Verso Books

Book SynopsisMarshall Berman was one of the great urbanists and Marxist cultural critics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and his brilliant, nearly sui generis book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is a masterpiece of the literature on modernism. But like many New York intellectuals, the essay was his characteristic form, accommodating his multifarious interests and expressing his protean, searching exuberant mind. This collection includes early essays from and on the radical '60s, on New York City, on literary figures from Kafka to Pamuk, and late essays on rock, hip hop, and gentrification. Concluding with his last essay, completed just before his death in 2013, this book is Berman's intellectual autobiography, tracing his career as a thinker through the way he read the 'signs in the street'.Trade ReviewMarshall Berman was our Manhattan Socrates: not the arch dialectician but the philosopher in and of the street, not the aggressive asker of questions but the ambler in the boulevard, the man who seeks wisdom in the agora, in the conversation of Times Square, the walker in the city, the man who died among friends. -- Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary MindMarshall resurrected the old medieval maxim Stadtluft macht frei: the air of the city makes us free. He found that freedom everywhere in the busy streets of Manhattan: in the clubs and cafes of Greenwich Village; in the gaudy lights of Times Square; in the Bronx where he grew up, which died and was reborn; in the graffiti scrawled on New York's subway cars; and in the music of the city, from jazz to Broadway to rap. -- Michael Walzer, Editor Emeritus of DissentThe departed bard of modernism ... He believed dialogue to be an urgent need in modern times because our subjectivity and inwardness have intensified, a state he called both richer and more lonely. -- Brooke Gladstone, cohost of NPR’s On the MediaFor Marshall, the bad things are always there. The contradictions are always there. The nub of his genius is how he breaks on through to the synthesis at the end of the tunnel. -- Robert Christgau, author of Going Into the CityThere are other writers as intelligent as Marshall Berman, and as able to draw together disparate elements of cultural history into a dazzling new picture, but they seldom sustain the same sense of compassionate warmth toward those who make history. -- Rebecca Solnit, author of Nonstop MetropolisModernism in the Streets captures both the violent dislocation wrought by political changes and the artistic outputs born out of suffering. Berman's essays make the reader experience historical change as he did-as something urgent, frightening, but also wondrous. With that feeling comes a faint but undeniable hint of possibility. -- Max Holleran * The New Republic *A wonderful collection of Marshall's 'life and times in essays,' a treasure trove of five decades' living and writing for the city, lovingly consecrated by Dissent and Nation editor David Marcus, all done with the blessing of Marshall's widow, Shellie. At last those books-in-progress have been consummated as an organic whole; the incomplete has been posthumously assembled in One Bright Book of Marshall's Life...Modernism in the Streets makes Marshall whole again, keeps him living, and gives us a new beginning, a genesis. -- Andy Merrifield * Jacobin *Berman's writing is scholarly but jargon-free, anchored in modern references but with a strong sense of history, and animated by a generous sympathy. He represents what's best in the Marxist tradition. -- Christopher HitchensMarshall Berman is one of our liveliest and most generous interpreters of Marx...brimming with ideas and romance. He can help us learn to create ourselves while we try to change the world. * Nation *We must admire Marshall Berman's audacity...Berman persuasively argues that Marx's theory of alienation can best explain the awful consequences of capitalism, even when workers toil at computers rather than assembly lines. * New York Times *It is the broadness and scale of Berman's vision of modernity that is the power of this collection. -- Benjamin Balthaser * Jacobin *Modernism in the Streets is a comprehensive testament to singular style with which Berman espoused, with equal urgency and earnestness, the tragedies and triumphs of modernity, and its continuing impact on the ways we navigate urban space. -- Tyler Curtis * The Culture Trip *

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Book SynopsisIn The Security Principle, French philosopher Frédéric Gros takes a historical approach to the concept of "security", looking at its evolution from the Stoics to the social network. With lucidity and rigour, Gros's approach is fourfold, looking at security as a mental state, as developed by the Greeks; as an objective situation and absence of all danger, as prevailed in the Middle Ages; as guaranteed by the nation state and its trio of judiciary, police and military; and finally "biosecurity", control, regulation and protection in the flux of contemporary society. In this deeply thought-provoking account, Gros's exploration of security shines a light both on its past meanings as well as its present uses, exposing the contemporary abuses of security and the pervasiveness of it in everyday life in the Global North.Trade ReviewPraise for A Philosophy of Walking: A passionate affirmation of the simple life, and joy in simple things. And it's beautifully written: clear, simple, precise. -- Carole Cadwalladr * Observer *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Poignant life-stories ... are interspersed with the author's own meditations on walking... In the way a landscape is gradually absorbed by the long-distance rambler they steadily build into an insistent exhortation: get up, get out and walk! -- James Attlee * Independent *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Life-affirming stuff. * National Geographic Traveler *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Impressive. -- Tom Payne * Daily Telegraph *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Philosopher Gros ponders walking, that most mundane mode of transportation or exercise, elevating it to its rightful place in inspiring creativity, evoking freedom, and quieting a troubled soul. * Booklist *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: This elegant book inspires consideration of an oft-overlooked subject. * Publisher's Weekly *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: An admirable little book which will delight even the most sedentary. * Le Monde *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: An unclassifiable book in which ideas are illuminated by the bright light of the morning. * L'Express *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Resolving to take more walks in the new year might sound like promising to take more naps - choosing idleness over work. But a lot of clever people don't see it that way [...] Frédéric Gros asks why so many of our most productive writers and philosophers - Rousseau, Kant, Rimbaud, Robert Louis Stevenson, Nietzsche, Jack Kerouac - have also been indefatigable walkers. -- Christopher Caldwell * Financial times *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: This short, simple and profound book... will be read and re-read. -- Laurence Coupe * Times Higher Education *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Unpretentious and refreshing. -- Jonathon Sturgeon * Flavorwire *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: A long walk, Gros suggests, allows us to commune with the sublime. -- Lauren Elkin * New York Times *Praise for A Philosophy of Walking: Celebrates the liberation of the mind that comes with walking, especially in natural areas: I hike, therefore, I am. -- Matt JaffePraise for A Philosophy of Walking: A Philosophy of Walking moved me to think in greater depth about my walks. The book, written with great clarity, conveys Gros' thoughts about walking, and a discussion of various thinkers (Thoreau, Kant, Rousseau) for whom walking was essentially a contemplative act. -- Leonard QuartFrédéric Gros's genealogy of security is an outstanding study in political thought. Security Principle covers a lot of ground, from Ancient Greece to contemporary biopolitics, illuminating key transformations in the meaning of the concept of security. Written in a lucid and accessible way, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in how we have come to be so insecure about security. -- Sergei Prozorov, University of JyväskyläIn this veritable tour de force, Gros offers an erudite and engaging journey in the history of Western philosophy. He shows how different meanings of security have been sedimented, layer by layer, across thinkers and traditions and the ways in which these meanings are reconfigured in our present. Ultimately, Gros alerts us to the silent siren of security that dangerously allures us while it muffles the promise of politics: the possibility and the hope of changing the world. -- Banu Bargu, University of California, Santa Cruz

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Book SynopsisBlack rebellion has returned, with dramatic protests in scores of cities and campuses, bringing with it a renewed engagement with the history of Black radical movements and thought. Here, key scholarly voices from a wide array of disciplines recalls the powerful tradition of Black radicalism as it developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries while defining new directions for Black radical thought.In a time when activists in Ferguson, Palestine, Baltimore, and Hong Kong immediately make connections between their movements, this book makes clear that new Black radical politics are thoroughly internationalist and redraws the links between Black resistance and anti-capitalism. Featuring the key voices in the new intellectual wave of Black radical thinking, this collection outlines one of the most vibrant areas of thought today.With contributions from Cedric Robinson, Elizabeth Robinson, Steven Osuna, Nikhil Pal Singh, Damien Sojoyner, Françoise Vergès, Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, Jordan T. Camp, Christina Heatherton, George Lipsitz, Greg Burris, Paul Ortiz, Darryl C. Thomas, Avery Gordon, Shana L. Redmond, Kwame M. Phillips, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, and Robin D. G. Kelley.Trade ReviewCedric Robinson was a towering intellectual and courageous activist in the grand tradition of W.E.B Du Bois. In these bleak times, it is imperative to keep his legacy alive and build on his work and witness. This book meets this imperative in a powerful way! -- Cornel West, author of The Radical KingIn America, issues of race, poverty, and injustice haunt our nation. Futures of Black Radicalism, edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin, examines causes and resolutions of these troubling challenges. The need for radical thinking has never been more evident. To this end, this book is not just a gift; it is a necessity. -- Harry BelafonteAn astonishing gathering of essays and interviews featuring leading emerging radical intellectuals. -- David Roediger, author of Class, Race, and MarxismWhat stands out about this book is the richness of intellectual discourse within its pages. A variety of historians, sociologists, and other scholars all tackle a central question: what, precisely, does the Black Radical Tradition say about life in the twenty-first century? -- Robert Greene III * Society for US Intellectual History Blog *

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Book SynopsisWhat is the relation of art to the practice of radical politics today? Strike Art explores this question through the historical lens of Occupy, an event that had artists at its core. Precarious, indebted, and radicalized, artists redirected their creativity from servicing the artworld into an expanded field of organizing in order to construct of a new-if internally fraught-political imaginary set off against the common enemy of the 1%. In the process, they called the bluff of a contemporary art system torn between ideals of radical critique, on the one hand, and an increasing proximity to Wall Street on the other-oftentimes directly targeting major art institutions themselves as sites of action.Tracking the work of groups including MTL, Not an Alternative, the Illuminator, the Rolling Jubilee, and G.U.L.F, Strike Art shows how Occupy ushered in a new era of artistically-oriented direct action that continues to ramify far beyond the initial act of occupation itself into ongoing struggles surrounding labor, debt, and climate justice, concluding with a consideration of the overlaps between such work and the aesthetic practices of the Black Lives Matter movement.Art after Occupy, McKee suggests, contains great potentials of imagination and action for a renewed left project that are still only beginning to ripen, at once shaking up and taking flight from the art system as we know it.Trade ReviewThis irrepressibly vibrant page-turner is the first art historical reading of Occupy Wall Street, and a canny account of politically engaged art before, during and after the events of 2011. I'm tempted to call it the sequel to Artificial Hells, but this would do a disservice to its enthusiastic approach to activism. No left melancholia here-just a powerful commitment to the liberatory horizon of both progressive art and politics. -- Claire Bishop, author of Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of SpectatorshipStrike Art is, above all, a book of cultural documentation, one that relives the events and "ethical spectacle" of a radical political moment that seems to be giving way, in the usual manner, to a pursuit of electoral success rather than wholesale reform. The art that McKee discusses is often transient by design, produced by collectives or anonymous bodies, and distributed freely or slyly entered into the circulation systems of the culture at large. * Harper's *Strike Art is written by someone who was directly involved in the day-to-day organizing work of [Occupy Wall Street], and who continues to participate in the movement's afterlife. McKee's book is therefore replete with granular information about the ambitious, and sometimes ambiguous, revolt of the 99%, details that other commentators can only address in a second-hand manner. In this sense he aligns his writing with Walter Benjamin's well-known directive that authors become producers with a 'tendentious' tilt towards working class struggles. * E-flux *

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Book SynopsisThis is the first comprehensive historical perspective on the relationship between Black workers and the changing patterns of Britain's labour needs. It places in an historical context the development of a small black presence in sixteenth-century Britain into the disadvantaged black working class of the 1980s.The book deals with the colonial labour institutions (slavery, indentureship and trade unionism) and the ideology underlying them and also considers the previously neglected role of the nineteenth-century Black radicals in British working-class struggles.Finally, the book examines the emergence of a Black radical ideology that has underpinned the twentieth-century struggles against unemployment, racial attacks and workplace grievances, among them employer and trade union racism.Trade ReviewWell written and presented with admirable clarity... scrupulously documented and written with dynamic flair... with almost every turn of the page the book breaks new ground. -- Caryl Phillips * City Limits *This is a pioneering and valuable work of scholarship and interpretation. * New Society *A major work of research that is certain to be thumbed through by scholars in the future. * West Indian News *An important and timely contribution to British historiography. * Caribbean Times *Ramdin's contribution is unique. * Times Higher Education Supplement *

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Book SynopsisModern life is being destroyed by experts and professionals. We have lost our amateur spirit and need to rediscover the radical and liberating pleasure of doing things we love.In The Amateur, thinker Andy Merrifield shows us how the many spheres of our lives-work, knowledge, cities, politics-have fallen into the hands of box tickers, bean counters and rule followers. In response, he corrals a team of independent thinkers, wayward poets, dabblers and square pegs who challenge the accepted wisdom. Such figures as Charles Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Edward Said, Guy Debord, Hannah Arendt and Jane Jacobs show us the way. As we will see the amateur takes risks, thinks the unthinkable and seeks independence-and changes the world.Trade ReviewA satisfying celebration of the 'great romantic dream... a society that breaks free of the vicious circle of undefined productivity. * Publishers Weekly *Rather than thinking of amateurs as dabblers, weekend gardeners, busying themselves with unimportant tasks, Merrifield defends the creative and political potential of doing things we love for pleasure. Amateurs take risks, seek independence, innovate by choosing a less obvious direction. By exploring the work of figures like Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, and Hannah Arendt, and their impact on his own professional life, Merrifield succeeds in highlighting the revolutionary spirit of the amateur. * The Idler *Erudite and engagingly written . refreshing. * Financial Times *Here amateurs (a word derived from the Latin 'to love') are non-alienated citizens; enthusiasts, who counter the mechanical expertise and technical formalism of modern society; passionate obsessives standing up for values that need defending. Merrifield, an urban theorist who writes with a brio and wit often missing in professional academics, offers an idiosyncratic canon (Dostoevsky, Jane Jacobs, Edward Said) in which he holds up amateurs as outside-the-box thinkers, inter- and post-disciplinary radicals. It's a stirring book whose critique of contemporary work culture will be instantly recognisable. It also doubles as a moving memoir of a working-class intellectual. -- Sukdev Sandhu * Observer *This elegant polemic is a persuasive manifesto for amateurism. * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisFor decades, the American political asylum process has been used to punish enemies and reward friends of the US government. Refugees from Cuba can walk through an open door. People fleeing Eastern Europe have been judged very differently than those trying to escape persecution in "friendly" but deeply violent states like Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia and Honduras.From a storefront law office in the US border city of El Paso, Texas, one man set out to challenge that system. Carlos Specter has filed hundreds of political asylum cases on behalf of human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents, and though his legal activism has only inched the process forward-98% of refugees from Mexico are still denied asylum-his myriad legal cases and the media fallout from them has increasingly put US immigration policy, the corrupt state of Mexico, and the political basis of immigration, asylum, and deportation decisions-on the spot.We Built the Wall is an immersive, engrossing story of a new front in the immigration wars.Trade ReviewPraise for Dreamers "Compelling, honest, and personal, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the immigration debate." --Booklist "A forthright, moving piece of advocacy journalism." --Kirkus Reviews "Truax succeeds in conveying how a shadow status permeates the lives of all the young people profiled here, with education, employment opportunities, and essential social services severely limited or unavailable." --Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisWhat happens when angry young rebels become wary older women, ageing in a leaner, meaner time: a time which exalts only the 'new', in a ruling orthodoxy daily disparaging all it portrays as the 'old'? Delving into her own life and those of others who left their mark on it, Lynne Segal tracks through time to consider her generation of female dreamers, what formed them, how they left their mark on the world, where they are now in times when pessimism seems never far from what remains of public life. Searching for answers, she studies her family history, sexual awakening, ethnic belonging, as well as the peculiarities of the time and place that shaped her own political journeys, with all their urgency, significance, pleasures and absurdities.Trade ReviewRequired reading... Given today's political climate, Segal's writing is as relevant as ever. * V Magazine *

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Book SynopsisThe Panama Papers demonstrated that the superrich hide their wealth from the rest of us. Dirty Secrets shows that this was not by accident, but by design. It was the result of a powerful alliance of the wealthy, their advisers and the state that has undermined all attempts to solve the tax haven problem.This is because tax havens are the unacknowledged heart of globalized capitalism. Their purpose is to provide freedom from regulation. The exponents say this makes markets work and so we all gain. But this argument has now failed. Furthermore democracy itself is being threatened by the political fallout from the mistrust this regime has created.The result is that tax havens are now a threat to the very system that supposedly spawned it. Dirty Secrets is the most revelatory examination of the crisis by a leading expert, but also offers solutions on how governments can regulate havens and what the world might look like without them.Trade ReviewA rare voice of sanity at a time of economic madness -- Owen Jones, author of The EstablishmentBacked by years of experience and fired by relentless energy and a burning sense of anger at what the offshore system of tax havens is doing to our fragile world, Richard Murphy's tireless work at the leading edge of the tax justice campaigns has helped open the world's eyes to the scale and nature of this growing, metastatising threat to our democracies and our economies. Dirty Secrets makes essential reading for those wanting to understand where it all went wrong. -- Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure IslandsRichard Murphy has for decades been a leading voice on the left arguing for international tax reform. He fizzes with ideas about how policy-makers should organise policies on an international scale . argues that if we manage to stamp out tax havens, the rewards will be bountiful: inequality will fall, and so too the cost of capital. Regulation, markets and even democracy will function better. -- ProspectThe Panama Papers detailed corruption by design, and here the fearless author of The Joy of Tax uses them as a jumping-off point to detail, with insight, forensic precision and pugnacity, the truth behind the lie that tax havens are a reasonable part of global capitalism * Times Higher Education *Murphy's book aggressively attacks the world's tax havens-or 'secrecy jurisdictions,' as he calls them. Their most corrosive effect, in his judgement, is not to allow individuals (including criminals) and corporations to avoid or evade taxes, although that is important. Rather, the worst thing about tax havens is the way in which they prevent the kind of transparency in transactions that any well-functioning market requires ... If the secrecy jurisdictions were curtailed, the world would be a much better place, Murphy contends: democracies would be stronger, and markets more efficient. -- Richard N. Cooper * Foreign Affairs *

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Book SynopsisA toxic ideology rules the world - of extreme competition and individualism. It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose. Only a positive vision can replace it, a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world. George Monbiot shows how new findings in psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology cast human nature in a radically different light: as the supreme altruists and cooperators. He shows how we can build on these findings to create a new politics: a 'politics of belonging'. Both democracy and economic life can be radically reorganized from the bottom up, enabling us to take back control and overthrow the forces that have thwarted our ambitions for a better society.Urgent, and passionate, Out of the Wreckage provides the hope and clarity required to change the world.Trade ReviewGeorge Monbiot, with the clarity and straightforwardness that is his trademark, has managed to lay out our dilemma and our possibilities - this book strikes the necessary balance between visionary and practical, and does it with real grace. -- Bill McKibben, author of EnoughInspired and inspirational, George Monbiot's call to act gives new coherence to a movement that is changing as it learns. So much has to change that the scale of the task can feel overwhelming. But we have changed our lives as fast and fundamentally before. -- Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1%A dazzling command of science and relentless faith in people . I never miss reading him. -- Naomi KleinWhat most impresses in Monbiot's clever, elegant writing is the way he strives to think beyond protest towards realistic, representative solutions to the problems of world politics and trade. * The Times *His passion for social and ecological justice is undimmed by twenty-first-century cynicism. His desire for knowledge across the widest gamut of subjects (scientific, historical, political and cultural) enables him to reach places which are foreign territory to many of us. * Herald (Glasgow) *A writer of eloquence and passion. * the Observer *This is a highly contemporary book, potentially offering the left a set of implements with which to win arguments on terrain often dominated by the populist right. ... Monbiot's hopeful, practical energy is precisely what the left needs right now. -- Will Davies * Guardian *This remarkable book sees George Monbiot - long recognised as one of our most acute and perceptive commentators - bringing together the whole breadth of his intelligence and experience to propose a new politics: new goals, new strategies, and, most of all, a new story. If you're tired of the tiny seesaw that politics seems to have got itself stuck on, you'll want to read this. There's so much to think about here, and it's presented with clarity and coherence. It's an inspiring and optimistic vision for the future, and - best of all - a wholly practical one. It can happen. Better, it's starting to happen. This is a future we can all be part of, a future which grows directly out of our participation. Please read this book. -- Brian EnoMonbiot's proposals are often visionary but never disconnected from pragmatic realities, and are delivered in prose that is always pithy and elegant. This is a book that should be read by everyone who hopes we can find a way out of the wreckage of the present to a better tomorrow. -- Ashley Dawson * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisToday power is in the hands of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. How do we understand this transformation in power? And what can we do about it?We cannot change anything until we have a better understanding of how power works, who holds it, and why that matters. Through upgrading the concept of hegemony-understanding the importance of passive consent; the complexity of political interests; and the structural force of technology-Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams offer us an updated theory of power for the twenty-first century.Hegemony Now explores how these forces came to control our world. The authors show how they have shaped the direction of politics and government as well as the neoliberal economy to benefit their own interests. However, this dominance is under threat. Following the 2008 financial crisis, a new order emerged in which the digital platform is the central new technology of both production and power. This offers new opportunities for counter hegemonic strategies to win back power. Hegemony Now outlines a dynamic socialist strategy for the twenty-first century.Trade ReviewA landmark piece of work combining theoretical rigour and innovation with a magisterial mapping of the landscape of contemporary power. Gilbert and Williams have produced an essential guide to socialist strategy today. -- Nick SrnicekGilbert and Williams offer practical and hopeful strategies for changing the "directions of travel" of the contemporary conjuncture - especially in the U.S. and U.K. But what makes Hegemony Now uniquely impressive is how seamlessly their politics emerges from their sophisticated analysis of the conditions and actualities of the present. Grounded in rich theorizing and a strong commitment to historical specificity, they pull post-Marxism back from the brink by taking up the under-theorized concept of material interests. Mapping the relations among economics, politics, and culture, they refuse to give in to the seductions of simplicity, choosing instead to make visible some of the complexities and contradictions that have produced a distinct set of interconnected crises. This is a book that crosses the divide between political economy and cultural studies, but it is a must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the apparent chaos of contemporary life and the possibilities for a better future. -- Lawrence GrossbergIn engaging and accessible prose, Gilbert and Williams provide an astute political analysis of our current conjuncture...an important provocation for the left. -- Michael HardtIn the process of clarifying and updating the often misunderstood (and occasionally maligned) concept of hegemony, Gilbert and Williams also provide us with a valuable analysis of the "long 1990s": an account of its constitution, a diagnosis of its crisis and a map for its overcoming. Anyone committed to the latter must engage with this book. -- Rodrigo Nunes, author of Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political OrganisationThe task for socialists is to live without illusions without becoming disillusioned. Gilbert and Williams have written a timely contribution in how the left acts strategically - learning from the successes and failures of the last decade. -- Aaron Bastani[Gilbert and Williams] have done a brilliant job stripping away much of the complexity that makes post and neo-Marxist language so difficult to engage with for ordinary mortals ... this book repays close attention. -- Gavin O'Toole * Morning Star *

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Book SynopsisDrawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framework for a market society. In the wake of the Second World War, neoliberals saw demands for new rights to social welfare and self-determination as threats to "civilisation". Yet, rather than rejecting rights, they developed a distinctive account of human rights as tools to depoliticise civil society, protect private investments and shape liberal subjects.Trade ReviewAmong the most brilliant and implacable younger intellectuals working today, Jessica Whyte has turned in a masterful and thrilling account of how neoliberals faced down and helped remake human rights for our time. With its intrepid documentation of how Friedrich Hayek and his fellows engaged with the annunciation of human rights in the 1940s, and its fascinating wealth of evidence about how deeply neoliberal assumptions about markets and nations affected the rise of humanitarian advocacy in the 1970s, The Morals of the Market is a fundamental challenge that no one can avoid. -- Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal WorldWe now know that neoliberals preached less the retreat of state and supranational institutions than their refashioning. What we did not know, and what Jessica Whyte teaches us in her propulsive and probing book, is how central a rethinking of human rights was to the neoliberal project. In her genealogy of market morality, Whyte offers the best history yet of how neoliberals put hierarchical ideas of civilization and race at the heart of their thought from its origins, and how they constructed their version of human rights as a barricade and battering ram against political projects premised on human equality and economic justice. -- Quinn Slobodian, Wellesley CollegeThis beautifully written book combines historical inquiry, theoretical rigor, and archival research to explore the complicated relationship between neoliberal market morals, imperialism, and human rights politics in the twentieth-century. Whyte's astonishingly original argument cuts through neoliberal deflection like a scythe offering us insights into human rights essential to imagining a better political future. -- Jeanne Morefield, University of BirminghamIn this masterful book, Jessica Whyte explodes the common myth that neoliberalism and human rights are independent and incompatible projects. From the economists of the Mont Pèlerin Society to the humanitarians who founded Doctors without Borders, Whyte reveals a sometimes shocking covert history of the hijacking of human rights by neoliberal thinkers who recoded human liberty and dignity as the products of submission to a 'free market' and promoted inequality as a social good. The Morals of the Market is provocative, sobering, and indispensable reading for understanding how we find ourselves in our current state of rotten affairs. -- Joseph Slaughter, author of Human Rights, Inc.Jessica Whyte's new book provides a thorough, devastating and utterly convincing demonstration of the way neoliberal economists and thinkers hijacked once-revolutionary concepts of universal human rights, and turned them into weapons to be used against emancipatory and anti-colonial political projects all over the world. The full moral and political price of our abject surrender to 'market necessities' has never been so clearly calculated; anyone who reads this book will see that it's high time we stopped paying it. -- Peter Hallward, author of The Will of the People and the Struggle for Popular Sovereignty[An] illuminating new book. -- Neve Gordon * Los Angeles Review of Books *Beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated, and excoriating all at the same time. -- Jeanne Morefield * Jacobin *A compelling, rigorous, deep and passionate study of the morals underpinning human rights and neo-liberal markets -- Martin Arias-Loyola, Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile * International Affairs *Perhaps the best book on the subject yet (...) a veritable treasure trove of riches (...) The Morals of the Market will be read and discussed for many years to come because Whyte has produced a rare work which makes interdisciplinary history and philosophy look not only easy, but necessary. -- Matthew McManus, Whitman College * Human Rights Review *A brilliant new book (...) Engrossing and comprehensively researched, The Morals of the Market sparkles with erudite engagements across modern political theory that contextualises neoliberal thought. -- Ben Huf * Australian Book Review *A timely contribution to a field that, at least to some, could be facing its twilight. If we are to dislodge human rights of its condition of fellow travellers, it is important to maintain Whyte's critical approach -- Daniel Pinheiro Astone, Stockholm University * Social and Legal Studies *Whyte sets out to tell the 'story of how neoliberal thinkers made human rights the morals of the market'. On this score Whyte succeeds admirably: through a thorough, well-written, and cogent account of the work of the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) and how its leading lights articulated a specifically moral account of the virtues of 'free' markets to embed and defend their civilizational ideals. -- Paul O’Connell, SOAS * Legal Form *Jessica Whyte's new book, The Morals of the Market, demonstrates the kind of scholarship we all aspire to: insightful, thought-provoking, and, above all, accessible and engaging (...) a powerful narrative about how neoliberalism and human rights spread in tandem in a mutually constitutive fashion, implanting capitalist social relations across the world, and how human rights were instrumental in crashing alternative political projects, most notably welfarism and third world aspirations for global economic redistribution -- Eva Nanopoulos, QMUL * Legal Form *What precisely is the relation between neoliberalism and human rights? Jessica Whyte's elegant Morals of the Market tackles this question directly, skillfully, and insightfully (...) Morals of the Market is an excellent book, all the more so for its clarity and its combination of panoramic synthesis and issue-specific analysis -- Umut Özsu * Legal Form *An excellent new book (...) The Morals of the Market succeeds on every count. This fascinating book has a lot of new and surprising things to teach us about human rights and neoliberalism, those longstanding and cherished objects of left critical theorization. And the lessons it teaches us about them both are essential if we are to properly understand their historical trajectories (and hence to perform the necessary political work of contesting, reframing, or refusing them in the present) (...) an utterly indispensable reference point for thinking about our contemporary political juncture." -- Ben Golder * Contemporary Political Theory *[a] thought-provoking and engaging study on the relationship between human rights and the rise of neoliberalism. -- Shane Darcy * International Dialogue, A Multidisciplinary Journal of World Affairs *In an effortless and flowing writing style, Whyte confronts neoliberals with their own appalling words, woven into an astonishing and erudite critical synthesis. The book thus delivers a far-reaching and perceptive critique that fills a long-standing gap between human rights studies and analyses of neoliberalism. -- Kyriaki Pavlidou * Journal of Law and Political Economy *In The Morals of the Market, Jessica Whyte breaks new ground in the study of neoliberal political thought and human rights. What results from Whyte's study is a striking and more vivid picture of neoliberal and ordoliberal approaches to international economic order as an inherently civilizational and racialized political project. By piecing together the theory and the politics of these intellectuals and by placing them in dialogue with overlooked adversaries, this book makes a significant contribution to the historical and theoretical literature on neoliberalism, law, and political economy. -- William Callison * Perspectives on Politics *How might such a break [with neoliberalism] occur, and a more transformative conception of human rights be made mainstream? In making visible the morals of the market in so many forms, this book not only opens up the space for this question to be asked but will also undoubtedly enrich the reflections and responses of those who are willing to consider it. -- Daniel Cullen * Birkbeck Law Review *With the precision of a chronicler but the reasoning of a philosopher, Whyte shows how self-described neoliberals (who at the time occupied key policymaking positions in transnational governance, like sections of the United Nations itself) fought to distinguish, from the melee of demands for rights, a strict baseline of civic and political rights. -- Juan del Nido * Cambridge Journal of Anthropology *

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Book SynopsisWhen Minh Pham was extradited from Britain to the US to face terrorism related charges, his appeal against the deprivation of his British citizenship was still pending. Soon after he arrived his appeal was lost and he was effectively made stateless. Pham's story is one of the many in Deport, Deprive, Extradite, illustrating the perpetual enhancement of state power and its capabilities to expel.In looking at these stories of Muslim men accused of terrorism-related offences, Nisha Kapoor exposes how these racialised subjects are dehumanized, made non-human, both in terms of how they are represented and via the disciplinary techniques used to expel them. She explores how the establishment of these non-humans enables the expansion of inhumanity more broadly, targeting Muslims, people of colour, immigrants and refugees. In asking what such cases illuminate and legitimate about precariousness and dispossession, she offers a radical analysis of the contemporary security state.Trade ReviewA monumental study of how the 'War on Terror' has allowed states to operate outside the boundaries of reason and decency. This is courageous research, a book that should be read by all citizens of 21st century states that claim to be fighting extremism but have themselves become extremist states. -- Vijay Prashad, Executive Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, and author, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global SouthGripping, frightening, urgent - Nisha Kapoor's book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the shifting terrain of securitisation, racialisation and the rolling back of human rights. It should be required reading for every student, teacher and advocate concerned to challenge state racism. For those inclined to trust the government, this book reveals the hidden and not so hidden injustices carried out in y/our name. For those who find themselves in the sights of a securitising state, this book lets you know that you are not alone. For anyone who doubts that the treatment of those suspected of terrorism reveals a shift in state practices that can seep out into other realms, this book offers a careful but devastating warning. We understand, what can be done to them can be done to us. After this book, none of us can pretend again that we did not know. -- Gargi Bhattacharyya, author of Dangerous Brown Men

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Book Synopsis**Winner of the 2019 Sussex International Theory Prize**Despite the science and the summits, leading capitalist states have not achieved anything close to an adequate level of carbon mitigation. There is now simply no way to prevent the planet breaching the threshold of two degrees Celsius set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What are the likely political and economic outcomes of this? Where is the overheating world heading?To further the struggle for climate justice, we need to have some idea how the existing global order is likely to adjust to a rapidly changing environment. Climate Leviathan provides a radical way of thinking about the intensifying challenges to the global order. Drawing on a wide range of political thought, Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann argue that rapid climate change will transform the world's political economy and the fundamental political arrangements most people take for granted. The result will be a capitalist planetary sovereignty, a terrifying eventuality that makes the construction of viable, radical alternatives truly imperative.Trade ReviewA welcome addition to a small but growing body of climate writing on the left. It's a book explicitly aimed at understanding the political dimensions of climate change instead of relegating them to a paragraph or two in the concluding section. -- Alyssa Battistoni, NationIn the face of the contemporary ecological crisis, can sovereignty maintain the absolute character that has defined it from the beginning and continue the mediatory functions that modernity attributed to it? And how can national sovereignty deal with that global crisis? Can 'political realism' address the themes of ecological crisis? These are some of the thorny questions that Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann confront in this book. Bringing down the Leviathan seems the only possible response. The nature of the problem is clear, and its solution is a struggle we have to win. -- Antonio NegriUrgent, provocative and elegantly executed, Climate Leviathan provides a map for climate politics in the stormy decades ahead. As the boat rocks ever more violently and we seek to set the compass, this work will be of foundational importance. -- Andreas Malm, author of Fossil CapitalHere is the political theory for climate justice we've been waiting for: penetrating, politically committed, accessible. Climate Leviathan should be read, and debated, by everyone concerned about capitalism, climate, and justice. -- Jason Moore, author of Capitalism in the Web of LifeA crucial intervention into the philosophical debates about climate change. Climate change forces us to question the self-evidence of our thinking about politics. If capitalism persists and cannot stop climate change, where is the world going? No one can predict the future. But Climate Leviathan offers a bold and brilliant map of our prospects. -- Kojin Karatani, author of The Structure of World HistoryTo further the struggle for climate justice, we need to have some idea how the existing global order is likely to adjust to a rapidly changing environment. Climate Leviathan argues that rapid climate change will transform the world's political economy and the fundamental political arrangements most people take for granted. The result will be a capitalist planetary sovereignty, a terrifying eventuality that makes the construction of viable, radical alternatives truly imperative. -- Ian Angus * Climate & Capitalism *An intelligent and thought-provoking read. * Forsight *The framework offered by Climate Leviathan helps pose our political questions in a new register, with the appropriate gravity and urgency of standing at a crossroads of our planet's natural history. -- Will Myers * International Socialist Review *If Neoliberalism is the God that failed on climate change, what juvenile gods will it spawn? This is the question taken up by Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright in Climate Leviathan, in which they repurpose Thomas Hobbes to sketch out what they see as the likeliest political form to evolve from the crises of warming and pummeling of its impacts. -- David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the FutureUnlike many books on climate politics, Climate Leviathan is neither apocalyptic nor prescriptive. It is exactly what its subtitle promises: 'a political theory of our planetary future,' at once speculative and wide-ranging. -- Shannon Osaka * Los Angeles Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisThis collection is the first of three volumes of the Complete Works devoted to the central theme of Rosa Luxemburg's life and work-revolution. Spanning the years 1897 to the end of 1905, they contain speeches, articles, and essays on the strikes, protests, and political debates that culminated in the 1905 Russian Revolution-one of the most important social upheavals of modern times. Luxemburg's near-daily articles and reports during 1905 on the ongoing revolution (which comprises the bulk of this volume) shed new light on such issues as the relation of spontaneity and organization, the role of national minorities in social revolution, and the inseparability ofthe struggle for socialism from revolutionary democracy. We become witness to Luxemburg's effort to respond to the impulses, challenges, and ideas arising from a living revolutionary process, which in turn becomes the source of much of her subsequent political theory-such as her writings on the mass strike, her strident internationalism, and her insistence that revolutionary struggle never take its eyes off of the need to transform the human personality.Virtually all of these writings appear in English for the first time (translated from both German and Polish) and many have only recently been identified as having been written by Luxemburg.Trade ReviewThe moment has clearly come for a return to Rosa Luxemburg. -- Jacqueline Rose * London Review of Books *Praise for The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg:Combining revolutionary fire, sharp polemics, biting irony, sparkling humour, broad historical vision, as well as profound humanity, intimate friendship and burning love, full of poetical images borrowed from Goethe, Mörike, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and other Romantics, these letters are an amazing testimony of the charm and fascination of her personality. -- Michael Löwy * Critique *One of the most emotionally intelligent socialists in modern history, a radical of luminous dimension whose intellect is informed by sensibility, and whose largeness of spirit places her in the company of the truly impressive. -- Vivian Gornick * Nation *One cannot read the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, even at this distance, without an acute yet mournful awareness of what Perry Anderson once termed 'the history of possibility.' -- Christopher Hitchens * Atlantic *Luxemburg's criticism of Marxism as dogma and her stress on consciousness exerted an influence on the women's liberation movement which emerged in the late '60s and early '70s. -- Sheila Rowbotham * Guardian *Rosa goes on being our source of fresh water in thirsty times. -- Eduardo GaleanoIntrepid, incorruptible, passionate and gentle. Imagine as you read between the lines of what she wrote, the expression of her eyes. She loved workers and birds. She danced with a limp. Everything about her fascinates and rings true. One of the immortals. -- John Berger

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Book SynopsisEugene Victor Debs led the Socialist Party in the early twentieth-century to federal and state office across the country, helped to pioneer a fighting union politics that organized all workers, and became the beloved figurehead of American radicalism. Imprisoned for speaking out against World War I, Debs ran for president from prison, receiving over one million votes. Debs's story is the story of labor battles in industrializing America, of a socialist politics grown directly out of the American Midwest heartland, and of a distinctly American vision of socialism.With the campaign of Bernie Sanders, the rise of mass movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, and the Wall Street Crash of 2008, socialism has once again made itself felt in American politics. This graphic biography, published in collaboration with the Democratic Socialists of America-whose growing membership, spurred by Trump's election and Bernie Sanders' campaign, has reached heights not seen among socialist parties since the 1920s-is geared toward a new generation exploring socialist and working-class radicalism in the past and the present.Noah Van Sciver's dynamic illustrations are paired with short, accessible framing essays by Paul Buhle, noted historian of the U.S. left, with Dave Nance and Steve Max.Trade ReviewAs socialists of Debs' era might say: 'here's the ammunition.' In addition to being a delightful biography of the railroad man from Terre Haute, this is a splendid genealogy of the struggles and ideas that energize today's socialist revival. Buy an extra copy and turn on a friend or workmate. -- Mike DavisVan Sciver humanizes Debs with sensitive character design and a knack for depicting the gritty details of the past. * Publishers Weekly *At a time when socialism has reentered the political vocabulary, it is wonderful to have this engaging book, introducing old-timers and a new generation to the greatest American socialist, Eugene V. Debs. A beloved labor leader, tireless battler against economic inequality, and defender of free speech, Debs's radicalism and commitment to social justice are more needed today than at any time since his death. -- Eric FonerI must shamefacedly admit that, lefty though I am, I have known very little about Eugene Debs aside from the fact that he ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket three times, once while in prison, and that he was a pacifist. Now, thanks to Noah Van Sciver, Paul Buhle, Steve Max, and Dave Nance, I can proudly hold a conversation with the most knowledgeable Socialist historian. If one picture is worth a thousand words, this excellent combination of words and pictures is worth its weight in rubies. -- Trina Robbins, author of A Minyen Yidn un Andere Zacken (A Bunch of Jews and Other Stuff) and Last Girl Standing.A century before Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the American voice and standard-bearer for democratic socialist ideas was Eugene Victor Debs. Disturbingly, the battle lines of 1919 are again the battle lines of 2019: stemming the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, assuring women equal rights, securing the rights of workers to bargain collectively, opening our gates to immigrants. On each of these, Debs showed the way. This is a biography for our time. -- Samuel Norich, President of The ForwardI see copies of this book furtively passed around the employee locker rooms of fast-food chains and mega-distribution centers throughout America where a new generation of wage slaves, with a taste for comics, will find inspiration in the story of Eugene V. Debs. The proceeds from the sale of this book thus go, indirectly, toward the abolition of capitalism. -- Ben KatchorThis new biography is an important reminder not just of his life but of a radical socialist history whose descendants, many of them young, are playing a role in the US today. * Morning Star *This unassuming and inviting text is not just a biography, but an organizing tool as well. The reader is advised: don't just read, organize. -- Ron Jacobs * Socialism and Democracy *

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Book SynopsisThis book examines key cases of terrorist violence to show that the invention of terrorism was linked to the birth of modernity in Europe, Russia and the United States, rather than to Tsarist despotism in 19th century Russia or to Islam sects in Medieval Persia. Combining a highly readable historical narrative with analysis of larger issues in social and political history, the author argues that the dissemination of news about terrorist violence was at the core of a strategy that aimed for political impact on rulers as well as the general public. Dietze's lucid account also reveals how the spread of knowledge about terrorist acts was, from the outset, a transatlantic process. Two incidents form the book's centerpiece. The first is the failed attempt to assassinate French Emperor Napoléon III by Felice Orsini in 1858, in an act intended to achieve Italian unity and democracy. The second case study offers a new reading of John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859, as a decisive moment in the abolitionist struggle and occurrences leading to the American Civil War. Three further examples from Germany, Russia, and the US are scrutinized to trace the development of the tactic by first imitators. With their acts of violence, the "invention" of terrorism was completed. Terrorism has existed as a tactic since then and has essentially only been adapted through the use of new technologies and methods.Trade Review"The book builds an extraordinarily careful argument about the specificities of context in the 1850s and 60s necessary to an understanding of how terrorism as a distinctive body of political thinking and practice arrived in the modern world, focusing on the field of understanding that coalesced around "freedom, nation and violence" in the epoch framed by the French Revolution and Revolutions of 1848. It does not fall into common trap of the available literatures, viz. to approach the 'genealogies' from an excessively presentist point of view. Instead, Dietze approaches the 1850s and 60s as a generative crucible for the conjunction of ideas and influences that need to be very carefully historicized as such if we're to have any chance of understanding the subsequent intellectual and political histories concerned. In its willingness to engage explicitly and at length with the literatures in political science as well as the writing theoretically about terrorism in general, Dietze's book has unusual strength for a historian."The book is impressively "transnational" in the terms that have become aspiringly normative for so many theoretically self-aware and ambitious historians during the past decade.""Dietze brilliantly makes these familiar and well-established histories and perceptions strange.""Another vital and original aspect of the study is its emphasis on media history and the particular characteristics of the mid 19th century public sphere -- BOTH in terms of the circulatory conditions needed for the transnational quality of the history she's trying to reconstruct AND for the key argument she's making about impact and reception. In other words, this is partly an argument about mechanics and the particular means of transmission and circulation. But it's also about the ontological grounds of political thought and political agency created out of this remarkable transnational circuitry." -- Geoff Eley, Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History at the University of MichiganThis book may well revolutionize our understanding of the origins of terrorism in the 19th century. In highly original fashion, it closely links together the actions of terrorists in France, Russia, and the United States and shows how between 1858 and 1866 two key terrorists influenced three copycats who altogether ignited the explosion of modern terrorism. The depth of Dietze's research, drawing upon archives not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Russia, is staggering. A must read for anyone interested in the history of terrorism. -- Richard Bach Jensen, Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University, author of The Battle against Anarchist Terrorism

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Book SynopsisWhat should we do with the ideals of internationalism, the withering away of state and horizontality? Probably start by thinking seriously about them. That is to say, about their conditions of possibility (or impossibility), rather than sticking to the wishful thinking which believes that for them to happen it is enough to want them. Humanity exists neither as a dust cloud of separate individuals nor as a unified world political community. It exists fragmented into distinct finite wholes, the forms of which have varied considerably throughout history - the nation-state being only one among many, and certainly not the last. What are the forces that produce this fragmentation, engender such groupings and prevent them from being perfectly horizontal, but also lead them to disappear, merge, or change form? It is questions such as these that this book explores, drawing on Spinoza's political philosophy and especially his two central concepts of multitudo and imperium.Trade ReviewPraise for Willing Slaves of Capital:This ambitious but always lucid book aims to reopen the conceptual framework of capitalism. * Le Monde *Praise for Willing Slaves of Capital:This work is an initiatory voyage towards communism. * L'Humanité *Praise for Willing Slaves of Capital:Frédéric Lordon is one of the most audacious contemporary left-wing economists. * Le Nouvel Observateur *Praise for Willing Slaves of Capital:At a time when all workers are required to show 'passion' for their jobs, Willing Slaves of Capital is a crucial re-affirmation of the importance of Spinoza's philosophy for understanding contemporary forms of servitude. Lordon persuasively and elegantly shows that the only way to break free is to hold onto a cold and exceptionless determinism: hope is pointless, regret is meaningless, yet change can still be made to happen. -- Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist RealismPraise for Willing Slaves of Capital:Lordon effectively and brilliantly demonstrates that Spinoza is less a precursor to Marx than a necessary complement. Only Spinoza's examination of the production of desire can answer the question that is at the core of Marxism: Why do workers work for capital rather than their own liberation? -- Jason Read, University of Southern Maine

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Book SynopsisLévi-Strauss held that "the real, the symbolic and the imaginary" are three separate orders. Maurice Godelier demonstrates the contrary: the real is not separate from the symbolic and the imaginary. Godelier's book goes to the strategic heart of the social sciences, for to examine the nature and role of the imaginary and the symbolic is also to attempt to account for the basic components of all societies and ultimately of human existence. And these aspects in turn shape our social and personal identity.Trade ReviewAfter 'Marx,' 'Durkheim' and 'Weber,' after the first fifty years of ethnographic and historical exploration, after Lévi-Strauss and the next fifty years of ethnographic and historical research, what might the 'Frazer' of our times write? Maurice Godelier's gripping essay gives us an idea. Verging on a Jeremiad, drawing from predecessors near and far for a synthesis "in the grand style," The Imagined, the Imaginary and the Symbolic probes our current state of learning. In so doing it sets the conditions for posing new questions for the next generations struggling not only to know the others and the pasts but to create societies for the future. The grand synthesizer, Godelier has given us another gift for the times. -- Frederick H. Damon, Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia

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Book SynopsisIt is difficult for Italians to have much faith in the future. The last Labour Minister said it was a good thing if young people emigrated, to stop them 'getting under our feet'; one recent Prime Minister said that young Italians should not invest their hopes in securing a stable job, for that would be 'boring', anyway.Examining Italy's history since the end of the Cold War, Italy is the Future argues that its dismal situation should not be understood in terms of a stereotyped narrative of Italian chaos or backwardness. In a country that could once boast Europe's strongest Left, Italy today epitomises the crisis of democracy in the West.The scandals of Silvio Berlusconi's rule, the pervasive corruption of public life and sky-high youth unemployment are indicators of a particularly sick society. Yet what is also apparent is the difficulty of any new force emerging to renew Italy's institutions, as its atomised citizens lose hope in political change.What has broken apart in Italy is not just its once-mighty Left but the very bases of social solidarity. The parties of the 1990s and 2000s directly express the social demolition wrought by neoliberalism, as isolated and endangered individuals face the consequences of the crisis alone. Not this or that political party, but public life itself, is in full-scale collapseTrade ReviewIn this well-researched and engagingly written book David Broder shows how the rise of Lega and of its current leader Matteo Salvini emerged out of decades of economic stagnation, social despair and political nihilism in Italian society. And how the abject failure of the Italian Left to represent workers' interests has contributed to the success of the Lega's nativism. -- Paolo GerbaudoExpertly dissects the political and social trends that account for the League's revival since 2013. -- Tony Barber * Financial Times *No other book offers such a clear and concise analysis of just how much Italy has changed, for the worse in this neo-liberal world. -- Chris Bambery * Brave New Europe *Highly useful in understanding how politics have changed since the Second World War, and where Italy is going in the very unpredictable Europe of today. -- Nicholas Dima * Newsmax *David Broder has done us a great service with this succinct account of Italian neoliberal democracy, and he tells it well. If we see what has occurred in Italy as exceptional then we not only don't understand what has taken place, but we don't get the warning that what happens there can happen here. We have been warned. -- Chris Bambery * Counterfire *Broder unravels the mystery of how one of Europe's most stable democracies, boasting superb labour rights and a thriving manufacturing economy, became a basket case almost over night - plagued by political instability, poverty, and mass emigration. -- Robert Maisey * Tribune *Insightful -- Derek Gadd * The Article *

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Book SynopsisIt's no secret that the 1%-the business elite that commands the largest corporations and the connected network of public and private institutions-exercise enormous control over the US government. While this control is usually attributed to campaign donations and lobbying, Levers of Power argues that corporate power derives from control over the economic resources on which daily life depends. Government officials must constantly strive to keep capitalists happy, lest they go on "capital strike"-that is, refuse to invest in particular industries or locations, or move their holdings to other countries-and therefore impose material hardship on specific groups or the economy as a whole. For this reason, even politicians who are not dependent on corporations for their electoral success must fend off the interruption of corporate investment. Levers of Power documents the pervasive power of corporations and other institutions with decision-making control over large pools of capital, particularly the Pentagon. It also shows that the most successful reform movements in recent US history-for workers' rights, for civil rights, and against imperialist wars-succeeded by directly targeting the corporations and other institutional adversaries that initiated and benefitted from oppressive policies. Though most of today's social movements focus on elections and politicians, movements of the 99% are most effective when they inflict direct costs on corporations and their allied institutions. This strategy is also more conducive to building a revolutionary mass movement that can replace current institutions with democratic alternatives.Trade ReviewPraise for Radical Protest and Social Structure: The Southern Farmers' Alliance and Cotton Tenancy, 1880-1890:Michael Schwartz's book is really three books in one-an analysis of the structural changes that produced one of the most oppressive social systems the world has known (the one-crop cotton tenancy economy and the system of institutionalized racism and authoritarian one-party politics that was required to preserve the fragile economic arrangement); a theoretical analysis of the origins, mobilization, and outcome of insurgent challenges; and a meticulous application of that theory to the rise and collapse of the Populist movement. -- Craig Jenkins * Theory and Society *Praise for Blood of the Earth, Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia:The importance of this book to contemporary conversations about extractivism in Bolivia cannot be overstated. * Latin American Perspectives *Praise for Blood of the Earth, Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia:[Young] draws a complex and fascinating picture of the struggles over mining and oil from the Chaco War in the 1930s through the 1952 Revolution and the unraveling of the revolutionary state in the 1960s. * Against the Current *Praise for Blood of the Earth, Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia:Young is to be congratulated on creating a comprehensive history of recent Bolivian history that also offers a new lens for interpreting Latin American populism. It is one of the finest examples of the recent, and very welcome, production of works on Latin American economic history. * The Americas *Praise for Blood of the Earth, Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia:Young expertly contextualizes his discussion of resource nationalism with previous attempts to bring natural resources under governmental control...[A] compelling and wonderful book. * American Historical Review *Praise for Blood of the Earth, Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia:Blood of the Earth makes a significant contribution to the historiography of the Bolivian revolution and provides new analytical insights into U.S. Cold War objectives in Latin America. * Diplomatic History *Praise for Blood of the Earth, Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia:Blood of the Earth provides a compelling retelling of a Cold War story against the grain, in which the United States funded and tamed a revolution instead of intervening with force. * Hispanic American Historical Review *Young, Banerjee and Schwartz identify the importance of capital strikes in forcing government officials to provide the tax cuts, subsidies and regulatory cutbacks business demands. Focusing on key episodes during the Obama era, Levers of Power explains how capitalists really exert pressure on legislators and regulators and shows why popular forces accomplish more when they pressure capitalists with strikes, boycotts and demonstrations rather than targeting elected officials. This book is essential if we want to understand what tactics will be most effective in building mass power. -- Richard LachmannLevers of Power disrupts American democratic myths. Through rigorous research and penetrating analysis, Levers of Power dissects the power of elections, courts, Congress, politicians, presidents, lobbyists, social movements, and major corporations. It provides jarring and surprising conclusions of who really rules America; changes how we think about American centers of power; and which among them governs our lives. Everyone interested in democracy should read Levers of Power to become enlightened citizens. -- Aldon Morris, Author of The Scholar DeniedLevers of Power is a powerful tool for activists and scholars alike, detailing how power remains in the hands of the 1% while also showing how elite institutions and structures can be undermined and even defeated, creating a world of, by, and for the 99%. -- Marina Sitrin

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Book SynopsisWhat is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence" - a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind or in the deep physiology of the brain, such as in its complex neural networks. The Eye of the Master argues, to the contrary, that the inner code of AI is shaped not by the imitation of biological intelligence, but the intelligence of labour and social relations, as it is found in Babbage's "calculating engines" of the industrial age as well as in the recent algorithms for image recognition and surveillance. The idea that AI may one day become autonomous (or "sentient", as someone thought of Google's LaMDA) is pure fantasy. Computer algorithms have always imitated the form of social relations and the organisation of labour in their own inner structure and their purpose remains blind automation. The Eye of the Master urges a new literacy on AI for scientists, journalists and new generations of activists, who should recognise that the "mystery" of AI is just the automation of labour at the highest degree, not intelligence per se.Trade ReviewWe are surrounded by stories about AI threatening jobs, as if it were a power haunting labor from outside and above. The Eye of the Master radically challenges such a view. What Matteo Pasquinelli demonstrates is that labor is at root of the historical development of AI. Tales of expropriation and resistance, automation and struggle crisscross the pages of this passionate book, which is at same time an amazing academic achievement and a political weapon to rethink the politics of AI. -- Sandro Mezzadra, co-author of The Politics of OperationsIn this original and extremely timely book, Matteo Pasquinelli offers nothing less than a long-range history and critical analysis of a labour theory of automation and knowledge. He uses detailed studies both of the remarkable accounts of general intellect and the extractive and exploitative organisation of the industrial workplace produced in nineteenth-century British political economy and of the challenging developments of models of machine intelligence and computational systems developed in the mid-twentieth century United States to unlock the sources and meanings of the politics of artificial intelligence. The work shows how Marx's depiction of the development of the social individual under industrial capitalism provides indispensable resources for making sense now of what artificial intelligence means, and the forms of economic and political order that its embodiment of knowledge and control express. At a moment when apostles and prophets of machine intelligence proclaim both a utopian world of effortless control and a catastrophe of extinction, Pasquinelli's patient and clever work provides a crucial insight into the past and future of AI monopolies and their consequences. -- Simon Schaffer, author of Babbage’s Intelligence (1994) and OK computer (2001)Artificial Intelligence and its impact on society is on everyone's lips, but how was AI shaped by society in the first place? This amazing account of its emergence, starting with the evolution of labor division and automatization, is a must-read. Pasquinelli's book not only shows us where we came from but also how we might escape the problematic consequences of this evolution. -- Jürgen Renn, Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology.Table of ContentsIntroduction: AI as Division of Labour1 The Material Tools of Algorithmic ThinkingPart ITHE INDUSTRIAL AGE2 Babbage and the Mechanisation of Mental Labour3 The Machinery Question4 The Origins of Marx's General Intellect5 The Abstraction of LabourPart IITHE INFORMATION AGE6 The Self-Organisation of the Cybernetic Mind7 The Automation of Pattern Recognition8 Hayek and the Epistemology of Connectionism9 Th e Invention of the PerceptronConclusion: The Automation of General Intelligence

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1974, Kojin Karatani's Marx: Towards the Centre of Possibility has been among his most enduring and pioneering works in critical theory. Written at a time when the political sequences of the New Left had collapsed into crisis and violence, with widespread political exhaustion for the competing sectarian visions of Marxism from 1968, Karatani's Marx laid the groundwork for a new reading, unfamiliar to the existing Marxist discourse in Japan at the time.Karatani's Marx takes on insights from semiotics, deconstruction, and the reading of Marx as a literary thinker, treating Capital as an intervention in philosophy that could be read as itself a theory of signs. Marx is unique in this sense, not only because of its importance in post-'68 Japanese thought, but also because the heterodox reading of Marx that Karatani debuts in this text, centred on his theory of the value-form, will go on to form the basis of his globally influential work.Edited, translated, and with an introduction by Gavin Walker.

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Book SynopsisIn this highly prescient work - which has had a big impact on figures such as Pablo Oglesias of Podemos in Spain - Ernesto Laclau continues the philosophical and political exploration initiated in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Here he focuses on the construction of popular identities and how "the people" emerge as a collective actor. Skillfully combining theoretical analysis with a myriad of empirical references from numerous historical and geographical contexts he offers a critical reading of the existing literature on populism, demonstrating its dependency on the theorists of "mass psychology" such as Taine and Freud. He demonstrates the relation of populism to democracy and to the logic of representation, and differentiates his approach from the work of Zizek, Hardt and Negri, and Ranciere. This book is essential reading for all those interested in the question of political identities in a world marked by figures such as Trump, Farage, Le Pen as well as Sanders, Iglesias and Mélenchon.Trade ReviewWhat needs to be politically articulated at the present time is the possibility of a leftist populism. This is what makes Laclau's long-awaited book so important. Arguably, populism has always been the governing concept in Laclau's work and in On Populist Reason, he lays out his position with great power and analytical clarity. -- Simon CritchleyLaclau played a key role in reformulating Marxist theory in the light of the collapse of communism and failure of social democracy. -- Robin Blackburn * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe Burning Forest is an empathetic, moving account of what drives indigenous peasants to support armed struggle despite severe state repression, including lives lost, homes and communities destroyed.Over the past decade, the heavily forested,mineral-rich region of Bastar in central India has emerged as one of the most militarized sites in the country. The government calls the Maoist insurgency the "biggest security threat" to India. In 2005, a state-sponsored vigilante movement, the Salwa Judum, burnt hundreds of villages, driving their inhabitants into state-controlled camps, drawing on counterinsurgency techniques developed in Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere. Apart from rapes and killings, hundreds of 'surrendered' Maoist sympathisers were conscripted as auxiliaries. The conflict continues to this day, taking a toll on the lives of civilians, security forces and Maoist cadres. In 2007, Sundar and others took the Indian government to the Supreme Court over the human rights violations arising out ofthe conflict. In a landmark judgment, the Court in 2011 banned state supportfor vigilantism. The Burning Forest describes this brutal war in the heart of India, and what it tells us about the courts, media and politics of the country. The result is a granular and critical ethnography of Indian democracy over a decade.Trade ReviewA very important and interesting book which should be widely read. A deeply disturbing analysis of the sacrifice of tribal lives and communities caught between the camouflaged barbarity of the security forces and the violent arrogance of a deflected rebellion. The appeal for reasoned humanity cannot be any stronger - or more eloquent - than this. -- Amartya SenNandini Sundar, an extraordinary anthropologist-activist, has mined twenty-five years of experience in the region to write an account of Bastar's civil war that is both gripping and harrowing. She pulls no punches in describing the greed and cynical violence of state agencies, mining companies, politicians and immigrants. Her account of life in the Maoist rebel zones is graphic, full of empathy but by no means uncritical. is is a story that everyone who cares about India must read. -- Partha ChatterjeeEvery thinking Indian, every citizen who is concerned about the present and future of the Republic, should read The Burning Forest. It is an impeccably researched and finely written work of scholarship, redolent with insight, and displaying enormous courage as well. -- Ramachandra Guha * Hindustan Times *If many places are like Bastar, few books are like The Burning Forest. It resonates with classics on frontiers and dispossession. -- Christian Lund * Journal of Agrarian Change *Sundar's book is an exceptional expose of the scandal of rural governance in India, a chronicle of State excesses, an anthropologist's view about how conflicts perpetuate themselves and an account of how India's democracy is degraded when few are watching. Policymakers ought to take away one the key lesson from it that there really are no military solutions to social conflicts. -- Sushil Aaron * Hindustan Times *Sundar's book is a must-read for those interested in the genesis and the nature of conflict in Bastar * The Hindu *The work needs to be celebrated for its scholarship, for its independence and for its courage. * The Tribune *Will keep you sleepless over several nights. * The Indian Express *Among the most important works on the conflict in southern Chhattisgarh. * India Today *One of the most rounded accounts of the strife in Bastar. * Telegraph *Sundar asks for no glossing over of any kind. A thorough, diligent and finally credible effort. -- Dilip D’ Souza * The Caravan *A razor sharp critique of the institutions that make India feel good about itself - its parliamentary democracy, its judiciary, its free press, its vibrant civil society. * The Wire *A balanced and incisive narrative of the ground reality in Chhattisgarh. * Force Magazine *There are so many good reasons to read Ms Sundar's book, even if you disagree with her views. But, there is no way you can read it and not feel harrowed by the war India has unleashed against its own people in Bastar and what it implies for us as a functioning democracy. -- Nitin Sethi * The Business Standard *A timely and pro-adivasi book written with utmost honesty and a deep sense of empathy. * Open Magazine *A compelling account of the real-politik of 'democratic nation building'. -- Harsh Sethi * Seminar *The message of this monumental social science inquiry is loud and clear-citizens have to assert their rights to get justice from the Indian state. -- CP Bhambri * Contributions to Indian Sociology *How does democracy affect the prosecution of civil war? Nandini Sundar explores this question with untold courage and fierce determination in her remarkable extended ethnography of counter-insurgency in Chhattisgarh (India) - a desperate struggle to clear the land for mineral exploitation. Starting from poor adivasi villagers, aided and abetted by Naxalites, Sundar lays out in dispassionate detail the history of escalating violence, spurred on by the atrocities of a state-sponsored vigilante group and special police force. Stung by the lack of interest in the Indian media and parliament, she and two collaborators pursued and finally won a Supreme Court case against the state of Chhattisgarh. But, again, with no obvious effect. By multiplying opportunities to contest state violence, democratic institutions may have moderated but also extended the civil war. A rare and brilliant treatment of a topic few social scientists would dare to touch, let alone examine at such close quarters and for over two decades. -- Michael BurawoyThe Burning Forest is vivid, challenging and informative-an exemplar of engaged sociology and anthropology. It is a stellar account of the tension between villagers, insurgents and the multiple levels of state action and inaction, the intricate complications of the legal system and of course, the politics of it all. Nandini Sundar's empathy for the people of the forest and their struggles for a dignified life and livelihood is heart-warming. -- Ari SitasThis meticulous and powerful book not only documents a brutal regime of internal colonialism in the world's largest democracy. It reveals the insidious ways in which consent to state oppression is manufactured and amplified. Everyone interested in the commingled fate of democracy and capitalism in the postcolonial world should read this book. -- Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger

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Book SynopsisAn empathetic, moving account of what drives indigenous peasants to support armed struggle despite severe state repression, including lives lost, and homes and communities destroyedOver the past decade, the heavily forested, mineral-rich region of Bastar in central India has emerged as one of the most militarized sites in the country. The government calls the Maoist insurgency the "biggest security threat" to India. In 2005, a state-sponsored vigilante movement, the Salwa Judum, burned hundreds of villages, driving their inhabitants into state-controlled camps, drawing on counterinsurgency techniques developed in Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere. Apart from rapes and killings, hundreds of "surrendered" Maoist sympathizers were conscripted as auxiliaries. The conflict continues to this day, taking a toll on the lives of civilians, security forces and Maoist cadres.In 2007, Sundar and others took the Indian government to the Supreme Court over the human rights violations arising out of the conflict. In a landmark judgment in 2011 the court banned state support for vigilantism. The Burning Forest describes this brutal war in the heart of India, and what it tells us about the courts, media and politics of the country. The result is a fascinating critical account of Indian democracy.Trade Review“A very important and interesting book which should be widely read … A deeply disturbing analysis of the sacrifice of tribal lives and communities caught between the camouflaged barbarity of the security forces and the violent arrogance of a deflected rebellion. The appeal for reasoned humanity cannot be any stronger—or more eloquent—than this.”—Amartya Sen “How does democracy affect the prosecution of civil war? Nandini Sundar explores this question with untold courage and fierce determination in her remarkable extended ethnography of counter-insurgency in Chhattisgarh (India)—a desperate struggle to clear the land for mineral exploitation. Starting from poor adivasi villagers, aided and abetted by Naxalites, Sundar lays out in dispassionate detail the history of escalating violence, spurred on by the atrocities of a state-sponsored vigilante group and special police force. Stung by the lack of interest in the Indian media and parliament, she and two collaborators pursued and finally won a Supreme Court case against the state of Chhattisgarh. But, again, with no obvious effect. By multiplying opportunities to contest state violence, democratic institutions may have moderated but also extended the civil war. A rare and brilliant treatment of a topic few social scientists would dare to touch, let alone examine at such close quarters and for over two decades.”—Michael Burawoy “The Burning Forest is vivid, challenging and informative—an exemplar of engaged sociology and anthropology. It is a stellar account of the tension between villagers, insurgents and the multiple levels of state action and inaction, the intricate complications of the legal system and of course, the politics of it all. Nandini Sundar’s empathy for the people of the forest and their struggles for a dignified life and livelihood is heart-warming.”—Ari Sitas“This meticulous and powerful book not only documents a brutal regime of internal colonialism in the world’s largest democracy. It reveals the insidious ways in which consent to state oppression is manufactured and amplified. Everyone interested in the commingled fate of democracy and capitalism in the postcolonial world should read this book.” —Pankaj Mishra “Nandini Sundar, an extraordinary anthropologist-activist, pulls no punches in describing the greed and cynical violence of state agencies, mining companies, politicians and immigrants. Her account of life in the Maoist rebel zones is graphic, full of empathy but by no means uncritical. This is a story that everyone who cares about India must read.” —Partha Chatterjee “Nandini Sundar is one of India’s most distinguished anthropologists, and the leading academic authority on Bastar. But she is also one of Indian democracy’s most passionate voices. This is a searing critique of the state, and one that Indian democracy needs to hear.” —Pratap Bhanu Mehta “Every thinking Indian, every citizen who is concerned about the present and future of the Republic, should read The Burning Forest. It is an impeccably researched and finely written work of scholarship, redolent with insight, and displaying enormous courage as well.” —Ramachandra Guha, Hindustan Times “If many places are like Bastar, few books are like The Burning Forest. It resonates with classics on frontiers and dispossession.”—Christian Lund, Journal of Agrarian Change “Sundar’s book is an exceptional expose of the scandal of rural governance in India, a chronicle of State excesses, an anthropologist’s view about how conflicts perpetuate themselves and an account of how India’s democracy is degraded when few are watching. Policymakers ought to take away one the key lesson from it that there really are no military solutions to social conflicts.”—Sushil Aaron, Hindustan Times “Sundar’s book is a must-read for those interested in the genesis and the nature of conflict in Bastar.”—Hindu “The work needs to be celebrated for its scholarship, for its independence and for its courage.”—Tribune

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Book SynopsisAmbalavaner Sivanandan was one of Britain's most influential radical thinkers. As Director of the Institute of Race Relations for forty years, his work changed the way that we think about race, racism, globalisation and resistance. Communities of Resistance collects together some of his most famous essays, including his excoriating polemic on Thatcherism and the left "The Hokum of New Times".This updated edition contains a new preface by Gary Younge and an introduction by Arun Kundnani.Trade ReviewYou can agree or not agree with Sivanandan (I agree nearly all the time) but what you certainly can't ignore is the voice with which he writes. It has the warmth of the passion of those who know they will never live to wield power, and the clarity of a demand for justice that cannot be silenced. His is a voice that relays the voices of the poor, the salt of the earth and the proud. The colour of his voice cannot be dismissed. Its unique tone carries a reminder of what wealth inevitably loses, of what power based upon injustice fears. Read, listen... -- John Berger

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Book SynopsisFeminism is broken: the current attempts to protect women from sexual abuse on campus, and on line. Regulation is replacing education, and women's hard-won right to be treated as consenting adults is being repealed by well-meaning bureaucrats.In Unwanted Advances, passionate feminist Kipnis, find the object of a protest march by student activists at her university for writing an essay about sexual paranoia on campus. In response she starts to question women's role in national debates over free speech and "safe spaces". She explores the astonishing netherworld of accused professors and students, campus witch hunts, rigged investigations, and demonstrates the chilling effect of this new sexual McCarthyism on higher education. Without minimizing the seriousness of campus assault, Kipnis argues for more honesty: a timely critique of feminist paternalism and the covert sexual conservatism of hook-up culture.Trade ReviewAbove all else, though, "Unwanted Advances" is necessary. Argue with the author, by all means. But few people have taken on the excesses of university culture with the brio that Kipnis has. Her anger gives her argument the energy of a live cable. -- Jennifer Senior * New York Times *A bracing book, its message delivered with fierce intelligence and mordant humor -- Cathy Young * Wall Street Journal *a persuasive and valuable contribution to the continuing debate over how to deal with sexual assault on college campuses -- Jill Filipovic * New York Times *this book is harrowing; this book is hilarious (like Dorothy Parker channeling Franz Kafka); but the main thing it is is BRAVE. On top of which, it is urgently necessary. -- Lawrence Weschler, author of Waves Passing in the NightA revelation: a great work of investigative journalism and a thorough examination of a case that feels like it couldn't happen in America... Kipnis makes you fear for a whole new set of reasons. -- Hanna Rosin, author of The End of MenC]hilling, shocking, meticulously reported, eminently readable, and in places perversely hilarious...most of all it is a crucial piece of a burgeoning conversation about threats to free speech and intellectual freedom on college campuses...Kipnis's voice is as clarion as her insights are astute. -- Meghan Daum, author of The UnspeakableKipnis is everything the academic bureaucrats she writes about are not: brave, honest, judicious, mature, and self-aware, with a seasoned understanding of both sexual politics and campus politics. She has struck a mighty blow for sanity, equality, and academic freedom. -- William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheepa brave, disturbing, yet scrupulously fair book: a brilliant and pragmatic manifesto for a kind of 'adult' feminism that rejects the campus cult of female victimhood. -- Terry Castle, author of The Professor

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Book SynopsisIn 1946 many Jewish soldiers returned to their homes in England imagining that they had fought and defeated the forces of fascism in Europe. Yet in London they found a revived fascist movement inspired by Sir Oswald Mosley and stirring up agitation against Jews and communists. Many felt that the government, the police and even the Jewish Board of Deputies were ignoring the threat; so they had to take matters into their own hands, by any means necessary.Forty-three Jewish servicemen met together and set up a group that tirelessly organised, infiltrated meetings, and broke up street demonstrations to stop the rebirth of the far right. The group included returned war heroes; women who went undercover; and young Jews, such as hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, seeking adventure. From 1947, the 43 Group grew into a powerful troop that could muster hundreds of fighters turning meetings into mass street brawls at short notice.The history of the 43 Group is not just a gripping story of a forgotten moment in Britain's postwar history; it is also a timely lesson in how to confront fascism, and how to win.Trade ReviewBrilliant, compelling and very timely. This is the sort of history we should all know about, especially in these troubled times, but were never taught at school. -- Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the FreedomInspiring... the fundamental questions it raises have yet to disappear from our political landscape. -- Daniel Trilling * Guardian *A new, comprehensive history of the group. * The Economist *Sonabend's debut brilliantly chronicles the 43 Group's lightning-fast progress from a homespun organization with a handful of Jewish ex-servicemen...to a surprisingly sophisticated one with up to 2,000 members and intelligence and surveillance branches. * Haaretz *The 43 Group's extraordinary resilience and bravery deserve to be far more widely appreciated. * Morning Star *Sonabend delights in these madcap tales of the 43 Group's violent confrontations with their fascist opponents and the ways the members managed to elude the (sometimes-fascist-sympathizing) police. -- Mari Cohen * Jewish Currents *Daniel Sonabend brilliantly captures...a tale of often bloody, and occasionally terrifying "organized chaos." * Times of Israel *Sonabend combines academic rigour with an easy, readable style, all of which helps to throw into sharp relief the difficult questions the story raises. * New Statesman *A timely book...Sonabend deserves credit for resurrecting this story * Literary Review *This important book is not simply a trip down memory lane, but a warning from history. It should be mandatory for those who do not see themselves as bystanders. * Jewish Chronicle *Thrilling...full of unforgettable characters, clandestine activities, deception, surveillance and more than a few full-blooded street brawls...A must read for all antifascists * Hope Not Hate *Not for the politically faint-hearted, have a milk shake handy whilst reading. * Counterfire *Sonabend rescues the '43 Group' from...obscurity...a victory * Chartist *Readable and well-researched...a timely reminder that militant anti-fascism not only has deep historical roots but can also be an effective bulwark against the extreme right. * Patterns of Prejudice Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe Great Adaptation tells the story of how scientists, governments and corporations have tried to deal with the challenge that climate change poses to capitalism by promoting adaptation to the consequences of climate change, rather than combating its causes. From the 1970s neoliberal economists and ideologues have used climate change as an argument for creating more "flexibility" in society, that is for promoting more market-based solutions to environmental and social questions. The book unveils the political economy of this potent movement, whereby some powerful actors are thriving in the face of dangerous climate change and may even make a profit out of itTrade ReviewThis is an excellent and very important book. -- Geoff Mann * Antipode *A trenchant essay * Libération *Thanks to its solid argumentation and the quality of its writing, this extremely well documented book offers a judicious interpretation at a time when it is essential to ensure that the solutions to serious problems do not, in turn, become problems in their own right. -- Lucile Maertens * Books and Ideas *

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Book SynopsisWith analytical clarity and narrative force, The Feminist and the Sex Offender contends with two problems that are typically siloed in the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration: sexual and gender violence, on the one hand, and the state's unjust, ineffective, and soul-destroying response to it on the other. Is it possible to confront the culture of abuse? Is it possible to hold harm-doers accountable without recourse to a criminal justice system that redoubles injuries, fails survivors, and retrenches the conditions that made such abuse possible?Drawing on interviews, extensive research, reportage, and history, The Feminist and the Sex Offender develops an intersectional feminist approach to ending sexual violence. It maps with considerable detail the unjust sex offender regime while highlighting the alternatives we urgently need.Trade ReviewOne of our most important scholar/activists, Erica Meiners always challenges us to engage critically with the complex and sometimes surprising ideological strategies that bolster the expanding carceral state -- Angela Davis, University of California Santa CruzIn their timely and compelling book, Levine and Meiners ask: How do we, as feminists, address sexual violence without expanding and strengthening the violent carceral state? The Feminist and the Sex Offender dives into the history-and consequences-of relying on policing and prisons to address sexual violence. -- Victoria Law, author of Resistance Behind BarsSystematically dismantling the paradigm of punishment, the authors provide a new lens of hope and political clarity, melding feminism and abolition into a powerful manifesto of liberation. -- James Kilgore, author of Understanding Mass IncarcerationFor all who desire a humane future, The Feminist and the Sex Offender offers a bracing liberationist and abolitionist dream of freedom and throws down a practical and heady challenge. -- JoAnn Wypijewski, author of What We Don’t Talk about when We Talk about #MeTooThis book confirms everything I believe in as a sex crimes expert, restorative justice practitioner, and survivor of sexual violence. -- Alissa R. Ackerman, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, California State University, FullertonLevine and Meiners show how the contingent now called "carceral" feminists (from the same root as incarcerate), spurred by rage and an eagerness for retribution - and by the exhilaration of "at last we're getting the bastards" - has played a large role in expanding the prison industrial complex, along with that cruel sex offender registry, precisely at the time that other feminists and civil rights activists are trying to rein it in. -- Dr. Carol Tavris * Skeptic *Pulls back the curtain on the history of the sex offender registry, its roots and its injustices, and how we can strive for a future with neither sexual harm nor state violence. -- Lyra Walsh Fuchs * Dissent *

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Book SynopsisCrisis dominates the present historical moment. The economy is in crisis, politics in both its past and present forms is in crisis and our own individual lives are in crisis, made vulnerable by the fluctuations of the labor market and by the undoing of social and political ties we inherited from modernity. Yet, traditional views of crises as just temporary setbacks do not seem to hold any longer; this crisis seems permanent, with no way out and no alternatives on the horizon. Reconstructing a political genealogy of the term from the Greek world to today's neoliberalism, this book demonstrates that crisis, understood as a "choice" between revolution and conservation, is a peculiarity of the modern era that does not apply to the present day. However, since its origin, the trope of crisis has proven to be one of the most effective instruments of social discipline and administration. The analytical trajectory followed by this book - which spans from Plato to Hayek, from the juridical and medical science of antiquity to the current technocracy, passing through the "weapons of criticism" of Marx and Gramsci - finally identifies, following Benjamin and Foucault, precariousness as the "form of life" that characterizes crisis understood as an art of government. But we still need to answer the question: "How can we recreate the possibility of political alternatives?"Trade ReviewDario Gentili's book on crisis is one of the first genealogies of a concept that nowadays is crucial. In this way, through the rigorous analysis of the term, he captures an uncharted aspect of our contemporary condition -- Roberto EspositoThere is a crisis, there is no alternative. This is the rhetorical strategy through which governments across the world justify and legitimize unpopular political and economic decisions in this age, the age of precarity. Dario Gentili's illuminating genealogical reconstruction of the dispositive of crisis is an indispensable tool to understand and contrast the very specific art of government implicit in today's globally predominant neoliberal policies."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">There is a crisis, there is no alternative. This is the rhetorical strategy through which governments across the world justify and legitimize unpopular political and economic decisions in this age, the age of precarity. Dario Gentili's illuminating genealogical reconstruction of the dispositive of crisis is an indispensable tool to understand and contrast the very specific art of government implicit in today's globally predominant neoliberal policies. -- Elettra StimilliDario Gentili's superb The Age of Precarity takes a concept ubiquitous in contemporary left political and social theory, precarity, and endows it with new life and explanatory power. Deftly drawing on thinkers from Plato to Benjamin, Gramsci to Foucault, Schmitt to Hayek, Gentili diagnoses a present where crisis generates an 'art of government' of precarious life, and calls against a politics as a fight-to-the-death between forms of life, for a new politics of shared forms of life through which power is expressed in common. -- Matteo Mandarini, Queen Mary University of LondonDario Gentili's book on crisis is one of the first genealogies of a concept that nowadays is crucial. Through the rigorous analysis of the term, he captures an uncharted aspect of our contemporary condition. -- Roberto Esposito, author of Communitas"There is a crisis, there is no alternative." This is the rhetorical strategy through which governments across the world justify and legitimize unpopular political and economic decisions in this age, the age of precarity. Dario Gentili's illuminating genealogical reconstruction of the dispositive of crisis is an indispensable tool helping us to understand and contrast the very specific art of government implicit in today's globally predominant neoliberal policies -- Elettra Stimilli, author of Debt and GuiltDario Gentili's radical and rigorous work offers a magisterial analysis of the figure of crisis, which so much seems to define our current socio-political situation. By tracing an intellectual counter-history of this concept and proposing a novel theorization of it as an art of government, The Age of Precarity stands out as a benchmark text across contemporary debates in critical thought and one that we need to understand present-day practices of administration under neoliberal governance. -- Andrea Mura, Goldsmiths, University of LondonDario Gentili has, through an analysis of the language of crisis, shown how its inscription into the discourse of contemporary politics has diminished its force. The language of crisis has been legitimized. In its place he proposes a rethinking of conflict. The political is then recast in terms of life. Freed of the debilitating effect of the equation of life with the biological Gentile proposes a genuine biopolitics. The point of departure is the recovery of that which has been rendered precarious in the name of a new form of commonality. -- Andrew Benjamin, University of Technology, Sydney

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Book SynopsisAs we face the compounded crises of late capitalism, environmental catastrophe and technological transformation, who are the thinkers and the ideas who will allow us to understand the world we live in? McKenzie Wark surveys three areas at the cutting edge of current critical thinking: design, environment, technology and introduces us to the thinking of nineteen major writers. Each chapter is a concise account of an individual thinker, providing useful context and connections to the work of the others. The authors include: Sianne Ngai, Kodwo Eshun, Lisa Nakamura, Hito Steyerl, Yves Citton, Randy Martin, Jackie Wang, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Achille Mbembe, Deborah Danowich and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Eyal Weizman, Cory Doctorow, Benjamin Bratton, Tiziana Terranova, Keller Easterling, Jussi Parikka.Wark argues that we are too often told that expertise is obtained by specialisation. Sensoria connects the themes and arguments across intellectual silos. They explore the edges of disciplines to show how we might know the world: through the study of culture, the different notions of how we create such things, and the impact that the machines that we devise have had upon us. The book is a vital and timely introduction to the future both as a warning but also as a road map on how we might find our way out of the current crisis.Trade ReviewA provocative and compelling exploration of our digital world as it crashes towards ecological disaster. Counter-intuitive, insightful, and imaginative, Capital is Dead is a timely reminder that there are things worse than capitalism - and we may just be living through them -- Nick Snricek, co-author of Inventing the Future * [in praise of Capital is Dead] *a playbook for the Anthropocene, a set of moves and strategies extracted from an unexpected canon of texts formed by a mash-up of the Soviet avant-garde and the Californian high-tech imaginary. * Radical Philosophy [in praise of Molecular Red] *A very imaginative, historically smart, politically generative thesis . that I think we urgently need. -- Donna Haraway, author of A Cyborg Manifesto * [in praise of Molecular Red] *A wonderful book . informative and moving . a great recovery of an instructive life and literary effort. The book makes the case for a kind of political vision and action we need to recognize and enact. A true pleasure to read. -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars Trilogy * [in praise of Molecular Red] *Wark is a fine aphorist ... Playful, angry, depressed, celebratory, this is a book for anyone not convinced that there is no alternative to the way we live now. -- Observer * [In Praise of The Beach Beneath the Streets] *

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Book SynopsisSeventy years after the Chinese Revolution of 1949, what remains of Mao's communist legacy?Afterlives of Chinese Communism comprises essays from over fifty world-renowned scholars in the China field, from various disciplines and continents. It provides an indispensable guide for understanding how the Mao era continues to shape Chinese politics today. Each chapter discusses a concept or practice from the Mao period, what it attempted to do, and what has become of it since. The authors respond to the legacy of Maoism from numerous perspectives to consider what lessons Chinese communism can offer today, and whether there is a future for the egalitarian politics that it once promised. A joint publication between Verso Books and ANU Press.Trade ReviewAll of the essays are well worth reading, teasing out the theory and reality of a different Maoist concept. -- John Gittings * LA Review of Books *

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