Political science and theory Books

Book SynopsisThe question of the United Kingdom’s survival, once taken for granted, looms large in British politics. This book uncovers the roots of today’s crisis, revealing MPs’ and civil servants’ assumptions in their understanding of the Union, and profound pessimism within politics about its long-term viability. Why has the political class struggled to engage productively with devolution? Has English voters’ disenchantment with a detached central government influenced how politicians and bureaucrats regard the UK’s future? How have seismic events fuelled tensions between Westminster and devolved administrations, from the SNP’s election and independence referendum to Brexit and Covid? And what now? Fractured Union offers a vivid account of the gradual loss of British unity, illuminating the forces and pressures now shaping the future of both nations and peoples. As nationalism rises across Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, this book issues a sharp challenge to those who believe in a united kingdom: deliver better, more responsive government—or risk the UK falling apart.Trade Review'Far-seeing and compelling ... Insightful analysis of UK’s uncertain future under the pressures of devolution, inequality, regional dissatisfaction and Brexit.' -- The Irish Times'The United Kingdom is a deeply unusual and often complicated country. Michael Kenny's lucid and compelling account of its recent constitutional history should be required reading for politicians, officials and voters who want a better understanding of how this strange country came to be, how it currently works, and how it might yet evolve--and survive--in the future.' -- Alex Massie, 'Times' columnist'The late Queen Elizabeth once told a seminar of young undergraduates that the British constitution had always been puzzling and always will be. She was right about that. But in these pages you will find enlightenment, because this important book tackles head on the "English problem" within its treatment of British policy towards the four nations.' -- Lord Peter Hennessy, historian and member of the House of Lords'The United Kingdom remains a state in denial. Alone among the great nations of Europe it has been unable to fashion a constitutional consensus capable of keeping its component peoples together. This summary of its plight is clear-sighted and important.' -- Simon Jenkins, 'Guardian' columnist, and author of 'A Short History of England' and 'The Celts''An erudite yet accessible book with a fresh perspective on the politics of devolution. Kenny looks back to the motives for introducing devolution, while also bringing his analysis bang up to date examining the impact of Brexit and Covid. Essential reading for all who care about the future of the Union.' -- Hannah White OBE, Director of the Institute for Government'The most up-to-date account of why a union that was traditionally seen as a given has now become so contested. An impressive and illuminating read.' -- Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, and author of 'The Conservative Party After Brexit''This book is the most acute and informed study to date of the crises and tensions within the British Union from the 2014 Scottish referendum to the present--and of what the future might hold for the people of these islands.' -- Sir Tom Devine, University of Edinburgh

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Book SynopsisToday, it is not a question of if, but when? What we are watching is the collapse of the most successful political party in Europe. Despite winning the December 2019 General Election, the parliamentary conservative and unionist party is facing its own demise. It no longer speaks for, or to, the British people. Its leadership has sacrificed the long-standing commitment to the Union to 'Get Brexit Done'. And beyond this, it is an intellectual vacuum, propped up by half-baked doctrine and magical thinking. Burton-Cartlege's account starts with the Thatcher era, and show that swiftly the party struggled to find a popular vision for the United Kingdom. He charts the flaws an failings of each successive leader, all the way to Sunak. He also examines the state of the membership and shows that they have become increasingly old. Their values have not been adopted by the younger voters, who are unable to share the benefits. Furthermore, the coalition between the countryside and the City interests is under pressure, and the latter is split by Brexit.Trade ReviewA masterful account of the long view. Fewer people are benefitting from Conservative policies each decade. The party then has to rely more and more on the fears of older voters for support. Phil Burton Cartledge persuasively explains how the Tories are running out of rope even while appearing to poll so well. -- Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1%As the UK enters its 11th successive year of Conservative majority rule, Falling Down is an important and timely intervention. Burton-Cartledge breaks through the self-referential debates on the left to provide a rigorous and acute analysis of British Conservatism, filling a significant lacuna in left strategic thought. Falling Down should be considered critical reading socialist academics, activists and politicians alike.' -- Grace Blakeley, author of The Corona CrashFalling Down's autopsy of the Conservative Party is ... a timely one ... an important contribution to the kind of militant political science the left desperately needs. -- Alfie Steer * Tribune *Enjoyable and revealing. Burton-Cartledge does a fine job of putting forward a bold thesis * On Magazine *Astute -- Oscar Rickett * i news *Falling Down provides a useful overview of Conservative politics throughout the decades since Thatcher, and of the leading political actors that have shaped Britain. -- Sabrina Huck * Red Pepper *Excellent -- Chris Bambery * Counterfire *A welcome respite from the short-termism of other commentators -- Freddie Hayward * New Statesman *A must-read ... this book offers exquisite, well-sourced chronicles of the events under-pinning [Burton-Cartledge's] thesis -- Peter Kenyon * Chartist *Burton-Cartledge has a good point to make: one of the reasons for the Tories' continuing success is that their opponents never take them seriously enough. * Economist *

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Book SynopsisThis short book calls to account the government misrulers and corporate criminals who made suffering from the global coronavirus pandemic more acute. Modeled on a famous 1940 bestseller--a pamphlet exposing appeasers of Nazi Germany--Guilty Men shows how the crisis has been stoked by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful men. The rogues gallery begins with Donald Trump, who deliberately downplayed the crisis despite knowing its dangers, as well as his international political allies, above all Boris Johnson. Billionaire politicians like Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler moved stocks at the same time they were telling Americans all was well . Political charlatans like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos undermined public safety in order to advance their agenda, Trump-controlled agencies, led by the ever-crooked Federal Reserve, bailed out Wall Street while failing to provide basic relief for workers. Libertarian "think tanks" like the Ayn Rand Institute decried public expenditures but were first in line to get bailout checks. Pharmaceutical companies gamed the vaccine race, and the most rapacious global corporations like Facebook, Visa, and Pfizer have found the pandemic to be very profitable indeed, vastly enriching the already grotesquely bloated fortunes of trillionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Charles Koch. Guilty Men closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, initiated by newly elected Franklin Roosevelt, that took aim at what FDR called "speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering" that stoked the Depression. The commission led to some of the most far-reaching reforms in US history, as well as sensational hearings that led to the fall of the leading bankers and financiers of that era.Trade ReviewOn The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: Henry Wallace is a political figure-one of the giants of the mid-twentieth century-who has kind of been pushed out of the national political discussion. Nichols [tells us] that one of the reasons Wallace was not renominated in 1944 was because of his opposition to racism. The segregationists didn't want him around. -- Senator Bernie SandersOn The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: More than a history book-this is an examination of what progressives must do to retake our democracy. Nichols points the way toward how we can build a party based on peace, liberty, and justice for all. -- Representative Ilhan OmarOn The 'S' Word: A chilling reminder of how much rich American history has been erased by shallow messaging. A crucial book. -- Naomi KleinOn The 'S' Word: The Tom Paine of our time. -- Bill MoyersSure to alarm as much as it angers and informs ... [Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers] will leave readers with a renewed hunger for justice regarding the pandemic. * Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) *

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Book SynopsisOur contemporary political condition is obsessed with immunity. The immunity of bodies and the body politic; personal immunity and herd immunity; how to immunize the social system against breakdown. The obsession intensifies with every new crisis and the mobilization of yet more powers of war and police, from quarantine to border closures and from vaccination certificates to immunological surveillance.Engaging four key concepts with enormous cultural weight - Cell, Self, System and Sovereignty - Politics of Immunity moves from philosophical biology to intellectual history and from critical theory to psychoanalysis to expose the politics underpinning the way immunity is imagined. At the heart of this imagination is the way security has come to dominate the whole realm of human experience. From biological cell to political subject, and from physiological system to the social body, immunity folds into security, just as security folds into immunity. The book thus opens into a critique of the violence of security and spells out immunity's tendency towards self-destruction and death: immunity, like security, can turn its aggression inwards, into the autoimmune disorder. Wide-ranging and polemical, Politics of Immunity lays down a major challenge to the ways in which the immunity of the self and the social are imagined.Trade ReviewIt is difficult to do justice to the breadth and depth of this book. The sheer multidisciplinary variety of insights offered here, ranging from neurology and immunology to psychoanalysis and international law, is frequently dazzling. While the title might lead one to expect it to operate primarily as a conjunctural intervention, it is also a valuable archaeology illuminating various aspects of modern political power. -- Richard SeymourNeocleous' provocative interventions into the politics of the present is guaranteed to make readers think anew about the body-material and body-politic, our selves as well as sovereignty. He tells a fascinating (and nervous) story. -- Joanna BourkeA masterful survey of one of the key metaphors of our time: the medical biopicture of the body as a battleground, and the extension of this metaphor to the "body politic." The twin discourses of immunity as a literal feature of organic bodily systems, its counterpart in discussions of sovereignty, warfare, and police power in the terms of the immune system are brought together here in a compelling account grounded in the broader concept of security. The fundamental paradigm of the "Self/Non-Self" as a biopolitical analogy between medical and social bodies is called into question by this incisive critique. -- W. J. T. Mitchell, author of Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9-11 to the PresentIn this scholarly and wide-ranging engagement with one of the most topical issues of our time, Neocleous provides both an informative history of the idea of immunity and an astute analysis of the concept itself and its interweaving usage in medical, legal and social contexts. But what is most distinctive and revealing in his study is the axis around which it is shown to revolve: the imbrication of immunity and security concerns, and their mutually reinforcing political logics. -- Kate Soper

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Book SynopsisFor sixty years, Noel Ignatiev provided an unflinching account of "whiteness" - a social fiction and an unmitigated disaster for all working-class people. This new essay collection from the late firebrand covers the breadth of his life and insights as an autodidact steel worker, a groundbreaking theoretician, and a bitter enemy of racists everywhere.In these essays, Ignatiev confronts the Weather Underground and recounts which strategies proved most effective to winning white workers in Gary, Indiana, to black liberation. He discovers the prescient political insights of the nineteenth-century abolition movement, surveys the wreckage of the revolutionary twentieth century with C.L.R. James, and attends to the thorny and contradictory nature of working-class consciousness. Through it all, our attentions are turned to the everyday life of "ordinary" people, whose actions anticipate a wholly new society they have not yet recognized or named.In short, Ignatiev reflects on the incisive questions of his time and ours: How can we drive back the forces of racism in society? How can the so-called "white" working class be won over to emancipatory politics? How can we build a new human community?Trade ReviewA persistent voice against white privilege * The New York Times *there is no political or literary trend-or President-capable of derailing Ignatiev's true lifelong project. In his writing, and in Race Traitor and Hard Crackers, Ignatiev demonstrated the transformative power of working-class stories. His radicalism was always tethered to specific people, who, in their own ways, inspired sympathy and a desire for connection. That specificity will always be relevant; it may be especially so at a moment of cynical alienation, when identities have become recitations rather than communities. -- Jay Caspian Kang * New Yorker *This book is the gift of a life well-lived - as steelworker, scholar, race traitor, and fierce anti- racist. Noel Ignatiev had a singular and memorable voice, here preserved for posterity. We will need his ideas and example moving forward. -- Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human HistoryThis collection of Noel Ignatiev's writings over the past six decades could not come at a more important time in the struggle as white supremacy; they are as pertinent today as they were when they were written. -- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United StatesIgnatiev demonstrated the transformative power of working-class stories. His radicalism was always tethered to specific people, who, in their own ways, inspired sympathy and a desire for connection. That specificity will always be relevant; it may be especially so at a moment of cynical alienation, when identities have become recitations rather than communities * New Yorker *Noel Ignatiev was a tiller in the field of identity studies long before most of us even knew there was such a field. Beyond that, he located the field at the crossroads of race and class. He was an important, innovative thinker, as well as a committed activist for social justice. -- Russel Banks, author of Continental Drift and CloudsplitterNoel Ignatiev was a giant in one of the most important fields of research to emerge in recent times: how was it that those who had been warring on the shores of Europe on religious and ethnic grounds were magically transformed upon crossing the Atlantic into the new Identity Politics of "whiteness"? As the brilliant Ignatiev correctly suggests, the survival of humanity may very well hang on understanding this phenomenon - then acting decisively. -- Gerald Horne, author of White Supremacy Confronted.from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called 'path breaking,' 'seminal,' 'essential,' a 'must read.' How the Irish Became White is such a study. -- John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, AmherstReaders are given a comprehensive view of factory militant and abolitionist Ignatiev's powers of investigating the unstable, often ambivalent 'complexities and contradictions' that shape existence under capitalist social relations. -- Dylan Davis and Patrick King * Los Angeles Review of Books *A dialectical approach to politics that both accounts for the lived experience of trying to transform society and hones strategies based on study, debate, accumulated knowledge, and the emerging capacities of those around us...an engaging set of provocations, and practical discussions of revolutionary strategy. -- Mike King * Boston Review *

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Book SynopsisIn Our Bloc, Momentum co-founder James Schneider lays out an action plan for the British left. To move from defeatism to renewed confidence, he proposes a Left Bloc: an explicit alliance of socialists in Parliament, the Labour grassroots, the trade unions and social movements.In the wake of Corbyn's defeat, Schneider makes a bold argument: the central question is not whether to stay in or leave the Labour Party. Instead, we should focus on federating our forces - to strengthen our movements and voices today, and lay the ground to construct the party we need to enter the state tomorrow.Now is not the moment to scale back our ambitions. Climate shocks, rising debt, inequality and energy costs are hard barriers to neoliberalism's viability. If we can build power and prepare to seize the moment, we have a world to win.Trade ReviewOur Bloc offers a powerful case for action. When movements come together, we change the world -- Jeremy CorbynInspirational. Our Bloc lifts the strategic debate. We need it. -- Hilary Wainwright, co-editor of Red PepperA razor-sharp intervention by one of the smartest strategists on the left. -- Richard Seymour, author of CorbynMany gains and opportunities seem more at hand than before I picked up Our Bloc. Smart, bracing reading for anyone looking for tips on where we go from here. -- Morgan Jones * Labour List *Urgent and engaging -- John McTernan * Guardian *Compellingly matter-of-fact and constructive, exuding a bright enthusiasm for shrewd organising. -- Lola Seaton * New Statesman *Refreshingly optimistic ... [Schneider] rightly ... identifies ­widespread sympathy for progressive policies much to the left of anything in ­mainstream politics, and constant simmering anger at the establishment. -- Nick Clark * Socialist Worker *Brisk, optimistic and ambitious ... a valuable corrective to pessimism induced by the crushing defeat of 2019 - and it fizzes with ideas. A great read. -- Ben Chacko * Morning Star *Our Bloc provides serious suggestions for how we can move forward -- Dominic Sorrell * Counterfire *

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 2012 to wide acclaim, this updated edition, Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere, includes coverage of the most recent events in the wave of revolt and revolution sweeping the planet-riots in Athens, student occupations in the UK, Quebec and Moscow, the emergence of the Occupy Movement and the tumult of the Arab Spring. Economic crisis, social networking and a new political consciousness have come together to ignite a new generation of radicals.BBC journalist and author Paul Mason combines the anecdotes gleaned through first-hand reportage with political, economic and historical analysis to tell the story of today's networked revolution. Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere not only addresses contemporary struggles, it provides insights into the future of global revolt.Trade ReviewA wonderful piece of journalism that tries to draw links between the Arab Spring, the Syriza movement in Greece, the Podemos movement in Spain, Occupy. -- Paul Greengrass, director of Jason BourneThe mix of wide-ranging reportage and historical analysis is lively and insightful. -- Claire Allfree * Metro *The writing of this reportage is compact, urgent, present-tense, declarative, and addictive. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *Mason has had a ringside seat to some of the biggest news events of 2011. He has listened to the protestors in Tahrir Square. He followed Greek workers marching through Athens. He has travelled through America, watched first hand the collapse of blue-collar employment and the death of the dream of home ownership. * Guardian *He's lively, funny and engaging, trading in the energy derived from the thrill and significance of what he's witnessing. -- Phil Harrison * Time Out *A cogent, accessible analysis of the ongoing forces of global upheaval. * Kirkus Reviews *This book not only reads as an in-depth consideration of global politics today, but offers a personal memoir from a man who has had a ringside seat. We are blessed that the BBC, for all the criticisms, still employs journalists whose logic and unfailing inquisitiveness brings us such analysis. -- Dan Carrier * Camden New Journal *You will learn something new and challenging on every page of this book. -- Kenny Farquharson * Scotland on Sunday *Mason has emerged as possibly the most engaged mainstream journalist of our age. -- George Eaton * New Statesman *Concise global analysis with sympathetic news from the frontline, revealing angry and scared people staring into a bleak future amid the wreckage of shattered certainties. -- Ian Birrell * Observer *Superb overview of the global protest movements of 2011. * New Internationalist *Testament to his instincts as a veteran journalist, Mason managed to be everywhere right as things were kicking off-traversing the globe from the Middle East to Europe to America to Asia. [T]he book combines a feel for the breathlessness of events as they unfold with a historian's eye for patterns and precedents ... Mason's prose beautifully captures the almost surreal mood that often accompanies mass shifts in consciousness. -- Leela Yellesetty * Socialist Worker *An accessible insight into how the world is swiftly changing and what the implications are for women, politicians and business. * Daily Mail *These reports are good journalism. One feels as if they are present at the rallies, occupations and riots that Mason describes. The anecdotal tales he provides should remind anyone who participated in any kind of popular resistance in the past decades of the energy and hope one finds and feels at such events. These are the stuff that makes one join such movements. Worthwhile and provocative. -- Ron Jacobs * Counterpunch *Paul Mason's enthusiasm and curiosity are infectious. Adapting a rich vein of leftwing revolutionary thought for the wired generation, Mason argues passionately that the old rules have been broken. -- John Kampfner * The Observer *

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Book SynopsisFrom the repurposed rubble of salvagepunk to undead hordes banging on shopping mall doors, from empty waste zones to teeming plagued cities, Combined and Uneven Apocalypse grapples with the apocalyptic fantasies of our collapsing era. Moving through the films, political tendencies, and recurrent crises of late capitalism, Evan Calder Williams paints a black toned portrait of the dream and nightmare images of a global order gone very, very wrong. Situating itself in the defaulting financial markets of the present, Combined and Uneven Apocalypse glances back toward a messy history of zombies, car wrecks, tidal waves, extinction, trash heaps, labour, pandemics, wolves, cannibalism, and general nastiness that populate the underside of our cultural imagination. Every age may dream the end of the world to follow, but these scattered nightmare figures are a skewed refraction of the normal hell of capitalism. The apocalypse isn't something that will happen one day: it's just the slow unveiling of the catastrophe we've been living through for centuries. Against any fantasies of progress, return, or reconciliation, Williams launches a loathing critique of the bleak present and offers a graveside smile for our necessary battles to come.Trade ReviewYes, another book about zombies and the end of the world. But this is not just another book about zombies and the end of the world. Like one of the junk-suturing recusants whose philosophy he has been central to constructing, Evan Calder Williams builds something rageful and compelling and quite new out of all this fucking wreckage. (China Mieville)

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Book SynopsisAlthough these lectures were given during 1916, they have much to teach us about the political spin, media distortions, propaganda and downright lies we encounter on a daily basis in public life. Rudolf Steiner's calm and methodological approach penetrates the smokescreen of accusations and counterclaims, of illusion and untruth, surrounding the Great war. Hiding behind this fog, and under the guise of outer events, he reveals the true spiritual struggle that is taking place. His words give a deeper understanding of the politics and world conflicts that confront us today through the filter of the media. In the midst of the turmoil of the First World War, Steiner speaks out courageously against the hatred and untruthfulness in the propaganda of the time. From his detailed research into the spiritual impulses of human evolution, he describes the dominant role secret brotherhoods played in the events culminating in the cataclysmic war, and warns that the retarding forces of nationalism must be overcome if Europe is to find its new destiny. He also emphasizes the urgent need for new social structures if further catastrophes are to be avoided.At a time when political events throughout the world are moving with breathless rapidity, the reader will find much in these lectures that will illuminate what lies behind the symptoms of our turbulent times. This new edition, reproduced in a larger format, is put in a modern context and introduced by Terry Boardman.

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Book SynopsisAlthough these lectures were given during 1916, they have much to teach us about the political spin, media distortions, propaganda and downright lies we encounter on a daily basis in public life. Rudolf Steiner's calm and methodological approach penetrates the smokescreen of accusations and counterclaims, of illusion and untruth, surrounding the Great War. Hiding behind this fog, and under the guise of outer events, he reveals the true spiritual struggle that is taking place. His words give a deeper understanding of the politics and world conflicts that confront us today through the filter of the media. In the midst of the turmoil of the First World War, Steiner speaks out courageously against the hatred and untruthfulness in the propaganda of the time. From his detailed research into the spiritual impulses of human evolution, he describes the dominant role secret brotherhoods played in the events culminating in the cataclysmic war, and warns that the retarding forces of nationalism must be overcome if Europe is to find its new destiny. He also emphasizes the urgent need for new social structures if further catastrophes are to be avoided.At a time when political events throughout the world are moving with breathless rapidity, the reader will find much in these lectures that will illuminate what lies behind the symptoms of our turbulent times. This new edition, reproduced in a larger format, is put in a modern context and introduced by Terry Boardman.

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Book SynopsisIn For the People: Left Populism in Spain and the US Jorge Tamames offers a stimulating comparative study of Spain’s Podemos and the Bernie Sanders movement in the US. Left populism emerges as a potential powerful antidote to rising inequality in both Europe and America. Recent years have witnessed dramatic challenges to established politics across Europe and America. Opposition to business-as-usual has not been limited to the radical right: left populist movements with transformative agendas offer a very different – if equally radical – response to the status quo. Focusing on left populist movements in the contrasting political landscapes of Spain and the US, For the People brings together insights from Karl Polanyi, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to offer a bold new explanatory framework for today’s left populism. The book will be a key text for activists, students of politics, and anyone interested in the current political landscape of Europe and America. It grounds its insights in a careful excavation of recent political history in the two countries, tracing the emergence and advance of left parties and movements from the early days of neoliberalism in the 1970s, through the political landslides that followed the 2008 financial crisis and the post2011 protest cycle, up to the present day. In the age of Trump and Brexit, For the People offers an indispensable mix of theoretical, historical and practical insights for all those interested in and inspired by the radical potentials of left populism.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Populists at the gates 1.Populism and its discontents 2. Earthquakes and countermovements 3. The move to the market 4. From consensus to crisis: Spain 1978-2013 5. From New Deal to no deal: America 1977-2014 6. Storming heaven: Podemos and Spain’s populist moment 7. Bernie Sanders’s political revolution Conclusion: Hopes and prospects for left populism

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Book SynopsisThe Rule of St Benedict, written around 1500 years ago by the Italian monk St Benedict of Nursia, is a slim handbook for monastic life – a subject many modern readers would regard as relatively niche. It is, however, also a model of the organized and clearly expressed thought produced by good reasoning skills – a mainstay of critical thinking. Reasoning is all about making a good case for something, through logical arguments, neatly and systematically organised. In Benedict’s case, his main concern was to lay out a set of rules and practices that would allow monasteries to run as well-organised communities. Communal living presented huge challenges, and yet it was also, Benedict believed, the best way for monks to sustain themselves, their religion, and the learning and teaching that went with it. His Rule laid out concise but detailed chapters on the best way to achieve this, including provisions for all areas of personal and communal discipline, right down to how tasks might be allotted to individual monks. Providing a complete roadmap for successfully running a community, the concise brilliance of The Rule has even been suggested by some business professors as useful model for running small businesses today.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was St Benedict of Nursia? What does Rule of St Benedict Say? Why does Rule of St Benedict Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisMany still consider Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1953 Philosophical Investigations to be one of the breakthrough works of twentieth-century philosophy. The book sets out a radically new conception of philosophy itself, and demonstrates all the attributes of a fine analytical mind. Taking an argument from Plato and subjecting it to detailed (and very clear) analysis, Wittgenstein shows his understanding of how the sequence and function of differing parts of a highly-complex argument can be broken down and assessed. In so doing, he reaches a logical position of simultaneous agreement and disagreement with Plato’s philosophical position. Philosophical Investigations is also a powerful example of the skill of interpretation. Philosophical problems often arise from confusions in the use of language – and the way to solve these problems, Wittgenstein posits, is by clarifying language use. He argues that philosophers must study ordinary uses of language and examine how people use it as a tool in their everyday lives. In this highly-interpretative way, the meaning of a word or sentence becomes relative to the context (people, culture, community) in which it is used. Rather than debate abstract problems, Wittgenstein urges philosophers to concern themselves with ordinary life and the concrete situations in which humans find themselves.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was Ludwig Wittgenstein? What does Philosophical Investigations Say? Why does Philosophical Investigations Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisIn his 1997 work Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond marshals evidence from five continents and across 13,000 years of human history in an attempt to answer the question of why that history unfolded so differently in various parts of the globe. His results offer new explanations for why the unequal divisions of power and wealth so familiar to us today came into existence – and have persisted.Balancing materials drawn from a vast range of sources, addressing core problems that have fascinated historians, anthropologists, biologists and geographers alike – and blending his analysis to create a compelling narrative that became an international best-seller and reached a broad general market – required a mastery of the critical thinking skill of reasoning that few other scholars can rival. Diamond’s reasoning skills allow him to persuade his readers of the value of his interdisciplinary approach and produce well-structured arguments that keep them turning pages even as he refocuses his analysis from one disparate example to another. Diamond adds to that a spectacular ability to grasp the meaning of the available evidence produced by scholars in those widely different disciplines – making Guns, Germs and Steel equally valuable as an exercise in high-level interpretation. Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who is Jared Diamond? What does Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fate of Human Societies Say? Why does Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fate of Human Societies Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisThe work of memory researchers Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch is a prime example of the ways in which good critical thinkers approach questions and the problems they raise. In the 1960s, researchers into human memory began to understand memory as comprising not one, but two systems. The first was a short-term system handling information for mere seconds. The second was a long-term system capable of managing information indefinitely. They also discovered, however, that short-term memory was not simply a ‘filing cabinet,’ as many had thought, but was actively working on cognitive – or mental – tasks. This is how the phrase “working memory” developed. The hypothesis remained unproven, however, presenting Baddeley and Hitch with the problem of working out how to produce definitive evidence that short term memory was a working system that actively manipulated and processed information. They responded by designing a series of ten experiments aimed at showing just this – presenting the results in their 1974 article, ‘Working memory.’ The research was a masterpiece of problem-solving that proved revelatory. The authors not only generated new solutions and made sound decisions between alternative possibilities – they also showed that short-term memory is indeed an active system responsible for information processing and managing, while also influencing attention, reasoning, reading comprehension and learning.While their work has since been refined by others, Baddeley and Hitch’s problem-solving approach helped to create the dominant understanding of working memory that underpins psychological research throughout the world today.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who were Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch? What does Working Memory Say? Why does Working Memory Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisIn The Night Battles, Carlo Ginzburg does more than introduce his readers to a novel group of supposed witches – the Benandanti, from the northern Italian province of Friulia. He also invents and deploys new and creative ways of tackling his source material that allow him to move beyond their limitations. Witchcraft documents are notoriously tricky sources – produced by elites with fixed views, they are products of questioning designed to prove or disprove guilt, rather than understand the subtleties of belief, and are very often the products of torture. Ginzburg placed great stress on variations in the evidence of the Benandanti over time to reveal changing patterns of belief, and also focused on the concept of ‘reading against the text’ – essentially looking as much at what is absent from the record as at what is present in it, and attempting to understand what the absences mean. His work not only pioneered the creation of a new school of historical study – ‘microhistory’ – it is also a great example of the creative thinking skills of connecting things together in an original way, producing novel explanations for existing evidence, and redefining an issue so as to see it in a new light.Table of ContentsWays in to the Text Who was Carlo Ginzburg? What does The Night Battles Say? Why does The Night Battles Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited

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Book SynopsisA philosophical memoir about becoming a father in an increasingly terrible world. Can I hope the child growing in my partner’s womb will have a good-enough life? For Kant, philosophy boiled down to three key questions: “What can I know?”, “What ought I do?”, and “What can I hope for?” In philosophy departments, that third question has largely been neglected at the expense of the first two – even though it is crucial for understanding why anyone might ask them in the first place. In Infinitely Full of Hope, as he prepares to become a father for the first time, the philosopher Tom Whyman attempts to answer Kant’s third question, trying to make sense of it in the context of a world that increasingly seems like it is on the verge of collapse. Part memoir, part theory, and part reflection on fatherhood, Infinitely Full of Hope asks how we can cling to hope in a world marked by crisis and disaster.Trade Review"This book is incredibly important for people who want to look to the future with excitement and imagination as opposed to fear and resignation. It is funny, poetic and humane as well as wildly smart.""The abundant intelligence of this book on hope and despair and everything in between only makes its many moments of warmth and intimacy more moving and surprising. A seriously beautiful and timely work.""An intelligent and moving philosophical memoir on fatherhood in an age of crisis and disaster."

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Book SynopsisShortly before Christmas in 1943, the British military announced they were taking over a remote valley on the Dorset coast and turning it into a firing range for tanks in preparation for D-Day. The residents of the village of Tyneham loyally packed up their things and filed out of their homes into temporary accommodation, yet Tyneham refused to die. Although it was never returned to its pre-war occupants and owners, Tyneham would persist through a long and extraordinary afterlife in the English imagination. It was said that Churchill himself had promised that the villagers would be able to return once the war was over, and that the post-war Labour government was responsible for the betrayal of that pledge. Both the accusation and the sense of grievance would reverberate through many decades after that. Back in print and with a brand new introduction, this book explores how Tyneham came to be converted into a symbol of posthumous England, a patriotic community betrayed by the alleged humiliations of post-war national history. Both celebrated and reviled at the time of its first publication in 1995, The Village that Died for England is indispensable reading for anyone trying to understand where Brexit came from — and where it might be leading us.Trade Review"Sensational... I don't think I have read a better book about this country."“Wright is, as ever, a finder, a noticer, a powerful sustainer of argument.” "For Wright, detail is everything, and he clambers over the locked gates and barbed wire fences to discover a 'deep England' of eccentric squires, quasi-fascistic communes and neolithic pathways."

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Book SynopsisLiara Roux is accustomed to being mislabelled and misunderstood. As a child, Liara's inquisitive, instinctive, and rebellious nature was frequently problematised in a world designed around the requirements of their neurotypical, cis, heterosexual male colleagues. Coming of age in an oppressively restrictive home, they shuffled tarot and explored self portraiture to rationalise the injustice of chronic pain, toxic lovers, and the cruel silence of divinity. Critiquing capitalism's mechanisms of exploitation, the conservatism of Western medicine, and the politics surrounding sex work, Whore of New York: A Confession is a candid study of artistic awakening, and both spiritual and sexual growth after abuse, seen through the eyes of a proud outsider.Trade Review“While Liara tells her own story, she represents aspects of the stories of so many sex workers who've had overlapping experiences. A gripping and smooth read — each paragraph included for a reason.” "Whore of New York is a vibrant portrait of young life at the intersection of pleasure, politics, and personal growth. With a clear view of political, social and economic realities, Roux is doing important work in her portrayal of sex work not as apart from life in general, but as a part of life as a whole. Complex, raw, intimate."“Liara Roux writes with an intimate, anthropological eye about her experiences as a sex worker … an original reflection on joy, anguish, sex, love and labor.”“An incendiary new memoir … it’s an account of sex work that focuses on the actual experience of the person doing the working rather than employing the same old, one-dimensional tropes.”“Roux aims to portray sex work as work, in all of its chaos and charm.”

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Book SynopsisIn Drinking Up the Revolution, James Wilt shows us why alcohol policy should be at the heart of any socialist movement. Many people are drinking more now than ever before, as already massive multinationals are consolidating and new online delivery services are booming in an increasingly deregulated market. At the same time, public health experts are sounding the alarm about the catastrophic health and social impacts of rising alcohol use, with over three million people dying ever year due to alcohol-related harms. Exposing the links between the alcohol industry and capitalism, colonialism and environmental destruction, Wilt demonstrates the failure of both prohibition and deregulation, and instead focuses on those who profit from alcohol’s sale and downplay its impacts: producers, retailers, and governments. Rejecting both the alcohol industry’s moralizing against individual “problem drinkers” and the sober politics of “straight-edge” and wellness lifestyle trends, Drinking Up the Revolution is not another call for prohibition or more governmental control, but is instead a cry to take back alcohol for the people, and make it safe and enjoyable for all those who want to use it.Trade Review"Drinking Up the Revolution offers both an incisive expose of the extensive harm perpetrated by a cynical globalised alcohol industry in its naked pursuit of profit, and a lower-risk, alternative way for the world to enjoy alcohol – or not.""Drinking Up the Revolution is not only persuasive in its calls for an end to the oligopoly of Big Alcohol, its manifesto envisions a set of compelling alternatives that could very well help break up alcohol’s near-monopoly on culturally-sanctioned means of celebration and connection.”"You might feel a general anxiety about society’s worsening relationship with alcohol, and Drinking Up the Revolution explains why.""James Wilt fills a much needed gap in left thinking about alcohol. With care, passion, and rigour Wilt is able to not only map out the capitalist problems of big alcohol plaguing society but also present promising solutions, and an abolitionist hope of dreaming bigger.""A fascinating and informative read."

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Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Politics vs. Literature, the fourth in the Orwell’s Essays series, is, at heart, a review of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Having been given a copy of the book on his eighth birthday, Orwell knows it inside out, and thinks highly of it; it is ‘pessimistic’, though, he says – ‘it descends into political partisanship of a narrow kind,’ designed to ‘humiliate man by reminding him that he is weak and ridiculous.’ Using the book as an example of enjoying a book whose author one cannot stand, Orwell goes on to say that he considers Gulliver’s Travels a work of art, leaving the reader to reconsider the books on their own shelves.Trade Review'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' Irish TimesTable of ContentsPolitics vs. Literature, Note on the Text, Notes, A Brief Biographical Sketch of George Orwell

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Book SynopsisIn 1940 the Second World War continued to rage, and atrocities wreaked around the globe made international waves. Wells, a socialist and prominent political thinker as well as a first-rate novelist, set down in The Rights of Man a stirring manifesto, designed to instruct the international community on how best to safeguard human rights. The work gained traction, and was soon under discussion for becoming actual legislation. Although Wells didn't live to see it enacted, his words laid the groundwork for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined human rights in law for the first time, and was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, changing the course of history for ever and granting fundamental rights to billions.Trade Review'A born story-teller.' (J.B. Priestly) 'A great artist. (Vladimir Nabokov)Table of ContentsIntroduction: 'He Told Us So' by Burhan Sonmez, Preface, The Rights of Man, or, What Are We Fighting For? (i. Imperative Need for a Declaration, ii. Security from Violence, iii. Habeas Corpus, iv. Democratic Law, v. The New Tyranny of the Dossier, vi. The Right to Subsistence, vii. The Right to Work and to Have Possessions, viii. Free Market and Profit-Seeking, ix. The Revised Declaration, x. A French Parallel, xi. An Alternative Draft and Some Further Suggestions, xii. The New Map of the World, xiii. A Book for Which the World Is Waiting), Note on the Text, Notes

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Book Synopsis"Beautifully written and bursting with spirit, How to Read Like a Parasite is destined to be vital reading." - Matthew McManus, author of Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction How to Read Like a Parasite overturns the whitewashed and defanged version of Nietzsche that has been made popular by generations of translators and academic philosophers who have presented his work as apolitical and without a core reactionary agenda. The central argument of the book is that Nietzsche’s philosophy does have a center, and that the left learns a great deal from Nietzsche when we read him as driven by a highly sophisticated reactionary political vision that informs all his major concepts and ideas. The most important Nietzschean concepts — from perspectivism, ressentiment, eternal return to the pathos of distance — are analyzed in the historical context in which Nietzsche lived and wrote, and several case-studies of prominent left-Nietzscheans from Jack London, Gilles Deleuze, Wendy Brown to Huey Newton are discussed. How to Read Like a Parasite makes a persuasive case for how we can overcome Nietzsche’s damaging influence on the left, showing us how to read and understand his work without becoming victims of it.Trade Review“A compelling picture of the ways that Nietzscheanism hijacks the left.”"Beautifully written and bursting with spirit, How to Read Like a Parasite is destined to be vital reading.""Written with clarity and force, sensitive to historical context and covering an extensive array of the Nietzsche literature, this book animates a new standard in reading Nietzsche.”"Exemplary... Tutt’s evaluation of the consequences of Nietzschean politics is more lucid than Left Nietzscheans might wish.""Today, in our age of quick new Right or new Left dismissals, such a stance is needed more than ever.""Tutt’s book sets a new standard for understanding how to read Nietzsche from the political left.""The conclusion of How to Read Like a Parasite is that a ruthless, even “parasitical” critique of Nietzsche, who cannot be ignored but must be constantly confronted head on, is the key to overcoming the destruction of reason in our time."

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Book SynopsisGreat Britain has just left one Union, after years of bitter argument and divisive posturing. But what if the island's future lies in another Union altogether, with some of its former colonial “kith and kin” across the seas? Why be in a Union with your immediate neighbours, when you could instead be in a trans-oceanic super-state with our old friends in Canada, Australia and New Zealand? Welcome to the strange world of the 'CANZUK Union', the name for a quixotic but apparently serious plan to reunify the white-majority 'Dominions' of the British Empire under the flag of low taxes, strong borders and climate change denialism. Artificial Islands tests the idea that Britain's natural allies and closest relations are in these three countries in North America and the Antipodes, through a good look at the histories, townscapes and spaces of several cities across the settler zones of the British Empire. These are some of the most purely artificial and modern landscapes in the world, British-designed cities that were built with extreme rapidity in forcibly seized territories on the other side of the world from Britain. Were these places really no more than just a reproduction of British Values planted in unlikely corners of the globe? How are people in Auckland, Melbourne, Montreal, Ottawa and Wellington re-imagining their own history, or their countries' role in the British Empire and their complicity in its crimes? And do they have any interest in a union with us?Trade Review"A rich cliché-busting book, a model of how to think critically about empire and its contemporary relevance." - David Edgerton, author of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation "Hatherley carries the narrative with an opinionated and entertaining style." — Rob Greer, The Idler "Hatherley’s accounts of walking Dominion cities display the intuitive feel for place, epigrammatic flair and caustic impatience for cant which make him a successor to the great urban explorers." — The Critic

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Book SynopsisAnti-Oculus is a work of conceptual espionage: an assemblage of polemical tracts complete with a gallery of graphic illustrations inspired by postmodern and pulp classics from Anti-Oedipus to Ways of Seeing. Through the concept of "Ocularity", the Acid Horizon crew trace the political, medical, and historical ways power sees us through its categories of control and counter-insurgency. From the thermodynamics of policing in the cyberpunk present, to the psychiatric colonization of the image, to bodies that "go astray" in an increasingly reactionary society; Anti-Oculus maps out the ways we are captured under the eyes of cyber-capital, and provokes us to find each other in pursuit of emancipation, community, and new forms of life.Trade Review"Conspire, panic, boil over, go astray — Anti-Oculus is an urgent manifesto on the chaos of life and the ecstasy of escape.""Anti-Oculus is a text that, despite its brevity, is so rich with insight and provocation that those who give themselves over to it will be mining it for years. It is the perfect extension of the Acid Horizon project, already a treasure trove for those interested in culture, philosophy and politics online."

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Book SynopsisAcross the world, politics is lurching to the right, ethnic nationalism is on the rise, and people are furious. Beyond Populism critically examines the new destructive projects of resentment that have surfaced in the political spaces opened by neoliberalism’s failures, particularly since the financial collapse of 2008. It contextualizes the recent history of the Global North—notably Brexit and the Trump election—among wider comparative politics, with chapters on India, Colombia, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and other parts of the globe marked by populist insurgencies.The essays collected here explore how global, regional, national, and local structures of power produce angry politics. They go beyond conventional academic debates about populism to explore the different kinds of anger that shape politics today and to make legible the multiplicity of forces, antagonisms, conflicts, and emergent political forms that mark the present. By examining the politics of anger, Beyond Populism also considers what is needed to transform anger from a reactionary to an emancipatory force.Trade Review“This book, on one of the major conundrums of our time, refuses foreclosure and widens the horizon.” — Don Kalb, coeditor of Worldwide Mobilizations: Class Struggles and Urban Commoning “A timely, engaged, and committed intervention that truly goes beyond existing scholarship on populism and produces insights of huge analytical and political potential.” — Paul Stubbs, coeditor of Making Policy Move: Towards a Politics of Translation and Assemblage “This outstanding volume is an essential and timely engagement with one of the most important—and little understood—developments in the current crisis.” — Leith Mullings, coeditor of Let Nobody Turn Us Around: An African American Anthology Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction by Jeff Maskovsky and Sophie Bjork James Part 1: The Roots of Rage 2. Populism and Its Others: After Neoliberalism by Don Robotham 3. Americanism, Trump, and Uniting the White Right by Sophie Bjork-James 4. Make in India: Hindu Nationalism, Global Capital, and 'Jobless Growth' by Preeti Sampat 5. Blue Bloods, Parvenus, and Mercenaries: Authoritarianism and Political Violence in Colombia by Lesley Gill Part 2: Multiplicities of Anger 6. Frustrations, Failures and Fractures: Brexit and 'politics as usual' in the UK by John Clarke 7. Postsocialist Populisms? by Gerald Creed and Mary N. Taylor 8. Fascism, a Haunting: Spectral Politics and Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Italy by Lilith Mahmud 9. Other People's Race Problem: Trumpism and the Collapse of the Liberal Racial Consensus in the United States by Jeff Maskovsky 10. Euphemisms We Die By: On Epochal Anxiety, Necropolitics, and “Green” Authoritarianism in the Philippines by Noah Theriault Part 3: Unsettling Authoritarian Populisms 11. Left Populism in the Heart of South America: From Plurinational Promise to a Renewed Extractive Nationalism by Carwil Bjork-James 12. 'Fed Up' in Ethiopia: Emotions, civics education and anti-authoritarian protest by Jennifer Riggan 13. Islamophobic Nationalism and Attitudinal Islamophilia by Nazia Kazi 14. Afterword, by Jeff Maskovsky and Sophie Bjork-James List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisWhile 'winning' might be considered a fundamental part of the human objective, what constitutes winning and how one might achieve it remain somewhat abstract, in war as in any other human endeavour. 'Winning' militarily at the tactical level - in a firefight or a battle - has always been more quantifiable than at the strategic level. At the strategic level, success might be measured by means of three big ideas: ownership; intervention for effect; and fighting for ideas. The divergence between success at the tactical level and the political context of the war creates a challenge at the operational level when it relates to political and strategic matters.The result of a research project carried out by the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research for the British Army, this book analyses the philosophical constituents of what may comprise ‘victory’ or ‘winning’ and then travels, chronologically, through a wide set of historical case studies, exploring those more philosophical components and weaving them into the factual discussion. Thus the factual relation and analysis is the vehicle for a deeper exploration of the concept of success or ‘winning’, rather than a narrative end in itself.Trade ReviewAlthough much of the book’s focus is about winning in conventional wars, the insights about the components in measuring effectiveness in such warfare also apply to assessing effectiveness in counterterrorism. * Perspectives on Terrorism 05/07/2021 *Comprising sixteen excellent and thought-provoking essays by eighteen noted military historians and former warriors, the book comprehensively examines the realities of war and the wide-ranging concepts of victory. At the same time, it offers a very good general history of warfare. * Baird Maritime 05/07/2021 *…a salutary reminder that it is all too possible to win the war but lose the peace....an extremely rich book, containing a multitude of insights. * Militaire Spectator 02/08/2021 *…extremely readable and jargon-free. […] very instructive collection. * RUSI Journal 05/07/2021 *Table of ContentsIntroduction – Sir Hew Strachan 1 ‘Winning’ in Classical Antiquity and the Roman Conception of Victory – Ali Parchami 2 The European Concept of ‘Winning’ in the Middle Ages – John France 3 The Early Modern Period in Europe, 1500–1715 – David Parrott 4 From the Age of Reason to the European Nation State, 1750–1850 – Jonathan Riley 5 ‘Winning’ in World War I, 1914–1919 – Lothar Höbelt 6 ‘Winning’ in the World Wars. The British Conceptions of the War-Time Leaders Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, 1914–1945 – Rob Johnson 7 ‘Winning’ in the Cold War and the Nuclear Age, 1945–1990 – Jonathan Riley 8 Western Strategic Goals and ‘Winning’ in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 – Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian 9 A Hollow Victory? Assad’s Regime and ‘Winning’ the Conflict in Syria since 2001 – Richard Kuno 10 The Impact of History, Politics and Religion: Three Contrasting Conceptions of ‘Winning’ in Iran since 1979 – Ali Parchami 11 The Chinese Concept of ‘Winning’ – Kerry Brown 12 A Decisive British Victory? The Confrontation with Indonesia, 1963–1966 – Christopher Tuck 13 The Ambiguity of Victory: The Spectrum of ‘Winning’ in African History – Richard Reid 14 The Provisional IRA and the Elusive Concept of ‘Winning’ since 1969 – Aaron Edwards 15 Russian Views of ‘Winning’: ‘Velikaya Pobeda’ ‘pobedonosnaya voina’ – Andrew Monaghan 16 ‘Winning the Peace’: The Peacebuilding Paradigm and its Implications for Peacekeepers in the 21st Century – Nicholas Rees Conclusion: So, What is ‘Winning’? Andrew Sharpe

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Book SynopsisThis book presents the case that the origins of American liberty should not be sought in the constitutional-reformist feats of its “statesmen” during the 1780s, but rather in the political and social resistance to their efforts. There were two revolutions occurring in the late 18th century America: the modern European revolution “in favour of government,” pursuing national unity, “energetic” government and centralization of power (what scholars usually dub “American founding”); and a conservative, reactionary counter-revolution “in favour of liberty,” defending local rights and liberal individualism against the encroaching political authority. This is a book about this liberal counter-revolution and its ideological, political and cultural sources and central protagonists. The central analytical argument of the book is that America before the Revolution was a stateless, spontaneous political order that evolved culturally, politically and economically in isolation from the modern European trends of state-building and centralization of power. The book argues, then, that a better model for understanding America is a “decoupled modernization” hypothesis, in which social modernity is divested from the politics of modern state and tied with the pre-modern social institutions.Table of Contents1. The American Revolution as the Last European Peasants’ Rebellion.- 2. Consent, Representation and Liberty: America as the Last Medieval Society.- 3. Shades of Anarchy: The Concept of Lawful Rebellion in America.- 4. Men of Little Faith Facing the Modern State: The Country Party Ideology in Great Britain.- 5. When in the Course of Human Events.- Hobbes, Locke and the Long Parliament against America.- 6. The Great Derailment: Philadelphia Putsch of 1787 and the Coming of the American State.- 7. 1776 Strikes Back – Antifederalist Critics of the Constitution.- 8. The Compact Theory of the Union – A Revolution within a Form.- 9. Free Market in a Small Republic – Economic Doctrines of Jeffersonians and Jacksonians.- 10. The Last Stand: John C. Calhoun.- 11. Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisSuper Mad at Everything All the Time explores the polarization of American politics through the collapse of the space between politics and culture, as bolstered by omnipresent media. It seeks to explain this perfect storm of money, technology, and partisanship that has created two entirely separate news spheres: a small, enclosed circle for the right wing and a sprawling expanse for everyone else. This leads to two sets of facts, two narratives, and two loudly divergent political sides with extraordinary anger all around. Based on extensive interviews with leading media figures and politicos, this book traces the development of the media machine, giving suggestions on how to restore our national dialogue while defending our right to disagree agreeably. Table of Contents1. Two Truths.- 2. Upping the Antis: 50 Years of Vilifying Intellectuals, the Government, & the Media.- 3. Money + Tech = Problems: Technological Development, Financial Imperatives, and The Ensuing Media Landscape.- 4. Us vs. Them: Political Polarization and the Politicization of Everything.- 5. Negative Objectives: The Right Wing Media Circle and Everyone Else.- 6. Consequential, Problematic and Perhaps Resolvable

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Book SynopsisThis edited volume takes a close look at Nicos Poulantzas’s thought as a means of understanding the dynamics of the capitalist, neoliberal state in the 21st century. Nicos Poulantzas has left us with one of the most sophisticated theories of the state in the second half of the 20th century. Poulantzas’s influential theory draws inspiration from Marx, Lenin, Weber, and Foucault, among other thinkers, conceiving of the relationship between capitalism and the state as particularly original. This book aims to use Poulantzas’s theory of the capitalist state in order to understand important political and economic trends that have taken place since Poulantzas’s death in 1979. By entering into a dialogue with current Marxist and critical research in diverse fields such as political science, philosophy, sociology, history, and geography, this volume purports to evaluate the actuality of Poulantzas’s thought.Table of ContentsPreface: The End of the Democratic State Jean-Numa Ducange and Razmig Keucheyan Part I. State and Strategies. 1. The State and the Democratic Road to Socialism Álvaro Garcia Linera 2. Nicos Poulantzas’s Strategic Reflection, between Economics and Politics Isabelle Garo 3. The Capitalist State, Hegemony and the Democratic Transformation toward Socialism Alex Demirovich 4. Specters of ‘Totalitarianism’. Poulantzas Faced with Fascism and the State of Exception Stathis Kouvelakis Part II. Histories and Communisms 1. The Comintern’s Uncertain Heritage Serge Wolikow 2. The Eurocommunism of the intellectuals: Poulantzas and the Third Way to Socialism Marco di Maggio 3. The Ligue communiste révolutionnaire, Nicos Poulantzas, and the reception and discussion of his theory Ludivine Bantigny Part III. Theories 1. Poulantzas: from Law to the State James Martin 2. Geographies of the state: Nicos Poulantzas and contemporary approaches to state/space Costis Hadjimichalis 3. A European Capitalism? Revisiting the Mandel-Poulantzas Debate Tristan Auvray and Cédric Durand

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Book SynopsisThis open access book focuses on the role of civil society in the creation, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in geographical contexts. It offers original, interdisciplinary and counterintuitive perspectives on civil society. The book includes reflections on civil and uncivil society, the role of civil society as a change agent, and on civil society perspectives of undone science. Conceptual approaches go beyond the tripartite division of public, private and civic sectors to propose new frameworks of civic networks and philanthropic fields, which take an inclusive view of the connectivity of civic agency across sectors. This includes relational analyses of epistemic power in civic knowledge networks as well as of regional giving and philanthropy. The original empirical case studies examine traditional forms of civic engagement, such as the German landwomen’s associations, as well as novel types of organizations, such as giving circles and time banks in their geographical context. The book also offers insider reflections on doing civil society, such as the cases of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, epistemic activism in the United States, and the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa.Table of ContentsChapter 1. The Place of Civil Society in the Making of Knowledge.- Part I: (Re-)Thinking Civil Society.- Chapter 2. The Dialectic of Civil and Uncivil Society—Fragility, Fault Lines, and Countervailing Forces.-Chapter 3. Civil Society as an Agent of Change.- Chapter 4. Undone Science and Smart Cities: Civil Society Perspectives on Risk and Emerging Technologies.- Part II: Analyzing Civil Society Organizations.- Chapter 5. Specialists for Crumble Cakes? The German LandFrauen Organizations in Social Innovation and as Educational, Social, and Political Institutions.- Chapter 6. Schools of Democracy? Giving Circles and the Civic and Political Participation of Collaborative Philanthropists.- Chapter 7. Time Banks as Transient Civic Organizations? Exploring the Dynamics of Decline.- Part III: Spaces, Networks and Fields.- Chapter 8. Civil Society as Networks of Issues and Associations: The Case of Food.- Chapter 9. The Geography of Giving in the Philanthropic Field.- Chapter 10. Global Authenticity, Local Authority: Epistemic Power, Discursive Geographies, and the Creation of Civil Society Knowledge Networks.- Part IV: Doing Civil Society.- Chapter 11. Democracy Movement and Alternative Knowledge in Hong Kong.- Chapter 12. Epistemic Activism in the United States: Examining Meetings Across the Silos of Civil Society.- Chapter 13. Seeding a New World: Lessons From the #FeesMustFall Movement for the Advancement of Social Justice.- Chapter 14. Civility, Education, and the Embodied Mind—Three Approaches to a New Sentimental Education.

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Book SynopsisFar from displaying a uniform pattern, European integration varies significantly across policy areas and individual countries. Why do some member states choose to opt out of specific EU policies? Why are some policies deeply integrated whereas others remain intergovernmental? In this updated second edition, the authors introduce the most important theoretical approaches to European integration and apply these to the trajectories of key EU policy areas. Arguing that no single theory offers a completely convincing explanation of integration and differentiation in the EU, this thought-provoking book provides a new synthesis of integration theory and an original way of thinking about what the EU is and how it works.Table of ContentsIntroduction.- The European Union as a System of Differentiated Integration.- PART I: THEORY Intergovernmentalism.- Supranationalism.- Constructivism.- PART II: POLICIES The Single Market.- Economic and Monetary Union.- Security and Defence.- The Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice.- Conclusions: Integration and differentiation in the European Union.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a detailed look at the constitutional, historical, and political arguments concerning presidential immunity from prosecution, as well as the opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel that provided the justification for the decision not to prosecute President Trump. Focusing on those opinions, the book examines the constitutional basis of presidential immunity, both textual and historical, as reflected in the deliberations of the 1787 Convention and the ratification debates. The opinions are viewed in the context of the criminal investigations of Presidents Nixon and Clinton that gave rise to those opinions, as well as the pronouncements of the Supreme Court concerning their claims, and those of President Trump to immunity from judicial inquiry. Lastly, the book analyzes presidential immunity in light of the separation of powers, the availability of impeachment, and the discordance between presidential immunity and the rule of law.Table of Contents​Part IChapter 1: The Founding Era Chapter 2: The Nixon Era and the 1973 Office of Legal Counsel Memorandum Chapter 3: The Clinton Era Chapter 4: The Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Presidential Immunity Chapter 5: The Second Memorandum of the Office of Legal Counsel Chapter 6: Donald J. Trump V. Cyrus R. Vance Part II Chapter 7: The Separation of Powers Chapter 8: Impeachment: Sequentiality Chapter 9: Impeachment: Criminality Chapter 10: The Rule of Law

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Book SynopsisExploring the rise and fall of global power from the mid-nineteenth century, this book tracks the long and interrelated trajectories of the most serious challenges facing the world today. Although at first the urgency of the coronavirus outbreak in 2020 seemed to take precedence over other global problems such as socioeconomic inequality and climate change, it has ultimately exacerbated these issues and created opportunities to address them boldly and innovatively. A Brief History of Now provides a bird’s-eye view of world hegemony, economic globalization and political regimes as they have evolved and developed over the last two hundred years, providing context and insights into the forces which have shaped the Western world. Presented in an accessible and engaging narrative, the book addresses key contemporary challenges and explores the repercussions of a technological revolution, the potential instability of democracy over the coming years, and the urgent struggle to tackle climate change. With his book, Diego Olstein helps to answer pressing questions about our world today and provides a roadmap for analysing future trajectories.Table of Contents

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Book SynopsisThis timely, relevant text is a comprehensive compendium of critical information about voting in the United States. It frames voting as an integral aspect of social work practice and provides concrete suggestions for how students can increase their involvement in expanding voter participation by marginalized groups.This book: Examines the current social and political context Introduces multiple perspectives on why voting matters Presents a brief history of voting rights in the United States Explains the nuts and bolts of campaigns and elections Discusses who votes and who doesn’t, how people vote, and why Describes voter suppression tactics and identifies obstacles facing low-turnout groups Highlights strategies to expand voter participation Provides concrete examples of how students can help maximize voter participation Explores how voter engagement intersects with social work at all levels of professional practice The only social work textbook devoted entirely to the topic of voting, Promote the Vote: Positioning Social Workers for Action is the ideal supplement for classes in social welfare policy, policy practice, human rights, and social justice. Filled with research findings, practical information, and case examples, this book provides social work students and professionals with the knowledge, strategies, and tools to engage clients and their communities in the electoral process. With voting rights quickly becoming a flashpoint in the struggle for equity and justice, now is the perfect time for this valuable resource.Table of ContentsChapter 1: The Context for Voter Engagement The Social and Economic Context The Political Context Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 2: Why Voting Matters Voting Is a Human Right Voting Is Consistent with Social Work Values Voting Builds Political Power Voting Benefits Individuals Voting Benefits Communities Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 3: How We Got Here: A Brief History of Voting Rights Early Voting in America Voting Rights for African Americans The Women’s Suffrage Movement The Youth Vote Additional Policies to Expand Voting Rights Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 4: Voting Processes and Procedures Elected Officials Political Parties Registration and Voting Political Campaigns Presidential Elections Congressional, State and Local Elections Ballot Measures Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 5: Voting Patterns and Trends Voter Turnout Who Votes? Why People Vote How People Vote Voting by Social Workers Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 6: Special Populations People of Color Naturalized Citizens and Linguistic Minorities People in Poverty People Experiencing Homelessness Citizens with Felony Convictions People with Disabilities LGBTQ+ Voters Survivors of Domestic Violence Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 7: Barriers to Voting Structural Barriers Intimidation and Suppression Gerrymandering Money in Politics Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 8: Expanding Opportunities Registration Initiatives Voting Initiatives Summary and Conclusion Try This! Chapter 9: A Better Future The Need for Change Legal and Ethical Considerations Strategies for Action Developing a Culture of Voting Summary and Conclusion Try This! Appendix I: State Election Information Websites Appendix II: Helpful Resources

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an advanced introduction to the Cold War, assessing its origins, development and conclusion as a dynamic interaction between superpower confrontation and complex regional and local situations. The evolution of the subject’s scholarly debate is discussed throughout and the contest situated alongside enduring historical themes including decolonisation, development, nationalism and globalisation. Regional case studies, on Europe, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, illuminate the Cold War’s global reach. Thematic analysis considers competition in military, strategic and economic spheres, as well as in aspects of culture, ideology, society, and Human Rights. The Cold War’s transnational elements and facets of international cooperation are also highlighted. The book unpacks the subject’s extensive scholarly discourse, underlining the interdisciplinary character of today’s Cold War historiography and the importance of understanding that its development has been informed by a vibrant interface between international history, international relations and the Cold War itself. Table of Contents1. Introduction.- Part I.- 2. Historical Background: World War II and Tensions in the Wartime Alliance.- 3. The Origins of the Cold War in Europe: from World War II to the Berlin Blockade.- 4. Studying the Cold War: core themes and concepts. Is there a new international history of the Cold War?.- 5. The Early Development of the Cold War in Europe: the division of Germany, the formation of NATO and European Integration.- 6. The Origins of the Cold War in East Asia: the emergence of communist China, Japan and the Korean War.- Part II.- 7. The Superpowers and the Cold War in the 1950s.- 8. Crises 1958–1962.- 9. The Vietnam War.- 10. The Cold War and the Third World: Latin America.- 11. The Middle East and the Cold War.- 12. Waging the Cold War.- Part III.- 13. Détente.- 14. The Travails of Détente.- 15. Beyond Geopolitics: economics, culture and the transnational Cold War.- 16. The Superpowers and the end of the Cold War.- 17. Regional Finales.

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Book SynopsisThe end of the Cold War marks the geopolitical peak of America’s global primacy. The centerpiece of U.S. Foreign Policy in the pre-pandemic world order was the assumption that promoting human rights and democracy will secure peace. However, the Coronavirus Pandemic challenged the U.S.-dominated globalized order. The international system in the post-pandemic age embodies a paradox of the American primacy and the Chinese struggle for global domination. Pandemics Among Nations: U.S. Foreign Policy and the New Grand Chessboard addresses the geopolitical puzzle of the post-pandemic world order and seeks to explain how COVID 19 has remastered Brzezinski’s theory of the Grand Chessboard. In this book, Ivanov offers a two-level approach, emphasizing the consequences of the Pandemic and their impact on U.S. Foreign Policy. He also argues that if the United States wants to maintain its leadership in the post-pandemic world order, Washington should develop a new concept of smart power to deter the Chinese Art of War. The foremost goal of Pandemics Among Nations is to analyze how America could overcome the geopolitical effects of the Pandemic. The author examines three possible scenarios for the future role of the United States on the post-pandemic Chessboard. The analysis rests on the testing of a series of research hypotheses across a structured comparison of all elements of the remastered Grand Chessboard, not just on isolated case studies such as China’s rise, Russian New Imperialism or European ambitions for a mutual defense.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the role of popular forms of social mobilization during Spain's process of transition to democracy. It focuses on the nature of citizenship that was forged during the period of conflict and mobilisation that characterised Spain from the late 1950s until the late 1980s. It offers a two-pronged exploration of social movements at the time. On the one hand, it provides a detailed analysis of four very different cases of social mobilisation: among Catholics, residents, farmers and teachers. It discerns processes of organisation, repertoires of action, collective meaning, and interactions with communities and local political actors. On the other hand, it reflects on how the fight over specific issues and the use of similar tactics generated shared interpretations of what it meant to be a citizen in a democracy.Trade Review“Julia Preece’s book is an exciting and very important book for the community engagement field—not just in South Africa and the global south where many of her case studies are located, but for the field more broadly too. … this is an excellent book and an essential read for SL and CE practitioners and students in both the global South and North.” (Janice McMillan, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Vol. 37 (6), 2018)​Table of ContentsChapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Catholicism and Citizenship under the Franco Dictatorship.- Chapter 3: The Right to the City and the Right to the State: Neighbourhood Associations and the Negotiation of Citizenship.- Chapter 4: Professional Citizenship in the Workplace: Teachers’ Civic Initiatives.- Chapter 5: Citizenship and democracy in the Spanish countryside.- Chapter 6: Citizen building during the Spanish Transition to Democracy: Between the Spanish Debate and the Social Movements Debate.

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Book SynopsisDie politische Kultur der westlichen Welt in einer breit angelegten Gesamtschau. Von den Griechen und ihrer Entdeckung von Politik und Demokratie, über die Römer und die christliche Welt bis zur Gegenwart, die vom Kampf um Menschenrechte und dem Totalitarismus zugleich gezeichnet ist, wird das ganze Spektrum des Politischen Denkens vorgestellt. Band 3/2: Politisches Denken in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Welche Denker, Philosophen, Historiker und Literaten prägten diese Epoche? Von der Amerikanischen und Französischen Revolution über Napoleon bis zum Ende der klassischen Epoche gibt der Band einen kompakten und gut verständlichen Überblick. Die politische Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus und das politische Denken der Klassiker werden eingehend erläutert. Inklusive Kurzbiografien und ausführlichen Bibliografien.

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Book SynopsisDie politische Kultur der westlichen Welt in einer breit angelegten Gesamtschau. Von den Griechen und ihrer Entdeckung von Politik und Demokratie, über die Römer und die christliche Welt bis zur Gegenwart, die vom Kampf um Menschenrechte und dem Totalitarismus zugleich gezeichnet ist, wird das ganze Spektrum des Politischen Denkens vorgestellt. Band 3/3: Von Konservatismus und Liberalismus bis Nietzsche. Die Entstehung und Ausformung aller zentralen politischen Strömungen des 19. Jahrhunderts sind Thema des Bandes. Konservatismus und Liberalismus, Sozialismus und Kommunismus (der utopische und der wissenschaftliche), individualistischer und kollektivistischer Anarchismus alle politischen Denkrichtungen und ihre jeweiligen Vertreter werden dargestellt. Mit Kurzbiografien und ausführlichen Bibliografien.

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Book SynopsisThroughout India''s long and chequered history, Hindus, Muslims, and other communities have consistently adapted while preserving their shared identity. India has long stood as a sanctuary for its diverse minorities, allowing them to nurture their faith and culture. However, contemporary India faces a profound distrust between its major communities. Centuries of mutual suspicion have given rise to new terms like ''persecution complex,'' ''self-denial,'' and ''victimhood.'' Even more disconcerting are phrases such as ''holocaust,'' ''massacre,'' ''pogrom,'' and ''genocide.'' The need for dialogue is undeniable, but the ground reality tells a different story. This book also casts a spotlight on the role of left-liberals in perpetuating this divide. Polarised Times is an essential exploration of the pressing issues that demand our attention, urging us to rekindle the bonds of unity and diversity, for India''s future stands at a crossroads.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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