Verso Books

Book SynopsisThe definitive feminist analysis of reproductive and ‘caring’ labor to emerge from Italian feminism of the 1970sEmerging from the great social upheavals that contested the sexual and racial divisions of labor globally in the 1970s, Leopoldina Fortunati’s classic work expands and transforms how we analyze the sphere of reproduction, redefining the value of the individual’s life and the labor performed in the home.Released here for the first time in its unabridged form with historical notation and contemporary commentary, The Arcana of Reproduction is a foundational text and essential contribution to today’s discussions of social reproduction and the history of Italian feminism. Fortunati’s work provides some of the earliest theorizations of ‘immaterial,’ ‘affective,’ and ‘caring’ labor, and of the role of technology in reproduction, articulated decades before their popular reception in English academic literature.Reading this work some 50 years after its original publication gives us the tools to analyze the contemporary state of capitalist development and of women’s lives today. The text remains prefigurative and essential in our era of digital labor.

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Book SynopsisPostmodern Geographies stands as the cardinal broadcast and defence of theory's "spatial turn." From the suppression of space in modern social science and the disciplinary aloofness of geography to the spatial returns of Foucault and Lefebvre and the construction of Marxist geographies alert to urbanization and global development, renowned geographer Edward W. Soja details the trajectory of this turn and lays out its key debates. An expanded critique of historicism and a refined grasp of materialist dialectics bolster Soja's attempt to introduce geography to postmodernity, animating a series of engagements with Heidegger, Giddens, Castells, and others. Two exploratory essays on the postfordist landscapes of Los Angeles complete the book, offering a glimpse of Soja's new geography carried into its highest register.Trade ReviewA significant theoretical contribution both to the social science in general and to human geography in particular . This literary achievement establishes Soja as one of the foremost thinkers in this difficult interdisciplinary field. * Choice *One of the most challenging and stimulating books ever written on the thorny issue of how and why societies use space for social purposes in the ways they do. -- David Harvey

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Book SynopsisWhat should a metropolis for working women look like? A city of friendships beyond Sex and the City. A transit system that accommodates mothers with strollers on the school run. A public space with enough toilets. A place where women can walk without harassment. Through history, personal experience and popular culture Leslie Kern exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities are built into our cities, homes, and neighbourhoods. She maps the city from new vantage points, laying out a feminist intersectional approach to urban histories and proposes that the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping a new urban future. It is time to dismantle what we take for granted about cities and to ask how we can build more just, sustainable, and care-full cities together.Trade ReviewThis original study of the gendering processes occurring in the neoliberal city is a significant addition to scholarly debate on cities and gender. Empirically grounded in the intricacies of the condo market in Toronto, it both adds to, and updates, the pathbreaking work around gendered critical urban analysis. An accessible and incisive text that will no doubt instigate future discussions -- Loretta Lees, Cities Group, Department of Geography, King’s College, London * [for Sex and the Revitalised City] *Cities aren't built to accommodate female bodies, female needs, female desires. In this rich, engaging book the feminist geographer Leslie Kern envisions how we might transform the "city of men" into a city for everyone. Let's all move there immediately.' Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse -- Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse[An] insightful scholarly work ... This provocative analysis will resonate with theoretically minded feminists. * Publishers Weekly *An optimistic, pragmatic book, which points to already extant solutions and looks forward to a more just, joyous urban future. -- Stephanie Sy-Quia * Tribune *Kern resists drawing a blueprint for a new master-planned feminist city. Instead, she believes we ought to take a closer look at how cities perpetuate inequality from the perspective of race, gender, ability, and class. -- Diana Budds * Curbed *An intersectional analysis of our urban environments through a combination of personal narrative, theory, and pop culture analysis. -- Leilah Stone * Metropolis Magazine *[Feminist City] examines the city's paradoxical ability to oppress and emancipate-how an environment teeming with gendered inconvenience, racial discrimination, and sexual violence can also be a locus of queer independence, community care, and emancipatory feminist world-making. ... Heavily researched but accessibly written, the book is a dynamic mix of high and low, facts and feelings, research and reality. * Hazlitt *Kern delves into the interlocking inequalities and systems of oppression that take concrete shape in cities, using an intersectional feminist approach to explore the gendered aspects of urban space...an enjoyable and accessible book that not only contributes to urban feminist geography, but to urban planning and policy more broadly * LSE Review of Books *[Feminist City is] a small but provocative book. It is both an introduction to feminist geography and to modern feminism, with its multiple meanings and numerous contradictions. ... In a world where the male gaze is so often the only gaze considered, so much so [that] most people don't even think of it as being gendered in any way, Feminist City is revelatory. -- Ron Jacobs * CounterPunch *Looking through the lens of geography, pop culture and public and personal history, the book exposes how female bodies are ostracised in urban spaces. * Refinery29 *There should be more books like this...Feminist City is wide-ranging and sophisticated, brief and engaging. * ICON Magazine *Kern [wants] to envi­sion a more inclu­sive city that con­sid­ers the phys­i­cal and cul­tur­al needs of its most mar­gin­al­ized mem­bers. -- Apoorva Tadepalli * In These Times *[Kern] introduces readers to a number of different ways the city is at once emancipatory and endangering. She deploys an intersectional lens to explore such themes as mobility, protest, adolescence, and friendship, weaving together an impressive array of sources from academic writings and popular culture (Doreen Massey appears alongside Two Dope Queens). -- Sophie Gonick * Public Books *

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Book SynopsisWe live in an age of impotence. Stuck between global war and global finance, between identity and capital, we seem to be incapable of producing that radical change that is so desperately needed. Is there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that shapes our politics as well as our imagination?In his most systematic book to date, renowned Italian theorist Franco Berardi Bifo tackles this question through a solid yet visionary analysis of the three fundamental concepts of Possibility, Potency, and Power. Overcoming any temptation of giving in to despair or nostalgia, Berardi proposes the notion of Futurability as a way to remind us that even within the darkness of our current crisis, still lies dormant the horizon of possibility.Trade ReviewAs a diagnostician, Berardi is among the sharpest. * Slate *Bifo is a master of global activism in the age of depression. His mission is to understand real existing capitalism. Sense the despair of the revolt, enjoy this brilliant 'labour of the negative'! -- Geert Lovink, Founding Director of the Institute of Network Cultures

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Book SynopsisThe trial of Angela Davis is remembered as one of America's most historic political trials, and no one can tell the story better than Davis herself. Opening with a letter from James Baldwin to Angela, and including contributions from numerous radicals and commentators such as Black Panthers George Jackson, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins, this book is not only an account of Davis's incarceration and the struggles surrounding it, but also perhaps the most comprehensive and thorough analysis of the prison system of the United States and the figure embodied in Davis's arrest and imprisonment-the political prisoner. Since the book was written, the carceral system in the US has grown from strength to strength, with more of its black population behind bars than ever before. The scathing analysis of the role of prison and the policing of black populations offered by Davis and her comrades in this astonishing volume remains as relevant today as the day it was published.Trade ReviewAngela Davis taught me that I did not have to tolerate the racism I was suffering in the playground, she told me that I was not alone.it was in this book that I first came across the word 'solidarity'. -- Benjamin ZephaniahDavis' arguments for justice are formidable. . . . The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied. * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisIn this monumental book, Chris Harman achieves the impossible-a gripping history of the planet from the perspective of the struggling people throughout the ages.From earliest human society to the Holy Roman Empire, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, from the Industrial Revolution to the end of the millennium, Chris Harman provides a brilliant and comprehensive history of the planet. Eschewing the standard histories of 'Great Men,' of dates and kings, Harman offers a groundbreaking counter-history, a breathtaking sweep across the centuries in the tradition of 'history from below.' In a fiery narrative, he shows how ordinary men and women were involved in creating and changing society and how conflict between classes was often at the core of these changes. While many pundits see the victory of capitalism as now safely secured, Harman explains the rise and fall of societies and civilizations throughout the ages and demonstrates that history never ends. This magisterial study is essential reading for anyone interested in how society has changed and developed and the possibilities for further radical change.Trade ReviewI have had many people ask me if there is a book which does for world history what my book A People's History of the United States does for this country. I always responded that I know of only one book that accomplishes this extremely difficult task, and that is Chris Harman's A People's History of the World. It is an indispensable volume on my reference bookshelf. -- Howard ZinnThe left ... has few accounts which convey as well as this book does the broad sweep of human history. -- Robin Blackburn

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Book SynopsisNo metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together." To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it." To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs LA's shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel West - a city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity.Trade ReviewAbsolutely fascinating. -- William GibsonFew books shed as much light on their subjects as this opinionated and original excavation of Los Angeles from the mythical debris of its past and future. * San Francisco Examiner *A history as fascinating as it is instructive. -- Peter Ackroyd * The Times *As central to the L.A. canon as anything that Carey McWilliams wrote in the forties or Joan Didion wrote in the seventies. -- Dana Goodyear * New Yorker *Angelenos, now is the time to lean into Mike Davis's apocalyptic, passionate, radical rants on the sprawling, gorgeous mess that is Los Angeles. -- Stephanie Danler, author of Stray and SweetbitterCity of Quartz deserves to be emancipated from its parochial legacy...[It is] a working theory of global cities writ large, with as much to teach us about multiculturalism as it does racial apartheid in Los Angeles. -- David Helps * Los Angeles Review of Books *A wildly original analysis of the city on the threshold of the new millennium, the book synthesized knowledge about Los Angeles's history, politics, culture, architecture, policing, immigration, and more, painting a dark picture that embodied a kind of American urban dystopia on steroids after the nightmare of Reaganism and the "developers' millennium." -- Micah Uetricht * The Nation *Dazzling * Counterfire *

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Book Synopsis"Rooted in historical, site-based, narrative, and political accounts, Full Surrogacy Now is the seriously radical cry for full gestational justice that I long for. This kind of gestation depends on realizing the implications of knowing that we all actually, materially, make one another, and that this labor continues to be exploited, extracted, and alienated-unequally-at every turn in Capitalism and Patriarchy. Full of brilliant, generative, and also shamelessly biting critique of both bourgeois and communist tracts, feminist and otherwise, Lewis's voice is unique and bracing. I need it; it fills my whole self with reimagined possibilities for making oddkin who are not property. Lewis set out to write an immoderate, utopian, partisan, anti-authoritarian communist defense of surrogates and surrogacy in ramifying registers of meanings and practices, and she has succeeded. Lewis asks the necessary questions, 'Can we parent politically, hopefully, nonreproductively-in a comradely way?' Can we become full surrogates for and with each other? In a book full of fierce demystifications and sharp dissections of injustice masquerading as humanitarianism, nonetheless Lewis convincingly and radically affirms: 'Everywhere about me, I can see beautiful militants hell-bent on regeneration, not self-replication.'"- Donna HarawayTrade ReviewGiving birth is commonly called labor. What happens if all of human pregnancy and gestation is thought from the labor point of view? That's the challenge of Full Surrogacy Now. If it is all labor, then how can that labor be freed from now global regimes of colonial and commodity exploitation? Lewis takes one of the most everyday things about being human and thinks it through from the point of view of a cyborg communism. This book goes far into places where few gender abolitionists have ventured and brings us a vision of another life. -- McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker ManifestoFull Surrogacy Now is more than an intervention, it is a landmark text of visionary feminist thinking. Sophie Lewis tears down decades of essentialist and contradictory presumptions on labor, motherhood and ownership to offer us the possibility of new ways to live with and for each other. This book is as breathtaking as it is necessary. -- Natasha LennardFull Surrogacy Now arrived and I could not stop reading. The crises of our time are crises of reproduction. Radical that she is, Sophie Lewis gets right to the root of the matter--and, radical that she is, finds its roots to be intersecting and entangled, "lovely, replicative, baroque", as one of her own gestators, Donna Haraway, might put it. But the gestator? Lewis moves expertly through decades of debates, as well as a rapidly growing body of empirical research, on surrogacy to carry us beyond the by-now familiar refrain that this or that activity "is work." Her goal could hardly be more ambitious: to rethink the "natural" gestation that every one of us comes from. I will reread this book for the sense it gives me that new ways of making one another and the world new might, in fact, be possible. Its verve and wit make me feel sure that Lewis' reproductive commune will be fun. -- Moira Weigel, author of Labor of Love: The Invention of DatingAn instructive and moving book about the work of babymaking and the best possible future for birthing and raising children. It offers both a convincing polemic about surrogacy's past and present, and a vision of how to make it both more common and more mutually beneficial. Lewis treats surrogacy as a signal example of what will be integral to any common human flourishing to come: unmaking gender and the family as we know them, to build new kinds of sociality and care for what is not "biologically" "ours." I was floored by it. -- Sarah Brouillette, author of Literature and the Creative EconomySophie Lewis is at the top of a new generation of scholars and activists thinking the transformation of gestational labor within contemporary pharmacopornographic capitalism. Neither simply natural nor banally cultural, gestation appears as the unthought core of gender and sexual politics, and the key of a forthcoming womb revolution: trans-Marx meets mammal's politics! -- Paul B. Preciado, author of Testo JunkiePregnancy. Babies. Families. Nature itself. Like capitalism, communism knows no bounds. Relentless in the task of seizing of the means of reproduction, Sophie Lewis is the Right's worst nightmare. -- George Ciccariello-Maher, author of Building the CommuneSophie Lewis and her expansive vision of feminism are desperately needed right now. She makes the work of undoing what "womanhood" has come to mean look possible and irresistible. -- Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the WhoreDazzling -- Jenny Turner * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisWe are seeing the rise of a populist moment around the world on both the left and the right. Movements like Bernie Sander, Jeremy Corbyn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have emerged in the midst of the neoliberal crisis. In this book, leading political thinker Chantal Mouffe proposes a left-populist strategy that could bring together the manifold struggles against subordination, oppression and discrimination. In redrawing political frontiers, this "populist moment" points to a "return of the political" after years of postpolitics. This return may open the way for authoritarian solutions-through regimes that weaken liberal-democratic institutions-but it could also lead to a reaffirmation and extension of democratic values.Trade ReviewInfluencing left parties as they enter government, from Greece to Portugal to Mexico. It is a beach-sized introduction to a major left thinker of the twenty-first century. -- Paul Mason * Guardian *Refreshingly bereft of the sputtering outrage and bafflement that characterizes the growing genre of liberal self-help books, Mouffe channels populism's agonistic clarity. * n+1 *An admirable attempt to get us thinking again about what a worthwhile politics might look like, one based on notions of equality, ecology, sovereignty, solidarity and social justice. * New Statesman *Argues in favor of leftist populism as a means to combat both elitist, neoliberal technocracy and reactionary, xenophobic versions of populism. * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisCome Together tells the incredible story of the emerging radicalism of the Gay Liberation Front, providing a vivid history of the movement, as well as the new ideas and practices it gave rise to across the United Kingdom. Before marriage equality or military service, Come Together reminds us of paths forged but not taken by queer politics in its earliest stages.

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Book SynopsisUnaffordable housing, poverty wages, healthcare, climate change, border policing; not the issues you ordinarily hear feminists talking about. But don't these issues impact the vast majority of women globally? Taking as its inspiration the new wave of feminist militancy that has erupted globally, this Manifesto makes a simple but powerful case: Feminism shouldn't start - or stop - with seeing women represented at the top of society. It must start with those at the bottom, and fight for the world they deserve. And that means targeting capitalism. Feminism must be anti-capitalist, eco-socialist and anti-racist. This is a manifesto for the 99%.Trade ReviewNancy Fraser is among the very few thinkers in the tradition of critical theory who are capable of redeeming its legacy in the twenty-first century. -- Axel HonnethFor more than a decade, Nancy Fraser's thought has helped to reframe the agenda of critical theory. -- Etienne BalibarNancy Fraser challenges us to reactivate the audacious spirit of second-wave feminism. Analyzing an imaginary aimed at eradicating exploitation as well as subjugation, she offers a rousing conclusion as to how we might mobilize feminism's best energies against the perils of the neoliberal present. -- Lynne SegalNancy Fraser is one of the most creative social philosophers and critical theorists of her generation. -- Cornel WestCinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser ... have collaborated and written what is effectively a prospective programme for the global women's movement, a feminist manifesto for the 99%. * Socialism Today *[Feminism for the 99%'s] captivating vision of feminism is not a standalone movement, isolated from battles against the exploitation of people or the planet ... in contrast, [it] calls for radical movements to join together in a 'common anti-capitalist insurgency.' Where do I sign up? * Red Pepper *Fulfils the serious promise of its subtitle, 'a manifesto', as it makes feminism generally applicable and available - and addresses the crisis of capitalism as a feminist issue ... excellent * Peace News *a treatise for an intersectional, socialist feminism that centers collective power over power for just a few * Jezebel *a visionary, relatable and all-encompassing resource valuable both to the collective committed to achieving a feminist informed anti-capitalist society and to those who are yet to be haunted by the spectre -- Felicity Adams * Feminist Legal Studies *[a] timely, fiery manifesto ... Arruzza, Bhattacharya, and Fraser herald the arrival of a new internationalist, anticapitalist feminist movement ... The feminism they describe is universalist and collaborative, in solidarity with antiracist, queer, environmental, migrant, and labor rights movements also endangered by capitalism. * Publishers Weekly *'An anti-capitalist feminism has become thinkable today,' Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser argue in Feminism for the 99 Per Cent, 'in part because the credibility of political elites is collapsing worldwide.' They are right. -- Lorna Finlayson * London Review of Books *A crucial formulation of an inclusive, transformative, and global social shift. * Quietus *In a searing anti-capitalist manifesto written by three scholar-activists based in the US, Feminism for the 99% stands for allwho are exploited, dominated and oppressed. ... Combining theory, rhetoric and principle, it reads as a call to arms. * Race & Class *

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Book SynopsisActive in the 1830s and 1840s, Flora Tristan is best known for her book "Workers' Union", an account of the conditions of women and workers in Peru, London, Paris and the provinces of France. Regarded as something of a pariah, she was one of the first women radicals to draw clear connections between the plight of disaffected workers and powerless women. Her version of socialism has been regarded as leading towards Marx. Sandra Dijkstra aims to paint a clear picture of Tristan as a class- and gender-conscious women writer in a transitional historical period, and to demonstrate her influence on Marxism.Trade ReviewFlora Tristan was the pioneer social explorer of the early Victorian world, chronicling the condition of women and labor from the sugar plantations of Peru to the salons of the July Monarchy and the satantic mills of industrial England. In this brilliant study, Dijkstra restores Tristan to her rightful but complex place in the histories of socialism and feminism. -- Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

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Book SynopsisThe subject of numerous biographies and history books, Winston Churchill has been repeatedly voted as one of the greatest of Englishmen. Even today, Boris Johnson in his failing attempts to be magisterial, has adopted many of his hero's mannerism! And, as Tariq Ali agrees, Churchill was undoubtedly right in 1940-41 to refuse to capitulate to fascism. However, he was also one of the staunchest defenders of empire and of Britain's imperial doctrine. In this coruscating biography, Tariq Ali challenges Churchill's vaulted record. Throughout his long career as journalist, adventurer, MP, military leader, statesman, and historian, nationalist self belief influenced Churchill's every step, with catastrophic effects. As a young man he rode into battle in South Africa, Sudan and India in order to maintain the Imperial order. As a minister during the first World War, he was responsible for a series of calamitous errors that cost thousands of lives. His attempt to crush the Irish nationalists left scars that have not yet healed. Despite his record as a defender of his homeland during the Second World War, he was willing to sacrifice more distant domains. Singapore fell due to his hubris. Over 3 Millions Bengalis starved in 1943 as a consequence of his policies. As a peace time leader, even as the Empire was starting to crumble, Churchill never questioned his imperial philosophy as he became one of the architects of the postwar world we live in today.Trade ReviewIn Ali's telling, which draws on more honest existing historical scholarship than most popular biographies of Churchill, the two-times prime minister emerges not so much as deeply racist - some of his contemporaries remarked on it in shock - as profoundly authoritarian, with a soft spot for fascist strongmen, and a hostility to working-class assertion. -- Priyamvada Gopal * Prospect *For Tariq Ali, Churchill debunking, like Churchill worship, is a political act. -- David Aaronovitch * The Times *Ali portrays Churchill as cruel, incompetent and blinded by prejudice * Spectator *A Marxist insult to history. -- Simon Heffer * The Telegraph *A powerful corrective...shining a light on the nasty parts of the Churchill story that his supporters conveniently ignore. This book is an unreserved polemic against the man usually celebrated for standing up to Hitler -- Martin Chilton * Independent *An essential antidote to the Churchill myth...This book could not be more timely. -- Lindsey German * Counterfire *A counter to popular mythology; an effort to peel back the curtain of propaganda and locate truth ... a worthy contribution in a crowded field -- Labour Hub * Talal Hangari *[Ali] seeks not so much to flush WC down the toilet of history, but to reassign him to his rightful place as one of history's most over-rated figures ... [a] highly readable book -- Donald Sassoon * Political Quarterly *The important thing about Ali's book, even after a thousand on the same subject, is that it is primarily interested in Churchill's years in service to British imperialism, and only secondarily interested in World War II, inverting the usual balance...a vital corrective. -- Alex Skopic * Current Affairs *Ali's book is a helpful corrective to the cult of Churchill that has come to dominate British culture. His study makes one thing clear: there is ultimately no path to a socialist and internationalist future without challenging this legacy. -- Liam Kennedy * Jacobin *Ali's examination remains an important corrective to the hagiographic praise that Churchill receives to this day. -- Andrew Moravcsik * Foreign Affairs *Ali has produced a searing critique full of little known detail, of a long and powerful British life which did untold damage at home and abroad. -- Victoria Brittain * Review of African Political Economy *

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Book SynopsisSecond Wave feminism emerged as a struggle for women's liberation and took its place alongside other radical movements. But feminism's subsequent immersion in identity politics coincided with a decline in its utopian energies and the rise of neoliberalism. Now, foreseeing a revival in the movement, Fraser argues for a reinvigorated feminist radicalism able to address the global economic crisis.Trade ReviewNancy Fraser is among the very few thinkers in the tradition of critical theory who are capable of redeeming its legacy in the twenty-first century. -- Axel HonnethFor more than a decade, Nancy Fraser's thought has helped to reframe the agenda of critical theory. -- Etienne BalibarNancy Fraser challenges us to reactivate the audacious spirit of second-wave feminism. Analyzing an imaginary aimed at eradicating exploitation as well as subjugation, she offers a rousing conclusion as to how we might mobilize feminism's best energies against the perils of the neoliberal present. -- Lynne SegalNancy Fraser is one of the most creative social philosophers and critical theorists of her generation. -- Cornel WestFortunes of Feminism goes a long way in bringing together Fraser's substantial body of work on redistribution and recognition . Scholars interested in these themes will find this invaluable - or at least they should. -- Gwendolyn Beetham * THES *Fraser asks: What became of feminism in the wake of the neoliberal turn?.This book is required reading for feminists of all persuasions, and for a broader audience of left readers who want to get an overview of feminist political and philosophical debates.[Fraser] helps us think about the crucial question of where the women's movements in all of their varieties are going. Equally crucially, she helps us to ask what the relationship of such movements is, should be, or could be, to the left broadly defined, in an era in which war and austerity threaten all of the modest social justice gains of the Golden Age. -- Hester Eisenstein * Science and Society *

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Book SynopsisWhen the tech platforms promised a future of 'connection,' they were lying. They said their 'walled gardens' would keep us safe, but those were prison walls.The platforms locked us into their systems and made us easy pickings, ripe for extraction. Twitter, Facebook and other Big Tech platforms are hard to leave by design. They hold hostage the people we love, the communities that matter to us, the audiences and customers we rely on. The impossibility of staying connected to these people after you delete your account has nothing to do with technological limitations: it's a business strategy in service to commodifying your personal life and relationships.We can - we must - dismantle the tech platforms. In The Internet Con, Cory Doctorow explains how to seize the means of computation, by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix thei

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Book SynopsisAlgeria’s Arab Jews were renowned for their metal-working and jewellery-making skills, and these jewellers of the ummah—the Arabic community—are, for Azoulay, the symbol of a world that can still be reclaimed and repaired.In a series of letters written to her father, her great-grandmother, and her children—and to the thinkers and artists she claims as intellectual kin, such as Frantz Fanon and Hannah Arendt—Azoulaytraces the history of Arab Jewish life in Algeria, and how it was disrupted by French colonialism. She begins by asking how her family became assimilated into the identities of Israeli, Jewish, or French. As she does, she finds a whole lost world open up to her - the world of her family, the Arab Jews of Algeria. She traces how Arab Jews were severed from other Arabs, and how Arab Jews were severed from their Arabness by the Israeli vision of a Jewish diaspora, and sets out to repair those breaks and revive their world. B

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Book SynopsisHousing means prosperity and security for some; poverty, precarity and sickness for others. More people live in private rented accommodation than ever before, and rents rise without apparent reason. Homes are smaller every year, and nearly 20 per cent of tenants live in hazardous conditions. Homelessness is at a new high. Yet the government’s only solution is to promote homeownership.Against Landlords shows that this crisis is not the product of happenstance or political incompetence. Government policy has intentionally split British citizens into homeowners and renters, two classes set on very different financial paths. In the UK, one out of every twenty-one adults is a landlord, and it is this group, and those who aspire to join it, represented by the political class.In his radical new interpretation of the housing crisis, lawyer Nick Bano explains how this environment set the conditions for the Grenfell Tower fire and how it means a life of anxiety for t

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Book SynopsisDespite what politicians, philosophers and the press have long told us, every peaceful crowd is not a violent mob in waiting. Dan Hancox argues it is time to rethink long-held assumptions about crowd behaviour and psychology, as well as the part crowds play in our lives. The story of the modern world is the story of multitudes in action. Crowds are the ultimate force for change: the bringer of conviviality, euphoria, mass culture and democracy.Behind the establishment’s long war against crowds is the work of eccentric proto-fascist Gustave Le Bon. Having witnessed the revolutionary Paris Commune, he declared the crowd barbaric, the enemy of all that was civilized. In the twentieth century, his theory influenced Mussolini, Hitler and Freud alike. It moulded the policing of our communities and the new industry of public relations, shaping our cities and politics.From raucous football matches and raves to rubber-bullet-riddled riots, Dan Hancox takes us into the crow

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Book SynopsisNow a global bestseller, the remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchú suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchú vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas. Above all, these pages are illuminated by the enduring courage and passionate sense of justice of an extraordinary woman.

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Book SynopsisBringing together three previously unpublished lectures presented to the public by Lacan at the height of his career, and prefaced by Jacques-Alain Miller, My Teaching is a clear, concise introduction to the thought of the influential psychoanalyst after Freud.

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Book SynopsisA classic work by the founding father of existentialism, describing his philosophy and its relationship to Marxism

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Book SynopsisOur feelings about housing are political, and a grasp of them is essential to solving the housing crisis - from the author of They Call It Love

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Book SynopsisA deeply moving exploration of the relationship between thinking and drawing, from the author of the groundbreaking Ways of Seeing

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Book SynopsisA wrenching portrait of the Russian sculptor and a tribute to the potential of political artJohn Berger explores the life and work of Ernst Neizvestny, who, after clashing with Khrushchev, was excluded from the ranks of officially approved Soviet artists. Abandoned to obscurity, Neizvestny laboured to realize a monumental and very public vision of art. Exiled to the United States, he finally found recognition, returning to his homeland with the fall of the Berlin Wall.Berger’s account illuminates the very meaning of revolutionary art. In his struggle against official orthodoxy – which brought him into face-to-face conflict with Khrushchev himself – Neizvestny was fight-ing not for a merely personal or aesthetic vision, but for recognition of the social role of art. His sculptures earn a place in the world by reflecting the courage of a whole people, commemorating, in an age of mass suffering, the resistance and endurance of millions.

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Book SynopsisGathering together Ruth Wilson Gilmore's work from over three decades, Abolition Geography presents her singular contribution to the politics of abolition as theorist, researcher, and organizer, offering scholars and activists ways of seeing and doing to help navigate our turbulent present.Abolition Geography moves us away from explanations of mass incarceration and racist violence focused on uninterrupted histories of prejudice or the dull compulsion of neoliberal economics. Instead, Gilmore offers a geographical grasp of how contemporary racial capitalism operates through an "anti-state state" that answers crises with the organized abandonment of people and environments deemed surplus to requirement. Gilmore escapes one-dimensional conceptions of what liberation demands, who demands liberation, or what indeed is to be abolished. Drawing on the lessons of grassroots organizing and internationalist imaginaries, Abolition Geography undoes the identification of abolition with mere decarceration, and reminds us that freedom is not a mere principle but a place.Edited with an introduction by Brenna Bhandar and Alberto Toscano.Trade ReviewScholars like Ruthie Gilmore, filmmakers like Ava Duvernay, and formerly incarcerated people like Glenn Martin have all done work to expose the many injustices of the industry of our prison system. -- Jay-Z * Time *Ruth Gilmore lays bare the diabolical logic of neoliberal incarceration. She shows us that the prison is a symptom of the decline of our civilization, how the California Nightmare has produced its disposable population. Gilmore's depressingly hopeful analysis is a wake-up call for our somnolence. -- Vijay Prashad, author of Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, WorkfareRuth Gilmore, indefatigable activist-scholar, is one of our most dangerous and important minds. A radical geographer with roots in the Black liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, she pioneered the study of mass incarceration's catastrophic impacts on inner-city families and neighborhoods, and together with Angela Davis has played a catalytic role in the creation of today's movement for prison abolition. This powerful collection of essays is an indispensable conceptual armory for that struggle. -- Mike DavisRuthie's clarity and courage is a talisman for these monstrous times, and a guide out of them. -- Vijay Prashad, director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.Abolition Geography isn't shallow romanticism. It is a rigorous criticism of capitalist social relations, which foment premature death and needless suffering of the poor and destroy the planet. Abolition geography is a human necessity for there to be freedom and a livable earth. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, one of the foremost revolutionary thinkers on abolition, draws on real historical traditions of getting free, showing us what is possible and necessary. -- Nick Estes, author of Our History is the FutureThis well-crafted assemblage of thirty years worth of Ruthie Gilmore's countless, brilliant interventions is a tremendous gift to our movements. While tending to grounded practices and particularities, Ruthie's meticulous mapping of interconnected histories offers us prescient analyses across scale, geography, and time. At a time of incredible uncertainty and global upheaval, Abolition Geography illuminates a political vocabulary and vision that reorganizes even conventional left ideologies; a tour de force and absolute must read for our collective trajectories of freedom making as world making. -- Harsha Walia, author of Border and Rule and Undoing Border ImperialismThe leaderly wisdom of Ruth Wilson Gilmore infuses this hefty volume, making it an indispensible compendium of practical abolitionism. In her hands, reducing police powers and dismantling the prison industrial complex become immediate matters of political struggle. If you want to come to terms with the movement that shaped the "American Summer" of 2020, this is the best available starting point. -- Paul Gilroy, author of The Black AtlanticRuth Wilson Gilmore is one of the most impactful radical thinkers of our time. This compilation of thirty years' worth of essays, interviews, and co-written reflections, is evidence of the depth and breadth of her extraordinary political praxis. Powerful, provocative, inspiring and inciting, this edited collection offers a formidable indictment of racial capitalism and the carceral state, a deep, complex and multi-faceted portrait of abolitionist work, and a call to action. Readers concerned with freedom-making and liberation will read this brilliant body of work carefully and act decisively. -- Barbara Ransby, activist, historian and author of several books, including Making All Black Lives Matter and Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement.Abolition Geography is a collection of three decades of Ruth Wilson's Gilmore's brilliance in the form of essays and interviews on the politics of abolition as a theorist, researcher and organizer. The result is a precious gift that will be read, studied and cherished for years to come by those of us who believe her when she says to be green we must be red, and to be red our world building must be planetary. -- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of Noopiming: The Cure for White LadiesAn essential collection of writings from one of the most important thinkers on abolition, geography and racism of our time. -- Karla J. Strand * Ms.Magazine *Abolition Geography is the first collection of writing by this major thinker, activist, and writer in the fields of racism, geography, and incarceration. The book includes essays, articles, and interviews from the last two decades, covering topics such as the origin of mass incarceration and racial violence and the concept of the 'anti-state state'. * Autostraddle *Anyone with an interest in the critical theory of mass incarceration and social justice can't miss this first-ever compendium of writing by one of the most brilliant and radical minds in the field. [An] impactful guidebook for a whole new generation looking to join the movement. * The Chicago Review of Books *For over three decades, Gilmore's work has been crucial to the study of policing and prison abolition...Her newest anthology, Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation, includes essays on policing, capitalism and organizing [that] are more critical than ever two years after the largest street mobilization in decades. Expertly assembled by scholars Brenna Bhandar and Alberto Toscano, the anthology reproduces Gilmore's essays chronologically from 1991 to 2018. The only way to escape the cycles of police violence, protest and retrenchment will be to collectively build popular, abolitionist frameworks for relating to each other. Gilmore's work helps us move toward that goal. -- Andreas Petrossiants * AJ+ *A geographer by training, Gilmore has a sweeping understanding of prisons and policing, one that approaches the issue at scale. If you haven't read her yet, it's a good year to start. -- Lexi McMenamin * Teen Vogue *A scathing exploration of global systems of oppression through a lens of geography, in which [Gilmore] asserts that freedom and liberation are a physical, tangible place - they're material conditions, not platitudes and niceties from ultra-rich politicians. -- Kylie Cheung * Jezebel *Introduced by a stimulating essay by Brenna Bhandar and Alberto Toscano, [Abolition Geography] ranges from theoretical chapters originally published in academic journals to public speeches and interviews conducted with other scholars. This anthology format allows the reader to see how Gilmore introduces, experiments with and then develops ideas in real time, taking us from the 1992 Los Angeles riots to the 2021 neo-fascist attack on the US Capitol building. -- Christopher McMichael * New Frame *Gilmore is clear as a bell: potent and factual on injustice, filled with sharp intelligence and even wit, but also somehow continuously surprising and emotional. With every page, Gilmore forces us to think of race, class, prisons, and the world in entirely new ways. -- Kamil Ahsan * NPR *Gilmore's work is enlightening and informative, a must-read for scholars and activists seeking a complex and interdisciplinary deep dive to effectively drive systemic change...Anyone committed to prison reform and social justice has much to learn from Gilmore's insights about the cognitive work and tactical organizing required to imagine and build an abolitionist future. -- Maileen Hamto * Seattle Book Review *Gilmore's prose is descriptive and direct; it describes a society whose economy has failed too many of its members and whose only solution is to create a police state. -- Ron Jacobs * Counterpunch *More than explaining or urging any single scalar change in social life, the purpose of Abolition Geography is to develop the ability of its readers to study the transformations of racial capitalism, figure out what to do about them, and follow through with enough patience to withstand the enormity of the task and enough urgency to get it done...Abolition Geography is written to be used. -- Kay Gabriel * Dissent *As Gilmore always reminds us, theory is a guide for action. This volume is a call to get on with the practice of getting free together. -- Orlando R. Serrano, Jr. * Smithsonian Magazine, Best Books of 2022 *Notable book, 2022 * Seminary Co-op *[Abolition Geography] is only the latest generous and supportive gift from Gilmore to liberation-minded abolitionist movements. This gift seems to be written as a call, an invitation to act and do...Abolition Geography contains fire, grit, and hope as well. -- Brit Schulte * The Avery Review *Gilmore highlights the role of social justice unionism and the ideological work of recognizing the continuum of exploitation and oppression and imperialism. Understanding the prison and policing system enables us to see how racist oppression and worker exploitation function to try to resolve the crisis of capitalism. Our people, our class, and our communities are the victims. * People's World *

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Book SynopsisThe massive uprising following the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020--by some estimates the largest protests in US history--thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. It also made The End of Policing a bestseller and Alex Vitale, its author, a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over police and racial justice.As the writer Rachel Kushner put it in an article called "Things I Can't Live Without", this book explains that "unfortunately, no increased diversity on police forces, nor body cameras, nor better training, has made any seeming difference" in reducing police killings and abuse. "We need to restructure our society and put resources into communities themselves, an argument Alex Vitale makes very persuasively."The problem, Vitale demonstrates, is policing itself-the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on first-hand research from across the globe, The End of Policing describes how the implementation of alternatives to policing, like drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs, has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice. This edition includes a new introduction that takes stock of the renewed movement to challenge police impunity and shows how we move forward, evaluating protest, policy, and the political situation.Trade ReviewThe End of Policing's great strength lies in demonstrating that if the shape of American policing is historical, it is also contingent. We could have made different choices regarding how we set about securing the public against the array of threats that confront it, and - refreshingly, at this moment of general despair - Vitale believes we still can. -- Adam Greenfield * LA Review of Books *Unfortunately, neither increased diversity in police forces nor body cameras nor better training make any seeming difference. We need to restructure our society and put resources into communities themselves, an argument Alex Vitale makes very persuasively. -- Rachel Kushner * New York Magazine *The End of Policing combines the best in academic research with rhetorical urgency to explain why the ordinary array of police reforms will be ineffective in reducing abusive policing. Alex Vitale shows that we must move beyond conceptualizing public safety as interdiction, exclusion, and arrest if we hope to achieve racial and economic justice. -- Ruth Wilson GilmoreOffers a compelling digest of the dynamics of crime and law enforcement, and a polemic against the militarization of everything. Vitale calls for a dismantling of our very notion of the police: a sprawling, untethered bureaucracy permitted to use lethal force and unaccountable to the people. -- E. Tammy Kim * The Nation *Challenging standard accounts of how to reform policing, Alex Vitale argues that true safety demands directing resources away from police and prisons and towards economic development, education, and drug treatment. Urgent, provocative, and timely, The End of Policing will make you question most of what you have been taught to believe about crime and how to solve it. -- James Forman, author of Locking Up Our OwnThe End of Policing is that holiday argument book, the relatively brief stack of facts you can hand to a relative who still talks about those nice guys who helped out with the flat tire and doesn't see why any lives have to matter more than they already do. A thorough rinsing of the American criminal justice system. -- Sasha Frere-Jones * 4 Columns *

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Book SynopsisThis book armed activists on the streets-as well as the many who have become concerned about police abuse-with a critical analysis and ultimately a redefinition of the very idea of policing. The book contends that when we talk about police and police reform, we speak the language of police legitimation through the art of euphemism. So state sexual assault become "body-cavity search," and ruthless beatings become "non-compliance deterrence."A Field Guide to the Police is a study of the indirect and taken-for granted language of policing, a language we're all forced to speak when we talk about law enforcement. In entries like "Police dog," "Stop and frisk," and "Rough ride," the authors expose the way "copspeak" suppresses the true meaning and history of policing. Like any other field guide, it reveals a world that is hidden in plain view. The book argues that a redefined language of policing might help chart a future free society.Now in an expanded and updated edition, including explanations of newsmaking new terms, like "dead names", "kettling", and "qualified immunity", as well as a new foreword by leading criminal justice advocate Craig GilmoreTrade Review“Seeing through police bluewashing at every turn, Correia and Wall have put together a comprehensive, rigorous and highly useful guide to understanding ‘copspeak.’ Unpacking the structural violence and racism of the police, and their functional role in capitalism, as well as in the historical continuity of slavery, Police: A Field Guide is a resolutely practical guide to thinking of a world beyond the police. Of value to activists and theorists alike, this text is a careful analysis of core concepts in policing of use to everyone committed to ending racist state violence and the tyranny of cops everywhere.”—Nina Power, author of One-Dimensional Woman “Police: A Field Guide is a dictionary of liberation, an antidote to the ‘copspeak’ that’s everywhere, even in our own heads. By dissecting and analyzing a vocabulary of power that has become dangerously ubiquitous, this book can help us dispel and loosen its grip.”—Astra Taylor, author of The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age “One of the angriest and saddest indictments of American policing I have ever read. The exposure of ‘copspeak’ is masterly and the analysis of the relationships between law and order, racism and capitalism, are explained with surgical precision.”—Clive Bloom, author of Riot City: Protest and Rebellion in the Capital

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Book SynopsisThe Assassination of Lumumba unravels the appalling mass of lies, hypocrisy and betrayals that have surrounded accounts of the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba-the first prime minister of the Republic of Congo and a pioneer of African unity-since it perpetration. Making use of a huge array of official sources as well as personal testimony from many of those in the Congo at the time, Ludo De Witte reveals a network of complicity ranging from the Belgian government to the CIA. Patrice Lumumba's personal strength and his quest for African unity emerges in stark contrast with one of the murkiest episodes in twentieth-century politics.Trade ReviewDe Witte has assembled a staggering amount of detail to support his allegations of direct government participation in Lumumba's murder. * Washington Post Book World *De Witte has performed an important service in establishing the facts of Lumumba's last days and Belgium's responsibility for what happened. * New York Review of Books *De Witte writes without stylish frills or narrative tricks, but this is a vivid and utterly compelling account of a nation strangled at birth by the West. -- Ronan Bennett * Los Angeles Times *De Witte's book, politically passionate as it is, is an unignorable effort to bring the West face to face with its culpability in this entire sad and sanguinary tale. -- Richard Bernstein * New York Times *One Belgian author has triumphed over decades of official obfuscation: Belgium did collude in Patrice Lumumba's assassination ... It raises questions about Western policy in Africa that will reverberate for decades to come. -- Michela Wrong * Financial Times *One should never underestimate the ruthlessness of British gentlemen cradling endangered shares. -- Neal Ascherson * London Review of Books *Thoroughly researched, passionately written, deeply disturbing. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *Whilst the battle for control over the resources of the Congo (now DR Congo) continues today this important book restores Congolese history and saves it from the official version peddled by those directly implicated in the affair. * New Internationalist *

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Book SynopsisIn popular retellings of American history, capitalism generally doesn't feature much as part of the founding or development of the nation. Instead, it is alluded to in figurative terms as opportunity, entrepreneurial vigor, material abundance, and the seven-league boots of manifest destiny. ?In this collection of essays, Steve Fraser, the preeminent historian of American capitalism, sets the record straight, rewriting the arc of the American saga with class conflict center stage and mounting a serious challenge to the consoling fantasy of American exceptionalism. From the colonial era to Trump, Fraser recovers the repressed history of debtors' prisons and disaster capitalism, of confidence men and the reserve armies of the unemployed. In language that is dynamic and compelling, he demonstrates that class is a fundamental feature of American political life and provides essential intellectual tools for a shrew reading of American history.Trade Review"A spirited collection by an erudite and penetrating essayist. Fraser is an analyst of the culture of late capitalism and, among other things, he demonstrates with impressive clarity the connections between the economic changes we call neoliberalism and the psycho-cultural dramas generated by the siren song of faux populism." -- FRANCES FOX PIVEN, AUTHOR OF POOR PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS"Steve Fraser is our most incisive and encompassing cultural historian of the two gilded ages that structured American society and its economic ethos in the decades that have bracketed the nation's fleeting New Deal interregnum. Fraser has captured the emotive logic of capitalist hegemony and the dark appeal it has so often held for millions of acquiescent Americans." -- NELSON LICHTENSTEIN, AUTHOR OF WHO BUILT AMERICA?"In this collection of bracing essays, Fraser brings to the fore the perils and promise of class warfare and the daunting challenges faced by everyone who hopes to defy history and work for a just society." -- JACQUELINE JONES, AUTHOR OF GODDESS OF ANARCHY"These essays show that Steve Fraser has long been one of the wisest and most eloquent historians of American capitalism and its discontents. Erudite, passionate, and laced with wit, they are essential reading during our era of great perils and budding hopes for change." -- MICHAEL KAZIN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY"Fraser is our preeminent historian of America as a capitalist civilization. No one is more attuned to the inner vibrations of our monied culture." -- COREY ROBIN, AUTHOR OF THE REACTIONARY MINDOne of our best social historians set the record straight about the mythologies of American capitalism. -- Peter Dreier, author of Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century[The essays] display his encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. history, especially working-class history. -- Gabriel Winant * New Republic *

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Book SynopsisWhat are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transformed by populist movements in nineteenth-century Europe. It became the rallying cry for anti-Imperialism as well as the abiding explanation for colonialism. In this scintillating, groundbreaking work of intellectual history Anderson explores how ideas are formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, and the way that they can make people do extraordinary things. In the twenty-first century, these debates on the nature of the nation state are even more urgent. As new nations rise, vying for influence, and old empires decline, we must understand who we are as a community in the face of history, and change.Trade ReviewSparkling, readable, densely packed. * Guardian *Anderson's knowledge of a vast range of relevant historical literature is most impressive; his presentation of the gist of it is both masterly and lucid. * New Statesman *A brilliant little book. * Neal Ascherson, The Observer *

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Book SynopsisAndrea Komlosy argues in this important intervention that, when we examine it closely, work changes its meanings according to different historical and regional contexts. Globalizing labour history from the thirteenth to the twenty-first centuries, she sheds light on the complex coexistence of multiple forms of labour (paid/unpaid, free/ unfree, with various forms of legal regulation and social protection and so on) on the local and the world levels. Combining this global approach with a gender perspective opens our eyes to the varieties of work and labour and their combination in households and commodity chains across the planet—processes that enable capital accumulation not only by extracting surplus value from wage-labour, but also through other forms of value transfer, realized by tapping into households’ subsistence production, informal occupation and makeshift employment. As the debate about work and its supposed disappearance intensifies, Komlosy’s book provides

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Book SynopsisIn BLACK MEME, Legacy Russell, awardwinning author of the groundbreaking GLITCH FEMINISM, explores the meme as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to the present, mining both archival and contemporary media.Russell argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form. These meditations include the circulation of lynching postcards; why a mother allowed JET magazine to publish a picture of her dead son, Emmett Till; and how the televised broadcast of protesters in Selma changed the debate on civil rights. Questions of the media representation of Blackness come to the fore as Russell considers how citizen-recorded footage of the LAPD beating Rodney King became the first viral video. Why the Anita Hill hearings shed light on the media’s creation of the Black icon. The ownership of Black imagery and death is considered in the story of Tamara Lanier’s fight to reclaim the daguerreotypes of he

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Book SynopsisBy walking, you escape from the very idea of identity, the temptation to be someone, to have a name and a history ... The freedom in walking lies in not being anyone; for the walking body has no history, it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial life.In A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in France, leading thinker Frédéric Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B-the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble-and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other.Trade Review"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 *A passionate affirmation of the simple life, and joy in simple things. And it's beautifully written: clear, simple, precise. -- Carole Cadwalladr * Observer *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! * Independent *Impressive. * Telegraph *"Life-affirming stuff." * National Geographic Traveller *"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 *"This elegant book inspires consideration of an oft-overlooked subject." * Publisher's Weekly *This short, simple and profound book... will be read and re-read. * Times Higher Education *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 . there are certain magical things that happen on the trail, and Gros is familiar with them. He thinks like a hiker. * Financial Times *An admirable little book which will delight even the most sedentary. * Le Monde *An unclassifiable book in which ideas are illuminated by the bright light of the morning. * L’Express *Unpretentious and refreshing. -- Jonathon Sturgeon * Flavorwire *A long walk, Gros suggests, allows us to commune with the sublime. * New York Times *Celebrates the liberation of the mind that comes with walking, especially in natural areas: I hike, therefore, I am. -- Matt Jaffe

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Book SynopsisSince the birth of fascism in the 1920s, well before the global renaissance of "white nationalism," the United States has been home to its own distinct fascist movements, some of which decisively influenced the course of US history. Yet long before Antifa became a household word in the United States, they were met, time and again, by an equally deep antifascist current. Many on the left are unaware that the United States has a rich antifascist tradition, because it has rarely been discussed as such, nor has it been accessible in one place. This reader reconstructs the history of US antifascism the twenty-first century, showing how generations of writers, organisers, and fighters spoke to each other over time.Trade ReviewPraise for Haunted by Hitler:With insight and grace, Christopher Vials demonstrates compelling new ways of understanding a complicated tradition of the Left and U.S. culture. The steady flow of astute interpretations and commentary adds up to scholarship of enduring importance, a treasure trove for the specialist and general reader alike. -- Alan Wald, author of American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold WarPraise for: Un-American: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World RevolutionUn-American is a bold and long overdue inquiry into 'the late Du Bois,' full of keen originality and brilliantly associative thinking. With his signature level of professional competence, Mullen defies easy categorizations to track the black radical scholar's diasporic identity through the optic of 'world revolution.' This investigation, vexed by the political horrors of imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism, yields unexpected and revealing parallels with the ideas of revolutionary thinkers such as Leon Trotsky and C. L. R. James. The result is a landmark study in the contours of affiliation, expanding the archive and breaking down polarized thought. This is a book to engage, chew over, and debate. -- Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor of American Culture, University of MichiganPraise for: Un-American: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World Revolution:In this expansively researched and expertly crafted biography of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) on the global stage, Mullen revisits the often contradictory and dialectical actions, thoughts, hopes, and writings of the sociologist and civil rights activist through post-World War II toward the end of the Cold War.... Mullen has considerable depth and nuance for the work of revisiting his subject as an international figure.... Mullen succeeds in weaving a revisionist narrative that positions Du Bois as a world actor within the revolutionary movements of the 20th century. VERDICT For readers interested in historical biographies situated in international politics and Cold War history. * Library Journal *Praise for: Un-American: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World Revolution:Bill Mullen's new book Un-American explores...Du Bois' thought more thoroughly than any previous work. While every commentator on Du Bois has acknowledged his politics, Mullen shows us how central revolutionary thought was to Du Bois' entire intellectual trajectory in the twentieth century.... This book will open an entirely new window on the radical politics that animated most of his life's work.... Mullen's intervention will surely be felt...for years to come and deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in Black politics and the history of American socialism. * International Socialist Review *Praise for: Un-American: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World Revolution:This is the sort of thoughtful and challenging book that remains with you, that gets you nodding your head unconsciously in agreement, muttering disapprovals, racing to the bookshelf to look up something. It is an essential addition to the canon of W. E. B. Du Bois scholarship.... Mullen wonderfully braids Du Bois's intellectual journey to an eclectic group of revolutionaries likewise drawn-at various times and in different ways-to the project of communist internationalism.... And he explores Du Bois's engagements with liberation struggles in India and China, Japan's global emergence, the specter of Stalinism, and the global peace work engendered by a dynamic cadre of leftist black women, particularly Claudia Jones and Shirley Graham Du Bois. Mullen's treatment of Smedley, Strong, and Jones is particularly sharp and illuminating. * Journal of American History *Praise for: Popular Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics 1935-1946:Mullen marries investigation and a well-executed idea of story in this well-researched piece of scholarship on black art, black literature and literary publications, and the cultural politics of Chicago's African American community. * Choice *Praise for: Popular Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics 1935-1946:Mullen's mission is to refresh our cultural memories. He wants to remind us not only of African American cultural production in the 'Chicago Renaissance' that took place before and during World War II, but also that the U.S. Left--in the form of the Communist Party and the individuals and organizations of its Popular Front--played a significant role in the period. * American Historical Review *Praise for: Popular Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics 1935-1946:All readers who are interested in the history of Chicago, African American culture, and leftist politics are sure to find some benefit from Mullen's richly detailed and boldly revisionist study. * Journal of Illinois History *Praise for Afro-Orientalism:In Afro-Orientalism, Bill Mullen produces an alternative history to the postcolonial present that is rich with theoretical interest and political promise. -- Amitava Kumar, author of Passport Photos and Bomba–London–New YorkPraise for W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line:W. E. B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line serves as a timely introduction to this impressive and somewhat imposing figure, while also reframing Du Bois's life and work beyond the boundaries of the American context. * Inside Higher Ed *Praise for W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line:In this new biography, Mullen interprets the seismic political developments of the Twentieth Century through the revolutionary life of W.E.B. Du Bois-focusing not just on his Civil Rights work, but also examining Du Bois's attitudes towards socialism, the USSR, China's Communist Revolution, and the relationship between capitalism, poverty and racism. * Critical Theory *Praise for W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line:With Du Bois's Marxist leanings in mind, Mullen's strategy is to reinterpret much of what is already known. As biography, the book is very well written, informative, and insightful. * Choice *Praise for W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line:While some scholars have tried to domesticate DuBois and confine his intellectual and political life within the boundaries of capitalist hegemony, DuBois was in fact a life-long revolutionary committed to socialism, Pan-Africanism and Black Liberation, a man who late in life - partly as a direct challenge to McCarthyism and the Cold War - joined the Communist Party, USA. Mullen's W.E.B. DuBois: Revolutionary Across The Color Line corrects the record, highlighting a side of DuBois many would like us to forget. It is a must read for anyone interested in the life and work of this pioneering Black revolutionary. * People's World *Praise for W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line:Examines the life of W. E. B. Du Bois and his relationship to key questions of the revolutionary left in the twentieth century, placing Du Bois within a framework of figures of the global left and demonstrating the centrality of radical internationalism to his life and thought. * Journal of Economic Literature *Praise for W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line:Mullen's illuminating biography is essential for understanding the political, personal, and intellectual challenges Du Bois faced in his lifetime search for a black revolutionary praxis. -- Mary Helen Washington, University of MarylandPraise for Haunted by Hitler:Vials's rehabilitation of the long-standing and abiding American antifascist tradition is a game-changer for those interested in the 'f word' (fascism) and for those who want to understand both liberal and left politics in the 'American Century. -- Doug Rossinow, author of Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in AmericaPraise for Haunted by Hitler:Vials's scholarship-its mix of secondary sources drawn from a wide array of contemporary and current scholars and archival and primary materials-produces a rich matrix that grounds the argument. This is a compelling read. -- Paula Rabinowitz, author of American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism to Main StreetPraise for Haunted by Hitler:An involved study . . . Vials's exploration of Rod Serling's concern about right-wing extremism is worth the price of this volume and provides fascinating reflections about The Twilight Zone. Recommended. * Choice *Praise for Haunted by Hitler:Vials has much to offer. His sources are many and varied, ranging from interviews with some of those engaged in antifascist efforts in the earliest days to material culled from the electronic databases of American newspapers and the recent work of other scholars. He has insightful commentary and a cogent argument for recognizing the value of antifascists movements of the past eight decades and understanding their relevance today. * Yearbook of German American Studies *Praise for Haunted by Hitler:The governing idea for the author is that properly evaluating these troublesome political trends is essential to the ability to counter them effectively. In service of this project, he offers readers three crucial tools: clear definition, astute historical grounding, and perhaps most absorbing, and indexical view of a fascinating repository of left-liberal, antifascist scholarly and cultural articulations. * Against the Current *Praise for Haunted by Hitler:[An] impressive study of the history and vitality of antifascism, . . . clear and eminently readable. * Journal of American History *Praise for Haunted by Hitler:Haunted by Hitler is rich and exciting to read and leaves no doubt that a history of anti-fascism in America exists. * Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft *Praise for Haunted by Hitler:Christopher Vials's impressively researched and politically important book is the first to argue that 'anti-fascism has . . . constituted a coherent body of cultural work in the United States'. * Science & Society *This is a crucial reader for our current political moment. It is a massive and rich archive, historicizing, theorizing, querying, and interrogating fascism in its many US varieties. This reader unearths and connects the anti-fascist responses in a plethora of sites-the Black Panthers and other anti-racist movements, LGBT pink triangle activists, and the Antifa. It will give you the knowledge to embolden yourself to resist and revolt. -- Zillah Eisenstein * Anti-Racist Feminist Activist, Ithaca College *This volume should be read by everyone who thinks they know what fascism is, and everyone who does not, for it provides a rich and indispensable set of materials to give depth and meaning to the word 'fascism', precisely when we need a comprehensive and varied archive to inform anti-fascist struggles. If you want to know what fascism has been and can be, read this book. We ignore it at our peril. -- David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford UniversitySerious about destroying fascism? Study the US Antifascism Reader. -- Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist HandbookExceptionally well organized and presented. -- Midwest Book Review

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Book SynopsisBringing together multi-award-winning author Hazel Carby’s most important and influential essays, Cultures in Babylon addresses the political dilemmas of representing Black women as sexual subjects, considers how far female sexuality is exploited by consumerism, and traces the contradictions Black women in the culture industry navigate. Carby’s writing is invariably sharp and provocative, her political insights shrewd and often against the grain. A powerful intervention, Cultures in Babylon quickly became a standard reference point in debates over race, ethnicity, and gender.

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Book SynopsisThe Chicago Teachers Union strike was the most important domestic labor struggle so far this century-and perhaps for the last forty years-and the strongest challenge to the conservative agenda for restructuring education, which advocates for more charter schools and tying teacher salaries to standardized testing, among other changes.The teachers took on the bipartisan, free market school reform agenda that is currently exacerbating inequality in education and waging war on teachers' livelihoods. In the age of austerity, when the public sector is under attack, Chicago teachers fought back-and won. The strike was years in the making. Chicago teachers spent a long time building a grassroots movement to educate and organize the entire union membership. They stood up against hostile mayors, billionaire-backed reformers out to destroy unions, and even their own intransigent union leadership, to take militant action. The Chicago protest has become a model for how reforms to the school system can be led by teachers and communities. It offers inspiration for workers looking to create democratic, fighting unions. Strike for America is the story of this movement and how it triumphed in the defining struggle for workers today.Trade ReviewIn this pithy and accessible book the author provides a passionate, well-researched and highly engaging account of the 2012 Chicago teachers strike. -- Peter Brogan * Labour/Le Travail *

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In February of 1917 Russia was a backward, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilisation that still resonates loudly today. China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.

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Book SynopsisSelected as one of LitHub's 38 Favorite Books of 2022Finalist for the 2022 Big Other Book Award for NonfictionIn this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our 'digital age' is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support. This polemic by the author of 24/7 dismantles the presumption that social media could be instruments of radical change and contends that the networks and platforms of transnational corporations are intrinsically incompatible with a habitable earth or with the human interdependence needed to build egalitarian post-capitalist forms of life.Trade ReviewAt last a book about the urgency to find a way out from a system that has crossed a threshold of irreparability and toxicity. A book that is simultaneously desperate and refreshing. -- Franco "Bifo" BerardiFollowing on 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary here confirms his position as our most ruthless critic of all that exists. With a hammer of critical theory, he smashes the golden calf around which our lives revolve: the very internet itself. His sentences come packed with urgent truths long felt but only now articulated with the force they deserve. His clear-sightedness is the gift of prophets. -- Andreas MalmA passionate denunciation of the destructive character of capitalist technology, built on evidence drawn from every corner of the world, Scorched Earth is a major contribution to the reclaiming of our radical imagination and the creation of a new internationalism. -- Silvia FedericiIn an era in which there is an overarching prohibition on wishes other than those linked to individual acquisition, accumulation, and power, Crary's book resonates for his refusal to accept the idea that this is how we must live our lives. -- Alexandre Leskanich * Political Quarterly *Scorched Earth presents a piercing critique of Western techno-consumer culture and the innumerable digital landscapes now created by the internet...Crary's essay comes at a critical juncture in understanding the effects and consequences in continuing to entertain the fantasies of 24/7 capitalism. -- Henry Powell * Theory, Culture, and Society *Crary wants to jar people out of the widespread faith that because we've grown accustomed to the internet, and because we've allowed it to infiltrate nearly every hour of our lives, and because it may be hard to imagine a future without the internet, therefore the internet should and will endure...thought-provoking and sobering. -- Bart Hawkins Kreps * Resilience *And as easily as man uses the advances of technology for the good of humanity, he has at the same time created a technological arsenal in the service of a toxic capitalist grid that breeds wars, as Jonathan Crary states in his book Scorched Earth. * The Art Newspaper *Scorched Earth by Jonathan Crary, has a multiple-entendre title - he's describing what the internet is doing to society, he's describing what capitalism's long trajectory is doing to the Earth, and he's writing in a style that can only be characterized as a scorched-earth approach to the platitudes that dominate our contemporary lives...Rarely do authors address our common predicament with the fine-tuned anger and precise rhetorical scalpel of a skilled surgeon working on the body politic. -- Chris Carlsson * The Fabulist *One could say that Crary's latest book is 'punk theory' because of the radically refreshing and absolutely necessary challenges that he brings to the table. More than ever in these days of compounding eco-social crises, we need the punkiest of critical attitudes, and Crary's essays are an excellent place to find that energy. -- Miguel Sebastián-Martín * Oxonian Review *Brilliant -- Eric Bulson * Times Literary Supplement *Explosive...a polemic crackling with anger and commitment...inspired -- Marcus Verhagen * Art Monthly *Excellent. -- Helena Granström * Expressen, Books of the Year *[Scorched Earth] will do nothing to cessate any Black Mirror-style creeping anxieties you have that everything is going horribly wrong. -- Tim Gallagher * Euronews, Best of Literature 2022 *Crary convincingly outlines that the globalization of scorched earth capitalism has defaced the world and its inhabitants on a massive scale...Given the intensifying strain that global capitalism in its material and digital forms is putting on our selves, our communities, and our world, the just, compassionate, and direct vision of the future that Crary presents in Scorched Earth is one that demands our consideration. -- Owen Schalk * Canadian Dimension *Notable book, 2022 * Seminary Co-op *With Scorched Earth, the distinguished cultural critic continues his vivisection of capitalism; the result is a brilliant, searing critique of the growing dominance of the internet, and especially social media, over all aspects of private and civic life. -- Rod Barnett * Places Journal *Scorched Earth is perhaps the first successful attempt at a vision of what a post-internet society might be like - a position [Crary] arrives at through a merciless critique of our hyperconnected world, and an analysis of how the internet complex has reshaped our perception of time, space, and individual agency. * Real Review *

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Book SynopsisOn November 2, 1917, the British government, represented by Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, declared that they were in favor of 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.' This short note would be one of the most controversial documents of its time. A hundred years after its signing, Bernard Regan recasts the history of the Balfour Declaration as one of the major events in the story of the Middle East. Offering new insights into the imperial rivalries between Britain, Germany and the Ottomans, Regan exposes British policy in the region as part of a larger geopolitical game. Yet, even then, the course of events was not straightforward and Regan charts the debates within the British government and the Zionist movement itself on the future of Palestine. The book also provides a revealing account of life in Palestinian society at the time, paying particular attention to the responses of Palestinian civil society to the imperial machinations that threatened their way of life. Not just a history of states and policies, Regan manages to brilliantly present both a history of people under colonialism and an account of the colonizers themselves.Trade ReviewIn this major account of the Balfour Declaration, Bernard Regan's timely book sheds light on the most powerful symbol of the official British-Zionist alliance over the last century. It deserves to be widely read by those yearning for truth and reconciliation in the Middle East. -- Professor Nur Masalha, SOAS, University of LondonThis is a meticulously researched account of the background and aftermath of a transaction that launched in 1917 a malignant conflict that has poisoned the Near East and the wider international arena ever since. Bernard Regan places the Balfour Declaration in its proper context ... It is compelling essential reading to anyone who wishes to understand the roots of one of our world's most dangerous potential explosion spots. -- Moshé Machover, author of Israelis and PalestiniansMost have heard of the Balfour Declaration, without fully appreciating its history and consequences. With this meticulous and insightful study, we have a fascinating and timely guide to British colonial policy in Palestine, and its devastating impacts for the Palestinian people to this day -- Karma Nabulsi, Oxford UniversityAnother good addition to the library exploring the origins of our current Middle East problems. * Palestine Chronicle *

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Book SynopsisIn retelling the story of the radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history of early America and the global economy. For much of the twentieth century, Hamilton-sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers-was out of fashion. In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all. But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again.He was a contradictory mix: a tough soldier, austere workaholic, exacting bureaucrat, sexual libertine, glory-obsessed romantic with suicidal tendencies-and pioneer of industrialisation. As Parenti argues, we have yet to fully appreciate Hamilton as the primary architect of American capitalism and the developmental state. In exploring his life and work, Parenti rediscovers this gadfly as a pathbreaking political thinker and institution builder. In this vivid portrait, Hamilton emerges as a singularly important historical figure: a thinker and politico who laid the foundation for America's ascent to global supremacy and mass industrialisation-for better or worse.Trade ReviewIn praise of Lockdown America: "In the best tradition of investigative journalism, paced like a fine novel, it carries the authority of meticulous academic research." * Independent *In praise of Lockdown America: "Exhaustively documented ... deserves a full hearing from anyone serious about ending the often horrific realities of the criminal justice system." * Washington Post *In praise of Lockdown America: "Essential reading for those in law enforcement and politics who are attracted by the rhetoric of zero tolerance." * Times Literary Supplement *In praise of Lockdown America: "Terrifying, informative and gripping." * New York Press *

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Book SynopsisBritain has scarcely begun to come to terms with its recent upheavals, from the crisis over Brexit to the collapse of Labour's 'red wall'. What can explain such momentous shifts?In this essential work, Tom Hazeldine excavates the history of a divided country: North and South, industry versus finance, Whitehall and the left-behind. Only by fully registering these deep-seated tensions, he argues, can we make sense of the present moment. Hazeldine tracks the North-South divide over the longue durée, from the formation of an English state rooted in London and the south-east; the Industrial Revolution and the rise of provincial trade unions and the Labour party; the dashed hopes for regional economic renewal in the post-war years; the sharply contrasting fates of northern manufacturing and the City of London under Thatcher and New Labour; to the continuing repercussions of financial crisis and austerity. The Northern Question is set to transform our understanding of the politics of Westminster - its purpose, according to Hazeldine, to stand English history on its head.Trade ReviewA lively, provocative and richly researched book. Tom Hazeldine shows that far from being marginal to British politics and culture, northern England has played a pivotal role in British history - and must be given serious consideration by the politicians of the future. Well-written and absorbing. -- Selina Todd, author of Tastes of Honey and The PeopleThe definitive account of the historical importance of the North-South Divide. A masterly history of the shifting social forces shaped by this enduring fault-line. -- Geoffrey Ingham, author of The Nature of Money and Capitalism Divided?The disparity between the North of England and the South East is a rich and tangled history. Hazeldine's account is persuasive, and his long view is valuable. With real acuity, he highlights key differences in people's ideas of political possibility. -- John Harris * Guardian *The first serious study of the social and historical fissure to appear in more than 30 years. * Big Issue *An expansive account of the north-south divide -- Lynsey Hanley * Financial Times *Shunning simplifications and panegyrics, Hazeldine's book is particularly strong on the postwar period, during which both Labour and Tory governments wrestled with the northern question and failed to provide an answer -- ProspectDeserve[s] a place on the bookshelves of any historian concerned with England. * New Welsh Review *Brilliant ... [a] gripping, important, infuriating history -- Review31 * http://review31.co.uk/essay/view/90/england's-house-divided *A confident, synoptic book, taking on a thousand years of England's North/South divide -- Owen Hatherley * Tribune *Compelling, rigorous and ambitious * Jacobin *Hazeldine painstakingly recounts how successive twentieth-century governments sacrificed the North on the altar of sterling and the South East. * Times Literary Supplement *A historical travelogue not for the politically faint-hearted. -- Mark Perryman * Philosophy Football *

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