{"title":"Verso Books","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"whos-afraid-of-margaret-thatcher-in-praise-of-socialism-9780860918028","title":"Whos Afraid of Margaret Thatcher In Praise Of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKen Livingstone is a product of the political changes that have already taken place in the Labour Party. As Leader of the Greater London Council he has provided a voice and a vision for tens of thousands of party activists and Labour supporters, in the process implementing a set of measures that indicate the possibilities of a real alternative to Thatcherism. His determined opposition on the Falklands War, subsidised public transport, Ireland, the 1984 miners strike, sexual liberation and racism has made him a far more effective spokesperson for Labour than the shadow luminaries who occupy the front benches in the House of Commons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn these fascinating conversations with Tariq Ali, the Marxist writer and activist debarred from the Labour Party by Kinnock\/Hattersley, the two men discuss the future of Labour and socialist politics in Britain. What emerges is a picture of Livingstone as a formidable socialist politician and an adroit tactician, who displays a refreshing ability to","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48737766932823,"sku":"9780860918028","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780860918028.jpg?v=1723811442"},{"product_id":"border-vigils-keeping-migrants-out-of-the-rich-world-9781781680636","title":"Border Vigils: Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOurs is an era marked by extraordinary human migrations, with some 200 million people alive today having moved from their country of origin. The political reaction in Europe and the United States has been to raise the drawbridge: immigrant workers are needed, but no longer welcome. So migrants die in trucks or drown en route; they are murdered in smuggling operations or ruthlessly exploited in illegal businesses that make it impossible for the abused to seek police help. More than 15,000 people have died in the last twenty years trying to circumvent European entry restrictions.\u003cbr\u003eIn this beautifully written book, Jeremy Harding draws haunting portraits of the migrants - and anti-immigrant zealots - he encountered in his investigations in Europe and on the US-Mexico border. Harding's painstaking research and global perspective identify the common characteristics of immigration policy across the rich world and raise pressing questions about the future of national boundaries and universal values.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[A] tightly-coiled, unpredictable book ... Harding makes his ambitious, continent-crossing arguments in economical, sometimes elegant, usually understated prose. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eBeyond its investigative insight, Border Vigils is also a groundbreaking chronicle of migrant voices rarely heard. Ranging from the southern shores of Italy and the backstreets of England to the embattled US-Mexico front line, Harding's brilliant work could not be more timely-and timeless. -- Jeff Biggers, author of \u003ci\u003eState Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741074567511,"sku":"9781781680636","price":12.01,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781680636.jpg?v=1720056482"},{"product_id":"soldier-box-why-i-won-t-return-to-the-war-on-terror-9781781680926","title":"Soldier Box: Why I Won’t Return to the War on","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"I looked around my cell and saw the sheet of paper taped to the door at chest height. It listed everything in the room, chair, bed, soldier box . For a moment I thought it meant the cell itself; a box to put soldiers in.\"\u003c\/i\u003eWhen the War on Terror began, Briton Joe Glenton felt compelled to serve his nation. He passed through basic training and deployed to Afghanistan in 2006. What he saw overseas left him disillusioned, and he returned home increasingly political and manifesting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.\u003cbr\u003eWhen he refused to return for a second tour, he was denied his right to object and called \"a coward and a malingerer.\" He went absent without leave and left the country, returning later to the UK voluntarily to campaign against the wars. The military accused him of desertion and threatened years in prison.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e Soldier Box\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of Glenton's extraordinary journey from a promising soldier to a rebel against what he came to see as unjustified military action.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt takes as much courage to stand up against the Army as it does to go to war. History is made by people prepared to make that kind of sacrifice. -- Tony Benn, former British Member of Parliament\u003cbr\u003eJoe Glenton is the really brave soldier: the one who refused to fight in an unjust war and suffered imprisonment as a result. Above the sound of gunfire it is his story that deserves to be heard. -- John Rees, cofounder of the Stop the War Coalition","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741074665815,"sku":"9781781680926","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781680926.jpg?v=1720056483"},{"product_id":"the-passion-of-bradley-manning-the-story-behind-the-wikileaks-whistleblower-9781781680698","title":"The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story Behind","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBradley Manning was arrested, imprisoned in solitary confinement for nine months, and court-martialed for leaking nearly half a million classified government documents, including the infamous \"Collateral Murder\" gunsight video. He was an intelligence analyst in the US Army's 10th Mountain Division, is twenty-four, and comes from Crescent, Oklahoma.\u003cbr\u003eBut who is Private First Class Bradley Manning? Why did he commit the largest security breach in American history-and why was it so easy? In this book, the astonishing leaks attributed to Bradley Manning are viewed from many angles, from Tunisia to Guantánamo Bay, from Foggy Bottom to Baghdad to small-town Oklahoma. Around the world, the eloquent act of one young man obliges citizens to ask themselves if they have the right to know what their government is doing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs this fine and important study reports, Bradley Manning holds to the principle that 'it's important the public should know what its government is doing.' Release of the Wikileaks documents has been a courageous and important service to this cause. -- Noam Chomsky\u003cbr\u003eTime after time, patriotic whistleblowers like Bradley Manning are fired, shunned, or prosecuted, despite their heroic efforts to protect the public from a secretive government's illegal activities. It's time to do what we can to protect these brave souls, and reading Chase Madar's fine book is an excellent start. -- Former US Senator James Abourezk\u003cbr\u003eChase Madar has written a powerful, compelling and moving defense of Bradley Manning. Bravo! -- Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner\u003cbr\u003eThe mistreatment, trial, and fate of Private Bradley Manning will undoubtedly read like an obituary on the Obama years. His case is a crucial one, and Chase Madar turned his sharp eye on it early. This is the single must-read book on the case. -- Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Passion of Bradley Manning\u003c\/i\u003e reminds us that it was James Madison himself who wrote that a popular government without popular information is but a prelude to tragedy or farce. Author and lawyer Chase Madar tells a great story that raises critical questions about the appropriate balance of government secrecy and national security in a modern democracy. -- Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Passion of Bradley Manning\u003c\/i\u003e ... tells the story of Manning both biographically and regarding Wikileaks and his imprisonment. * Z Magazine *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741074895191,"sku":"9781781680698","price":19.04,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781680698.jpg?v=1720056483"},{"product_id":"bohemians-a-graphic-history-9781781682616","title":"Bohemians: A Graphic History","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe countercultures that came to define  bohemia spanned the Atlantic, encompassing Walt Whitman's Brooklyn and  the Folies Bergère of Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein's salons and the  Manhattan clubs where Dizzy Gillespie made his name. Edited by Paul  Buhle and David Berger, \u003ci\u003eBohemians\u003c\/i\u003e is the graphic history of  this movement and its illustrious figures. The stories collected here  revisit the utopian ideas behind millennial communities, the rise of  Greenwich Village and Harlem, the multiracial and radical jazz and dance  worlds, and the West Coast, Southern, and Midwest bohemias of America,  among other radical scenes.\u003cbr\u003eDrawn by an all-star cast of comic artists, \u003ci\u003eBohemians \u003c\/i\u003eis  a broad and entertaining account of the rebel impulse in American  cultural history. Featuring work by Spain Rodriguez, Sharon Rudahl,  Peter Kuper, Sabrina Jones, David Lasky, Afua Richardson, Lance Tooks,  Milton Knight, and more.\u003cbr\u003eThe ebook edition is expanded from the paperback edition, and includes additional chapters on the swing music scene, \u003ci\u003eLa Boheme \u003c\/i\u003eand midwest  bohemians, as well as expanded material on the Greenwich Village  intellectuals, Walt Whitman and Harlem jazz club Minton's Playhouse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcavates an essential part of American history ... and does so with style, great graphics, and no punches pulled. -- Luc Sante\u003cbr\u003eThe excitement and inspiration of their creative and courageous work is brilliantlycaptured in this wonderful graphic history. -- Noam Chomsky\u003cbr\u003eIngenious in its conception and brilliant in execution. It is urgently necessary for our times: read this book and see how to raise your voice against all the forces that would drown you out. A modern activist's primer! -- Ben Affleck, in praise of A People’s History of the American Empire","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741074960727,"sku":"9781781682616","price":12.01,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781682616.jpg?v=1720056483"},{"product_id":"they-cant-represent-us-reinventing-democracy-from-greece-to-occupy-9781781680971","title":"They Can't Represent Us!: Reinventing Democracy","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere is one of the first books to assert that mass protest movements in disparate places such as Greece, Argentina, and the United States share an agenda-to raise the question of what democracy should mean. These horizontalist movements, including Occupy, exercise and claim participatory democracy as the ground of revolutionary social change today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten by two international activist intellectuals and based on extensive interviews with movement participants in Spain, Venezuela, Japan, across the United States, and elsewhere, this book is both one of the most expansive portraits of the assemblies, direct democracy forums, and organizational forms championed by the new movements, and an analytical history of direct and participatory democracy from ancient Athens to Athens today. The new movements put forward the idea that liberal democracy is not democratic, nor was it ever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book is riveting, moving, and profoundly important for those who want to know what revolution in our time might look like. -- Rebecca Solnit, on Marina Sitrin’s \u003ci\u003eHorizontalism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe most substantial and comprehensive work on workers' control and self-management today. -- Gary Younge, on Dario Azzellini’s \u003ci\u003eOurs to Master and to Own\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075157335,"sku":"9781781680971","price":19.04,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781680971.jpg?v=1720056485"},{"product_id":"a-colossal-wreck-a-road-trip-through-political-scandal-corruption-and-american-culture-9781781682951","title":"A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip Through Political","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlexander Cockburn was without question one of the most influential journalists of his generation, whose writing stems from the best tradition of Mark Twain, H. L. Mencken and Tom Paine. \u003ci\u003eColossal Wreck\u003c\/i\u003e, his final work, finished shortly before his death in July 2012, exemplifies the prodigious literary brio that made Cockburn's name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhether ruthlessly exposing Beltway hypocrisy, pricking the pomposity of those in power, or tirelessly defending the rights of the oppressed, Cockburn never pulled his punches and always landed a blow where it mattered. In this panoramic work, covering nearly two decades of American culture and politics, he explores subjects as varied as the sex life of Bill Clinton and the best way to cook wild turkey. He stands up for the rights of prisoners on death row and exposes the chicanery of the media and the duplicity of the political elite. As he pursues a serpentine path through the nation, he charts the fortunes of friends, famous relatives, and sworn enemies alike to hilarious effect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a thrilling trip through the reefs and shoals of politics and everyday life. Combining a passion for the places, the food and the people he encountered on dozens of cross-country journeys, Cockburn reports back over seventeen years of tumultuous change among what he affectionately called the \"thousand landscapes\" of the United States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Colossal Wreck\u003c\/i\u003e provides ample evidence for Cockburn's standing as one of the left's most perceptive and entertaining commentators. * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eAlexander Cockburn set a high standard of crusading journalism for fifty years ... With his Wildean wit, love of elegant women, penchant for hunting and fondness for P.G. Wodehouse, Cockburn defied the stereotype of the disgruntled left-wing scribe. * Independent *\u003cbr\u003eWhether journeying to Key West, Fla., Humboldt County, Calif., Ireland or Istanbul, Mr. Cockburn is a warrior\/freethinker, armed with courage and gifted prose to cut down the hypocrisies of tyrants. He is a Marxist Mencken-a composite of comic-poet Andrei Condrescu, the erudite Christopher Hitchens and the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. * New York Times *\u003cbr\u003eProbably the most gifted polemicist writing in English today. * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eAn overflowing goodie basket of wit, expert deprecation, intellectual comradeship ... and incisive ramble. -- James Wolcott * Vanity Fair *\u003cbr\u003eAlex struck American journalism like lightning. -- Michael Tomasky * Daily Beast *\u003cbr\u003eAlways surprising, outrageous, brilliant and yet strangely compassionate. He weaves together the public and the private with a sustained comic ingenuity that is matchless. -- Edward Said\u003cbr\u003eHe had the courage to take on anything and anyone, from the most powerful organisations in the world to his closest friends, and the energy and persistence to follow his own path wherever it took him. * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eCockburn essentially pioneered the modern persona for which Christopher Hitchens became much better known: the fancily Oxford-educated leftie Brit litte?rateur\/journalist who would say all the outrageous things his bland Yank counterparts lacked the wit, courage, erudition, or e?pater-spirit to utter on their own ... Cockburn was far more committed and purposeful in his outrageousness. -- James Fallows * Atlantic *\u003cbr\u003eCockburn's stylish prose is full of erudition, ribald gossip, and pithy insight... [his] gleefully contrarian punditry makes for an entertaining read. * Publishers Weekly *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075222871,"sku":"9781781682951","price":12.34,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781682951.jpg?v=1720056484"},{"product_id":"narcoland-the-mexican-drug-lords-and-their-godfathers-9781781682968","title":"Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe product of five years of investigative reporting, the subject of intense national controversy, and the source of death threats that forced the National Human Rights Commission to assign two full-time bodyguards to Anabel Hernández, \u003ci\u003eThe Lords of el Narco\u003c\/i\u003e has been a publishing and political sensation in Mexico.The definitive history and anatomy of the drug cartels and the \"war on drugs\" that has cost more than 50,000 lives in just five years, the book explains in riveting detail how Mexico became a base for the mega-cartels of Latin America and one of the most violent places on the planet. Hernández reveals the complicity of Mexico's government and business elite. At every turn, she names names-not just the \u003ci\u003enarcos\u003c\/i\u003e and their immediate accomplices, but also the politicians, policemen, functionaries, judges and entrepreneurs who have collaborated with them.\u003cbr\u003eHernández became a journalist after her father was kidnapped and killed and the police refused to investigate without a bribe. She gained national prominence in 2001 with her exposure of pharaonic spending on housekeeping at the presidential palace. All her previous books have also focused on corruption at the summit of power, under presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNarcoland\u003c\/i\u003e describes a disastrous 'war on drugs' that has led to more than 80,000 deaths in half a dozen years. This is a book that exposes how everything in Mexico is implicated in the 'narco system.' * Roberto Saviano *\u003cbr\u003eAnabel Hernández, journalist and author, accuses the Mexican state of complicity with the cartels, and says the 'war on drugs' is a sham. She's had headless animals left at her door and her family have been threatened by gunmen.... \u003ci\u003eNarcoland\u003c\/i\u003e became, and remains, a bestseller: more than 100,000 copies sold in Mexico. The success is impossible to overstate, a staggering figure for a non-fiction book in a country with indices of income and literacy incomparable to the American-European book-buying market. -- Ed Vulliamy * Observer *\u003cbr\u003eThe most remarkable feature of Anabel Hernández's brave and invaluable account of Mexico's blood-drenched drug wars is that she survived long enough to write it... We would all be poorer without Hernández's determination to account for a civil conflict that has cost at least 60,000 lives. There could be no greater shame for Mexico should such a fearless and dedicated reporter come to any harm. * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNarcoland\u003c\/i\u003e, with its explosive descriptions of decades of corruption permeating the upper echelons of government, leaves an extremely bad taste in the reader's mouth about the state of Mexico's perennially corrupt institutions - and begs the question: how much has changed? For \u003ci\u003eNarcoland\u003c\/i\u003e, Anabel Hernandez spent five years combing police, court and US papers, securing access to informers and sources and pursuing often fruitless requests for official files. The result is a searing indictment of a war on drugs she believes was a sham from the start. -- Jude Webber * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eThe stark truth of a sham 'war'... A product of five years' investigative reporting, Hernández's meticulously researched explanation of the links between the Sinaloa cartel, the world's biggest criminal organisation, and Mexico's leadership makes for jaw-dropping reading. * Independent *\u003cbr\u003eIn this brave work, the author argues that since the presidency of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970), all of Mexico's rulers have maintained close relations with groups that import, export, and sell illegal drugs. * La Jornada *\u003cbr\u003eIndispensable reading for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the violence ... An extraordinary book for making the necessary journey to our heart of darkness. * Letras Libres *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075288407,"sku":"9781781682968","price":14.64,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781682968.jpg?v=1720056485"},{"product_id":"the-break-up-of-britain-crisis-and-neo-nationalism-9781781683200","title":"The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this classic text, first published in 1977, Tom Nairn memorably depicts the 'slow foundering' of the United Kingdom on the rocks of imperial decline, constitutional anachronism and the gathering force of civic nationalism. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRich in comparisons between the nationalisms of the British Isles and those of the wider world, thoughtful in its treatment of the interaction between nationality and social class, \u003ci\u003eThe Break-Up of Britain\u003c\/i\u003e concludes with a bravura essay on the Janus-faced nature of national identity. Postscripts from the Thatcher and Blair years trace the political strategies whose upshot accelerated the demise of a British state they were intended to serve.   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a second Scottish independence referendum beckons, a new Introduction by Anthony Barnett underlines the book's enduring relevance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe most forceful and original mind to confront, demask and anatomise the British state. The perception that Great Britain was a multinational state and not a united nation had never quite been lost over the centuries, but it was Tom Nairn who almost single-handedly hammered this truth into the skull of British intellectuals and campaigners until it became - as it is today - practically uncontested by the political class -- Neal Ascherson\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Break-Up of Britain\u003c\/i\u003e is Tom Nairn's greatest book. A potent and long-lasting challenge * Scotsman *\u003cbr\u003eTom Nairn pioneered critical retrospect of the United Kingdom, and scandalised people by looking forward calmly to its disintegration. This in a style of extraordinary vigour and beauty - and not least humour: writing as democratic as his own unswerving politics -- Perry Anderson\u003cbr\u003eTom Nairn's fundamental insight was to recognise that the United Kingdom was an imperial construct, and that the ties that once bound the people of these islands were fraying * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eMore than anyone else, Tom Nairn has shaped how we think about the United Kingdom and its creaking constitutional architecture. The national conversation he started, the national journey he so profoundly shaped in his work, is far from over * Herald *\u003cbr\u003ePowerful and prophetic. Nairn is perhaps Britain's most perceptive and ambitious national storyteller, an audaciously creative stylist. -- New Statesman * Rory Scothorne *\u003cbr\u003eCombines often stunning writing with immense knowledge of literature, history, and political philosophy ... Nairn has made a priceless contribution towards a desperately needed new discourse. * The Hindu *\u003cbr\u003eThe most significant book on British politics of the past half-century -- Anthony Barnett * openDemocracy *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075452247,"sku":"9781781683200","price":16.14,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781683200.jpg?v=1720056486"},{"product_id":"auschwitz-report-9781781688045","title":"Auschwitz Report","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile in a Russian-administered holding camp in Katowice, Poland, in 1945, Primo Levi was asked to provide a report on living conditions in Auschwitz. Published the following year, it was subsequently forgotten and remained unknown to a wider public.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDating from the weeks and months immediately after the war, \u003ci\u003eAuschwitz Report\u003c\/i\u003e details the authors' harrowing deportation to Auschwitz, and how those who disembarked from the train were selected for work or extermination. As well as being a searing narrative of everyday life in the camp, and the organization and working of the gas chambers, it constitutes Levi's first lucid attempts to come to terms with the raw horror of events that would drive him to create some of the greatest works of twentieth-century literature and testimony. \u003ci\u003eAuschwitz Report\u003c\/i\u003e is a major literary and historical discovery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most important and gifted writers of our time. -- Italo Calvino\u003cbr\u003eAn important corrective to the accepted view of Auschwitz. * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eThe book is important not just because it is the first published work by Levi; it contains the seeds of his great \u003ci\u003eSurvival in Auschwitz\u003c\/i\u003e. * New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003eOne of the first written by eyewitnesses, it has an important place in Holocaust historiography. * Publishers Weekly *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075485015,"sku":"9781781688045","price":999.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781688045.jpg?v=1720056486"},{"product_id":"last-futures-nature-technology-and-the-end-of-architecture-9781781689820","title":"Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil, and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation of thinkers, designers and engineers who hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities, and a meaningful connection with nature. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present-day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the '60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert, and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo one warns you that when you get old eras that you lived through are,  to the next generation, history. And it is salutory to have one of the  wilder fringes of that history recounted with the acuity, sympathy and  fluency Douglas Murphy brings to it. The cast is extraordinary:  oddballs, philosophers, seers-and a few frauds. -- Jonathan Meades\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLast Futures\u003c\/i\u003e, such one-time commonplaces as three day weeks,  the elimination of labour, geodesic domes, walking cities, space  colonies and industrialised housing are removed from dimwitted 'where's  my jetpack' nostalgia and put back into history. In so doing, Douglas  Murphy performs the useful service of making clear when the ideas of the  unrealised futures of the 1960s and 1970s were stupid and wasteful, and  when they were exceptionally smart-serious solutions to problems we  still haven't solved, and problems we seem intent on making considerably  worse. \u003ci\u003eLast Futures\u003c\/i\u003e is the \u003ci\u003eSilent Running\u003c\/i\u003e to contemporary architecture's \u003ci\u003eThe Fountainhead\u003c\/i\u003e. -- Owen Hatherley, author of Landscapes of Communism\u003cbr\u003eA fluent, chronological narrative in which oddities from the recent past form sequences in an unfolding drama . Murphy deploys his storytelling with great effect. * Architecture Today *\u003cbr\u003eMurphy tells the story of this counter-revolution pithily and well . A fresh and haunting way of explaining what happened to the radical '60s and '70s as a whole, in Murphy's view quite possibly the last chance the west had of creating a decent and environmentally sustainable society. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eProvocative and compelling. * Macleans *\u003cbr\u003eMurphy's chief virtue is the faculty with which he connects the dots between various, seemingly unconnected developments in architecture and theory with the ecological, financial, and military crises of an earlier era, holding a mirror onto our own anxious epoch of globalized precarity labor and anthropogenic climate change. -- Anna Khachiyan * Metropolis *\u003cbr\u003eMurphy outlines both some well known and some intriguingly novel suggestions for why the enthusiasm for 'omni-infrastructural' utopian frames went away.[\u003ci\u003eLast Futures\u003c\/i\u003e's] motley quality is in no way a fault of Murphy's approach, but rather a real advantage of his method as a cultural historian. A strength of Murphy's book is that he depicts both the general outlines and some of the juiciest details of these complex historical moments without distilling them into a deceptively linear chronology or a progression of mere styles. -- David Wittenberg * Los Angeles Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLast Futures\u003c\/i\u003e is to the end of mid century experimentalism what the Zapruder film is to the death of Kennedy: a weird and gripping replay, full of period grain, each frame posing questions about whether things could have been played our differently. * Times Literary Supplement *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075681623,"sku":"9781781689820","price":11.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781689820.jpg?v=1720056486"},{"product_id":"class-war-conservatism-and-other-essays-9781781687703","title":"Class War Conservatism: And Other Essays","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen, in 2013, the \u003ci\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e labeled Ralph Miliband \"The Man  Who Hated Britain,\" a diverse host rallied to his defense. Those who had  worked with him - from both left and right - praised his work and  character. He was lauded as \"one of the best-known academic Marxists of  his generation\" and a leading figure of the New Left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eClass War Conservatism\u003c\/i\u003e  collects together his most significant political essays and shows the  scope and brilliance of his thinking. Ranging from the critical anatomy  of capitalism to a clear-eyed analysis of the future of socialism in  Britain, this selection shows Miliband as an independent and prescient  thinker of great insight. Throughout, his writing is a passionate and  forcefully argued demand for social justice and a better future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA veritable giant of a man who had an almost unique capacity to understand-and explain-the world in which we live. -- Tony Benn\u003cbr\u003eAn inspiring teacher of politics and an internationally renowned figure on the British Left. * Daily Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003eA Miliband speech was always a treat; alternately sarcastic and scholarly, witty and vicious. -- Tariq Ali\u003cbr\u003eA beacon on the international Left. He epitomized what it meant to be a creative and independent socialist intellectual, and he provided consistent leadership in defining the issues for critical engagement. -- Leo Panitch\u003cbr\u003eHis whole effort is to render the language of socialism in terms of the needs of the here and now. -- Raphael Samuel","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741075747159,"sku":"9781781687703","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781781687703.jpg?v=1720056486"},{"product_id":"extreme-cities-the-peril-and-promise-of-urban-life-in-the-age-of-climate-change-9781784780364","title":"Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos? In \u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities,\u003c\/i\u003e Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion's share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world's megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk when water levels rise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e, Dawson offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities, describing the efforts of Staten Island, New York, and Shishmareff, Alaska residents to relocate; Holland's models for defending against the seas; and the development of New York City before and after Hurricane Sandy. Our best hope lies not with fortified sea walls, he argues. Rather, it lies with urban movements already fighting to remake our cities in a more just and equitable way. As much a harrowing study as a call to arms \u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e is a necessary read for anyone concerned with the threat of global warming, and of the cities of the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e is a ground-breaking investigation of the vulnerability of our cities in an age of climate chaos. We feel safe and protected in the middle of our great urban areas, but as Sandy and Katrina made clear, and as this fine book reveals anew, the massive shifts on our earth increasingly lay bare the social inequalities that fracture our civilization. -- Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of \u003ci\u003eEaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany books have elucidated the ever-increasing dangers of climate change, particularly the disastrous impact that rising sea levels will have on coastal regions, but Dawson goes further as he outlines some potential solutions to this crisis. Massive technological projects may not be what's needed, he finds; instead, the solution may already exist in radical movements to forge a more just and equitable society. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eThe way we design and live in cities will determine humanity's ability to avoid an anthropogenic mass extinction event in the coming century. Dawson makes this vividly clear in \u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e, laying out in detail the nature of the problem and some possible positive actions we can take. Crucial to his argument is the fact that technological solutions will not be enough, so that we need to drastically reform the capitalist economic system to properly price and value the biosphere and human lives. His point that social justice is now a necessary survival strategy makes this not just a meticulous history and analysis of our situation, but also an exciting call to action. -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Red Mars Trilogy and \u003ci\u003eNew York 2140\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCities both in the North and the South are already suffering the effects of climate change. Government and business fitfully recognize and respond, but in ways that reinforce existing injustices and as often as not make things worse. Dawson shows how social movements have combined action on disaster relief with forms of equitable common life to produce models for radical adaptation from which we can all learn. This is a brilliant summation of what we know and what we can do build a new kind of city in the ruins of the old. -- McKenzie Wark, author of \u003ci\u003eMolecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA powerful argument in a dire situation: that we revise our cities to the new game changer, or climate change will revise urban existences as we know it. -- Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, director-general of Bengal Institute of Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements\u003cbr\u003eA sophisticated and provocative exploration of the unfolding impact of climate change on urban environments. -- Christoph Lindner, Professor of Urban Theory and Visual Culture, University of Oregon\u003cbr\u003eA revelatory confrontation between two forms of 'surplus liquidity': the rent-seeking excess of circulating global capital and the more literal liquidity of the rising tides of climate change. The setting is the city and this meticulously researched and argued book probes the nexus of myopia, greed, environmental disaster-and hope-that has placed the urban habitat of billions of us in extremis. -- Michael Sorkin, author of \u003ci\u003eAll Over the Map: Writing on Buildings and Cities\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA must-read for everyone who wants to understand the politics of climate change in an increasingly urban planet, and to explore the possibilities for radical change beyond all technological fixes and governmental adjustments that only reproduce the system as it is. -- Marco Armiero, director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden\u003cbr\u003eA superb essay of political ecology, \u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e demonstrates that there is nothing more depending on nature than the city, offering both a diagnosis and a possible therapy for one of the greatest challenges of our time. -- Serenella Iovino, editor of \u003ci\u003eMaterial Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities \u003c\/i\u003etakes the critical long view to challenge city decision-makers to deal seriously with the clash of business-as-usual development, threats from climate change, and persistent social inequality to develop real transformations to drive cities toward sustainability and resilience. -- Timon McPhearson, Director, Urban Systems Lab at The New School, New York City\u003cbr\u003eWith the majority of humanity located in cities, it behooves us to consider urban ecologies as recent and future sites of non-natural disasters as well as inspiring places of collective resilience and struggles for justice. Dawson's book is a guiding light. -- T.J. Demos, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at UC Santa Cruz, Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies\u003cbr\u003eThe definitive study of an urban-and planetary-system pushed to the breaking point. \u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e paints a terrifying, but also hopeful, picture, weaving together accounts of iron-fisted states, greedy real estate developers, and the communities that challenge their rule. -- Jason W. Moore, author of \u003ci\u003eCapitalism in the Web of Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA profoundly sobering picture of climate change's uneven urban toll, both across global expanses and within particular neighborhoods, while also spotlighting instances of radical, on-the-ground resistance to such trends. -- Emily Scott, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zuric and co-editor of \u003ci\u003eCritical Landscapes: Art, Space, Politics\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA substantive contribution to the growing dialogue about our response-or lack thereof-to climate change. * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003eDawson makes a convincing case that, unless urban dwellers and civic leaders engage in a fundamental reconceptualization of the city and whom it serves, the future of urban life is dim. * Publishers Weekly (? Starred Review) *\u003cbr\u003e[Dawson] is well attuned to the ways that upheavals and disasters disproportionately affect the socioeconomically disadvantaged. As Donald Trump continues to roll back protection measures and disavow the U.S.'s role in global cooperation to mitigate the effects of climate change, [Extreme Cities] is a clear-eyed reminder of who, and what, will be left most vulnerable as a result. * Fast Company *\u003cbr\u003eBooks on climate change are a dime a dozen now, but few, if any, truly reckon with the potential scale of the disasters that await. Dawson reveals the inadequacies of current plans to deal with the problems that cities around the world will face. Forget such buzzwords as 'green cities,' 'resilience,' and 'sustainable development' - the age of 'disaster communism' is here. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eNamed one of the top 10 books of the year by Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003e[\u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities\u003c\/i\u003e] is a sobering account of how planetary urbanization has put us on a collision course with the natural world. -- Jonathan Hahn * Sierra Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eExtreme Cities is an angry book-as it should be ... Ashley Dawson outlines the existential dilemma facing coastal cities, and the refusal of various powerbrokers to acknowledge that reality, in bold and frequently horrifying terms. -- Chris Barsanti * Rain Taxi *\u003cbr\u003eInvoking terms such as \"climate apartheid,\" he greatly expands what people traditionally think of as relevant climate policy language. Recognizing that climate change mitigation and adaptation are interwoven with-and exacerbated by-social inequities and other problems plaguing modern cities is sobering, but this realization provides hope that humanity can move toward greater resilience to environmental problems by addressing non-climatic factors that will improve cities in the presence or absence of climate change. * Choice *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eExtreme Cities \u003c\/i\u003etakes on the needed work of slowing down to chronicle and consider this meantime, without shying away from its messiness.More than simply lay out the existence of disparities, it illuminates the relationship between them. -- Liz Koslov * Public Books *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741285921111,"sku":"9781784780364","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784780364.jpg?v=1720057131"},{"product_id":"tear-gas-from-the-battlefields-of-world-war-i-to-the-streets-of-today-9781784780265","title":"Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of World War I to","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne hundred years ago, French troops fired tear gas grenades into German trenches. Designed to force people out from behind barricades and trenches, tear gas causes burning of the eyes and skin, tearing, and gagging. Chemical weapons are now banned from war zones. But today, tear gas has become the most commonly used form of \"less-lethal\" police force. In 2011, the year that protests exploded from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, tear gas sales tripled. Most tear gas is produced in the United States, and many images of protestors in Tahrir Square showed tear gas canisters with \"Made in USA\" printed on them, while Britain continues to sell tear gas to countries on its own human-rights blacklist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn engrossing century-spanning narrative, \u003ci\u003eTear Gas\u003c\/i\u003e is the first history of this weapon, and takes us from military labs and chemical weapons expos to union assemblies and protest camps, drawing on declassified reports and witness testimonies to show how policing with poison came to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is this violence that comes through most clearly in Tear Gas - the psychological factors, the sheer unfairness and dismissiveness that accompany the use of chemicals against demonstrators and ordinary citizens, all come through brilliantly. Tear gas not only affects protesters and bystanders indiscriminately; it relegates the status of a dissenting citizen to that of a mere irritant. -- Yiannis Baboulias * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eA vivid history of the time and also-as good radical accounts should be-a source of encouragement to those fighting all too similar battles today -- Hilary Rose\u003cbr\u003eThere is something epic about Anna Feigenbaum's \u003ci\u003eTear Gas\u003c\/i\u003e, its scope and intensity, the way that chemistry - the orienting science of the industrial revolution - provides the material to manage that revolution's epic collapse ... There is crucial knowledge to be found here. -- Joshua Clover, author of\u003ci\u003e Riot.Strike.Riot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA passionately argued history of the development and gradual spread of tear gas around the world ... a clarion call for reassessment of the widespread availability and misuse of tear gas. -- Patrick Wicklen, Researcher on Arms Control and Human Rights at Amnesty International\u003cbr\u003eFascinating, deeply researched and lucid ... We have become so accustomed to the use of tear gas during protests that it comes as a shock when we realize, in reading this book, how little we know about the longer-term effects of what is in some ways a chemical weapon. -- Laleh Khalili, author of\u003ci\u003e Time in the Shadows\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRead Feigenbaum's book. It's timely, well-written, and very important. -- Evaggelos Vallianatos * Independent Science News *\u003cbr\u003eFeigenbaum integrates science and history with a compelling discussion of tear gas's history and its present role in the civilian arena. * Choice *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741285953879,"sku":"9781784780265","price":17.28,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784780265.jpg?v=1720057131"},{"product_id":"power-games-a-political-history-of-the-olympics-9781784780722","title":"Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Olympics have a checkered, sometimes scandalous, political history. Jules Boykoff, a former US Olympic team member, takes readers from the event's nineteenth-century origins, through the Games' flirtation with Fascism, and into the contemporary era of corporate control. Along the way he recounts vibrant alt-Olympic movements, such as the Workers' Games and Women's Games of the 1920s and 1930s as well as athlete-activists and political movements that stood up to challenge the Olympic machine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Olympic history that simply hasn't been told. -- Olympic medalist John Carlos, author of \u003ci\u003eThe John Carlos Story\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShould be on every Olympian's bookshelf. -- Laurence Halsted, fencer and \"Team GB\" Olympian at Rio 2016\u003cbr\u003e[Boykoff's] jaunty polemic \u003ci\u003ePower\u003c\/i\u003e Games is billed as a political history of the Olympics. It is actually more of a call-to-arms to people faced with this giant intrusion. * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eAs much a tool for activists as a work of scholarship, [\u003ci\u003ePower Games\u003c\/i\u003e] relentlessly attacks the hypocrisy of the Olympic myth. * Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003eA great irony is that the modern Olympics, first envisioned as an alternative to war, have themselves become a form of low-intensity warfare. As Jules Boykoff chronicles in this pathbreaking history, host cities have used the Games to leverage urban renewal, neighborhood demolition, and mass population displacement. The preparations for the Rio Olympics have gone one step further and become a literal urban counterinsurgency, as elite police units occupy and 'cleanse' one favela after another. -- Mike Davis, author of \u003ci\u003ePlanet of Slums\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJules Boykoff takes us deep into the heart to of the Olympic industry to look at the experiences of the people who are affected most by these Games-you and me. This powerful book explores how individuals and groups-from Indigenous people, to athletes to the homeless-have opened our eyes to the possibility of a more humane world through the Olympics. Boykoff also makes it clear that the Olympics have amends to make with Indigenous people worldwide, whether in Canada, the United States, or Australia. Indigenous people have struggled to defend their lands and rights against the Olympic juggernaut, linking their struggles with those of the broader public, showing us how the Games could and should leave better legacies for all, not just the well-to-do. \u003ci\u003ePower Games\u003c\/i\u003e is an insightful chronicle of Indigenous activism in and against the Games, as well as an intellectual roadmap for how all of our interests are intertwined. In elevating Indigenous voices, Boykoff also exposes the problematic representations of Indigenous people that are frequently proffered by Olympic-controlled media. \u003ci\u003ePower Games\u003c\/i\u003e is an important and approachable work that should be on every bookshelf, a must read for anyone interested in the future of the Games. -- Janice Forsyth, former Director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University in Ontario, member of the Fisher River Cree First Nation\u003cbr\u003eEven since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the International Olympic Committee has sought to deny the inherently political nature of the modern Olympic games. In\u003ci\u003e Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics\u003c\/i\u003e, Jules Boykoff, arguably the world's leading authority on the Olympic movement, exposes the IOC's claims of apoliticism as a sham. Through a carefully researched history of the Olympic Games, Boykoff skillfully details how the Olympics benefit political elites and corporate interests at the expense of local host cities and even democracy itself. But this is no pessimistic account. Boykoff ends by outlining how a more democratic and transparent Olympics is still possible, making\u003ci\u003e Power Games \u003c\/i\u003eessential reading for anyone wanting to understanding the power and importance of the modern Olympics. -- Ben Carrington, University of Texas at Austin, author of \u003ci\u003eRace, Sport and Politics\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnjoyable and informative, \u003ci\u003ePower Games\u003c\/i\u003e is an even more relevant read in the build-up to this summer's . Olympics. -- Jamie Johnson * Morning Star *\u003cbr\u003eAn important read for those who will be watching this summer's contests in Rio. Even more importantly, though, it is a necessary text for those who live in cities the International Olympic Committee is eyeing for its next overpriced neoliberal capitalist extravaganza. The people of Boston sent the IOC packing in 2015 for many of the reasons elucidated in this history. Other cities would do well to do the same. This book explains why. -- Ron Jacobs * Counterpunch *\u003cbr\u003eThis explosive book leaves us asking whether the IOC's insistence that sport is above such concerns as justice, liberty and human rights has not in fact been a fundamentally corrosive stance from the start. * Sunday Herald *\u003cbr\u003e[\u003ci\u003ePower Games\u003c\/i\u003e is] really two books in one: a historical overview of the Games' checkered history and a searing indictment of the IOC's hypocrisy and hubris...unrelentingly critical [and also] constructive. -- Houman Barekat * Jacobin *\u003cbr\u003eA truly inside-track critique of the fanfare, Boykoff addresses the games as a site of scandal and rebellion. -- Bailey Flynn * MobyLives! *\u003cbr\u003eA timely and depressing reminder of the grisly underbelly of the Olympic Games. -- Diarmaid Ferriter * Irish Times *\u003cbr\u003eBy examining Olympic history from the revival of the Games in 1896 to the imminent Rio Olympics, Boykoff traces how the Olympics have developed into the behemoth that has transformed Rio over the past seven years. Beyond this, he also provides fantastic detail on many of the egregious abuses in the name of Rio 2016. -- Adam Talbot * RioOnWatch *\u003cbr\u003eTo anyone who believes that the excesses of the Games over the past 50 years or so have betrayed a purer original legacy, [\u003ci\u003ePower Games\u003c\/i\u003e] by Jules Boykoff provides a bracing corrective. * Spectator *\u003cbr\u003eJules Boykoff debunks any remaining myths associated with the 'spirit' and 'goodwill' of the Olympic 'movement' by attending closely to the machinations of this monopolistic, non-sovereign, and largely unaccountable organization and its beneficiaries. * Public Books *\u003cbr\u003eAs sporting mega-events become the focus of a growing number of activists, Power Games provides the basis for those campaigns to be better informed and more effective. -- Malcolm Maclean * Red Pepper *\u003cbr\u003eJules Boykoff's \u003ci\u003ePower Games: A Political History of the Olympics\u003c\/i\u003e is a smart, sharp, and critically balanced outline of the modern Olympic revival. -- Robert L. Kehoe III * Boston Review *\u003cbr\u003eExhuastively researched and clearly written. -- Jon Day * Times Literary Supplement *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741286183255,"sku":"9781784780722","price":11.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784780722.jpg?v=1720057131"},{"product_id":"capital-new-york-capital-of-the-20th-century-9781784781591","title":"Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century","description":"Here is a kaleidoscopic assemblage and poetic history of New York: an unparalleled and original homage to the city, composed entirely of quotations. Drawn from a huge array of sources-histories, memoirs, newspaper articles, novels, government documents, emails-and organized into interpretive categories that reveal the philosophical architecture of the city, \u003ci\u003eCapital\u003c\/i\u003e is the ne plus ultra of books on the ultimate megalopolis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is also a book of experimental literature that transposes Walter Benjamin's unfinished magnum opus of literary montage on the modern city, \u003ci\u003eThe Arcades Project\u003c\/i\u003e, from 19th-century Paris to 20th-century New York, bringing the streets to life in categories such as \"Sex,\" \"Commodity,\" \"Downtown,\" \"Subway,\" and \"Mapplethorpe.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCapital\u003c\/i\u003e is a book designed to fascinate and to fail-for can a megalopolis truly be written? Can a history, no matter how extensive, ever be comprehensive? Each reading of this book, and of New York, is a unique and impossible passage.","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741286314327,"sku":"9781784781590","price":23.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784781590.jpg?v=1720057133"},{"product_id":"the-lamentations-of-zeno-a-novel-9781784782191","title":"The Lamentations of Zeno: A Novel","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eZeno Hintermeier is a scientist working as a travel guide on an Antarctic cruise ship, encouraging the wealthy to marvel at the least explored continent and to open their eyes to its rapid degradation. It is a troubling turn in the life of an idealistic glaciologist. Now in his early sixties, Zeno bewails the loss of his beloved glaciers, the disintegration of his marriage, and the foundering of his increasingly irrelevant career. Troubled in conscience and goaded by the smug complacency of the passengers in his charge, he starts to plan a desperate gesture that will send a wake-up call to an overheating world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Lamentations of Zeno\u003c\/i\u003e is an extraordinary evocation of the fragile and majestic wonders to be found at a far corner of the globe, written by a novelist who is a renowned travel writer. Poignant and playful, the novel recalls the experimentation of high-modernist fiction without compromising a limpid sense of place or the pace of its narrative. It is a portrait of a man in extremis, a haunting and at times irreverent tale that approaches the greatest challenge of our age-perhaps of our entire history as a species-from an impassioned human angle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe best thing one could say of an author: he enriches us. -- Günter Grass\u003cbr\u003eThrilling, nuanced, and chillingly meditative . Ilija Trojanow has written a modern fable tinged with absurd humor, dramatizing the high stakes of our current climate gamble. -- Colum McCann, author of \u003ci\u003eLet the Great World Spin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is like the stream of consciousness of our planet's unraveling lifeworld, as channeled through its melting ice and a cruise ship naturalist in love with his doomed subject. Quick, dense, jagged, beautiful. -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the \u003ci\u003eMars Trilogy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Lamentations of Zeno\u003c\/i\u003e is electric, irresistible, well written and movingly topical. Ilija Trojanow, with several masterpieces to his name, never puts a foot wrong. He is as important a writer in this day and age as Günter Grass was for his-a joy to read. -- Nuruddin Farah, author of \u003ci\u003eHiding in Plain Sight\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerfectly paced, keenly insightful and wickedly funny, \u003ci\u003eThe Lamentations of Zeno\u003c\/i\u003e is at once a much-needed indictment of the global climate crisis and a brilliant portrait of middle life. The Antarctic antics of \u003ci\u003eWhere'd You Go, Bernadette?\u003c\/i\u003e meet the wit and wisdom of \u003ci\u003eHerzog\u003c\/i\u003e, with the politics of\u003ci\u003eFlight Behavior\u003c\/i\u003e sprinkled on top: a treat! -- Taiye Selasi, author of \u003ci\u003eGhana Must Go\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is little that a novelist can tell us on the subject that we do not already know, but Trojanow gives the statistics and prognoses a human dimension . one of Europe's most original contemporary writers. * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eTrojanow harnesses his lyrical skill and wows the reader when he focuses on describing Zeno's exploration of the seemingly monochromatic yet thrilling landscape. The book is a sophisticated drama about a scientist's love for a continent that eludes his slippery hold. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eA topical polemic about global warming and climate change... \u003ci\u003eThe Lamentations of Zeno\u003c\/i\u003e is half the length and twice as good [as Ian McEwan]. Trojanow has set out on a particular expedition: to unsettle. This wise, cunning book, which does indeed possess the complex depths of an iceberg, achieves exactly that. * Irish Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Lamentations of Zeno\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel of existential dread... in contemplating the already accomplished destruction of habitats, the consumerism that marks nearly every human activity and the digital onslaught that has colonised our minds, the reader may discover that Zeno's soul-sickness speaks to some disquiet in his or her own battered soul. * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eShort, sharp, bitter, and very funny. -- Nicola Twilley * New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003eWith a sharp ear for pop song lyrics and a love of glaciers, our antihero seems to be fighting a losing battle against climate change and the clueless humans who foster it. -- Jay Trachtenberg * Austin Chronicle *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741286740311,"sku":"9781784782191","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784782191.jpg?v=1720057134"},{"product_id":"october-the-story-of-the-russian-revolution-9781784782789","title":"October: The Story of the Russian Revolution","description":"In February of 1917 Russia was a backward, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a panoramic sweep, stretching from St Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilisation that still resonates loudly today. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChina Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741286805847,"sku":"9781784782788","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784782788.jpg?v=1720057133"},{"product_id":"policing-the-planet-why-the-policing-crisis-led-to-black-lives-matter-9781784783167","title":"Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCombining firsthand accounts from activists with the research of scholars and reflections from artists, Policing the Planet traces the global spread of the broken-windows policing strategy, first established in New York City under Police Commissioner William Bratton. It's a doctrine that has vastly broadened police power the world over-to deadly effect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith contributions from #BlackLivesMatter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, Ferguson activist and Law Professor Justin Hansford, Director of New York-based Communities United for Police Reform Joo-Hyun Kang, poet Martín Espada, and journalist Anjali Kamat, as well as articles from leading scholars Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Robin D. G. Kelley, Naomi Murakawa, Vijay Prashad, and more, Policing the Planet describes ongoing struggles from New York to Baltimore to Los Angeles, London, San Juan, San Salvador, and beyond.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book is the best analytical and political response we have to the historic rebellions in Ferguson! Don't miss it. -- Cornel West, author of \u003ci\u003eBlack Prophetic Fire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe owe Jordan Camp and Christina Heatherton a great expression of gratitude for this brilliant and provocative collection of voices that compels us to see the Black Lives Matter Movement in the larger context of twenty-first-century racial capitalism and the growing carceral state. -- Barbara Ransby, author of \u003ci\u003eElla Baker and the Black Freedom Movement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA major work . As someone who certainly admires the work of these scholars, I couldn't think of a more compelling and timely work such as this. I am pleased to not only be in community with these amazing people but to listen and learn from them . \u003ci\u003ePolicing the Planet\u003c\/i\u003e comes at an incredibly important time. -- Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture\u003cbr\u003eWhen this series of essays addressing contemporary activism's biggest movement hits stands in May, we'll be ready. A variety of contributors, including anti-police brutality and militarization activists from around the country and world, promise to make \u003ci\u003ePolicing the Planet\u003c\/i\u003e a definitive work for anybody confused about exactly what structural law enforcement powers lead to our current racial justice climate. * Colorlines *\u003cbr\u003eThis broad collection of sharp commentary from activists, academics, and artists situates recent struggles right where they belong-in opposition to an increasingly global regime of police abuse. * Flavorwire *\u003cbr\u003eA probing collection of essays and interviews. * Philadelphia Tribune *\u003cbr\u003eThrough compiling so many critical voices in one place, Camp and Heatherton have created a much-needed guidebook of resistance to our planet's police state and the structures of urban governance that feed it. -- Aaron Cantú * Washington Spectator *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePolicing the Planet\u003c\/i\u003e is an important intervention to a key issue at a crucial time. -- Ramor Ryan * TeleSur *\u003cbr\u003eAn incredible anthology tracing the bloody history of broken-windows policing and its implications for city life in general. -- James Tracy * Rooflines *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741286838615,"sku":"9781784783167","price":15.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784783167.jpg?v=1720057133"},{"product_id":"the-man-who-closed-the-asylums-franco-basaglia-and-the-revolution-in-mental-health-care-9781784784164","title":"The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1961, when Franco Basaglia arrived outside the grim walls of the  Gorizia asylum, on the Italian border with Yugoslavia, it was a place of  horror, a Bedlam for the mentally sick and excluded, redolent of  Basaglia's own wartime experience inside a fascist gaol. Patients were  frequently restrained for long periods, and therapy was largely a matter  of electric and insulin shocks. The corridors stank, and for many of  the interned the doors were locked for life. This was a concentration  camp, not a hospital.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBasaglia, the new Director, was expected to  practise all the skills of oppression in which he had been schooled,  but he would have none of this. The place had to be closed down by  opening it up from the inside, bringing freedom and democracy to the  patients, the nurses and the psychiatrists working in that 'total  institution'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInspired by the writings of authors such as Primo  Levi, R. D. Laing, Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault and Frantz Fanon, and  the practices of experimental therapeutic communities in the UK,  Basaglia's seminal work as a psychiatrist and campaigner in Gorizia,  Parma and Trieste fed into and substantially contributed to the national  and international movement of 1968. In 1978 a law was passed (the  'Basaglia law') which sanctioned the closure of the entire Italian  asylum system.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first comprehensive study of this revolutionary approach to mental health care, \u003ci\u003eThe Man Who Closed the Asylums\u003c\/i\u003e  is a gripping account of one of the most influential movements in  twentiethcentury psychiatry, which helped to transform the way we see  mental illness. Basaglia's work saved countless people from a miserable  existence, and his legacy persists, as an object lesson in the struggle  against the brutality and ignorance that the establishment peddles to  the public as common sense.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeopled by a cast of extraordinary characters - patients, colleagues, friends and enemies - revolving around the charismatic and now legendary psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, John Foot's sympathetic account de-mythologises the reform by uncovering little-known precedents, distancing Basaglia from anti-psychiatry and situating his work within Italian radical politics of the late 1960s. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in psychiatric reform. -- Howard Caygill, author of On Resistance\u003cbr\u003eThe anti-asylum movement in 1960s and '70s Italy forms one of the most fascinating episodes in western psychiatry. John Foot's richly documented and revealing study of this movement and its pioneer figure, the charismatic radical psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, adds immeasurably to our understanding of the troubled history of mental health care in modern times. -- Barbara Taylor, author of The Last Asylum\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant historical reconstruction of the work and ideas of one of the world's leading exponents of critical psychiatry. -- David Forgacs, author of Italy’s Margins\u003cbr\u003eA portrait of imperfect people who had the passion and pragmatism to put an end to a brutal and broken system. -- Sarah Wise * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eIn Italy, the literature on Basaglia tends towards either idealisation or demonisation-he's considered either a secular saint or a dangerous radical. John Foot gives a much more rounded, and fair, portrait of a complicated, committed man. -- Tobias Jones * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eHowever strong the spirit of 1968, it will not eradicate the institutional impulse from human societies. -- Peter J. Leithart * First Things *\u003cbr\u003eAn excellent book -- Melissa Reynolds * Frugal Creativity *\u003cbr\u003eBrings this diversity, richness and complexity to life in an exemplary fashion, illuminating all its different manifestations and contradictions... A triumph of committed scholarship -- Paul Gordon * TLS *\u003cbr\u003eAn important work by John Foot . should put to rest the badly-informed, lazy narrative that still prevails to the effect that Franco Basaglia was an idealist - an 'anti-psychiatrist' - who, at a stroke, disempowered doctors to certify someone as insane with disastrous results. -- Adrian C. Laing * Amazon *\u003cbr\u003eJohn Foot stresses throughout his exemplary account [that] myth and reality aren't easily separated in Basaglia's story... Foot restores a critical distance that makes it possible to present Basaglia's achievements as part of a wider story. In Italy, it took more than one man to close the asylums. -- Mike Jay * London Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003epart I\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGorizia, 1961-68\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1 Gorizia: A Revolution at the Edge of Europe\u003cbr\u003e2 Anti-psychiatry, Critical Psychiatry, Movements and Working Utopias \u003cbr\u003e3 Reading Gorizia: Sources and Narratives\u003cbr\u003e4 Basaglia and the British: A Missing Translation?\u003cbr\u003e5 Building the Team: The First Équipe in Gorizia, 1961-69\u003cbr\u003e6 Manicomio = Lager: History and Politics of an Analogy\u003cbr\u003e7 Gorizia: The Therapeutic Community\u003cbr\u003e8 Il Picchio: The Voice of the Patients and the 'Archive of the Revolution'\u003cbr\u003e9 Anti-psychiatry, Italian Style\u003cbr\u003e10 One of the Wonders of the World: The General Meeting\u003cbr\u003e11 The Genesis of The Negated Institution\u003cbr\u003e12 Th e Negated Institution: The 'Bible' of 1968\u003cbr\u003e13 Gorizia and 1968, Gorizia \u003ci\u003eas\u003c\/i\u003e 1968\u003cbr\u003e14 The Incident\u003cbr\u003e15 I giardini di Abele and Morire di classe:Gorizia on Television and the Role of Photography\u003cbr\u003e16 The End of an Era: Basaglia Leaves Gorizia\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003epart II\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeyond Gorizia: The Long March\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e17 Perugia: The 'Perfect' Example, 1965-78\u003cbr\u003e18 Parma: The Gas-Meter Reader and the Total Institution\u003cbr\u003e19 Reggio Emilia: Out into the Territory, 1969-75\u003cbr\u003e20 Gorizia: The Second Équipe, 1969-72\u003cbr\u003e21 Arezzo: The Gorizian Diaspora\u003cbr\u003e22 Trieste: The End of the Asylum, 1971-79\u003cbr\u003e23 The 180 Law: History, Myth and Reality","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741286969687,"sku":"9781784784164","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784784164.jpg?v=1720057134"},{"product_id":"violent-borders-refugees-and-the-right-to-move-9781784784744","title":"Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForty thousand people died trying to cross international borders in the past decade, with the high-profile deaths along the shores of Europe only accounting for half of the grisly total.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReece Jones argues that these deaths are not exceptional, but rather the result of state attempts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities. \"We may live in an era of globalization,\" he writes, \"but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eViolent Borders\u003c\/i\u003e, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and their dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFocuses helpfully on an uncomfortable and generally overlooked fact - that in recent years border control regimes have become increasingly and often horrifically militarised in many parts of the world. Physical restraints in the shape of walls and security fences have multiplied; the body count is appallingly high. For Jones, this shows that the institutions of the modern state are essentially violent. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eA much-needed counter to a thousand newspaper columns calling on us to secure our borders, Reece Jones' \u003ci\u003eViolent Borders\u003c\/i\u003e goes beyond the headlines to look at the deeper causes of the migration crisis. Borders, Jones convincingly argues, are a means of inflicting violence on poor people. This is an engaging and lucid analysis of a much misunderstood issue. -- Arun Kundnani, author of The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror\u003cbr\u003eFrom early modern land enclosures through Westphalian state formation to the current fortification of the US-Mexico frontier, Reece Jones explains what a boundary is, and how national sovereignty is being reinforced, in an age of capital mobility, by the crackdown on human movement across borders. -- Jeremy Harding, author of Border Vigils: Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich World\u003cbr\u003eI'd like an endless supply of Reece Jones' \u003ci\u003eViolent Borders\u003c\/i\u003e to hand out to all the people I meet who flirt with an anti-refugee sensibility. This book is the antidote to the world of walls that we live in, an argument for a world of humanity. -- Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South\u003cbr\u003eIn an era of terrorism, global inequality, and rising political tension over migration, Jones argues that tight border controls make the world worse, not better. * Boston Globe *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287100759,"sku":"9781784784744","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784784744.jpg?v=1720057134"},{"product_id":"cities-of-power-the-urban-the-national-the-popular-the-global-9781784785451","title":"Cities of Power: The Urban, The National, The","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this brilliant, very original survey of the politics and meanings of urban landscapes, leading sociologist Göran Therborn offers a tour of the world's major capital cities, and the forces that have shaped them. Through a global, historical lens, and with a thematic range extending from the mutations of modernist architecture to the contemporary return of urban revolutions, Therborn questions received assumptions about the source, manifestations and reach of urban power, combining perspectives on politics, sociology, urban planning, architecture, and urban iconography. With its unique systematic overview, from Washington DC and revolutionary Paris to the flamboyant twenty-first century capital of Kazakhstan, its wealth of urban observations from all the populated continents, and its sharp and multi-faceted analyses, \u003ci\u003eCities of Power\u003c\/i\u003e forces us to rethink our urban future, as well as our historically shaped present.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGöran Therborn analyses urban life with sweeping historical and global range. As he shows in tremendous detail, urban history is baked into a place by its streets, its institutions and the cultural outlook of its inhabitants -- Max Holleran * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eShould become an early port of call for anyone looking to know more about how urban and national power functions around the world * Irish Times *\u003cbr\u003eOne of the world's most engaging and intriguing sociologists. \u003ci\u003eCities of Power\u003c\/i\u003e helps us understand the current tensions between states and people, capitals and peripheries, populism and elitism, nationalism and globalism -- Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of \u003ci\u003eOur America: A Hispanic History of the United States\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCities of Power\u003c\/i\u003e is explicitly a riposte to the idea of the Global City, and the peculiar \u003ci\u003eMonocle\u003c\/i\u003e-magazine vision of trans-national, interconnected, intangible capitalism that it serves to alternately describe and vindicate. Few thinkers display such a genuinely global range -- Owen Hatherley * New Left Review *\u003cbr\u003eOne more publication in a sparkling list of career accomplishments, \u003ci\u003eCities of Power\u003c\/i\u003e might function as an important resource for many a sociology doctoral student -- Luzia Lodder * PopMatters *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287461207,"sku":"9781784785451","price":12.34,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784785451.jpg?v=1720057135"},{"product_id":"the-shock-of-the-anthropocene-the-earth-history-and-us-9781784785031","title":"The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Earth has entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene. What we are facing is not only an environmental crisis, but a geological revolution of human origin. In two centuries, our planet has tipped into a state unknown for millions of years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow did we get to this point? Refuting the convenient view of a \"human species\" that upset the Earth system, unaware of what it was doing, this book proposes the first critical history of the Anthropocene, shaking up many accepted ideas: about our supposedly recent \"environmental awareness,\" about previous challenges to industrialism, about the manufacture of ignorance and consumerism, about so-called energy transitions, as well as about the role of the military in environmental destruction. In a dialogue between science and history, \u003ci\u003eThe Shock of the Anthropocene\u003c\/i\u003e dissects a new theoretical buzzword and explores paths for living and acting politically in this rapidly developing geological epoch\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt a time when the word 'Anthropocene' is becoming so fashionable, this well-documented and well-argued book will help readers sort out the various meanings of this most unstable label. The authors show the bewildering varieties of historical actors at work in what is called the 'environmental crisis'. -- Bruno Latour\u003cbr\u003eA very important book. In this historically rich and meticulously detailed work, Bonneuil and Fressoz show us how to keep our head without losing our heart to technocracy. -- Timothy Morton, author of Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World\u003cbr\u003eCleverly argued and extremely compelling, this book offers a remarkably timely analysis and critique of the very notion of the Anthropocene. It's widely held that modern industrial societies innocently and ignorantly generated the forces that have wrought such dramatic ecological effects on their world. It's also believed that only very recently, because of the heroic work of a few visionaries, has this ignorance been overcome and the truth of the Anthropocene at last revealed. Using an astonishing range of sources from climate sciences and economics, history and technology, Bonneuil and Fressoz brilliantly show the utter falsity of this story, and why it matters so much. -- Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge\u003cbr\u003eThis revelatory, lucid and daring book rejects the delusions of control implicit in conventional environmentalism, and outlines the enormity of the changes necessary for us to continue to live in the Anthropocene. -- David Edgerton, King’s College London\u003cbr\u003eA timely book which firmly grounds history in the stuff that the sciences now tell us about what commodified life does to the planet. This is an essential volume for the project of historical thought and action. -- McKenzie Wark, author of Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene\u003cbr\u003eIn questioning the idea of an apolitical Anthropocene and raising the spectre of a new self-selecting scientific geocracy, their book should begin a vital discussion. We do need a new politics of the Anthropocene. -- Fred Pearce * New Scientist *\u003cbr\u003eA wide-ranging essay that combines elements of environmental history, history of science and technology, and economic and intellectual history, while covering an extensive geographic base including British, American, French, and German cases. * Public Books *\u003cbr\u003eThis bold, brilliantly argued history of the Anthropocene epoch is a corrective to cosy thinking about humanity's grave disruptions to Earth systems. Bonneuil and Fressoz call for a \"new environmental humanities\", and a shift away from market-based approaches that feed the beast. -- Barbara Kiser * Nature *\u003cbr\u003eThis is the first book to seriously come to terms-philosophically and psychologically as well as scientifically-with the overwhelming planetary transformation implied by the word 'Anthropocene.' Bonneuil and Fressoz have done humanity a great service by thinking through the startling issues raised by the fact that our species has launched the entire ecosphere onto a new and frightening trajectory. -- Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute\u003cbr\u003eThe Shock of the Anthropocene is a detailed, data-driven, and well-argued critique of conventional thought on enormity of the challenges and changes that lay ahead for humanity on an Earth that is irreparably damaged by our actions. It should be a central addition to readers' climate change libraries. * New York Journal of Books *\u003cbr\u003eThe book is very well written and highly readable. I recommend the book highly. It is currently the most lucid and comprehensive introduction to 'Anthropocene discourse'. -- Noel Castree * Antipode *\u003cbr\u003eThese two historians have undertaken to explain the entry into this new epoch and reveal its major determinants. * Le Monde *\u003cbr\u003eChallenges the certainties of our modernity, our mode of development and our view of the world. * Libération *\u003cbr\u003eThis book attacks such widespread ideas as 'sustainable development,' 'green growth,' or, still worse, 'geo-engineering'-the new manifestation of the blind faith in a technological process supposedly now capable of reducing global warming by various clever tricks. * La Vie *\u003cbr\u003eThis is no climate change doomsday book. It's about the long-term legacy of the planet we are altering. -- Laura Cole * Geographical Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eImpressively researched, intellectually rigorous and elegantly written . it should be assigned reading for all current and aspiring Anthropocenologists. * Environment and History *\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most insightful books on the Anthropocene. * Ecozoïc *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePART ONE WHAT'S IN A WORD? Chapter 1. Welcome to the Anthropocene Chapter 2. Th inking with Gaia: Towards Environmental Humanities PART TWO SPEAKING FOR THE EARTH, GUIDING HUMANITY: Deconstructing the Geocratic Grand Narrative of the Anthropocene Chapter 3. Clio, the Earth and the Anthropocenologists Chapter 4. Who Is the Anthropos? PART THREE WHAT HISTORIES FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE? Chapter 5. Th ermocene: A Political History of CO2 Chapter 6. Thanatocene: Power and Ecocide Chapter 7. Phagocene: Consuming the Planet Chapter 8. Phronocene: Grammars of Environmental Reflexivity Chapter 9. Agnotocene: Externalizing Nature, Economizing the World Chapter 10 . Capitalocene: A Combined History of Earth System and World-Systems Chapter 11 . Polemocene: Resisting the Deterioration of the Earth since 1750 Conclusion: Surviving and Living the Anthropocene","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287493975,"sku":"9781784785031","price":21.68,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"capitalism-and-the-sea-the-maritime-factor-in-the-making-of-the-modern-world-9781784785239","title":"Capitalism and the Sea: The Maritime Factor in","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the IPEG 2022 Book Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe global ocean has through the centuries served as a trade route, strategic space, fish bank and supply chain for the modern capitalist economy. While sea beds are drilled for their fossil fuels and minerals, and coastlines developed for real estate and leisure, the oceans continue to absorb the toxic discharges of our carbon civilization - warming, expanding, and acidifying the blue water part of the planet in ways that will bring unpredictable but irreversible consequences for the rest of the biosphere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this bold and radical new book, Campling and Colás analyse these and other sea-related phenomena through a historical and geographical lens. In successive chapters dealing with the political economy, ecology and geopolitics of the sea, the authors argue that the earth's geographical separation into land and sea has significant consequences for capitalist development. The distinctive features of this mode of production continuously seek to transcend the land-sea binary in an incessant quest for profit, engendering new alignments of sovereignty, exploitation and appropriation in the capture and coding of maritime spaces and resources.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere at last is a sophisticated and theoretically informed book about the maritime origins and development of capitalism. After this mighty blow against the bias of terracentrism, the history of the modern world will never look quite the same. -- Marcus Rediker, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Slave Ship: A Human History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis ground-breaking, immensely rich and densely argued book shows how criss-crossing sealanes have connected ports and cities, and brought together different modes of production and social classes. Over the centuries, the sea has circulated values, human subjects, and shifting modes of exploitation; in doing this, global capitalism has established new chains of activities and evolving patterns of extraction, exploitation, circulation and distribution of (surplus) value. This mighty work of scholarship traces these human endeavours; in doing this, it has opened fresh avenues of research. * Alfredo Saad-Filho, King’s College London *\u003cbr\u003eI can think of no other book that has dealt with the pivotal role of the sea in the evolution of capitalism as well as the wider canvas of capitalism's interaction with the sea with as much innovation and more comprehensively than this fascinating and lucidly written work by Campling and Colás. This is also a profoundly timely intervention, given the horrifying ways in which global warming, the scourge of plastic waste , and capital's ever faster depletion of marine life have degraded the oceans irreversibly. -- Jairus Banaji, author, \u003ci\u003eTheory as History; and A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCapitalism and the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e has liberated me from the shackles of my earthbound imaginary. Liam Campling and Alejandro Colás have given us that rare opportunity: to rethink how historical capitalism works, marshalling a breathtaking crystallization of insights from environmental history, political economy, and social history. \u003ci\u003eCapitalism and the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e unsettles our conventional thinking about how power, profit and oceanic webs of life have shaped modernity, from its genocidal origins to today's planetary crisis. Their word for these gruesome and lucrative entanglements - \"terraqueous\" - doesn't roll off the tongue, but it will stick with you for a lifetime after reading this book. I will never think about capitalism the same. -- Jason W Moore, author, \u003ci\u003eCapitalism in the Web of Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe role of the sea in the modern world is hugely unappreciated. Campling and Colas offer an unrivalled analysis of the political and economic forces that shape our relationship to the sea, and the labour of those who work on and around it. -- Jeremy Anderson, Head of Strategic Research, International Transport Workers' Federation\u003cbr\u003eA rich Marxian account of how the maritime made capitalism. Campling and Colas tell the absorbing, deeply researched, and sweeping story of how capitalism was forged through slavery, seaborne trade, naval projection of power, vast maritime empires and modern logistics. \u003ci\u003eCapitalism and the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e shows us that, in the words of the great St Lucian poet Derek Walcott, the sea is history. -- Laleh Khalili\u003cbr\u003eA novel perspective...\u003ci\u003eCapitalism and the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e brings into focus important questions from the history of capitalism. -- Steve Edwards * Marx and Philosophy *\u003cbr\u003eAn important and rewarding read, as well as a valuable addition to the growing body of work studying capital's relationship to ecology and the destruction of the environment on which we all rely. * International Socialism *\u003cbr\u003eAn oceanic journey through the political economy, ecology and geopolitics of the sea. * Morning Star *\u003cbr\u003eA fabulously wide-ranging new history of the last five centuries, covering the slave-trade, ecology, modern container ports and EEZ's, industrial fisheries, territorial disputes and much more. -- Tim Barton * Hastings Independent *\u003cbr\u003eAn ambitious, systematic, and convincing account of the reciprocal impact of capital upon the salt-water world in the past 400 years. -- Nikolas Kosmatopoulos * Antipode *\u003cbr\u003eAn engrossing and meticulously researched book that challenges conventional wisdom about the role of the sea in the modern world. -- Soumik Sarkar * Odisha Economic Journal *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287559511,"sku":"9781784785239","price":19.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784785239.jpg?v=1720057136"},{"product_id":"the-bbc-myth-of-a-public-service-9781784784836","title":"The BBC: Myth of a Public Service","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe BBC is one of the most important institutions in Britain; it is also  one of the most misunderstood. Despite its claim to be independent and  impartial, and the constant accusations of a liberal bias, from its Reithian origins to its coverage of the 2019 General Election: the BBC has  always sided with the elite. As Tom Mills demonstrates, we are only  getting the news that the Establishment wants aired in public. And yet in the current age of multi-platform news, this bias is increasingly exposed. Mills asks if the institution is fit for purpose? And can it even be reformed? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe BBC\u003c\/i\u003e is an important and timely examination of a crucial public institution that may threaten the very thing it was meant to uphold: democracy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Impressive ... a direct challenge to the notion of the BBC as a pillar of liberalism and social democracy * Times Higher Education *\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant corrective to mainstream histories of the BBC and a valuable  reminder of the need to build a democratic media that is free from  vested interests -- Des Freedman, Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths\u003cbr\u003eRequired reading for those who want to understand Britain, and an  invaluable resource for those who want to change it for the better. -- Daniel Hind, author of The Return of the Public: Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform\u003cbr\u003eAn excellent critique of the history of the BBC . . an important and readable book. -- David Boyle, author of The Death of Liberal Britain","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287657815,"sku":"9781784784836","price":12.01,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784784836.jpg?v=1720057135"},{"product_id":"in-the-long-run-we-are-all-dead-keynesianism-political-economy-and-revolution-9781784786007","title":"In the Long Run We Are All Dead: Keynesianism,","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the ruins of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, progressives the world over clamoured to resurrect the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. The crisis seemed to expose the disaster of small-state, free-market liberalization and deregulation. Keynesian political economy, in contrast, could put the state back at the heart of the economy and arm it with the knowledge needed to rescue us. But what it was supposed to rescue us from was not so clear. Was it the end of capitalism or the end of the world? For Keynesianism, the answer is both. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGeoff Mann's \u003ci\u003eIn the Long Run We're All Dead\u003c\/i\u003e is a thoroughgoing critique of Keynes for our post-crash world, and an accessible and historically grounded introduction to his masterwork \u003ci\u003eThe General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. \u003c\/i\u003eMann argues that Keynesianism is thus modern liberalism's most persuasive internal critique, meeting two centuries of crisis with a proposal for capital without capitalism and revolution without revolutionaries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere have been many biographies of Keynes and many histories of the 'Keynesian revolution in government'. Mann's book belongs to neither category. Brilliant.compelling. -- Adam Tooze * London Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eA detailed, fast-flowing account of how repeatedly guileful Keynesianism crisis management has saved the elite by reengineering tragedy . rewarding reading. -- Danny Dorling, author of \u003ci\u003eInequality and the 1%\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMann's treatment of Keynes is a very interesting effort to situate his work in a longer political and philosophical debate going back to the French revolution. He treats Keynesianism as the alternative to economic collapse and\/or revolution and argues that insofar as leftists have come to embrace it, they have quite explicitly given up hope for an alternative to capitalism. -- Dean Baker, author of \u003ci\u003eThe End of Loser Liberalism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMann makes it clear that Keynes's critique of liberalism can be found already in Hegel; and that now we need to leave behind the caution of the great philosopher and the great economist, thus realizing a radical alternative to capitalism. This is a provocative, original and brilliant book. -- Domenico Losurdo, author of \u003ci\u003eLiberalism: A Counter-History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUrgent and lucid . A bravura inquiry into the intellectual history of the present and the ambiguous vitality of Keynes's \u003ci\u003eGeneral Theory\u003c\/i\u003e. -- Alberto Toscano, author of \u003ci\u003eFanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA critical rereading of Keynes, who comes across less as the liberal reformist intent on keeping capitalism (and the bourgeois order) intact, than someone attentive to the tensions within the system and, for all of its flaws, fearful of the grave dangers of leaping toward an unknown revolutionary future. \u003ci\u003eIn the Long Run We Are All Dead\u003c\/i\u003e makes for a startling, bracing and important read. -- Michael J. Watts, University of California, Berkeley\u003cbr\u003eThey say that we are all Keynesians in a foxhole, but In the long run we are all dead goes much deeper.  Profound and provocative, the book turns political and intellectual history inside out, offering nothing short of an original critique of the political economy of liberal government and capitalist modernity.  Far from a pedantic discussion of what Keynes really meant, Mann takes us from Hegel to Picketty, and much in between, in search of what Keynes and Keynesianism really mean.  His answers are sometimes surprising, occasionally unsettling, and never less than urgently relevant. -- Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia\u003cbr\u003eGeoff Mann's fascinating, if idiosyncratic, account of Keynesianism is punctuated by long forays into the history of philosophy, the history of the French Revolution and the history of economic thought. The book is broad in scope and imaginative. And the co-existence of poverty and plenty is just one of several overarching tensions animating the account. -- Michal Rozworski * Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives *\u003cbr\u003eGeoff Mann's stimulating book identifies a current of critical thought which stretches at least from the French Revolution, through Hegel and Keynes, to the present. -- Bill Dunn * Antipode *\u003cbr\u003eIn Geoff Mann's account, Keynesianism ultimately helped sever economists from their own rich tradition of heretical political philosophy and reduced them to platitudinous apologists for plutocracy...[this] is more provocative for what it implies, and sometimes outright asserts, about contemporary economics and the precarious civilization it promises to preserve. -- Matt Seybold * Los Angeles Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eGeoff Mann is well aware of the distinctions between Keynes the man, his work, and 'Keynesianism.' But his book on Keynesianism,\u003ci\u003e In the Long Run We Are All Dead\u003c\/i\u003e, is quite deliberately more about the 'ism' than the man. -- Mike Beggs * Jacobin *\u003cbr\u003eEnjoyable ... will appeal to general readers as well as those with specialist knowledge ... Readers who want to find the answers to radical critiques of Keynesianism will be inspired by the book's robust discussions of questions around revolution, political economy and liberty. * Financial Times *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287690583,"sku":"9781784786007","price":14.24,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784786007.jpg?v=1720057134"},{"product_id":"the-beautiful-struggle-a-memoir-9781784785345","title":"The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Beautiful Struggle\u003c\/i\u003e is an extraordinary memoir from the most important new voice in the US race debate and the author of New York Times bestseller list no. 1 \u003ci\u003eBetween the World and Me\u003c\/i\u003e, hailed by Toni Morrison as \"required reading.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis small and perfectly formed epic follows the lives of boys on the journey to manhood in black America and beyond in 1980s Baltimore, a city on the verge of chaos. These youngsters needed to learn fast, and Ta-Nehisi's father, Paul, was a fine teacher: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian, and an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement. \u003ci\u003eThe Beautiful Struggle\u003c\/i\u003e is a moving father-and-son story about the reality that tests us, and the love that saves us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe young James Joyce of the hip-hop generation. -- Walter Mosley\u003cbr\u003eA kind of hip-hop \u003ci\u003ePortrait of the Artist\u003c\/i\u003e. * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eA moving father-and-son story . an intense portrait of those whom the black revolution left behind, but who never broke faith with its tenets. * New York Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eA beautifully written, loving portrait of a strong father bringing his sons to manhood. * Booklist *\u003cbr\u003eHaunting and healing . a splendid memoir. * Essence *\u003cbr\u003eThe single best writer on the subject of race in the United States. * New York Observer *\u003cbr\u003eA remarkable, blunt portrait of an adolescence filled with danger, chaos, flaws, and tragedy . a love story, dispatched from the frontlines of a family. * Time Out New York *\u003cbr\u003eThe intellectual heir to James Baldwin. * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eTold in a dreamy, lyric register redolent of a voiceover in a movie flashback, \u003ci\u003eThe Beautiful Struggle\u003c\/i\u003e is both a touching portrait of filial affection and a paean to the redemptive power of culture. * Prospect *\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most high-profile commentators on race in the United States ...Reading this book is an intoxicating experience -- Bernardine Evaristo * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eThis book forces us to ask how far American society has really come, and how much further it has to go. * Financial Times *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287723351,"sku":"9781784785345","price":18.16,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784785345.jpg?v=1720057136"},{"product_id":"revolutionary-yiddishland-a-history-of-jewish-radicalism-9781784786076","title":"Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJewish radicals manned the barricades on the avenues of Petrograd and the alleys of the Warsaw ghetto; they were in the vanguard of those resisting Franco and the Nazis. They originated in Yiddishland, a vast expanse of Eastern Europe that, before the Holocaust, ran from the Baltic Sea to the western edge of Russia and incorporated hundreds of Jewish communities with a combined population of some 11 million people. Within this territory, revolutionaries arose from the Jewish misery of Eastern and Central Europe; they were raised in the fear of God and taught to respect religious tradition, but were caught up in the great current of revolutionary utopian thinking. Socialists, Communists, Bundists, Zionists, Trotskyists, manual workers and intellectuals, they embodied the multifarious activity and radicalism of a Jewish working class that glimpsed the Messiah in the folds of the red flag.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday, the world from which they came has disappeared, dismantled and destroyed by the Nazi genocide. After this irremediable break, there remain only survivors, and the work of memory for red Yiddishland. This book traces the struggles of these militants, their singular trajectories, their oscillation between great hope and doubt, their lost illusions-a red and Jewish gaze on the history of the twentieth century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIts impact on me was immense. I devoured it; my political horizons radically expanded. Not only, I came to realise, was there no contradiction between Judaism, socialism and internationalism, but, until the Nazi genocide, they existed in a profoundly interrelated way. -- Sai Englert * Salvage *\u003cbr\u003eAn eye-opening oral history. -- Gabriel Levy, author of Judaic Technologies of the World\u003cbr\u003eA haunting, inspiring and often tragic book, \u003ci\u003eRevolutionary Yiddishland\u003c\/i\u003e uses first-hand interviews, deep archival research and sharp analysis to bring to life a complex landscape of factory workers, partisans, poets, party leaders, refugees, ghetto fighters and movement intellectuals. -- Ben Lorber * In These Times *\u003cbr\u003eThis rich and poignant and often enthralling record traces the Yiddishland revolutionaries from their East European roots through the years of hope and struggle and hideous crimes to the heroic anti-Nazi resistance and beyond, with fascinating asides on Spain and Palestine. There are many lessons for today, not least the significance ofthe lively interaction of revolutionary intellectuals and workers and the efforts to integrate the commitment to radical social and economic change with the formation of a Jewish identity that would break sharply from the stultifying tradition and open the way to the aspirations of the Jewish workers' movement that was at the forefront of revolutionary struggle from its earliest days. -- Noam Chomsky\u003cbr\u003eCould there have been a future for pre-war Jewry in which Israel did not exist and Jews were gathered in a nation state within a federated Soviet Union? This is one of the questions brought up in Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg's book. There is hope for the spirit and aims behind the stories this book tells. Jewish radicalism did not die out in 1942 with the Final Solution. It now expresses itself without Yiddish. -- Clive Bloom * Times Higher Educational Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eA fascinating window onto a lost world. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complex relationship between the Jewish left, the general left, and Zionism. The gripping testimonies collected in these pages give the lie to the idea that Jews in the Shoah went like sheep to the slaughter. Brossat and Klingberg do not try to iron out the wrinkles of the past. Their insightful commentary illuminates the passions, paradoxes, triumphs and defeats of the witnesses who populate their book. -- Brian Klug, author of Being Jewish and Doing Justice\u003cbr\u003eNowadays we know more and more about the Nazi Genocide. Unfortunately, we have much less knowledge about the everyday life which preceded the horror and was so brutally terminated. For opening up this world we must praise Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klinberg for their vital new book, \u003ci\u003eRevolutionary Yiddishland.\u003c\/i\u003e Here, life is given priority over death, and the struggles of so many in the Yiddishland allow us to see past the catastrophes. -- Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People\u003cbr\u003ePraiseworthy * Jewish Currents *\u003cbr\u003eBrossat and Klingberg's book is a memorial to a missing world. As an aesthetic composition, it is beautiful. -- Max Ajl * Mondoweiss *\u003cbr\u003eAltogether, \u003ci\u003eRevolutionary Yiddishland\u003c\/i\u003e is a thoroughly engaging read. It's an important historical document preserving the memory of this radical period of Jewish and European history. -- JP O'Malley * Haaretz *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287887191,"sku":"9781784786076","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784786076.jpg?v=1720057136"},{"product_id":"storytelling-bewitching-the-modern-mind-9781784786588","title":"Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePolitics is no longer the art of the possible, but of the fictive. Its aim is not to change the world as it exists, but to affect the way that it is perceived. In \u003ci\u003eStorytelling \u003c\/i\u003eChristian Salmon looks at the twenty-first century hijacking of creative imagination, anatomizing the timeless human desire for narrative form, and how this desire is abused by the marketing mechanisms that bolster politicians and their products: luxury brands trade on embellished histories, managers tell stories to motivate employees, soldiers in Iraq train on Hollywood-conceived computer games, and spin doctors construct political lives as if they were a folk epic. This \"storytelling machine\" is masterfully unveiled by Salmon, and is shown to be more effective and insidious as a means of oppression than anything dreamed up by Orwell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA compelling and very readable polemic. * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eFrench writer Salmon here treats us to the useful spectacle of a relentless polemic against a ubiquitous idea widely held to provoke only positive feelings. As used by branders or politicians, 'storytelling' is, on his argument, a sedative, suppressing the desire for truth in favour of satisfying narrative form. -- Steven Poole * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eFascinating ... intellectually satisfying ... Salmon's insights are thought-provoking and have ramifications beyond the world of advertising. * Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003eSalmon draws together his arguments into a coherent and chilling whole. * Independent *\u003cbr\u003eSalmon makes a riveting case for how public relations (or more euphemistically, storytelling) has come to dominate statecraft and business in the West. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eThis book, which is both concise and clearly written . guides us through these texts which are largely unknown and now very influential. * Le Monde *\u003cbr\u003eThere are certain books that make you feel less stupid after reading them than before . It is a fascinating and never jargon-heavy book. * Le Progrès *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741287985495,"sku":"9781784786588","price":12.51,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784786588.jpg?v=1720057137"},{"product_id":"europes-fault-lines-racism-and-the-rise-of-the-right-9781784787226","title":"Europe's Fault Lines: Racism and the Rise of the","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is clear that the right is on the rise, but after Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the spike in popularity of extreme-right parties across Europe, the question on everyone's minds is: how did this happen?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn expansive investigation of the ways in which a newly-configured right interconnects with anti-democratic and illiberal forces at the level of the state, \u003ci\u003eEurope's Fault Lines\u003c\/i\u003e provides much-needed answers, revealing some uncomfortable truths.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat appear to be \"blind spots\" about far-right extremism on the part of the state, are shown to constitute collusion-as police, intelligence agencies and the military embark on practices of covert policing that bring them into direct or indirect contact with the far right, in ways that bring to mind the darkest days of Europe's authoritarian past.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOld racisms may be structured deep in European thought, but they have been revitalized and spun in new ways: the war on terror, the cultural revolution from the right, and the migration-linked demonization of the destitute \"scrounger.\" Drawing on her work for the Institute of Race Relations over thirty years, Liz Fekete exposes the fundamental fault lines of racism and authoritarianism in contemporary Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the twenty-five years I have known Liz Fekete she has been a tireless anti-racist and anti-fascist fighter, as well as a people's intellectual and a political inspiration. Fekete brings that cumulative experience, insight and commitment to her brilliant new book, Europe's Fault Lines, which maps the shifting terrain of racism and right wing populism in Europe, as well as continued forms of resistance. This book not only paints a gut-wrenching portrait of the vulgarity and violence of Neoliberalism, but through her clarity of analysis, Fekete gives us sustenance for the struggles that lay ahead. -- Barbara Ransby, author of \u003ci\u003eEslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs Paul Robeson\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRacism, for Liz Fekete, is the breeding ground of fascism, and her struggle to combat both-on the ground and in her writings-has earned her the reputation of being an intrepid organiser, an inspirational speaker and an organic intellectual. -- A. Sivanandan, Director Emiritus of the Institute of Race Relations\u003cbr\u003eFor twenty-five years, Fekete relentlessly monitored Europe's far right while the continent's leaders preferred to look away. With right-wing extremism finally recognised by the mainstream as a fundamental threat to Europe's future, her indictment of those who enabled, amplified, and aided the rise of the hard right is an essential contribution to the defense of democratic values. -- Arun Kundnani, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Muslims are Coming\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eEurope's Fault Lines\u003c\/i\u003e, Liz Fekete has not only written an excellent study of how racism is once again being normalised but how, in turn, it is acting as cloak under which fascism is resurgent. -- Nicolas Lalaguna * Morning Star *\u003cbr\u003eA relatively brief book, but it makes important points that are often left out of the discussion. -- Daniel Trilling * Prospect *\u003cbr\u003e[Europe's Fault Lines] provokes a range of emotional responses, from rage to helplessness, but closes leaving the reader equipped with an intellectual arsenal to begin resisting fascism in all its guises. * Peace News *\u003cbr\u003eFekete provides an accessible and stimulating discussion on the roles of the state, intellectuals, the media, and uneven development in the triumph of the right in our age of crisis and rage ... Europe's Fault Lines is a wealth of resource on one of the most disturbing aspects of our age of rage. * The Bullet *\u003cbr\u003eA perspicacious enquiry into the 'fomenting of a reactionary cultural revolution' over the last few decades ... provid[ing] the reader with a clear picture of the state of political play in Europe. * Counterfire *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741288018263,"sku":"9781784787226","price":19.72,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784787226.jpg?v=1720057138"},{"product_id":"the-abcs-of-socialism-9781784787264","title":"The ABCs of Socialism","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remarkable run of self-proclaimed \"democratic socialist\" Bernie Sanders for president of the United States has prompted-for the first time in decades and to the shock of many-a national conversation about socialism. A \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e poll in late November found that a majority of Democrats had a favorable view of socialism, and in New Hampshire in February, more than half of Democratic voters under 35 told the Boston Globe they call themselves socialists. It's unclear exactly what socialism means to this generation, but couple with the ascendancy of longtime leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party in the UK, it's clear there's a historic, generational shift underway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book steps into this moment to offer a clear, accessible, informative, and irreverent guide to socialism for the uninitiated. Written by young writers from the dynamic magazine \u003ci\u003eJacobin\u003c\/i\u003e, alongside several distinguished scholars, \u003ci\u003eThe ABCs of Socialism\u003c\/i\u003e answers basic questions, including ones that many want to know but might be afraid to ask (\"Doesn't socialism always end up in dictatorship?\", \"Will socialists take my Kenny Loggins records?\"). Disarming and pitched to a general readership without sacrificing intellectual depth, this will be the best introduction an idea whose time seems to have come again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin magazine.","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741288411479,"sku":"9781784787264","price":11.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"municipal-dreams-the-rise-and-fall-of-council-housing-9781784787400","title":"Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTraversing the nation, \u003ci\u003eMunicipal Dreams\u003c\/i\u003e offers an architectural tour of some of the best and most remarkable of our housing estates, and in doing so offers an engrossing social history of housing in Britain. John Broughton asks us to understand better their complex story and to rethink our prejudices. His accounts include extraordinary planners and architects who wished to elevate working men and women through design and the politicians, high and low, who shaped their work, the competing ideologies which have promoted state housing and condemned it, the economics which has always constrained our housing ideals, the crisis wrought by Right to Buy, and the evolving controversies around regeneration. He shows how the loss of the dream of good housing for all is a danger for the whole of society - as was seen in the fire in Grenfell Tower.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe book celebrates an era during which dreams of shelter and security  for all-not just those who could afford to purchase it-were in large  part made a reality, and asks us if we oughtn't to consider reviving  that dream before it gets destroyed completely . There couldn't  be a  better time for this book. -- Lynsey Hanley * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eRequired reading . provides a comprehensive history of Britain's council estates [that] challenges the well-worn narrative. -- Anna Minton * Prospect *\u003cbr\u003eThis serious, heartfelt book makes a convincing case that publicly  provided homes have to be at least part of the response to the dysfunctional state that British housing has now attained. -- Rowan Moore * Observer *\u003cbr\u003eA fine survey of an astonishing achievement. -- Ed Heathcote * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eBoughton's book works as a gazetteer of public achievement-from Arts and Crafts cottages to modernist monuments to ordinary streets, from Hammersmith to Hull-and a nuanced but polemical tale of how the municipal idea was destroyed, revealing the caricatures and pseudo-history that were used to convince us that the places built to swindle us were better than the places we built for ourselves to live in. -- Owen Hatherley, author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain\u003cbr\u003eFollows the epic story of British council and social housing, from its Victorian origins to Twentieth Century estates, the right to buy and the Grenfell fire. While every page is rich with fascinating detail, Boughton also tells the grand narrative of how modern housing was created for millions, and how that dream has been cynically and carelessly undermined. This is an inspiring read and a necessary corrective to the myths that seek to destroy one of the most important struggles of our times - the drive for decent housing for all. -- John Grinrod, author of \u003ci\u003eOutskirts\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA well-written, humane and even-handed appraisal of the successes and failures of municipal and national housing programmes from the 1890s to the present. * Blueprint *\u003cbr\u003eA deeply informed account of the ways in which local and national governments in the U.K. have or have not sought to provide affordable housing for their citizens. -- Rebecca Mead * The New Yorker, Favourite Nonfiction Books of 2019 *\u003cbr\u003eDespite the crowded field, Boughton's book has quickly established itself as a landmark text in the reevaluation of the legacy of council housing, a sober, thorough work that reminds us of some of the most significant achievements of Britain's postwar 'social democratic moment. -- Gareth Millington * Public Books *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741288477015,"sku":"9781784787400","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784787400.jpg?v=1720057138"},{"product_id":"the-right-to-have-rights-9781784787554","title":"The Right to Have Rights","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSixty years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, an exiled Jew deprived of her German citizenship, observed that before people can enjoy any of the \"inalienable\" Rights of Man-before there can be any specific rights to education, work, voting, and so on-there must first be such a thing as \"the right to have rights\". The concept received little attention at the time, but in our age of mass deportations, Muslim bans, refugee crises, and extra-state war, the phrase has become the centre of a crucial and lively debate. Here five leading thinkers from varied disciplines-including history, law, politics, and literary studies-discuss the critical basis of rights and the meaning of radical democratic politics today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVerso has published an elegant little book of essays by four academics who endeavored not only to unpack the phrase but also to find interpretations that can inform and inspire resistance to the current worldwide assault on human rights. -- Masha Gessen * The New Yorker *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741288542551,"sku":"9781784787554","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784787554.jpg?v=1720057138"},{"product_id":"utopia-9781784787608","title":"Utopia","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFive hundred years since its first publication, Thomas More's \u003ci\u003eUtopia\u003c\/i\u003e remains astonishingly radical and provocative. More imagines an island nation where thousands live in peace and harmony, men and women are both educated, and property is communal. In a text hovering between fantasy, satire, blueprint and game, More explores the theories and realities behind war, political conflicts, social tensions and redistribution, and imagines the day-to-day lives of a citizenry living free from fear, oppression, violence and suffering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut there has always been a shadow at the heart of \u003ci\u003eUtopia\u003c\/i\u003e. If this is a depiction of the perfect state, why, as well as wonder, does it provoke a growing unease?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this quincentenary edition, published in conjunction with Somerset House, More's text is introduced by multi-award-winning author China Miéville and accompanied by four essays from Ursula K. Le Guin, today's most distinguished utopian writer and thinker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe can't do without this book. We are all and have always been Thomas More's children. -- China Miéville\u003cbr\u003eI am offered the Grand Inquisitor's choice. Will you choose freedom without happiness, or happiness without freedom? The only answer one can make, I think, is: No. -- Ursula K. Le Guin","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741288575319,"sku":"9781784787608","price":13.93,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"if-they-come-in-the-morning-voices-of-resistance-9781784787691","title":"If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe trial of Angela Davis is remembered as one of America's most historic political trials, and no one can tell the story better than Davis herself. Opening with a letter from James Baldwin to Angela, and including contributions from numerous radicals and commentators such as Black Panthers George Jackson, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins, this book is not only an account of Davis's incarceration and the struggles surrounding it, but also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of the prison system of the United States and the figure embodied in Davis's arrest and imprisonment-the political prisoner. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince the book was written, the carceral system in the US has grown from strength to strength, with more of its black population behind bars than ever before. The scathing analysis of the role of prison and the policing of black populations offered by Davis and her comrades in this astonishing volume remains as relevant today as the day it was published.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAngela Davis taught me that I did not have to tolerate the racism I was suffering in the playground, she told me that I was not alone.it was in this book that I first came across the word 'solidarity'. -- Benjamin Zephaniah\u003cbr\u003eDavis' arguments for justice are formidable. . . . The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied. * The New York Times *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741288739159,"sku":"9781784787691","price":10.44,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781784787691.jpg?v=1720057138"},{"product_id":"the-care-crisis-what-caused-it-and-how-can-we-end-it-9781786630353","title":"The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery one of us will need care at some point in life: social care, healthcare, childcare, eldercare. In the shadow of COVID-19, care has become the most urgent topic of our times. But our care systems are in crisis. Concern for the most vulnerable has been overtaken by an obsession with profits and productivity. How did we end up here? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn an era of economic turmoil, lower birth rates and increased life expectancy mean a larger proportion of the population than ever before is of retirement age. As a result, more people need care, and their numbers are rising. Yet, despite the demand, public services continue to be cut and sold off. Those most in need are left to fend for themselves. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this groundbreaking book, Emma Dowling charts the multifaceted nature of the care crisis. Telling the stories of those on the frontlines through conversations with paid and unpaid carers, doctors, social workers, parents, and eldercare workers, she exposes the devastating impact of financialisation and austerity. The Care Crisis reveals a system that places profits before people and shows that privatisation has been key to producing a state of disarray.Dowling maps the new economy of abandonment, raising the unavoidable question: how do we end the crisis?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEmma Dowling has written a book for our times: a meditation on care, its burdens and its possibilities. Dowling deftly weaves together theories of care with empirical interviews in order to understand how and why we care and the ways in which care can be the basis for radical politics in this time of crisis. * Akwugo Emejulu *\u003cbr\u003eThe Care Crisis is unique in threading together the many different sites across society where paid and unpaid caring takes place. The book demonstrates how a long-standing subjugation of caring bodies and feelings is entering a new phase. With a focus on the UK context and with relevance to debates beyond it, Emma Dowling offers a powerful analysis of the politics and economics of care, making evident the urgent need to transform the material conditions of our lives. -- Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch\u003cbr\u003eA compelling tour de force of the ways our lives are underpinned by radical inequalities in care and caring: from care as wealth extraction to commodified cuddling. This is a highly readable book about how our whole economy is organised, how we are all drawn into fixing widespread system failure, yet only manage to displace problems even further. -- Beverley Skeggs, Distinguished Professor, Centre for Alternatives to Social Inequality\u003cbr\u003eEmma Dowling brilliantly combines theory, statistics and on-the-ground experience to argue that contemporary British culture is using inadequate and destructive capitalist 'care fixes' to solve its social problems - social problems which have themselves emerged from the systematic erosion of our socialised care infrastructures. It is a lucid and eye-opening account which will be extremely useful for lay readers, policymakers, academics and activists. -- Jo Littler, co-author of Against Meritocracy\u003cbr\u003eAn absolutely brilliant if devastating analysis of our current care crisis and the grotesquely inadequate \"care fixes\" presently on offer. In precise and accessible language, Emma Dowling expertly details the economic and political forces that have converged to produce such an uncaring state. This book is an urgent clarion call for a radically transformed society, where care not profit is placed front and center and where human thriving is prioritized. An essential read for everyone committed to envisioning a better, more caring future -- Catherine Rottenberg, author of The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism\u003cbr\u003eDowling presents an astute insight on what our capitalist economy looks like from the perspective of care, brilliantly piecing together the many facets of the current crisis. Emma Dowling reveals what happens when a society's capacities for care are eroded, and issues an electrifying warning against false solutions. -- Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism\u003cbr\u003eLays bare the current crisis in care and the wages of austerity, Emma Dowling's work shows us just how far we still have to go. A brave call to arms. -- Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1%\u003cbr\u003eThis book provides a compelling and compassionate analysis of the care deficits engulfing the United Kingdom-and the global economy in general-even before the Covid-19 pandemic. Emma Dowling's detailed critique of the financialization of adult social care deserves attention from activists and policymakers around the world. -- Nancy Folbre, author of The Invisible Heart\u003cbr\u003eHealth care policymakers and medical consumers alike will find [Downling's] arguments urgent-and in dire need of solution. * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003eThis is a sharp and incisive book on one of the most pressing issues of our time - care work and its organization. Through a close examination of the material conditions that shape this work, and through engagement with the workers providing it, Dowling has produced a vital study of the dynamics of care after austerity. I highly recommend it. -- Helen Hester, author of Xenofeminism\u003cbr\u003eA lucid and alarming picture of how political decisions have created roadblocks to better care. ... [A] passionate and persuasive call for reform. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eAccessible, rigorous, and thoughtful. [The Care Crisis] seamlessly weaves theory, statistics and on-the-ground experiences in order to generate a convincing analysis of how and why care has been devalued and increasingly exploited in contemporary Britain. -- Catherine Rottenberg * Sociological Review *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460148567,"sku":"9781786630353","price":12.01,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786630353.jpg?v=1720057649"},{"product_id":"how-did-we-get-into-this-mess-politics-equality-nature-9781786630780","title":"How Did We Get Into This Mess?: Politics,","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGeorge Monbiot is one of the most vocal, and eloquent, critics of the current consensus. \u003ci\u003eHow Did We Get into this Mess?\u003c\/i\u003e,  based on his powerful journalism, assesses the state we are now in: the  devastation of the natural world, the crisis of inequality, the  corporate takeover of nature, our obsessions with growth and profit and  the decline of the political debate over what to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile his diagnosis of the problems in front of us is clear-sighted and  reasonable, he also develops solutions to challenge the politics of  fear. How do we stand up to the powerful when they seem to have all the  weapons? What can we do to prepare our children for an uncertain future?  Controversial, clear but always rigorously argued, \u003ci\u003eHow Did We Get into this Mess?\u003c\/i\u003e  makes a persuasive case for change in our everyday lives, our politics  and economics, the ways we treat each other and the natural world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA dazzling command of science and relentless faith in people . I never miss reading him. -- Naomi Klein\u003cbr\u003eWhat most impresses in Monbiot's clever, elegant writing is the way he  strives to think beyond protest towards realistic, representative  solutions to the problems of world politics and trade * The Times *\u003cbr\u003eGeorge Monbiot is always original-both in the intelligence of his opinions and the depth and rigour of his research. -- Brian Eno\u003cbr\u003eHis passion for social and ecological justice is undimmed by twenty-first-century cynicism. His desire for knowledge across the widest gamut of subjects (scientific, historical, political and cultural) enables him to reach places which are foreign territory to many of us * Herald *\u003cbr\u003eA writer of eloquence and passion. * Observer *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eHow Did We Get into this Mess? does an excellent job of articulating the cultural dearth of our times and suggesting ways to counteract its causes and expressions, whilst resisting defeatism...[Monbiot] leaves his reader with a sense of hope, empowered to help build a better future\u003c\/i\u003e * Marx \u0026amp; Philosophy *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460312407,"sku":"9781786630780","price":11.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786630780.jpg?v=1720057650"},{"product_id":"the-dilemmas-of-lenin-terrorism-war-empire-love-revolution-9781786631114","title":"The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire,","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the October 1917 uprising, is one of the most misunderstood leaders of the twentieth century. In his own time, there were many, even among his enemies, who acknowledged the full magnitude of his intellectual and political achievements. But his legacy has been lost in misinterpretation; he is worshipped but rarely read.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTariq Ali explores the two major influences on Lenin's thought - the turbulent history of Tsarist Russia and the birth of the international labour movement - and explains how Lenin confronted dilemmas that still cast a shadow over the present. Is terrorism ever a viable strategy? Is support for imperial wars ever justified? Can politics be made without a party? Was the seizure of power in 1917 morally justified? Should he have parted company from his wife and lived with his lover?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Dilemmas of Lenin\u003c\/i\u003e, Ali provides an insightful portrait of Lenin's deepest preoccupations and underlines the clarity and vigour of his theoretical and political formulations. He concludes with an affecting account of Lenin's last two years, when he realized that \"we knew nothing\" and insisted that the revolution had to be renewed lest it wither and die.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReading this book on your vacation will make your life better and your mind broader. -- Branko Milanovic, * author of Global Inequalities *\u003cbr\u003eAli encourages the reader to take a fresh look at Lenin's choices in the  context of a repressive autocracy, the poverty and misery of the bulk  of the population under tsarism and the industrialised slaughter of the  first world war. What underpins his book is the view that October was an  \"innocent and utopian birth\" that was subsequently \"twisted\" into  Stalinism by three devastating years of civil war. -- Daniel Beer * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eA powerful tool for those wanting to understand the real Lenin and  therefore the real politics behind those revolutionaries who fought so  hard but ultimately failed in their goal. -- Lindsey German * Counterfire *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460410711,"sku":"9781786631114","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786631114.jpg?v=1720057649"},{"product_id":"the-new-enclosure-the-appropriation-of-public-land-in-neoliberal-britain-9781786631596","title":"The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch has been written about Britain's trailblazing post-1970s privatization program, but the biggest privatization of them all has until now escaped scrutiny: the privatization of land. Since Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, and hidden from the public eye, about 10 per cent of the entire British land mass, including some of its most valuable real estate, has passed from public to private hands. Forest land, defence land, health service land and above all else local authority land- for farming and school sports, for recreation and housing - has been sold off en masse. Why? How? And with what social, economic and political consequences? \u003ci\u003eThe New Enclosure\u003c\/i\u003e provides the first ever study of this profoundly significant phenomenon, situating it as a centrepiece of neoliberalism in Britain and as a successor programme to the original eighteenth-century enclosures. With more public land still slated for disposal, the book identifies the stakes and asks what, if anything, can and should be done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe biggest privatisation of all isn't housing, railways, or utilities, but the oldest source of oligarchic power - land. In this clear, readable, accessible and maddening book, Brett Christophers makes clear the massive mismanagement, waste, opacity and centralisation of wealth that has resulted. Necessary reading for anyone who wants to know where ruling class power comes from, and how to take it back. -- Owen Hatherley\u003cbr\u003eThe detailed case for an English Land Commission, and the need for so many other new radical ideas not yet even first thought of. Why don't we surround London and fill the Home Counties with National Parks where the landowner has to look after the footpaths and cycle paths and over which we all have a right to roam? The New Enclosure raises, but does not yet answer the question of from where the new commons will arise. -- Danny Dorling (don't use on cover)\u003cbr\u003eThis book forcefully explains how land ownership matters today. The New Enclosure combines a systematic analysis of the role of land and landownership in capitalist society with a compelling critique of neoliberalism in Britain. Christophers demonstrates that recent decades have seen a massive transfer of public land into private control. He documents the overwhelmingly negative and unjust consequences of this new process of enclosure and demolishes the ideology of privatization upon which it is based. No one who cares about the politics of land can ignore this powerful argument. -- David Madden\u003cbr\u003eBritish taxpayers have been robbed blind by the recent fire sale of £400 pounds of public land. Like Henry VIII's destruction of the monasteries, Thatcher's privatisation frenzy has led to the destruction of public assets unprecedented amongst leading economies, and to the enrichment of landowners and financiers. In this comprehensive and rigorously researched book, Brett Christophers opens up a field of study - public land - largely buried by academia, landowners and no doubt, by financiers. A must-read. -- Ann Pettifor\u003cbr\u003eWith his carefully crafted and meticulously researched study, he has made an essential contribution to our understanding of politics and government in modern Britain. -- Adam Tooze * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eIf you're someone who's interested in Britain - and I mean Britain tout court: the whole 80,823 square miles of its physical existence - then this is a book you must read -- Will Self * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eBrett Christophers' new book The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Land in Neoliberal Britain is eye-opening. Or perhaps jaw dropping. Its subject is the privatization of publicly-owned land in Britain since the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher. Christophers, a professor of economic geography at the University of Uppsala is a consistently interesting thinker. -- Diane Coyle * The Enlightened Economist *\u003cbr\u003eBrett Christophers's The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain towers with empirical and argumentative force. -- Steven Stoll * Orion Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eA stunning work of scholarship. * Orion Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eIf you're interested in Britain, you must read this painstaking survey of land privatisation since the Thatcher era. -- Will Self * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eChristophers is writing in the tradition of great historians such as R. H. Tawney and E. P. Thompson... -- Martin Daunton * Journal of Modern History *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460640087,"sku":"9781786631596","price":11.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786631596.jpg?v=1720057652"},{"product_id":"corbyn-the-strange-rebirth-of-radical-politics-9781786632999","title":"Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDemolishing the Blairite opposition in 2015, Jeremy Corbyn saw off an attempted coup against his leadership under the banner of the \"soft left\" one year on. This unassuming antiwar socialist now leads Labour with a huge mandate. For the first time in decades, socialism is back on the agenda-and for the first time in Labour's history, it defines the leadership.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book tells the story of how Corbyn's rise was made possible by the long decline of Labour and a deep crisis in British democracy. It surveys the makeshift coalition of trade unionists, young and precarious workers, and students who rallied to Corbyn. It shows how a novel social media campaign turned the media's \"Project Fear\" on its head, making a virtue of every accusation thrown at him. And finally it asks, with all the artillery that is still ranged against Corbyn, given the crisis-ridden Labour Party that he has inherited, the devastating impact of the coup attempt and the fall-out from Brexit, what it would mean for him to succeed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRichard Seymour has a brilliant mind and a compelling style. Everything he writes is worth reading. -- Gary Younge\u003cbr\u003eOne of our most astute political analysts turns his attention to Corbyn, and the result is predictably essential: not just to make sense of how we got to this unlikely situation, but for his thoughts on what the left might do next. -- China Miéville\u003cbr\u003eSeymour is an essential voice on the left, and this book is a necessary intervention, explaining this daunting political moment and bringing the focus back to strategy. Not so much a call to arms as a call to brains. -- Laurie Penny\u003cbr\u003eNo one writes about politics the way Richard Seymour does. He takes a very British story of the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, with all its peculiarities and details, and turns it into a revelation of the international crisis of parliamentary democracy. Whether you love Corbyn -- or Sanders or Podemos or Syriza -- or loathe him (and them), you'll find here the most sophisticated diagnosis of why men and women across the globe are turning to the left and why their aspirations are so continuously being frustrated. Seymour is a magnificent explainer: pointed without being pedantic, funny with out being flip, and always insisting that we take in the whole. -- Corey Robin\u003cbr\u003eThe Anglophone left has been cheered by the surprising rise of Bernie Sanders in the U.S. and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain. Richard Seymour's elegantly written book is a reminder of all the obstacles facing Corbyn. Even if you're not as pessimistic as Seymour about his prospects, you really need to pay attention to this critique. It will make you a better fighter of the necessary class war. -- Doug Henwood, author of My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency\u003cbr\u003eLong after the Labour left was thought to be dead, Jeremy Corbyn's emergence has inspired millions. There is no one better positioned than Richard Seymour to take a look at his emergence and whether Corbyn can actually turn Labour into a force for radical change. -- Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCorbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics\u003c\/i\u003e is the fullest and fairest account of Jeremy Corbyn's rise released to date. In avoiding much of the rhetoric espoused in similar accounts focusing on Corbyn's early career this book provides a frank account of how the unlikely leader took charge of the Labour party. It is a very readable account too. Richard Seymour writes plainly but effectively and his writing is both accessible and incredibly informative. -- Liam Young * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eLaser-sharp analysis of British 'Labourism' and its contradictions... This book is terrifically astute -- Jamie Maxwell * The National *\u003cbr\u003eCorbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics is the first serious analysis of Jeremy Corbyn's unexpected ascent. -- Yohann Koshy * Vice *\u003cbr\u003eA must-read for militants inside and outside the Labour Party. * rs21 *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCorbyn\u003c\/i\u003e is not about Corbyn in much the same way that Richard Seymour's earlier and much shorter book, \u003ci\u003eThe Meaning of David Cameron,\u003c\/i\u003e wasn't really about its eponymous anti-hero. Rather it is an analysis - and an astute one - of the socio-political conditions which have given rise to Corbynism, its future prospects and the substantial obstacles it will inevitably face. -- Tom Mills * Ceasefire *\u003cbr\u003eThe best, and the definitive, account of what Corbyn's victory the first time round meant. One year on the essential summer 2016 read. * Philosophy Football *\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant and incisive analysis by a long-term watcher of the party. -- Asa Winstanley * Middle East Monitor *\u003cbr\u003eIt is a point of contention whether the politics represented by Jeremy Corbyn offers a pathway out of the crisis or we are instead witnessing the last hurrah of Britain's harried and diminished workers' movement. That is one of the questions Richard Seymour tries to answer in his excellent new book.Seymour's analysis remains indispensable -- Alex Doherty * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eThe finest study of Corbyn yet written -- Stephen Bush * New Statesman *\u003cbr\u003eSeymour provides a rich narrative of the Labour Party's history, including its early socialism, its post-WWII achievements, and the long period of its stagnation and decline. -- Norman Markowitz * Socialism and Democracy *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460771159,"sku":"9781786632999","price":24.32,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786632999.jpg?v=1720057652"},{"product_id":"de-colores-means-all-of-us-latina-views-for-a-multi-colored-century-9781786631176","title":"De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Martínez's unique Chicana voice arises from over thirty years of experience in the movements for civil rights, women's liberation, and Latina\/o empowerment. In \u003ci\u003eDe Colores Means All of Us\u003c\/i\u003e, Martínez presents a radical Latina perspective on race, liberation, and identity. In these essays, Martínez describes the provocative ideas and new movements created by the rapidly expanding U.S. Latina\/o community as it confronts intensified exploitation and racism. With sections on women's organizing, struggles for economic justice and immigrant rights, and the Latina\/o youth movement, this book will appeal to readers and activists seeking to organize for the future and build new movements for social change. With a foreword from Angela Y. Davis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Martínez's work comprises one of themost important living histories of progressive activism in the contemporaryera. . . . [Martínez is] inimitable. . .irrepressible. . .indefatigable. -- Angela Y. Davis\u003cbr\u003ePlease do yourself a favor and read this essay collection by Elizabeth Martínez! Share it with your friends, students, neighbors. Free yourself from the onslaught of misinformation and ignorance regarding racism in the United States and Latino politics. It is an up-to-date news flash on what is going on regarding Mexicans on both sides of the border. 'Betita' (to those of us who know her, love her, and continue to learn from her) is a veteran activist and Chicana pundit of the highest order. -- Ana Castillo, author, Massacre of the Dreamers\u003cbr\u003eElizabeth Martínez has played a unique and extraordinary role as chronicler of Chicana-Chicano history, and \u003ci\u003eDe Colores \u003c\/i\u003ebeautifully captures her passion, her intelligence, her powerful commitment to universal human values. I am very happy this volume exists, and hope it will be widely read. -- Howard Zinn, author, A People’s History of the United States\u003cbr\u003eThis is one of the most important books to be published as we prepare to continue our struggle for a multiracial democracy in the twenty-first century. . . . Elizabeth (Betita) Martínez embodies the courage and tenacity exemplified by Latina activists, and women of color generally, who have been the backbone of our movements for social justice. -- Prof. Carlos Muñoz, Jr., Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley; author, Youth, Identity, Power:The Chicano Movement\u003cbr\u003eThough published nearly twenty years ago, the new Verso reprint of \u003ci\u003eDe Colores Means All of Us contains\u003c\/i\u003e many urgent messages for the current moment. Part history and part philosophy, \u003ci\u003eDe Colores Mean All of Us\u003c\/i\u003e is a vital key to untangling the messy social structures of race, class, and gender in a specifically Borderlander US context. -- Kevin Lentz * Latinx Spaces *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460803927,"sku":"9781786631176","price":16.16,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786631176.jpg?v=1720057650"},{"product_id":"virtue-and-terror-9781786633378","title":"Virtue and Terror","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRobespierre's defense of the French Revolution remains one of the most powerful and unnerving justifications for political violence ever written, and has extraordinary resonance in a world obsessed with terrorism and appalled by the language of its proponents. Yet today, the French Revolution is celebrated as the event which gave birth to a nation built on the principles of Enlightenment. So how should a contemporary audience approach Robespierre's vindication of revolutionary terror? Zizek takes a helter-skelter route through these contradictions, marshaling all the breadth of analogy for which he is famous.","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460836695,"sku":"9781786633378","price":12.88,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"the-reform-of-europe-a-political-guide-to-the-future-9781786632548","title":"The Reform of Europe: A Political Guide to the","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Eurozone crisis since 2010 has instilled political disunity and generated a long period of economic stagnation. The cyclical recovery enjoyed in 2017 is no cause for complacency. It should act as an impetus to undertake long-overdue reforms, which require a change in perspective to develop a medium-term orientation for the next decade. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is no future for those incapable of investing. There is no stimulus for innovative investment in countries that have been converted to the hegemony of finance at the expense of productive investment. Europe must confront the challenges of the 21st century by recovering its ideological autonomy in the community spirit of its origins,which can be summed up as social progress.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book demonstrates the need for a long-term vision with two goals: reconstructing a social contract based on an entrepreneurial partnership and investing in the ecological transition. This political vision will restore to citizens of the member-states a sense of belonging to a wider community. To attain this, argues Michel Aglietta, one of the most important heterodox economists today, we must strengthen European institutions at the financial and fiscal levels. This involves making the euro a full currency, endowed with democratic legitimacy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA survival manual for the Eurozone * Le Monde *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460869463,"sku":"9781786632548","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786632548.jpg?v=1720057652"},{"product_id":"the-balfour-declaration-empire-the-mandate-and-resistance-in-palestine-9781786632487","title":"The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn November 2, 1917, the British government, represented by Foreign  Minister Arthur Balfour, declared that they were in favor of 'the  establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.'  This short note would be one of the most controversial documents of its  time. A hundred years after its signing, Bernard Regan recasts the  history of the Balfour Declaration as one of the major events in the  story of the Middle East. Offering new insights into the imperial  rivalries between Britain, Germany and the Ottomans, Regan exposes  British policy in the region as part of a larger geopolitical game. Yet,  even then, the course of events was not straightforward and Regan  charts the debates within the British government and the Zionist  movement itself on the future of Palestine. The book also provides a  revealing account of life in Palestinian society at the time, paying  particular attention to the responses of Palestinian civil society to  the imperial machinations that threatened their way of life. Not just a  history of states and policies, Regan manages to brilliantly present  both a history of people under colonialism and an account of the  colonizers themselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this major account of the Balfour Declaration, Bernard Regan's timely  book sheds light on the most powerful symbol of the official  British-Zionist alliance over the last century. It deserves to be widely  read by those yearning for truth and reconciliation in the Middle East. -- Professor Nur Masalha, SOAS, University of London\u003cbr\u003eThis is a meticulously researched account of the background and  aftermath of a transaction that launched in 1917 a malignant conflict  that has poisoned the Near East and the wider international arena ever  since. Bernard Regan places the Balfour Declaration in its proper  context ... It is compelling essential reading to anyone who wishes to  understand the roots of one of our world's most dangerous potential  explosion spots. -- Moshé Machover, author of Israelis and Palestinians\u003cbr\u003eMost have heard of the Balfour Declaration, without fully appreciating  its history and consequences. With this meticulous and insightful study,  we have a fascinating and timely guide to British colonial policy in  Palestine, and its devastating impacts for the Palestinian people to  this day -- Karma Nabulsi, Oxford University\u003cbr\u003eAnother good addition to the library exploring the origins of our current Middle East problems. * Palestine Chronicle *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741460902231,"sku":"9781786632487","price":11.78,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786632487.jpg?v=1720057652"},{"product_id":"betraying-big-brother-the-feminist-awakening-in-china-9781786633651","title":"Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the eve of International Women's Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global \u003ci\u003ecause célèbre\u003c\/i\u003e, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf, and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Feminist Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists and online warriors that is prompting an unprecedented awakening among China's urban, educated women. In \u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother\u003c\/i\u003e, journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular, broad-based movement poses the greatest threat to China's authoritarian regime today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists, Hong Fincher illuminates both the challenges they face and their \"joy of betraying Big Brother.\" Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness through online campaigns resembling #MeToo, and describing how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles, \u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother\u003c\/i\u003e is a story of how the movement against patriarchy could reconfigure China and the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeatured in The Washington Post and Times Higher Education * The Washington Post and Times Higher Education *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741462049111,"sku":"9781786633651","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786633651.jpg?v=1720057653"},{"product_id":"betraying-big-brother-the-feminist-awakening-in-china-9781786633644","title":"Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the eve of International Women's Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global \u003ci\u003ecause célèbre\u003c\/i\u003e, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf, and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Feminist Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists and online warriors that is prompting an unprecedented awakening among China's urban, educated women. In \u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother\u003c\/i\u003e, journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular, broad-based movement poses the greatest threat to China's authoritarian regime today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists, Hong Fincher illuminates both the challenges they face and their \"joy of betraying Big Brother.\" Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness through online campaigns resembling #MeToo, and describing how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles, \u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother\u003c\/i\u003e is a story of how the movement against patriarchy could reconfigure China and the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFincher focuses on the history of a small group of female activists known as the Feminist Five, who have been hounded by the authorities for innocuous acts such as trying to hand out stickers on International Women's Day. She argues persuasively that the activism the five awakened is already challenging the authoritarian state, with more and more women taking control of their bodies and rejecting 'China's patriarchal institutions of compulsory marriage and child-rearing.' -- Keith B. Richburg * The Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003eIn Hong Fincher's estimation, the official hostility toward feminists in China as part of a global rise of authoritarianism and backsliding of democracy will affect not only China's women but its economic future and will have worldwide repercussions. This is a fascinating and earnest book. * Publisher's Weekly *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China\u003c\/i\u003e shows how the [feminist] movement has risen on social media and taken root abroad and in cities like Guangzhou. Hong Fincher argues that the Chinese Communist Party relies on patriarchal crackdowns for its post-Soviet survival-and, further, that \"anyone concerned about rising authoritarianism globally needs to pay attention to what is happening in China. * Harvard Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother\u003c\/i\u003e, journalist Leta Hong Fincher examines the feminist movement that's rising in mainland China, and explores how the Feminist Five continue to covertly educate other women to confront and resist the country's sexist policies. -- Evette Dionne * Bitch Media *\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBetraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China\u003c\/i\u003e...Hong Fincher explains that far from a small movement on the fringes of Chinese society, feminism is on the rise, from the burgeoning and ongoing #MeToo movement, to increasing calls for protections for survivors of domestic violence... to protests against workplace discrimination. -- Esther Wang * Jezebel *\u003cbr\u003eIn her sprawling and detailed recent book, \"Betraying Big Brother\", Fincher aims to tell the story of the women's rights movement in China through their saga. Fincher bases her narrative on interviews with [the Feminist Five] and their allies, while supporting their stories with deep research into the roots of the government's crackdown on feminism. * Bookforum *\u003cbr\u003eThe book brings the clash between China's grassroots women's movement and the state's manipulation of women to life. Hong Fincher explores the struggles of young feminist activists who are detained and vilified for seemingly innocuous campaigns - handing out stickers warning against sexual harassment on public transport, or parading through the streets in soiled wedding dresses to protest domestic violence..This book is a pertinent primer for anyone who wants to understand the aftermath of China's one-child policy, and the country's fledgling feminist movement. -- Katrina Hamlin * Reuters *\u003cbr\u003eThrough interviews with China's famous Feminist Five, arrested in 2015 on orders of the Chinese government, and other leading Chinese activists Hong Fincher draws a portrait of the modern Chinese feminist movement and its pushback against interpersonal, governmental and digital control over their lives. * Autostraddle *\u003cbr\u003eA deeply affecting book.... Hong Fincher's vivid, blow-by-blow account of the women's experiences is a valuable work of journalism, and she offers interesting evidence of a wider feminist awakening. -- Susan Greenhalgh and Xiying Wang * Foreign Affairs *\u003cbr\u003eA compelling piece of original research...Leta Hong Fincher, an American journalist-turned-academic, argues that the same party that pushed through the elevation of women's status in the 1950s is now trying to engineer their return to the kitchen. [for \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women\u003c\/i\u003e] * The Economist *\u003cbr\u003eImportant and interesting...gender relations, in many ways so much more advanced in China than in India, are going backwards as traditions that were seemingly flattened by Mao re-emerge. [for \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women\u003c\/i\u003e] * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLeftover Women\u003c\/i\u003e should carry a health warning: this book will severely raise your blood pressure. Leta Hong Fincher's subject - researched through statistical analysis, sociological surveys and extensive first-hand interviewing - is the toxic vitality of sexism in China today. [for \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women\u003c\/i\u003e] * The Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eA chilling account of the pressures on Chinese strivers ... One hopes that \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women\u003c\/i\u003e will soon be translated into Chinese, as it is likely to resonate deeply with urban educated women. It seems the party has forgotten the Mao-era dictum: 'Women Hold Up Half the Sky' [for \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women]\u003c\/i\u003e * New York Times *\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women\u003c\/i\u003e, Leta Hong Fincher convincingly argues that an orchestrated state campaign co-opts women to marry and buy marital homes, often to the detriment of their careers and financial independence. [for \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women]\u003c\/i\u003e * Wall Street Journal *\u003cbr\u003eIn clear, concise chapters, Fincher, whose previous books include \u003ci\u003eLeftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China\u003c\/i\u003e, lays out the origins of the movement and its exponential growth, as well as the Chinese government's violent attempts to extinguish it. The U.S. president may be walloping China via trade war, but Leta Hong Fincher argues that the most existential threat to Xi Jinping's regime comes from within. -- Claire Landsbaum * Vanity Fair *\u003cbr\u003eA necessary read to understand the role of women in Chinese society and why the feminist movement may be one of the few social movements to overcome the Chinese government's persecution. -- Elizabeth M. Lynch * China Law and Policy *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741462081879,"sku":"9781786633644","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786633644.jpg?v=1720057653"},{"product_id":"radical-hamilton-economic-lessons-from-a-misunderstood-founder-9781786633927","title":"Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn retelling the story of the radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history of early America and the global economy. For much of the twentieth century, Hamilton-sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers-was out of fashion. In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all. But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a contradictory mix: a tough soldier, austere workaholic, exacting bureaucrat, sexual libertine, glory-obsessed romantic with suicidal tendencies-and pioneer of industrialisation. As Parenti argues, we have yet to fully appreciate Hamilton as the primary architect of American capitalism and the developmental state. In exploring his life and work, Parenti rediscovers this gadfly as a pathbreaking political thinker and institution builder. In this vivid portrait, Hamilton emerges as a singularly important historical figure: a thinker and politico who laid the foundation for America's ascent to global supremacy and mass industrialisation-for better or worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn praise of \u003ci\u003eLockdown America\u003c\/i\u003e: \"In the best tradition of investigative journalism, paced like a fine novel, it carries the authority of meticulous academic research.\" * Independent *\u003cbr\u003eIn praise of \u003ci\u003eLockdown America\u003c\/i\u003e: \"Exhaustively documented ... deserves a full hearing from anyone serious about ending the often horrific realities of the criminal justice system.\" * Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003eIn praise of \u003ci\u003eLockdown America\u003c\/i\u003e: \"Essential reading for those in law enforcement and politics who are attracted by the rhetoric of zero tolerance.\" * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eIn praise of \u003ci\u003eLockdown America\u003c\/i\u003e: \"Terrifying, informative and gripping.\" * New York Press *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741462180183,"sku":"9781786633927","price":18.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786633927.jpg?v=1720057654"},{"product_id":"work-the-last-1-000-years-9781786634108","title":"Work: The Last 1,000 Years","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the end of the nineteenth century, the general Western conception of work had been reduced to simply gainful employment. But this limited perspective contrasted sharply with the personal experience of most people in the world-whether in colonies, developing countries or in the industrializing world. Moreover, from a feminist perspective, reducing work and the production of value to remunerated employment has never been convincing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAndrea Komlosy argues in this important intervention that, when we examine it closely, work changes its meanings according to different historical and regional contexts. Globalizing labour history from the thirteenth to the twenty-first centuries, she sheds light on the complex coexistence of multiple forms of labour (paid\/unpaid, free\/ unfree, with various forms of legal regulation and social protection and so on) on the local and the world levels. Combining this global approach with a gender perspective opens our eyes to the varieties of work and labour and their combination in households and commodity chains across the planet-processes that enable capital accumulation not only by extracting surplus value from wage-labour, but also through other forms of value transfer, realized by tapping into households' subsistence production, informal occupation and makeshift employment. As the debate about work and its supposed disappearance intensifies, Komlosy's book provides a crucial shift in the angle of vision.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Andrea Komlosy argues in \u003ci\u003eWork: The Last 1,000 Years\u003c\/i\u003e, our conception of what constitutes work has changed markedly over time. The professor of social history at the University of Vienna writes that our commonly accepted definitions are too narrow, too European, too male and too modern -- John Thornhill * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eKomlosy's book is deeply researched, lucid  and persuasive. -- Joe Moran * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eKomlosy's analysis is a helpful reminder that our familiar understanding of work is narrow and historically exceptional. The hierarchy we have established in the industrialized West, placing permanent, full-time, legally contracted wage work at the top of a pyramid of social good, is deeply flawed-denigrating not only those millions who work outside its confines, but also devaluing and neglecting the kinds of nonwork activities that enrich and give meaning to human lives. By showing that \"work\" may exist without wages, a boss or a workplace outside the home, Komlosy's analysis allows us to think more broadly about what we value, and whether we want to continue to separate work and life. -- Joanna Scutts * In These Times *\u003cbr\u003eAndrea Komlosy has written an important book on the global history of work during the past 800 years. Looking at particular moments (1250, 1500, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2010), she charts how understandings of work and work practices have shifted-from household focused subsistence labor to the widespread commodification of labor in various forms. Her two most important contributions are that she thinks about labor on a global scale, thus overcoming a deep Eurocentric bias in much of the labor history as it exists, and that she brings feminist conversations on labor into an analysis of virtually all aspects of labor history. Her book is unique, I am not aware of any other such volume. -- Sven Beckert\u003cbr\u003eThis is a book teeming with insights, from the contempt for manual labour in ancient Greece to the historical tendency for all kinds of subsistence tasks to be \"housewife-ized\" into unpaid domestic labour. -- Barbara Kiser * Nature *\u003cbr\u003eWritten in well-defined thematic sections that give the reader a thorough understanding of how labour as well as labour profiles have changed over the ages. * Down To Earth *\u003cbr\u003eThe theoretical and historical scope of the book is impressive. * Insight Turkey *\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eWork\u003c\/i\u003e, Komlosy, an economic and social history professor at the University of Vienna in Austria, provides a sweeping overview of how ideas and definitions about work have evolved over the last 1,000 years, calling out the very limited conception of work offered by traditional labor studies and Marxist perspectives.Komlosy's book is ambitious in its brevity: she condenses a millennium of global history into just 225 pages, justifying her far-reaching geographic and historical scope as necessary for avoiding the Eurocentric and patriarchal biases in traditional conceptions of work. -- Lauren Kaori Gurley * Indypendent *\u003cbr\u003eCapturing this churn [in both work itself and our ideas about it] is the difficult task that historian Andrea Komlosy attempts in her new book \u003ci\u003eWork: The Last 1,000 Years\u003c\/i\u003e..Komlosy attempts the monumental task of writing a large-scale global history of labor adequate to the growing instability in how we define and participate in work. -- Gabriel Winant * The Nation *\u003cbr\u003eA fascinating book -- Laurie Taylor * Thinking Allowed *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741462245719,"sku":"9781786634108","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786634108.jpg?v=1720057656"},{"product_id":"the-northern-question-a-history-of-a-divided-country-9781786634061","title":"The Northern Question: A History of a Divided","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBritain has scarcely begun to come to terms with its recent upheavals, from the crisis over Brexit to the collapse of Labour's 'red wall'. What can explain such momentous shifts?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this essential work, Tom Hazeldine excavates the history of a divided country: North and South, industry versus finance, Whitehall and the left-behind. Only by fully registering these deep-seated tensions, he argues, can we make sense of the present moment. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHazeldine tracks the North-South divide over the longue durée, from the formation of an English state rooted in London and the south-east; the Industrial Revolution and the rise of provincial trade unions and the Labour party; the dashed hopes for regional economic renewal in the post-war years; the sharply contrasting fates of northern manufacturing and the City of London under Thatcher and New Labour; to the continuing repercussions of financial crisis and austerity. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Northern Question\u003c\/i\u003e is set to transform our understanding of the politics of Westminster - its purpose, according to Hazeldine, to stand English history on its head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA lively, provocative and richly researched book. Tom Hazeldine shows that far from being marginal to British politics and culture, northern England has played a pivotal role in British history - and must be given serious consideration by the politicians of the future. Well-written and absorbing. -- Selina Todd, author of Tastes of Honey and The People\u003cbr\u003eThe definitive account of the historical importance of the North-South Divide. A masterly history of the shifting social forces shaped by this enduring fault-line. -- Geoffrey Ingham, author of The Nature of Money and Capitalism Divided?\u003cbr\u003eThe disparity between the North of England and the South East is a rich and tangled history. Hazeldine's account is persuasive, and his long view is valuable. With real acuity, he highlights key differences in people's ideas of political possibility. -- John Harris * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eThe first serious study of the social and historical fissure to appear in more than 30 years. * Big Issue *\u003cbr\u003eAn expansive account of the north-south divide -- Lynsey Hanley * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eShunning simplifications and panegyrics, Hazeldine's book is particularly strong on the postwar period, during which both Labour and Tory governments wrestled with the northern question and failed to provide an answer -- Prospect\u003cbr\u003eDeserve[s] a place on the bookshelves of any historian concerned with England. * New Welsh Review *\u003cbr\u003eBrilliant ... [a] gripping, important, infuriating history -- Review31 * http:\/\/review31.co.uk\/essay\/view\/90\/england's-house-divided *\u003cbr\u003eA confident, synoptic book, taking on a thousand years of England's North\/South divide -- Owen Hatherley * Tribune *\u003cbr\u003eCompelling, rigorous and ambitious * Jacobin *\u003cbr\u003eHazeldine painstakingly recounts how successive twentieth-century governments sacrificed the North on the altar of sterling and the South East. * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eA historical travelogue not for the politically faint-hearted. -- Mark Perryman * Philosophy Football *","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741462278487,"sku":"9781786634061","price":15.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786634061.jpg?v=1720057654"},{"product_id":"carlos-slim-the-power-money-and-morality-of-one-of-the-worlds-richest-men-9781786634375","title":"Carlos Slim: The Power, Money, and Morality of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe biography of Carlos Slim, one of the richest people of all time, is not just the tale of the first man from a developing country to ever reach the top of the Forbes list of billionaires. It is the story of a character who represents the neoliberal mentality of our times, who mistrusts politicians, believes that the market is the most efficient mechanism for everything (even to combat corruption), and sees philanthropy as a social investment with businesses as the exclusive form of collective wealth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this new book, produced through years of thorough investigation, Osorno examines this symbol of twenty-first-century capitalism and of Mexico. Similar surreal dimensions lead Osorno to openly ask whether a man as rich as him can also be a good person.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of the world’s best reporters tells the story of Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest person, and the first from a developing country to make it to the top of the \u003ci\u003eForbes\u003c\/i\u003e list. Osorno tells a remarkable tale of how the child of Lebanese immigrants slowly put together an empire that stretches from airlines to telecoms and health care.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—John Freeman, Editor of \u003ci\u003eFreeman’s\u003c\/i\u003e and author of \u003ci\u003eThe Undoing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Piercing the veil of secrecy surrounding one of world’s richest and most private businessmen was never going to be straightforward. In the end it took eight years, more than one hundred interviews, four hundred rejections, and oodles of patience to write the most comprehensive biography of Carlos Slim to date.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Nina Lakhani, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “After years of investigative journalism with access to confidential files and more than a hundred interviews, Diego Osorno condenses all the details of life that made Carlos Slim the richest billionaire in the world … This book includes the truth about the political, social and historical influence of the entrepreneur with his direct testimony and anecdotes about his peculiar financial maneuvers.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eVice News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Sophisticated in some things, simple in others, proactive in certain subjects and puerile elsewhere, cosmopolitan and also deeply provincial—a multifaceted portrait emerges from this unforgettable book. Throughout the book, Diego Osorno does not condemn nor glorify but he does expose … This book will lead to an essential discussion about how Mexico creates Slim-style billionaires, about inequality, about influence, about business ethics. And about the legacy of a man with a fortune of $77.1 billion.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Denise Dresser, \u003ci\u003eLa Reforma\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Verso Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48741462344023,"sku":"9781786634375","price":19.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786634375.jpg?v=1720057655"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/collections\/verso-books.oembed?page=2","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}