Verso Books

Book SynopsisAn in-depth look into the structure and methods of Egypt’s security services in their war on dissent.The agents of coercion in Egypt—its military, police, and intelligence services—have been locked in a perennial struggle for power since their inception. Each institution has vied for dominance, shaping and reshaping the country’s political landscape. Yet, the seismic upheaval of the 2011 revolution forced these often rival factions to set aside their differences and forge an alliance in the face of an existential threat: the revolutionary aspirations of the Egyptian people.This book delves deep into the inner workings of the Egyptian security apparatus, offering a rare and comprehensive examination of the structures, hierarchies, and methods of the military, police, and intelligence agencies. Drawing on meticulous research, it unveils the strategies they deployed to suppress the revolutionary wave, from propaganda and surveillance to mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings. It illuminates the power dynamics within these institutions and how their uneasy unity was both a response to the revolution and a determinant of its eventual fate.

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Trade ReviewMafia Business has become a benchmark in the field ... we can no longer be complacent or very fond of Mafia godfathers after reading it ... Mr Arlacchi makes us angry, and then forces us to think. * New York Times Book Review *Mafia Business is already regarded by Italian lawyers, historians, journalists and economists as the classic text on la nouva Mafia - the multinational criminal network which the phenomenon has become in recent years. * The Listener *One of the most important works on the Italian Mafia. this is must reading for any student of the subject .. Detailed examination using trial data, various Italian government reports and documents, as well as interview material, makes this book extremely valuable to the student of organized crime; it also contains an excellent analysis of Mafia culture and values. * Choice *This book should be widely read ... Readers who know nothing about the traditional mafias out of which the new and murderous entrepreneurs have emerged, will find an excellent survey here of the state of research. -- Eric Hobsbawm * Times Literary Supplement *Pino Arlacchi has written the best account of how the new mafia came into being ... it explains, as no other book has done, how the members of the new mafia came to be ostentatious, educated and international people, moving in the glittering society of Rome and Milan. * The Economist *

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Book SynopsisIn the first part of this book, Lucien Malson summarizes all the known genuine cases of wolf children and relates his findings to current research in anthropology, psychology and the psychology of learning. His account powerfully reinforces environmentalist emphasis on the social conditions necessary for the development of even the most basic apparently biological characteristics, such as the ability to distinguish and make sounds, let alone the ability to express emotion and to communicate.Malson's study is followed by Jean Itard's classic account—since made into a film by Francois Truffant—of his attempts to educate Victor, a wolf child found in the forests of Central France at the end of the eighteenth century. Itard's description of his patient and often ingenious attempts to socialize and to teach Victor make his reports, in the words of Maria Montessori, 'virtually the first attempt at experimental psychology'.Trade ReviewTwo major psychology studies in One * Tribune *An excellent and well documented survey ... can be recommended without hesitation * Medical Journal *

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Book SynopsisKen 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.In 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

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Book SynopsisOurs 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.In 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.Trade Review[A] tightly-coiled, unpredictable book ... Harding makes his ambitious, continent-crossing arguments in economical, sometimes elegant, usually understated prose. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *Beyond 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 State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream

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Book Synopsis"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."When 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.When 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. Soldier Box 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.Trade ReviewIt 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 ParliamentJoe 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

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Book SynopsisBradley 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.But 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.Trade ReviewAs 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 ChomskyTime 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 AbourezkChase Madar has written a powerful, compelling and moving defense of Bradley Manning. Bravo! -- Peter Tatchell, human rights campaignerThe 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.comThe Passion of Bradley Manning 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 UnionThe Passion of Bradley Manning ... tells the story of Manning both biographically and regarding Wikileaks and his imprisonment. * Z Magazine *

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Book SynopsisThe 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, Bohemians 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.Drawn by an all-star cast of comic artists, Bohemians is 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.The ebook edition is expanded from the paperback edition, and includes additional chapters on the swing music scene, La Boheme and midwest bohemians, as well as expanded material on the Greenwich Village intellectuals, Walt Whitman and Harlem jazz club Minton's Playhouse.Trade ReviewExcavates an essential part of American history ... and does so with style, great graphics, and no punches pulled. -- Luc SanteThe excitement and inspiration of their creative and courageous work is brilliantlycaptured in this wonderful graphic history. -- Noam ChomskyIngenious 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

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Book SynopsisAlexander 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. Colossal Wreck, his final work, finished shortly before his death in July 2012, exemplifies the prodigious literary brio that made Cockburn's name.Whether 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.This 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.Trade ReviewA Colossal Wreck provides ample evidence for Cockburn's standing as one of the left's most perceptive and entertaining commentators. * Guardian *Alexander 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 *Whether 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 *Probably the most gifted polemicist writing in English today. * Times Literary Supplement *An overflowing goodie basket of wit, expert deprecation, intellectual comradeship ... and incisive ramble. -- James Wolcott * Vanity Fair *Alex struck American journalism like lightning. -- Michael Tomasky * Daily Beast *Always surprising, outrageous, brilliant and yet strangely compassionate. He weaves together the public and the private with a sustained comic ingenuity that is matchless. -- Edward SaidHe 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 *Cockburn 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 *Cockburn's stylish prose is full of erudition, ribald gossip, and pithy insight... [his] gleefully contrarian punditry makes for an entertaining read. * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisIn 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. Rich 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, The Break-Up of Britain 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. As a second Scottish independence referendum beckons, a new Introduction by Anthony Barnett underlines the book's enduring relevance.Trade ReviewThe 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 AschersonThe Break-Up of Britain is Tom Nairn's greatest book. A potent and long-lasting challenge * Scotsman *Tom 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 AndersonTom 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 *More 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 *Powerful and prophetic. Nairn is perhaps Britain's most perceptive and ambitious national storyteller, an audaciously creative stylist. -- New Statesman * Rory Scothorne *Combines 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 *The most significant book on British politics of the past half-century -- Anthony Barnett * openDemocracy *

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Book SynopsisIn 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. In 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.Trade ReviewNo 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 MeadesIn Last Futures, 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. Last Futures is the Silent Running to contemporary architecture's The Fountainhead. -- Owen Hatherley, author of Landscapes of CommunismA 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 *Murphy 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 *Provocative and compelling. * Macleans *Murphy'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 *Murphy outlines both some well known and some intriguingly novel suggestions for why the enthusiasm for 'omni-infrastructural' utopian frames went away.[Last Futures'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 *Last Futures 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 *

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Book SynopsisWhen, in 2013, the Daily Mail 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. Class War Conservatism 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.Trade ReviewA veritable giant of a man who had an almost unique capacity to understand-and explain-the world in which we live. -- Tony BennAn inspiring teacher of politics and an internationally renowned figure on the British Left. * Daily Telegraph *A Miliband speech was always a treat; alternately sarcastic and scholarly, witty and vicious. -- Tariq AliA 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 PanitchHis whole effort is to render the language of socialism in terms of the needs of the here and now. -- Raphael Samuel

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Book SynopsisHere is the ultimate book on the worldwide movement of hackers, pranksters, and activists that operates under the non-name Anonymous, by the writer theHuffington Post says "knows all of Anonymous' deepest, darkest secrets."Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption (before Anonymous shot to fame as a key player in the battles over WikiLeaks, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street). She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside-outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book.The narrative brims with details unearthed from within a notoriously mysterious subculture, whose semi-legendary tricksters - such as Topiary, tflow, Anachaos, and Sabu - emerge as complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people. Propelled by years of chats and encounters with a multitude of hackers, including imprisoned activist Jeremy Hammond and the double agent who helped put him away, Hector Monsegur, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is filled with insights into the meaning of digital activism and little understood facets of culture in the Internet age, including the history of "trolling," the ethics and metaphysics of hacking, and the origins and manifold meanings of "the lulz."Trade ReviewEasily the best book on Anonymous. -- Julian AssangeBrilliantly lucid and informative. -- Alan Moore * New York Times *The US government and its allies have spent years castigating, prosecuting, and jailing members of Anonymous, with the director of the NSA going so far as to warn ominously of the potential of an Anonymous-led power blackout. But Gabriella Coleman's fascinating history of Anonymous makes clear that almost all of the hacktivism attributed to this global collective has been devoted to exposing wrongdoing, not wreaking destruction, even as she also carefully shows that Anonymous is not a shadowy organization but a loosely knit collection of activists all over the globe, fighting for government and corporate transparency. The NSA's treatment of Anonymous is disturbing and extreme, and Anonymous's surprising activist turn is heartening. Essential reading. -- Glenn GreenwaldA work of anthropology that sometimes echoes a John le Carré novel. -- Robert McMillan * Wired *Coleman takes us on a thrilling journey into the uncharted landscape of hackers, trolls, and Anonymous activists who live among us. It's both a perfect initiation for all those n00bs out there still wondering what a 'n00b' is, as well as an important discourse on the role of anarchy online. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy shares in the rebellious, even mordant humor of the groups it profiles, but never loses its critical perspective. A hilarious, important piece of hidden history that is very hard to put down. -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens NowA long-awaited and compelling study of the activist collective . Anyone interested in Anonymous, or the shape of protest in the age of the internet, will find abundant new details and smart insight here. -- Jamie Bartlett * Guardian *In Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy, Coleman reveals the group in all its complexity ... this in-depth account might leave readers in awe of the sheer scope of the group and how much they have achieved while shunning the traditional trappings of leaders, hierarchy and individual fame-seeking. * Financial Times *With a perceptive eye and a principled disposition, Coleman dives into the eclectic world of Anonymous to reveal the humor and political significance of this polarizing network. Following her journey through this maze and reveling in her analysis is both insightful and awe-inspiring. This book will shake up assumptions at the core of academia, industry, law enforcement, and the media. It's a must read! -- danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked TeensPenetrates the chaotic, ad hoc, contradictory world of the Anons . What Gabriella Coleman has done, with a fine eye and a storyteller's talent, is to untangle the hairball just enough to get a sense of its topology, its power and its limits-if not its direction. That is anyone's guess. -- Cory Doctorow * The Spectator *Coleman charts her own conceptual course, breaking with the standard narratives, particularly the click-baity cautionary tales about the dangers of Anonymous. Her book offers its share of warnings, but ones more nuanced, compelling, and empathetic than the typical hand-wringing about online mobs and the conundrum of virtual vigilante justice. Coleman is no cheerleader...But she also doesn't wag her finger from some imagined high ground. -- Astra Taylor * Bookforum *An engrossing, accessible, and intelligent study illuminating the ambiguities of Anonymous and its implications for the future of online political activism. * Times Literary Supplement *Anyone hoping to understand this mostly hidden world will find [Coleman's] book crucial and even prescient. * Boston Globe *[Coleman's] painstaking research takes the reader right into the heart of the group, where she begins explaining the history of the broad movement of hackers known to the outside world as Anonymous . without doubt one of the biggest authorities in the world on the subject of Anonymous. * Independent *This is the ultimate piece on Anonymous. It's a notoriously difficult subject to write about, but Gabriella Coleman has succeeded where others have failed, and the result is a masterpiece that is informative, interesting, and funny. A fine example of what an investigative book should be. -- Mustafa Al-Bassam, alias "tflow," former member of LulzSecExhaustively researched and devilishly readable, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy tells the story of Anonymous's rise from 4chan to taking on governments. If there could be a definitive writer on a movement like Anonymous, Coleman would be it. -- Molly Crabapple, artist and author of Drawing Blood[An] eye-opening ethnography . This all-access pass into the dark and wild corners of the Internet is timely, informative, and also frightening. * Publishers Weekly *Provides pages of interviews with infamous, incendiary trollers, snitches and hackers, verbatim bickering chat-room dialogue, and leaked documents. For such a frenzied collective defying easy categorization, Coleman's diligent and often sensationalistic spadework does great justice in representing the plight of these 'misfits of activism' and their vigilante mischief. An intensive, potent profile of contemporary digital activism at its most unsettling-and most effective. * Kirkus Reviews ("Best Books of 2014") *A rare look inside the complex, decentralized cabal that is the hacker group Anonymous. Many of Anonymous's exploits are detailed here, including Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on payment processing corporations in the wake of WikiLeaks, the technical attacks that defaced Tunisian government websites, and actions taken against the Church of Scientology. What truly resonates in this book is the process by which a leaderless but effective technical and social group plans, deploys, and then disperses. -- Jim Hahn * Library Journal *Meticulously researched, eminently readable. * Maclean’s *Part anthropologist, part journalist, Coleman provides insight and detail into the world of Anonymous in this book, which reads like a saga. A great read for those interested in Anonymous, contemporary anthropology, and Internet subcultures. -- J.M. Keller * Choice *Coleman does a fantastic job of chronicling Anonymous's political turn while explaining her own moral pretzels as a researcher. She illuminates a movement that bucks the cultural trend to self-promote, and examines the 'fractal chaos' of a leaderless collective that is deliberately hard to pin down but looks a little bit like the Internet when it was young. -- Barbara Fister * Inside Higher Ed *From its trollish origins to its hacktivist ethos, anonymity can be at least partly credited for both bringing the group together, and continuing to define its changing mission. -- Joseph Cox * Motherboard, Vice *What began as an academic project became a personal one for Coleman, which dominated her life. The result, for the reader, is a story which is in equal parts informative and enthralling. -- David Gilbert * International Business Times *In our increasingly authoritarian age, we are seeing aggressive attempts to demonise and attack what is variously called the 'dark' or 'deep' web. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy reminds us that from those dark depths wonderful things can and do emerge. Cleansing these depths-if it is even possible-could have consequences far beyond what GCHQ and the Metropolitan Police might imagine. * Times Higher Education *Anonymous seems like a potent adversary. Like ISIS, the group is shadowy and technologically savvy, perhaps making it the perfect weapon against a terrorist group that uses social media as a recruiting and propaganda tool. But for Gabriella Coleman, the author of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, the rush to embrace the group could be premature. * CBC News *"Gabriella Coleman's detailed ethnographic and historical account of the internet collective Anonymous-ranging from its origin on random 4Chan bulletin boards to its role in the Occupy movement and beyond-will prove to be a watershed book in the study of online activism. -- Bernard Doherty * Nova Religio *

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Book SynopsisVertical will make you look at the world around you anew: this is a revolution in understanding your place in the world.Today we live in a world that can no longer be read as a two-dimensional map, but must now be understood as a series of vertical strata that reach from the satellites that encircle our planet to the tunnels deep within the ground. In Vertical, Stephen Graham rewrites the city at every level: how the geography of inequality, politics, and identity is determined in terms of above and below.Starting at the edge of earth's atmosphere and, in a series of riveting studies, descending through each layer, Graham explores the world of drones, the city from the viewpoint of an aerial bomber, the design of sidewalks and the hidden depths of underground bunkers.Trade Review"In this panoramic, at times jaw-dropping book, Stephen Graham describes how in recent years the built environment around the world, both above and below ground, has become dramatically more vertical - and more unequal. sharp and memorable. dizzyingly restless. Cities feel different once you've read it" -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *A rigorously researched, pioneering book packed with disturbing and at times astonishing information * Icon *He takes the view that we've been looking at cities all wrong, all laid out like maps, when what we should be doing is taking vertical slices through them instead. He doesn't just mean from the tip of the skyscrapers to the metro tunnels below ground: he means from the circling satellites round the planet right down to bunkers, sewers, mines. * Spectator *An enlightening overview of the security state's impact on contemporary cities, from overt authoritarian control in war-torn areas to more subtle forms of behavioral influence in places supposedly at peace. Graham shows how military/police/security forces perceive urban places and urban dwellers as subjects to control, and how their inherently undemocratic tactics threaten freedom all over the world -- Nate Berg * Curbed *Seeing cities as Gordian knots of geopolitics, he gathers an impressive range of case studies to bolster his analysis. These compel and convince, from Saudi Arabia's high-rise vanity projects to Rio de Janeiro's favelas. * Nature *

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Book SynopsisHow 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 Extreme Cities, 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.In Extreme Cities, 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 Extreme Cities is a necessary read for anyone concerned with the threat of global warming, and of the cities of the world.Trade ReviewExtreme Cities 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 Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New PlanetMany 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 *The 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 Extreme Cities, 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 New York 2140Cities 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 Molecular Red: Theory for the AnthropoceneA 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 SettlementsA 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 OregonA 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 All Over the Map: Writing on Buildings and CitiesA 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, SwedenA superb essay of political ecology, Extreme Cities 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 Material Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities: Voices from the AnthropoceneExtreme Cities takes 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 CityWith 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 EcologiesThe definitive study of an urban-and planetary-system pushed to the breaking point. Extreme Cities 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 Capitalism in the Web of LifeA 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 Critical Landscapes: Art, Space, PoliticsA substantive contribution to the growing dialogue about our response-or lack thereof-to climate change. * Kirkus Reviews *Dawson 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) *[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 *Books 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 *Named one of the top 10 books of the year by Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *[Extreme Cities] is a sobering account of how planetary urbanization has put us on a collision course with the natural world. -- Jonathan Hahn * Sierra Magazine *Extreme 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 *Invoking 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 *Extreme Cities takes 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 *

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Book SynopsisThe 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.Trade ReviewAn Olympic history that simply hasn't been told. -- Olympic medalist John Carlos, author of The John Carlos StoryShould be on every Olympian's bookshelf. -- Laurence Halsted, fencer and "Team GB" Olympian at Rio 2016[Boykoff's] jaunty polemic Power 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 *As much a tool for activists as a work of scholarship, [Power Games] relentlessly attacks the hypocrisy of the Olympic myth. * Washington Post *A 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 Planet of SlumsJules 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. Power Games 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. Power Games 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 NationEven since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the International Olympic Committee has sought to deny the inherently political nature of the modern Olympic games. In Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics, 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 Power Games essential reading for anyone wanting to understanding the power and importance of the modern Olympics. -- Ben Carrington, University of Texas at Austin, author of Race, Sport and PoliticsEnjoyable and informative, Power Games is an even more relevant read in the build-up to this summer's . Olympics. -- Jamie Johnson * Morning Star *An 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 *This 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 *[Power Games 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 *A truly inside-track critique of the fanfare, Boykoff addresses the games as a site of scandal and rebellion. -- Bailey Flynn * MobyLives! *A timely and depressing reminder of the grisly underbelly of the Olympic Games. -- Diarmaid Ferriter * Irish Times *By 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 *To anyone who believes that the excesses of the Games over the past 50 years or so have betrayed a purer original legacy, [Power Games] by Jules Boykoff provides a bracing corrective. * Spectator *Jules 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 *As 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 *Jules Boykoff's Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics is a smart, sharp, and critically balanced outline of the modern Olympic revival. -- Robert L. Kehoe III * Boston Review *Exhuastively researched and clearly written. -- Jon Day * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisIn Capitalism: A Ghost Story, best-selling writer Arundhati Roy examines the dark side of Indian democracy - a nation of 1.2 billion, where the country' s 100 richest people own assets worth one quarter of India's gross domestic product.Ferocious and clear-sighted, this is a searing portrait of a nation haunted by ghosts: the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt; the hundreds of millions who live on less than two dollars a day.It is the story of how the largest democracy in the world, with over 800 million voting in the last election, answers to the demands of globalized capitalism, subjecting millions of people to inequality and exploitation. Roy shows how the mega-corporations, modern robber barons plundering India's natural resources, use brute force, as well as a wide range of NGOs and foundations, to sway government and policy making in India.Trade ReviewThe fierceness with which Arundhati Roy loves humanity moves my heart. -- Alice WalkerResists and denounces all tyrannies, pleads for their victims, and unflinchingly questions the tragedy. -- John BergerAn unflinching emotional as well as political intelligence. Her lucid and probing essays offer sharp insights on a range of matters, from crony capitalism and environmental depredation to the perils of nationalism. -- Pankaj Mishra * Time Magazine *In her searing account, Roy asks whether our shriveled forms of democracy will be 'the endgame of the human race'-and shows vividly why this is a prospect not to be lightly dismissed. -- Noam ChomskyThe scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating. * The New York Times Book Review *

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Book SynopsisHere 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, Capital is the ne plus ultra of books on the ultimate megalopolis.It is also a book of experimental literature that transposes Walter Benjamin's unfinished magnum opus of literary montage on the modern city, The Arcades Project, from 19th-century Paris to 20th-century New York, bringing the streets to life in categories such as "Sex," "Commodity," "Downtown," "Subway," and "Mapplethorpe."Capital 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.Trade ReviewCapital scintillates . Goldsmith has produced a book that reminds us how close we can still get, via the labour of sound and thought and syntax, to the rhythms of a real city. -- Brian Dillon * Guardian *Goldsmith's material, unmistakably real, refuses to remain in a literary frame. * Bookslut *[Goldsmith] gives you the feel of what it is like to be living in New York now. -- Marjorie Perloff * New Yorker *A skyscraper of words-literary, journalistic, poetic, and prosaic-to celebrate and chronicle teeming Gotham. The title alludes to Walter Benjamin, and the conceit is one to do him proud . there is an embarrassment of riches here. * Kirkus Reviews *Reading Capital feels like walking the city, through time and space, jumping neighborhoods, going in and out of buildings, slipping through wormholes. It's a kind of exuberant eavesdropping on the muttering, shouting narrative of the twentieth-century city. -- Jeremiah Moss * Vanishing New York *Capital is . meant to be dipped into, to surprise, like a chance encounter on the street. The infinite richness of the city is an apt form for [Goldsmith's] ambition. Capital is a book to get lost in for hours, like some obscure corner of the Lower East Side; it helps us see the universe in a chunk of asphalt. -- Lauren Elkin * Financial Times *The spirit of a city constantly wrestled with and romanticized all out of proportion suffuses Capital. -- Andy Battaglia * Wall Street Journal *Capital could be seen as Goldsmith scaling up, a skewed take on the Great American Novel. -- Sukhdev Sandhu * Guardian *[Capital] is an extravagantly complex construction, opening with a cinematic sweep of the city as a dream-like impossibility, then diving down from sky to earth, languishing in the street before digging underground and emerging to the sky, the weather, the atmosphere and, finally, the apocalypse . [Be] astounded by this epic, ten-year effort to shape an impossible portrait of a miraculous city which-as EB White puts it-should never have existed. -- Gilda Williams * Art Monthly *As massive, intimidating and fascinating as its subject . The book is much like the city it describes: once you start exploring, you won't want to stop. -- Pat Padua * Spectrum Culture *A fascinating work. Kenneth Goldsmith has set before us a Petronian feast in which every page offers up a toothsome morsel to anyone with an interest in New York and its pre-eminent place in the cultural life of the twentieth century. * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsPart 1 1Preface 3A Dream City 5B Empire 15C Antiquity 28D Nature 36E Panorama 51F Architecture 60G Empire State Building 91H Crowds 108I Street 118J Flaneur 131K Psychogeography 164L Body 174M Sex 191N Coney Island 222O Alcohol 230P Drugs 244Q Sound 262R Smell 290S Food 298T Advertising 309U Times Square 323V Dirt 331W Central Park 345X Subway 352Y Poetic Empire 362Z 1939 World's Fair 370Postscript 383Interlude 385Part 2 403Preface 405a Downtown 407b Art 437c Textuality 466d Grid 470e Loneliness 477f Mundane 489g Mapplethorpe 501h Glass 538i Simulacrum 556j Media 565k Monument 578l Robert Moses 588m Power 607n Commodity 622o Gentrification 656p Suburbs 669q Crime 675r Poverty 690s Unrest 695t Harlem 739u 1964 World's Fair 758v World Trade Center 779w Light 795x Air 811y Death 844z Apocalypse 856Postscript 864Bibliography 865Acknowledgments 913

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Book SynopsisBad New Days examines the evolution of art and criticism in Western Europe and North America over the last twenty-five years, exploring their dynamic relation to the general condition of emergency instilled by neoliberalism and the war on terror.Considering the work of artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tacita Dean, and Isa Genzken, and the writing of thinkers like Jacques Rancière, Bruno Latour, and Giorgio Agamben, Hal Foster shows the ways in which art has anticipated this condition, at times resisting the collapse of the social contract or gesturing toward its repair; at other times burlesquing it.Against the claim that art making has become so heterogeneous as to defy historical analysis, Foster argues that the critic must still articulate a clear account of the contemporary in all its complexity. To that end, he offers several paradigms for the art of recent years, which he terms "abject," "archival," "mimetic," and "precarious."Trade ReviewDeft, opinionated, Foster is one of those rare art theorists whose measured prose can engage a wider readership, cutting through the philosophical inflationism that afflicts much of the higher gossip among art critics. * Guardian *Foster's latest book, Bad New Days, attempts to recover the idea of an avant-garde after a hard half-century of infighting, obfuscation, rivalry, and successive failures to engage with the real world of politics. * Harper's *Foster's strength lies in his erudite attention to those artists that have emerged as definitive of their particular moment. -- Mostafa Heddaya * Artinfo *

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Book SynopsisZeno 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.The Lamentations of Zeno 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.Trade ReviewThe best thing one could say of an author: he enriches us. -- Günter GrassThrilling, 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 Let the Great World SpinThis 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 Mars TrilogyThe Lamentations of Zeno 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 Hiding in Plain SightPerfectly paced, keenly insightful and wickedly funny, The Lamentations of Zeno is at once a much-needed indictment of the global climate crisis and a brilliant portrait of middle life. The Antarctic antics of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? meet the wit and wisdom of Herzog, with the politics ofFlight Behavior sprinkled on top: a treat! -- Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must GoThere 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 *Trojanow 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 *A topical polemic about global warming and climate change... The Lamentations of Zeno 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 *The Lamentations of Zeno 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 *Short, sharp, bitter, and very funny. -- Nicola Twilley * New Yorker *With 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 *

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Book SynopsisCombining 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.With 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.Trade ReviewThis book is the best analytical and political response we have to the historic rebellions in Ferguson! Don't miss it. -- Cornel West, author of Black Prophetic FireWe 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 Ella Baker and the Black Freedom MovementA 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 . Policing the Planet comes at an incredibly important time. -- Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Schomburg Center for Research in Black CultureWhen 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 Policing the Planet a definitive work for anybody confused about exactly what structural law enforcement powers lead to our current racial justice climate. * Colorlines *This 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 *A probing collection of essays and interviews. * Philadelphia Tribune *Through 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 *Policing the Planet is an important intervention to a key issue at a crucial time. -- Ramor Ryan * TeleSur *An incredible anthology tracing the bloody history of broken-windows policing and its implications for city life in general. -- James Tracy * Rooflines *

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Book SynopsisB.R. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important, yet neglected, works of political writing from India. Written in 1936, it is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and its caste system. It offers a scholarly critique of Hindu scriptures, scriptures that sanction a rigidly hierarchical and iniquitous social system. Arundhati Roy introduces this extensively annotated edition in "The Doctor and the Saint," examining the persistence of caste in modern India, and how the conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi continues to resonate. Roy breathes new life into Ambedkar's anti-caste utopia, and says that without a Dalit revolution, India will continue to be hobbled by systemic inequality.Trade ReviewAnnihilation of Caste has to be read ... No Hindu who prizes his faith above life itself can afford to underrate the importance of this indictment. -- M.K. GandhiMarvellous writing with conceptual clarity and political understanding - something the world should know about. . . Roy's essay has the sharp political thrust one has come to expect from her * Uma Chakravarti, author of Everyday Lives, Everyday Historie *Arundhati Roy's 'The Doctor and the Saint' works both at an emotive and an argumentative level. She manages to convey an intimate and deeply felt sensitivity to the history that produced Annihilation of Caste... A robust edition of an under-appreciated classic. * Satish Deshpande, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University *This edition is truly a remarkable achievement. * Christophe Jaffrelot, author of Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: *What the Communist Manifesto is to the capitalist world, Annihilation of Caste is to India. -- Anand Teltumbde, author of The Persistence of Caste

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Book SynopsisOn the centenary of the Russian Revolution, China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, 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?In 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.Trade ReviewMiéville is an ideal guide through this complex historical moment, giving agency to obscure and better-known participants alike, and depicting the revolution as both a tragically lost opportunity and an ongoing source of inspiration. * Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) *When one of the most marvellously original writers in the world takes on one of the most explosive events in history, the result can only be incendiary. -- Barbara EhrenreichThis gripping account is a re-enactment of the Russian Revolution ... His writing can be as passionate as that of the poets of the time: Alexander Blok, Mikhail Kuzmin, Marina Tsvetaeva, to mention some of those quoted here. Miéville's own special effects are of a piece with them. * Financial Times *An intriguing march to revolution, told here with clarity and insight. * Kirkus *Readers will be satisfied that October gives them the literary equivalent of bearing witness to world history. * Booklist *To give a new generation of readers a fresh account of the great revolution, incorporating all the post-1989 archival discoveries and scholarly research, is a singularly daunting task. To render it in vivid, oracular prose, moving across the pages with the gathering force of a hurricane, is something that only China Miéville could achieve. -- Mike DavisElegantly constructed and unexpectedly moving -- Sheila Fitzpatrick * London Review of Books *There are delightful grace notes here over and above a brisk and perceptive narrative. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *Cinematic and vivid * Newsweek *It's as if John Reed, author of the classic piece of revolutionary journalism, Ten Days That Shook the World, woke from a decades-long sleep to tell the story of 1917 once again. * Counterpunch *Best Summer Books of 2017. * Publishers Weekly *Miéville sifts through the extraordinary disagreements, debates, and debacles that accompanied the Russian reds on every step of the road to revolution ... He's especially evocative when he chronicles the scenes on the chaotic streets. But much of the value of October comes in his mastery of how the intricacies of human decision-making play out in Petrograd, Moscow, and beyond. * Christian Science Monitor *An exciting account of the revolutionary moment... well-argued and elegiac * Spectator *[An] engaging retelling of the events that rocked the foundations of the twentieth century. * Village Voice *In October, Miéville provides an introduction to one of the seminal events of the 20th century-the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty and the establishment of the world's first communist state 100 years ago this year ... It has all the makings of a novel, and Miéville's narrative builds toward its crescendo as the Bolsheviks prepare to take power. * Boston Globe *Miéville's understanding of the intricacies and underlying absurdities of party politics is unmatched... A rich and compelling book. * Dallas Morning News *This is a very fine book-in some ways, I believe, the best work that China Miéville has produced since the three thick volumes of the Bas-Lag trilogy. Indeed, October bears, in certain respects, a deeper affinity to those novels than to anything else he has published since; and it thus provides a convenient opportunity to take stock of the Miéville oeuvre to date...That [October] is an excellent work of art there is no doubt whatever. -- Carl Freedman * Los Angeles Review of Books *Miéville, known for his extravagantly weird science fiction and fantasy, is a virtuosic storyteller; here he conjures a society convulsing on the verge of total transformation while staying squarely within the lines of the historical record. Reading this blow-by-blow account of revolution now, when political life is stranger than any fiction, is galvanizing. -- Rogert White * Artsy *There are workers, there are peasants, there are soldiers, there are parties, there are tsars, there are courtiers. Each of them bears his or her class position, his or her economic and other concerns, but it is the political field itself, how it hurls its protagonists into combat, combat with its own rules and norms, its own criteria for success and failure, that is front and center here. This may be the most textured, most concrete, account of what political contest and political combat, literal and metaphoric, feels like. -- Corey RobinOctober's dramatic narrative makes the case that the effort is still worth it - that we must dare to dream, even if we risk conjuring more nightmares in this darkening world. -- Alci Rengifo * Los Angeles Review of Books *As an outstanding piece of literature, China Miéville's October belongs on the same shelf as John Reed's eyewitness classic Ten Days That Shook the World, but even more it belongs in the hands of activists who will be shaking the world in the twenty-first century. -- Paul Le Blanc * International Socialist Review *There is interest in reading the story of 'that violent and incomparable year' told by one who hopes against hope that it could happen again. -- Rob Doyle * Irish Times *China Miéville's literary retelling-made to feel like a novel, but scrupulously sourced to real events-captures the vertigo of 1917's encounter between massive historical forces, plunging us back into the heart of a far-reaching social upheaval, in which time flowed backward and forward even as it marched inexorably forward toward a future that was radically unknown. -- David Sessions * The New Republic *Even though you know the ending, this is a compulsive page-turner that makes the period come alive in rich, colourful detail. Although he is better known for his science fiction, Miéville's eye here fleshes out both the spirit of revolution and the horrors that followed. His feelings are evidently complex, which leads to a narrative that draws out elements often left out of more traditional renderings of the Revolution. -- Caroline Magennis * Times Higher Education *A century on, the nature of the Russian Revolution remains hotly contested, both within and outside of leftist circles. Miéville, a master storyteller, makes a powerful case in his first nonfiction work that the Bolsheviks' October success should not be disavowed as the onset of disaster but looked to as an inspirational moment in a grand narrative of human liberation. * Publishers Weekly *Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *The story is old but Miéville retells it with verve and empathy. He brilliantly captures the tensions of coup and counter-coup and the kaleidoscope of coalitions that formed and then broke. * Guardian *An inspirational account that lends itself to troubled times. * Observer *October, by the British author China Miéville, is a gripping account of the Russian Revolution that offers the pleasures and rewards of a great novel ... The book has vividly drawn characters, high drama, suspense, and an irresistible narrative momentum that sweeps the reader along from the first page to the tragic - but not inevitable - conclusion ... a masterful work. -- George de Stefano * Pop Matters *

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Book SynopsisForty 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.Reece 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."In Violent Borders, 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.Trade ReviewFocuses 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 *A much-needed counter to a thousand newspaper columns calling on us to secure our borders, Reece Jones' Violent Borders 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 TerrorFrom 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 WorldI'd like an endless supply of Reece Jones' Violent Borders 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 SouthIn 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 *

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Book SynopsisIn 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, Cities of Power forces us to rethink our urban future, as well as our historically shaped present.Trade ReviewGöran 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 *Should become an early port of call for anyone looking to know more about how urban and national power functions around the world * Irish Times *One of the world's most engaging and intriguing sociologists. Cities of Power helps us understand the current tensions between states and people, capitals and peripheries, populism and elitism, nationalism and globalism -- Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of Our America: A Hispanic History of the United StatesCities of Power is explicitly a riposte to the idea of the Global City, and the peculiar Monocle-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 *One more publication in a sparkling list of career accomplishments, Cities of Power might function as an important resource for many a sociology doctoral student -- Luzia Lodder * PopMatters *

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Book SynopsisThe 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.How 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, The Shock of the Anthropocene dissects a new theoretical buzzword and explores paths for living and acting politically in this rapidly developing geological epochTrade ReviewAt 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 LatourA 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 WorldCleverly 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 CambridgeThis 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 LondonA 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 AnthropoceneIn 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 *A 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 *This 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 *This 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 InstituteThe 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 *The 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 *These two historians have undertaken to explain the entry into this new epoch and reveal its major determinants. * Le Monde *Challenges the certainties of our modernity, our mode of development and our view of the world. * Libération *This 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 *This is no climate change doomsday book. It's about the long-term legacy of the planet we are altering. -- Laura Cole * Geographical Magazine *Impressively researched, intellectually rigorous and elegantly written . it should be assigned reading for all current and aspiring Anthropocenologists. * Environment and History *One of the most insightful books on the Anthropocene. * Ecozoïc *Table of ContentsPART 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

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Book SynopsisIn 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. Geoff Mann's In the Long Run We're All Dead is a thoroughgoing critique of Keynes for our post-crash world, and an accessible and historically grounded introduction to his masterwork The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Mann 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.Trade ReviewThere 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 *A detailed, fast-flowing account of how repeatedly guileful Keynesianism crisis management has saved the elite by reengineering tragedy . rewarding reading. -- Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1%Mann'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 The End of Loser LiberalismMann 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 Liberalism: A Counter-HistoryUrgent and lucid . A bravura inquiry into the intellectual history of the present and the ambiguous vitality of Keynes's General Theory. -- Alberto Toscano, author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an IdeaA 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. In the Long Run We Are All Dead makes for a startling, bracing and important read. -- Michael J. Watts, University of California, BerkeleyThey 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 ColumbiaGeoff 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 *Geoff 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 *In 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 *Geoff Mann is well aware of the distinctions between Keynes the man, his work, and 'Keynesianism.' But his book on Keynesianism, In the Long Run We Are All Dead, is quite deliberately more about the 'ism' than the man. -- Mike Beggs * Jacobin *Enjoyable ... 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 *

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Book SynopsisThe Beautiful Struggle 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 Between the World and Me, hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading."This 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. The Beautiful Struggle is a moving father-and-son story about the reality that tests us, and the love that saves us.Trade ReviewThe young James Joyce of the hip-hop generation. -- Walter MosleyA kind of hip-hop Portrait of the Artist. * Guardian *A 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 *A beautifully written, loving portrait of a strong father bringing his sons to manhood. * Booklist *Haunting and healing . a splendid memoir. * Essence *The single best writer on the subject of race in the United States. * New York Observer *A 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 *The intellectual heir to James Baldwin. * Financial Times *Told in a dreamy, lyric register redolent of a voiceover in a movie flashback, The Beautiful Struggle is both a touching portrait of filial affection and a paean to the redemptive power of culture. * Prospect *One of the most high-profile commentators on race in the United States ...Reading this book is an intoxicating experience -- Bernardine Evaristo * New Statesman *This book forces us to ask how far American society has really come, and how much further it has to go. * Financial Times *

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