immigrants' from eastern and southern Europe . . . went from being an 'in-between' racial group to to one that was unequivocally white. -- George FredricksonPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Roediger has given us another of our most compelling, incisive, and elegant analyses of racial subjugation and privilege-in-the-making in the US. A brilliant investigation of that historical zone where institutions, ideas, and street-level experiences meet and give form to one another. It may be Roediger's most powerful contribution yet. -- Matthew Frye JacobsonPraise for History against Misery:This wonderful collection of essays is not only a powerful indictment of late capitalism . . . but also a fascinating survey of resistance voices, from the IWW to the Surrealists, from the Chicago Idea Anarchists to Black Liberation. -- Michael LöwyPraise for History against Misery:It is to the summer of our discontent that the surrealist brings us a wintry elation: humor, a poetics of resistance, purposeful deviance motivated by genuine compassion and a love of truth. -- Blake Schwarzenbach

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Book SynopsisIn 2012, the joyful hopes of the democratic Egyptian Revolution were tempered by revelations of mass sexual assault in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the revolution's symbolic birthplace. This is the story of the women and men who formed Opantish - Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment - who deployed hundreds of volunteers, scouts rescue teams, and getaway drivers to intervene in the spiraling cases of sexual violence against women protesters in the square. Organized and led by women during 2012-2013 - the final, chaotic months of Egypt's revolution - teams of volunteers fought their way into circles of men to pull the woman at the center to safety. Often, they risked assault themselves. Journalist Yasmin El-Rifae was one of Opantish's organizers, and this is her evocative, aching account of their work, as they raced to develop new tactics, struggled with a revolution bleeding into counter-revolution, and dealt with the long aftermath of assault and devastation. Told in a daring, hybrid narrative style drawn from years of interviews and her own, intimate experience, it is a story of overlapping circles: the circles of male attackers activists had to break through, the ways sexual violence can be circled off as "irrelevant" to political struggle, and the endless repetitive loops of living with trauma. Introducing a powerful new voice, a writer whose searchingly beautiful, spare prose cuts to the core of a story ever more urgent and relevant: of women's resistance when all else has failed.Trade ReviewA remarkable book which penetrates into the heart of feminist political activism without neglecting its roots in the complex lives of women or the harsh dynamics which can unfold in the midst of emancipatory struggle. -- Jacqueline Rose * New Statesman *This book is one of the most powerful reports on rescue work done in a revolutionary war zone that I have ever read; and the fact that it is work done by women on behalf of other women who've been sexually harassed (to put it mildly) not by the enemy but by their fellow revolutionaries makes it all the more gripping. I wish Radius a long life, with dazzling reviews and an ever-increasing readership. -- Vivian Gornick, author of Taking a Long LookAn intimate and revealing account of the post 2011 mosaic of contentious politics in Egypt. Rifae's narrative reveals important intersections between gender politics, collective organizing, and processes of becoming. -- Lina Attalah, founding editor of Mada MasrI devoured this book in one sitting. A must read not just for its gripping and complex depiction of feminist resistance during the Egyptian revolution from an organizer who was on the ground, but for those of us who care about feminism and radical movement-building all over the world. -- Katie J.M. Baker, award-winning investigative reporter and national correspondent at The New York TimesRadius fearlessly dives into the violent, disastrous omnishambles that transpired in Cairo in 2013 ... an urgent and timely study of what it means to lead, partake in and witness a revolution in the Middle East -- Mariam Elnozahy * Times Literary Supplement *Readers won't soon forget El-Rifae's captivating book; essential reading for feminists and historians. -- Library JournalPowerful testimony of the Egyptian Revolution destroying itself and the courageous people who hoped to save it. * Kirkus *The writing is beautiful and clean, carrying readers through harrowing and heartbreaking moments....This account of a brave, generous, and largely unacknowledged enterprise is not only an essential record of modern Egyptian history; it's a testament to what women are capable of, to what can be achieved through passionate collective action. -- Ursula Lindsey * New York Review of Books *A powerful book -- Amina Abdel-Halim * Egyptian Streets *A tapestry of trauma, revolution, healing, catharsis, and pain, replicating the spectrum of emotions unleashed by present-day activism in the Middle East...Calling out the patriarchy in the Arab world without succumbing to imperialist and racist tropes projected onto the Middle East is a fine balancing act, one that El-Rifae accomplishes in Radius. -- Tareq Baconi * Baffler *A unique account of a feminist revolutionary moment from the inside. Yasmin El-Rafae somehow manages to convey in graphic detail the inspirational struggle to protect women from the sexual violence that erupted at the heart of the Arab Spring, while remaining true to the difficulties and pain that can arise within any such movement, the whole story framed by her own first steps into the no less complex reality of motherhood. Beautifully negotiating the terrain between public and private worlds for women, Radius is a feminist manifesto for our times. -- Jacqueline Rose, author of The PlagueTable of ContentsIntroductionPart ICh 1-13Part IICh 14-17Part IIICh 18-25Part IVCh 26-38

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