Verso Books

Book SynopsisBadiou indicts this approach, which reduces politics to a matter of opinion, thus eliminating any of its truly radical and emancipatory possibilities. Against this intellectual tradition, Badiou proposes instead the consideration of politics in terms of the production of truth and the affirmation of equality. He demands that the question of a possible "political truth" be separated from any notion of consensus or public opinion, and that political action be rethought in terms of the complex process that binds discussion to decision. Starting from this analysis, Badiou critically examines the thought of anthropologist and political theorist Sylvain Lazarus, Jacques Ranciere's writings on workers' history and democratic dissensus, the role of the subject in Althusser, as well as the concept of democracy and the link between truth and justice.Trade ReviewA figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us! -- Slavoj ZizekAn heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. * New Statesman *One of the most important philosophers writing today. -- Joan Copjec

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Book SynopsisA war that has killed more than a million Iraqis was a "humanitarian intervention", the US army is a force for liberation, and the main threat to world peace is posed by Islam. These are the arguments of a host of liberal commentators, including such notable names as Christopher Hitchens, Kanan Makiya, Michael Ignatieff, Paul Berman, and Bernard-Henri Lévy. In this critical intervention, Richard Seymour unearths the history of liberal justifications for empire, showing how savage policies of conquest-including genocide and slavery-have been retailed as charitable missions. From the Cold War to the War on Terror, Seymour argues that colonialist notions of "civilization" and "progress" still shape liberal pro-war discourse, concealing the same bloody realities.In a new afterword, Seymour revisits the debates on liberal imperialism in the era of Obama and in the light of the Afghan and Iraqi debacles.Trade ReviewA powerful critique of 'humanitarian intervention' and of those liberal intellectuals who support it. * Independent *A great deal of damning material on the apologists of recent illegalities. -- Philippe Sands * Guardian *Among those who share responsibility for the carnage and chaos in the Gulf are the useful idiots who gave the war intellectual cover and attempted to lend it a liberal imprimatur. The more belligerent they sounded the more bankrupt they became; the more strident their voice the more craven their position. As the war they have supported degrades into a murderous mess, Richard Seymour expertly traces their descent from humanitarian intervention to blatant islamophobia. -- Gary YoungeAn excellent antidote to the propagandists of the crisis of our times. * Independent on Sunday *A powerful counterblast against the monstrous regiment of 'useful idiots.' * Times *Indispensable ... Seymour brilliantly uncovers the pre-history and modern reality of the so-called 'pro-war Left.' -- China Miéville[Seymour] delves into areas that are usually politely ignored, carefully uncovering liberalism and reformism's own shameful record of collaboration with mass murder ... essential reading. -- Owen Hatherley * New Statesman *We need to understand where these ideas comes from and how to fight them. This book is a major contribution to this understanding. -- Lindsey German * Socialist Review *The Liberal Defence of Murder is an important and scrupulously researched book with much to offer those who want to know why the likes of Christopher Hitchens have gone so loopy. * Morning Star *The most authoritative historical analysis of its kind ... [Seymour] displays a welcome critical engagement, meaningful intellectualism and unabashed factual analysis. * Resurgence *

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Book SynopsisIn September 1910, the human rights activist and anti-imperialist Roger Casement arrived in the Amazon to investigate reports of widespread human rights abuses in the vast forests stretching along the Putumayo river. There, the Peruvian entrepreneur Julio César Arana ran an area the size of Belgium as his own private fiefdom; his British registered company operated a systematic programme of torture, exploitation and murder. Fresh from documenting the scarcely imaginable atrocities perpetrated by King Leopold in the Congo, Casement was confronted with an all too recognisable scenario. He uncovered an appalling catalogue of abuse: nearly 30,000 Indians had died to produce four thousand tonnes of rubber.From the Peruvian rainforests to the City of London, Jordan Goodman recounts a crime against humanity that history has almost forgotten, but whose exposure in 1912 sent shockwaves around the world. Drawing on a wealth of original research, The Devil and Mr Casement is a story of colonial exploitation and corporate greed with enormous contemporary political resonance.Trade ReviewA fine and meticulous book. -- Greg Grandin * New York Times *Meticulously researched ... A riveting, if harrowing, narrative which, in its treatment of corporate greed and exploitation, is full of contemporary resonance. A rich, moving, important book. -- David Evans * Independent on Sunday *Quirky, passionate, deeply idealistic, Roger Casement is one of the most fascinating characters of the early twentieth century. At last, this forgotten episode of his career gets the attention it deserves, in a fine book that is both immensely readable and carefully documented. -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's GhostRoger Casement was one of the most extraordinary characters at the beginning of the twentieth century. Jordan Goodman's history of his struggle for human rights in Latin America speaks to our concerns 100 years later. -- Gavin Esler * Sunday Herald *An astonishing slice of history. * Metro *A brilliant piece of investigative writing. * Good Book Guide *

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Book SynopsisThe autumn and winter of 2010 saw an unprecedented wave of student protests across the UK, in response to the coalition government's savage cuts in state funding for higher education, cuts which formed the basis for an ideological attack on the nature of education itself. Involving universities and schools, occupations, sit-ins and demonstrations, these protests spread with remarkable speed. Rather than a series of isolated incidents, they formed part of a growing movement that spans much of the Western world and is now spreading into North Africa. Ever since the Wall Street crash of 2008 there has been increasing social and political turbulence in the heartlands of capital.From the US to Europe, students have been in the vanguard of protest against their governments' harsh austerity measures. Tracing these worldwide protests, this new book explores how the protests spread and how they were organized, through the unprecedented use of social networking media such as Facebook and Twitter. It looks, too, at events on the ground, the demonstrations, and the police tactics: kettling, cavalry charges and violent assault.From Athens to Rome, San Francisco to London and, most recently, Tunis, this new book looks at how the new student protests developed into a strong and challenging movement that demands another way to run the world. Consisting largely of the voices that participated in the struggle, Springtime will become an essential point of reference as the uprising continues.

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Book SynopsisThe death of Diana, Princess of Wales, was met by the deepest mourning of the twentieth century. Two and a half billion people worldwide watched the funeral on television, floral tributes flooded London's royal parks and sprung up, too, in small towns in Texas, conspiracy theories ricocheted around the Internet, commemorative stamps were issued in newly communist Hong Kong.Press coverage of the death was also unprecedented in both its scale and uniformity. Yet, in an enormous welter of schmaltz, very little was said about the meaning of what had occurred-whether Tony Blair's public emoting heralded a new kind of politics; what, if anything, the anguish of so many who never knew Diana in person revealed about modern society; how the intertwining of the ideas of celebrity and victim, physical beauty and moral worth, affected people's responses; what was implied for the future of the royal family.For those perplexed by the events surrounding Diana's death, this book provides some answers. Insisting that all aspects of the affair are open to investigation, that nothing (and especially not royalty) is sacred, it brings together a group of distinguished writers whose primary interest is to analyze the death rather than lament it.Contributors: Mark Augé, Jean Baudrillard, Sarah Benton, Homi K. Bhabha, Mark Cousins, Alexander Cockburn, Richard Coles, Régis Debray, Françoise Gaillard, Peter Ghosh, Christopher Hird, Christopher Hitchens, Linda Holt, Sara Maitland, Ross McKibbin, Mandy Merck, Tom Nairn, Glen Newey, Naomi Segal, Dorothy Thompson, Francis Wheen, Judith Williamson, and Elizabeth Wilson.

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Book SynopsisIn March 1987 a radical coalition of queer activists converged on Wall Street ... their target, 'Business, Big Business, Business as Usual!!!' It was ACT UP's first demonstration. In November 1999 a radical coalition of environmental, labor, anarchist, queer, and human rights activists converged in Seattle-their target was similar, a system of global capitalism. Between 1987 and 1999 a new project in activism had emerged unshackled from past ghosts. Through innovative use of civil rights' era non-violent disobedience, guerrilla theatre, and sophisticated media work, ACT UP has helped transform the world of activism.This anthology offers a history of ACT UP for a new generation of activists and students. It is divided into five sections which address the new social movements, the use of street theater to reclaim public space, queer and sexual politics, new media/electronic civil disobedience, and race and community building. Contributions range across a diverse spectrum: The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Jubilee 2000, Students for an Undemocratic Society, Fed Up Queers, Gender Identity Center of Colorado, Triangle Foundation, Jacks of Color, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Lower East Side Collective, Community Labor Coalition, Church of Stop-Shopping, Indy Media Collective, Black Radical Congress, The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, Adelante Street Theater; HealthGAP, Housing Works, SexPanic! and, of course, ACT UP itself.Trade ReviewHow often do progressives get such a powerful snapshot of history in the making, told from our point of view? Benjamin Shepard and Ronald Hayduk have done a masterful job of compiling essays that paint a comprehensive and diverse picture of modern activism. A wide range of issues and the people who confront them, their agendas and strategies, are included here, and make a compelling read. This is a brave and important book that is sure to raise consciousness, cement coalitions, and incite righteous anger. It also gave me some hope that change is possible, if only enough of us will insist on equality, peace and justice. -- Patrick Califia, author of Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex and Sex Changes: The Politics of TransgenderismShepard and Hayduk's book shows where the first 'movement' of the twenty-first century is coming from. -- Marshall Berman, author of All That Is Solid Melts into Air and Adventures in Marxism

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Book SynopsisA luminous sequel to the highly acclaimed first volume of Theatres of Memory, Island Stories is an engrossing journey of discovery into the multiple meanings of national myths, their anchorage in daily life and their common sense of a people's destiny. Raphael Samuel reveals the palimpsest of British national histories, offering a searching yet affectionate account of the heroes and villains, legends and foibles, cherished by the "four nations" that inhabit the British Isles. Samuel is interested by the fact that traditions can disappear no less abruptly than they were invented. How is it, he asks, that the Scots have lost interest in a British narrative of which they were once a central protagonist? Why is the celebration of "Britons" thriving today just as its object has become problematic? Island Stories marvelously conveys the mutability of national conceits. Samuel calls as witness a galaxy of authorities-Bede and Gerald of Barri, Macaulay and Stubbs, Shakespeare and Dickens, Lord Reith and Raymond Williams, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Benn-each of whom sought to renew the sense of national identity by means of an acute sense of the past. Island Stories is a luminous study of the way nations use their past to lend meaning to the present and future. This sequel to the widely acclaimed Theatres of Memory is as passionate, unexpected and enjoyable as its predecessor.Trade ReviewThe sheer scope and erudition of these pages is stunning ... an imaginative tour de force. -- Terry Eagleton * Guardian *Provocative, original ... a powerful testimony to the unending dialogue between the present and the past that is the essence and excitement of history. -- David Cannadine * Observer *A stunning collection ... humane, optimistic, multi-textured, ever-meandering but always sparkling ... One of the finest and-paradoxically-most quintessentially English historians of our time. -- Ben Pimlott * Independent on Sunday *A magnificent and irreplaceable collection. -- John Gray * New Statesman *A provocative lens into both the remote and the near British past. * Publishers Weekly *Deeply researched, intelligently argued, lovingly presented, thoroughly excitable and immensely stimulating ... [Samuel is] as comfortable with seventeenth-century sectarians as with Victorian nonconformists, as familiar with the townlands of Ireland as the streets of London. -- John Gillis * Left History *A rich fund of subversive ideas. -- Daniel Johnson * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThere should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis. But if the end of capitalism seems to many like the end of the world, how is it possible for Western society to face up to the end times? In a major new analysis of our global situation, Zizek argues that our collective responses to economic Armageddon correspond to the stages of grief: ideological denial, explosions of anger and attempts at bargaining, followed by depression and withdrawal. For this edition, Zizek has written a long afterword that leaves almost no subject untouched, from WikiLeaks to the nature of the Chinese Communist Party.Trade ReviewThe most dangerous philosopher in the West. -- Adam Kirsch * The New Republic *Fierce brilliance ... scintillating. -- Steven Poole * The Guardian *Zizek is to today what Jacques Derrida was to the 80s: the thinker of choice for Europe's young intellectual vanguard. * The Observer *Such passion, in a man whose work forms a shaky, cartoon rope-bridge between the minutiae of popular culture and the big abstract problems of existence, is invigorating, entertaining and expanding enquiring minds around the world. -- Helen Brown * Daily Telegraph *Zizek weaves together psychoanalytic and historical materialist theories with great panache. -- Ashley Dawson * Social Text *

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Book SynopsisWhat happened to the public intellectuals that used to challenge and inform us? Who is the Sartre or De Beauvoir of the internet age? General Intellects argues that we no longer have such singular figures, but we do have general intellects whose writing could, if read together, explain our times. Covering topics such as culture, politics, work, technology, and the Anthropocene, each chapter is a concise account of an individual thinker, providing useful context and connections to the work of the others. McKenzie Wark's distinctive readings are appreciations, but are also critical of how neoliberal universities militate against cooperative intellectual work to understand and change the world.The thinkers included are Amy Wendling, Kojin Karatani, Paolo Virno, Yann Moulier Boutang, Maurizio Lazzarato, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Angela McRobbie, Paul Gilroy, Slavoj Zizek, Jodi Dean, Chantal Mouffe, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Azumo Hiroki, Paul B. Preciado Wendy Chun, Timothy Morton, Quentin Meillassoux, Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway.Trade ReviewA wonderful book ... informative and moving ... a great recovery of an instructive life and literary effort. The book makes the case for a kind of political vision and action we need to recognize and enact. A true pleasure to read. -- Kim Stanley Robinson * [for Molecular Red] *A very imaginative, historically smart, politically generative thesis . that I think we urgently need. -- Donna Haraway * [for Molecular Red] *Wark is a fine aphorist ... Playful, angry, depressed, celebratory, this is a book for anyone not convinced that there is no alternative to the way we live now. -- Observer * [For The Beach Beneath the Streets] *Brings to the task a necessary sympathy, an encyclopedic knowledge, and a certain stylistic irrepressibility -- Times Literary Supplement * [For The Beach Beneath the Streets] *

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Book SynopsisThe divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. How do we find out who we are within this digital era? Where do we create the space to explore our identity? How can we come together and create solidarity? The glitch is often dismissed as an error, a faulty overlaying, but, as Legacy Russell shows, liberation can be found within the fissures between gender, technology and the body that it creates. The glitch offers the opportunity for us to perform and transform ourselves in an infinite variety of identities. In Glitch Feminism, Russell makes a series of radical demands through memoir, art and critical theory, and the work of contemporary artists who have travelled through the glitch in their work. Timely and provocative, Glitch Feminism shows how the error can be a revolution.Trade ReviewOur software and our wetware are constantly glitching. How could it be otherwise? Rather than try for perfect order, let's embrace the glitch and find out how else it all could play out. Let's just admit we're done with the old empire of imperatives about both flesh and tech and tune in to those who are playing in the ruins, hacking their way through to another life. This book takes you there. -- McKenzie Wark, author of Capital is DeadGLITCH FEMINISM offers wry insights into the opportunities inherent in the implications of formerly discarded traces of both ourselves and our culture. This fascinating, profound and engrossing book places Legacy Russell as one of the more provocative, radical and original thinkers of her generation.' -- Lynn Hershman Leeson, artist and filmmakerRussell helps us understand that the components of our identity are in fact technologies. Glitch Feminism offers a powerful shift in mindset that empowers a generation of activist remixers. -- Lil MiquelaA timely rethinking of cyberfeminism from an intersectional perspective-a deeply personal investigation of blackness and queerness in and through technology. This erudite, vividly-rendered text weaves astute discussions of contemporary artistic practices with personal narrative, capital-T Theory, and virtuosic riffs on twenty-first-century slanguage. -- Mark Tribe, founder of RhizomeA glitch is an error, a mistake and a failure to function," and with this warning, Legacy Russell takes us on a lightening tour through the terminologies and theories of AFK, IRL, Glitch Ghosts, Digital Dualism, Binary Bodies, and other markers in the current lingo of on-line criticism. She translates the Internet world as she lives it right now. Russell is an important writer to follow as she points out shifting viewpoints of Internet politics in real time. -- RoseLee Goldberg, Director of PerformaGlitch Feminism offers technological failure, machinic anxiety, and seams in the interface as the very platforms from which we may begin to rework singular identities into inventive networks, proposing a reboot of feminist discourse. While channeling the boldness of the manifesto form, Legacy Russell offers a nuanced look at inspiring artists whose works reprogram systems of race, gender, and sexuality in the virtual places between living bodies and data bodies. Here, the paradox is the opportunity: the glitch shows you how things work, just as they don't. -- Malik GainesRussell's book is as expansive and plural as the identities it explores, considering art, aesthetic theory, queerness, Blackness and anti-Blackness and, necessarily, the modalities and futures of activist practice. * BerlinArtLink *Combining art, tech, feminism, Blackness, queerness and critical theory, Russell offers an alternative to error and encourages us to embrace the glitch. -- Karla Strand * Ms. Magazine *Luminous ... [Glitch Feminism is] a gorgeous document of a number of mostly Black trans, queer, and gender-nonconforming artists working today, from E. Jane and Juliana Huxtable to Shawné Michaelain Holloway, Wu Tsang, and American Artist. -- Rahel Aima * Bookforum *Luminous ... [Glitch Feminism is] a gorgeous document of a number of mostly Black trans, queer, and gender-nonconforming artists working today, from E. Jane and Juliana Huxtable to Shawné Michaelain Holloway, and American Artist. -- Rahel Aima * Bookforum *Glitch Feminism is a vital new manifesto and Russell's research as a curator breaks new ground on themes of gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new-media ritual. * artnet News *Glitch Feminism portrays the online avatar as a laboratory where black, queer, and gender non-conforming artists have explored, experimented, and ultimately expanded notions of the self. -- Mikkel Rosengaard * Bookforum *A pocketbook, guide, and beautiful envisioning of a radical art history ... Glitch Feminism upends the notion of "glitch-as-error," reapplying the term in a cyberfeminist context to explore how the glitch disrupts the governance of race, gender, and sexuality. * ATM Magazine *The feminism we need to break and remake the systematic regimes of power, not just in the digital world (and where is that line anyway?) but from the bottom up. * VNS_Matrix *Compelling ... Russell is concerned with how race, gender and sexuality influence and affect the way that our identities are performed, but she's not in search of a simple answer or an easy way out. She asks whether we can free ourselves from our bodies, not just on the Internet, in a forum or on our phones, but all the time. ... What is radical and genuinely exciting is the conviction that [Russell] has in glitch feminism as a political project outside of the mainstream, as a form of collective joy and identity-making. -- Sanjana Varghese * Hyperallergic *Glitch Feminism is a rallying cry, a recapturing of cyberfeminism oriented to include and spotlight the many queer and non-white voices who in their practice live out the awesome potential of an enmeshed digital feminism: the glitch. ... The deftness with which Russell wields language is artwork in itself. Like the vibrant contrast of the book's cover, Glitch Feminism is a bright declaration, an ecstatic embrace of the new futures that lurk just behind hegemonic defaults. -- Jesse Damiani * Forbes *The greatest pleasure of Russell's thin book comes from its sense of solidarity and community with the queer POC artists and poets whose transformative work is never slight, and which Russell pulls from and praises in equal and sustaining measure. -- Quinn Latimer * Mousse Magazine *[In Glitch Feminism] Russellis serving roses. But they are wild, shape-shiftingroses, outrageously lush and wondrous, and it iscertainly worth taking a moment to find out whatyet-unimagined visions we might have if we stop fora moment to smell them. -- Hanne Blank * Women's Review of Books *Most powerfully, Glitch Feminism suggests that by refusing to inhabit the binary online, the force of the binary in our lives 'AFK' is revealed. Glitch feminism as a practice can expose the gender binary for the strange, violent trick that it is, and unpick its role in keeping our world turning 'under the sun of capitalism', as Russell puts it in characteristically beautiful prose. -- R. V. Campbell * The White Review *A celebratory homage to glitch's refusal of negrophobic, patriarchal, capitalist forms of production. -- Darla Migan * Spike Art Magazine *Grounded in theory (from Edouard Glissant to Donna Haraway) but a fast, percussive read, [Glitch Feminism] is also a guide to the growing field of art practices - notably driven by Black and queer creators - that dissolve the boundary between "internet art" and physical performance, activism and community-building. -- Siddhartha Mitter * New York Times (Best Art Books of 2020) *Glitch Feminism explores the socio-techno construct of gender and sexuality, and the generative potential of glitches, malfunctions or errors in the social machine. Within it all, identity is both fugitive and multiple, with representations of this provided by artists such as boychild, Sondra Perry and American Artist. The book's parting shot: USURP THE BODY! BECOME YOUR AVATAR! * ArtReview Power 100 *Spellbinding -- Johanna Fateman * Artforum *[Glitch Feminism is] an urgent, compelling read and one we should take to heart as the glitches promise to cascade in coming months and years. -- Brian Merchant * OneZero ("Best Tech Books of 2020") *An exceptional read that excels at offering a radical politics of the body. Russell writes convincingly, poetically and with urgency. Her content is wide-ranging, highly detailed, and - importantly - hugely enjoyable to read. -- Sam Riley * The Quietus *[Glitch Feminism] explores the experiences of queer, nonbinary, and trans BIPOC in digital and internet spaces (a terminally capitalist, patriarchal realm) through a record of boundary-pushing contemporary artists. -- Tessa Solomon * ARTnews (Best Art Books of 2020) *Glitch Feminism has become a critical resource since its publication, especially when brainstorming for the future, helping assemble the language we need to imagine and build a better tomorrow. * Cultured Magazine *Russell's literary debut issues a corrective to the predominantly white domain of cyberfeminist theory, shining a light on artists who leverage digital media to challenge systems of gender and colonialism. -- Camille Sojit Pejcha * Document Journal *Glitch Feminism is an internet text, bringing together references and anecdotes from visual art, cultural theory, and popular culture, creating a commonplace of resistance. -- Lucy Holt * Cleveland Review of Books *Russell holds liberation on her horizon. Her achievement amounts to what Toni Cade Bambara once affirmed as the very 'task of the artist' ... the task for the artist whose community's survival depends upon political change is 'to make the revolution irresistible'. -- Amber Husain * Radical Philosophy *Glitch Feminism offers [a] syllabus for resistance and change. -- Sara Black McCulloch * Los Angeles Review of Books *[Glitch Feminism] offers new possibilities away from the canon that originally defined aesthetics as a field of study, by transforming the failure to be recognized into a form of ideological and artistic affirmation. -- Olivier Berggruen * Brooklyn Rail *A short critical work that acknowledges the radical potential of technology, while simultaneously presenting a deep, nuanced awareness of its current shortcomings, as well as our need to overcome them. -- Benjamin Carpenter * Medium *A pocket-sized book that packs a punch ... Glitch Feminism is a tour de force, leaning into the paradoxical and using it to educate, inspire, and radicalize. -- Nicola Alexander * Art New England *Russell thoughtfully frames every chapter around case studies of artists, writers, and fellow cyborgs who practice refusal and embody glitch - a perfect brew of glitch feminist theory and praxis ... Glitch Feminism is a monumental publication in its (re)framing of glitch as feminist and as the power of "no." -- Pauline Nguyen * Femme Art Review *

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in the tumult of 1996, in an era of new nativism and panic about the Latinization of America, Anything But Mexican solidified Rodolfo Acuña's place as "the W.E.B. Du Bois of Chicano Studies." A stirring, insightful chronicle of Los Angeles's working class chicanos, this new edition brings their story and struggles up to present day.Trade Review"Anything But Mexican challenges neoliberal interpretations of the history of Los Angeles which blame Mexicans and other immigrants of color for the decline of the city. Acuna's provocative work confronts these historical myths, signalling that Latinos will not be dismissed." Deena Gonzalez, Pomona College "Required reading on Chicanos in the Southwest. This book will stand amongst the classics in Chicano Studies." Teresa Cordova, University of New Mexico

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Book SynopsisThe intensive research coupled with public silence during the last decade of Marx's life represented a new, theoretical 'post-Capital' threshold. This phase corresponded - not accidentally - with intensive studies of Russia and contacts with its theorists and revolutionaries. Russia was the first 'developing society', and its social and intellectual context were to produce by the turn of the century the first wave of 'modernisation' theories and strategies, as well as Leninism. Late Marx and the Russian Road addresses in a new way Marx's attitudes to these 'developing' or 'peripheral' societies, and to social and socialist theories that originated in them and reflect their particularities.The book carries the first full translation into English of Marx's 1881 drafts concerning rural Russia, as well as supplementary material focused on the last decade of his life. It also presents the first translation from Russian of a sequence of writings by Chernyshevskii and the People's Will party known to have directly influenced Marx. It includes essays by Shanin, Wada, Sayer and Corrigan, which consider the late period of Marx's analysis and its interdependence with nineteenth-century experience.Trade ReviewNot many university rectors can fire a Sten gun. Even fewer have lived through Siberian exile, endured starvation, raised a siege, defied a government, founded a discipline, and in retirement returned to serve the land of their boyhood persecution. -- Karen Gold * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisIn this fully updated edition of his coruscating polemic, Tariq Ali shows how, since 1989, politics has become a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market. In this urgent and wide-ranging case for the prosecution, Ali looks at the people and the events that have informed this moment across the world. This reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump, the success of En Marche in France and the dominance of Merkel's Germany through Europe.But are we starting to see cracks within the fabric of the extreme centre? In a series of new chapters Ali suggests that there is room for hope. He finds promise in developments in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties across Europe, Greece and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new hope for democracy. In the UK, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn indicates that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.Trade ReviewAli remains an outlier and intellectual bomb-thrower; an urbane, Oxford-educated polemicist * The Observer *It will not open doors at the White House because it makes for uncomfortable reading ... a wide-ranging and powerfully argued critique, that gives pause for thought * (in praise of The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad), Financial Times *Tariq Ali has not lost the passion and vim which made him a symbol of the spirit of '68 ... has not seen fit to join forces with the terminally cynical, or set up a graven god that can be accused of failing ... Ali has spent much of his life documenting America as the arsenal of counter-revolution. * Christopher Hitchens (in praise of Street-Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties), Observer *For years, left-wing critics have framed the debate. Angela Davis, Ruthie Gilmore, Marc Mauer and, more recently, Michelle Alexander gave us the terminology to speak about all this: the prison industrial complex, abolition, non-reform reform and The New Jim Crow.. [Ali's theorized term "extreme center"] provides us with a new language to describe our problems.[O]ne of the key tasks of the extreme center is to take center stage, to ensure that no alternative seems either reasonable or possible. * James Kilgore, author of Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Era, CounterPunch *

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Book SynopsisNow a classic of Marxian economics, The Limits to Capital provides one of the best theoretical guides to the history and geography of capitalist development. In this edition, Harvey updates his classic text with a substantial discussion of the turmoil in world markets today.In his analyses of 'fictitious capital' and 'uneven geographical development' Harvey takes the reader step by step through layers of crisis formation, beginning with Marx's controversial argument concerning the falling rate of profit, moving through crises of credit and finance, and closing with a timely analysis geopolitical and geographical considerations.Trade ReviewA thoroughgoing critique, synthesis and extension of the several varieties of crisis theory underwritten by Marx's thought. -- Benjamin Kunkel * London Review of Books *A unique and insightful theory of capital. * Monthly Review *A magnificent achievement, [one of] the most complete, readable, lucid and least partisan exegesis, critique and extension of Marx's mature political economy available. * Environment and Planning *A magisterial work. -- Fredric JamesonDavid Harvey provoked a revolution in his field and has inspired a generation of radical intellectuals. -- Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes Everything

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Book SynopsisIn The Future of the Image, Jacques Rancière develops a fascinating new concept of the image in contemporary art, showing how art and politics have always been intrinsically intertwined. He argues that there is a stark political choice in art: it can either reinforce a radical democracy or create a new reactionary mysticism. For Rancière there is never a pure art: the aesthetic revolution must always embrace egalitarian ideals.Trade ReviewLike all of Jacques Rancière's texts, The Future of the Image is vertiginously precise. * Les Cahiers du Cinema *Ranciere's writings offer one of the few conceptualizations of how we are to continue to resist. -- Slavoj ZizekWhat we see here is Ranciere developing a unique voice as a political theorist. * Bookforum *French philosopher Jacques Ranciere is a refreshing read for anyone concerned with what art has to do with politics and society. * Art Review *It's clear that Jacques Ranciere is relighting the flame that was extinguished for many--that is why he serves as such a signal reference today. -- Thomas HirschhornA series of gratifyingly knotty and close discussions of nineteenth and twentieth century literature, film and painting. * Guardian *"Much of the value of Rancière's writings on art and aesthetics arises from his initial refusal of terms that are self-evident to the point of invisibility. " -- Frieze"It is too simplistic to say that Jacques Rancière is the anti-Bourdieu. But it is not inaccurate. Robustly conceptual where Bourdieu is empirical, abstractly philosophical where Bourdieu was sociologically precise, he offers a recasting of aesthetic questions that attempts implicitly to rescue the category of the aesthetic from the learned helplessness, or cynical reason, in which Bourdieu left it." -- Nicholas Dames * n+1 *

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Book SynopsisIn this incisive account, leading scholar of Islamophobia Deepa Kumar traces the history of anti-Muslim racism from the early modern era to the "War on Terror." Importantly, Kumar contends that Islamophobia is best understood as racism rather than as religious intolerance. An innovative analysis of anti-Muslim racism and empire, Islamophobia argues that empire creates the conditions for anti-Muslim racism, which in turn sustains empire.This book, now updated to include the end of the Trump's presidency, offers a clear and succinct explanation of how Islamophobia functions in the United States both as a set of coercive policies and as a body of ideas that take various forms: liberal, conservative, and rightwing. The matrix of anti-Muslim racism charts how various institutions-the media, think tanks, the foreign policy establishment, the university, the national security apparatus, and the legal sphere-produce and circulate this particular form of bigotry. Anti-Muslim racism not only has horrific consequences for people in Muslim-majority countries who become the targets of an endless War on Terror, but for Muslims and those who "look Muslim" in the West as well.Trade ReviewIn this deftly argued book, Kumar unearths a genealogy of colonial construction that goes back to the earliest contacts between Muslims and Europeans. But the real power of her argument is when she grabs the politics of ideological domination by the throat and, with an astonishing moral and intellectual force, sets the record straight as to who and what the players are in turning a pathological fear of Muslims into a cornerstone of imperial hegemony. This is a must read on both sides of the Atlantic, where from mass murderers in Europe to military professors at the US military academies are in the business of manufacturing fictive enemies out of their fanciful delusions. Deepa Kumar has performed a vital public service. -- Hamid Dabashi * Columbia University, and author of The Arab Spring *In this remarkable primer Deepa Kumar expertly shows how racism is central to contemporary US imperial politics. An antiracist and antiwar activist, as well as a model scholar-teacher, Kumar has written a comprehensive and most readable guide to exposing and opposing the hatred of Islam. -- Gilbert Achcar * University of London and author, The Arabs and the Holocaust *This is a timely and crucial book. From historical roots to ideological causes, Islamophobia is studied in a holistic, profound and serious way. The reader will understand why we need to stop being both naive and blind. There will be no peaceful and just future in our democratic societies if we do not fight this new type of dangerous racism. -- Tariq Ramadan * Oxford University *Indispensable to anyone wanting to understand one of the most persistent forms of racism in the US and Europe. Kumar demonstrates that Islamophobic myths did not arise spontaneously after the end of the Cold War but are rooted in centuries of conquest and colonialism, from the Crusades to the 'War on Terror'. Kumar's text will be a crucial corrective to those who fail to see that the origins of the 'Islam problem' lie in empire not sharia -- Arun Kudnani * author of The Muslims Are coming! *[Kumar's] innovative understanding of Islamophobia raises important and wide-ranging questions about empire, the 'war on terror' and its inherent contradictions. -- Mariana Vieira * International Affairs *Table of ContentsTOC:Foreword, by Nadine NaberPreface to the Revised Second EditionIntroduction: Islamophobia Is Anti-Muslim Racism 1. Empire, Race, Orientalism: The Case of Spain, Britain, and France 2. The United States, Orientalism, and Modernization3. The Ideology of Islamophobia4. “Good” and “Bad” Muslims: The Foreign Policy Establishment and the “Islamic Threat” 5. Empire’s Changing Clothes: Bush, Obama, Trump6. Terrorizing Muslims: Domestic Security and the Racialized Threat 7. The New McCarthyites: The Right-wing Islamophobia Network and Their Liberal EnablersConclusion: Empire and the Matrix of Anti-Muslim RacismAcknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn a moment of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, and ever more exploitative forms of neoliberal capitalism, there is a compelling and urgent need for radical paradigms of thought and action. Through interviews with key revolutionary scholars, Bhandar and Ziadah present a thorough discussion of how anti-racist, anti-capitalist feminisms are crucial to building effective political coalitions. Collectively, these interviews with leading scholars including Angela Y. Davis, Silvia Federici, and many others, trace the ways in which black, indigenous, post-colonial and Marxian feminisms have created new ways of seeing, new theoretical frameworks for analysing political problems, and new ways of relating to one another. Focusing on migration, neo-imperial militarism, the state, the prison industrial complex, social reproduction and many other pressing themes, the range of feminisms traversed in this volume show how freedom requires revolutionary transformation in the organisation of the economy, social relations, political structures, and our psychic and symbolic worlds. The interviews include Avtar Brah, Gail Lewis and Vron Ware on Diaspora, Migration and Empire. Himani Bannerji, Gary Kinsman, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Silvia Federici on Colonialism, Capitalism, and Resistance. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Avery F. Gordon and Angela Y. Davis on Abolition Feminism.Trade ReviewThe contributors may not agree on every detail, and neither may you, but if you are looking for a thought-provoking, academic overview, covering all aspects of revolutionary feminism, you have found it' -- Stella Dadzie, author of The Heart of the RaceProvides reassuring and informative perspectives on the lifelong journey of effecting change in complex socio-economic and political systems. Their compilation of interviews engages activists who have been building political coalitions across a range of intersecting feminisms: queer, Indigenous, anti-racist, anti-imperial. The questions they pose reveal a depth of research across a wide arc of topics. -- Taylor Le Melle * Mousse Magazine *Collaborative to its core, [Revolutionary Feminisms] invites scholars, activists and researchers to join in, pick up the threads of struggles that came before us and weave them into new contexts. -- Sophia Siddiqui * Race & Class *'Revolutionary feminisms' are not a theoretical framework, but are made and unmade through lived experience, struggle and political consciousness. There has never been a more important time to take heed of the message in this publication, delivered through a chorus of powerful voices: revolutionary feminisms need to become a revolution of solidarity. -- Helene Kazan * Radical Philosophy *

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Book SynopsisA pivotal work in the history of feminism and a groundbreaking intervention into film theory, Sexuality in the Field of Vision is a brilliantly original exploration of the interface between feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and film theoryTrade ReviewFormidably intelligent, eloquent, and knowledgeable. * City Limits *Jacqueline Rose has no peer among critics of her generation. The brilliance of her literary insight, the lucidity of her prose, and the subtlety of her analyses are simply breathtaking. -- Edward Said

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the 2019 Jhalak Prize. From the 1960s the UK's immigration policy - introduced by both Labour and Tory governments - has been a toxic combination of racism and xenophobia. Maya Goodfellow tracks this history through to the present day, looking at both legislation and rhetoric, to show that distinct forms of racism and dehumanisation have produced a confused and draconian immigration system. She examines the arguments made against immigration in order to dismantle and challenge them. Through interviews with people trying to navigate the system, legal experts, politicians and campaigners, Goodfellow shows the devastating human costs of anti-immigration politics and argues for an alternative.This new edition includes an additional chapter, which explores the impacts of the 2019 election and the ongoing immigration enforcement during the coronavirus pandemic.Trade ReviewMaya Goodfellow provides a forceful narrative of the current state of British politics by placing anti-immigration at its centre. Goodfellow expertly tackles the consensus from left and right that immigration is a bad thing. In doing so, her book demonstrates the fundamental humanity at stake in critiquing and overturning that consensus. Now is the time to read this penetrating analysis. -- Robbie Shilliam, Johns HopkinsAn informative and insightful account of the history and politics of modern migration to Britain that is also very readable. Ranging across the intersecting histories of class, race, nation and empire, Maya Goodfellow deftly shows how the contemporary demonising of migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, has a long and dispiriting national and global backstory to it - but there are also heartening stories of resistance and solidarity which point to the way forward. -- Priyamvada Gopal, author of Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British DissentThis is a hugely important first book from Maya. After a referendum debate dominated by anti-migrant rhetoric and falsehoods, it's vital that we reflect on how we got to this toxic place. The testimony from migrants in this book, and the examination of the policies under which people have suffered for so long, are a damning indictment of government policy on migration that has failed for years. Maya's voice in this debate is much-needed and this book should be on every Home Office desk. -- Caroline Lucas, MPMaya Goodfellow's book could not be more timely. While politicians and pundits continue to peddle toxic myths about migration, Goodfellow dives into the details of the issue and exposes the way in which migrants have been vilified and mistreated in this country. The book is a brilliant exposé of both the struggles faced by migrants and a rallying cry for the pro-migrant movement we desperately need. -- Magid MagidHow immigrants became the scapegoats for injustices caused by the rich and powerful is one of the burning questions of modern politics. This masterful, wonderfully written, and vitally important book - written by one of the most powerful writers on race and migration today - more than does it justice. This book is essential to understanding the reactionary political upheavals which have swept the West. -- Owen Jones, author of ChavsMaya Goodfellow has a sharp mind, a deep well of knowledge and a readable style. When she writes something, I learn something. -- Gary YoungeThis is the book to read on UK immigration. It passionately makes the case that for too long lies, mistruths and institutional racism have morphed any conversation about immigration in the UK into something utterly demeaning. Maya Goodfellow's excellent reportage is impassioned, clear and filled with humane interviews with people from immigrant backgrounds at various stages of the process and experts on the front lines doing the necessary work to help them. This isn't a polemic. This is a human book that offers very clear and concise answers for how we have arrived at this point. A triumph of non-fiction writing. -- Nikesh Shukla, editor of The Good ImmigrantThis book is a must read if you are thinking of going into politics. It will highlight the trials and tribulations of political life and how the choices made at the very top of Government can affect people in the harshest of ways. Maya enlightens the reader on both the decisions that lead to the pain and suffering inflicted through Governments' immigration policies and Theresa May's legacy, which will no doubt be her fuelling of the hostile environment which she systematically designed to dehumanise a generation of legal citizens with devastating consequences. Maya brings to the fore in the most painful terms just how expensive it is to be poor. -- Dawn Butler, Member of Parliament and Shadow Secretary of State for Women and EqualitiesHostile Environment is a bold and at times brutal analysis. It raises many uncomfortable questions for those who sat at the table making this policy. An important contribution to an ongoing debate. -- Baroness WarsiA vital, urgent thought-provoking read as we race towards the Brexit horror. Place this book in the hands of anyone who says immigration is not about race. Using Britain's own history as a pivot, Maya Goodfellow astutely captures the gradual progression in public policy, political outlook and people's opinion that has culminated in a climate of intolerance and barely concealed racism. -- Meena Kandasamy, author and activistHostile environment is a powerful reminder that the right has been weaponising the immigration debate to distract from the real causes of working class dispossession. We need more writers like Maya Goodfellow who so clearly and passionately outline what is at work and at stake in battles for social justice. -- Kehinde Andrews, author of Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the Twenty-First CenturyA book to cut through the noise of toxic politics, the race to the bottom to demonise immigrants, and the ahistoric idea that a hostile environment is anything new. This book reveals the nuts and bolts of Britain's real immigration problem - the counter-productivity of its policies, and the failure of its leaders. So important. -- Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and BelongingThis is an essential study into the toxic discussion around immigration in the UK. It is as brilliant as it is necessary -- Nish KumarThis is such an important book. Maya Goodfellow is someone we can trust to speak truth to power on immigration and what she has done here is not just engage with the issues of migration and the stigmatisation of migrants today but skilfully explain how we got here. Migration is one of the most natural of human processes, yet it has been pathologised, not only by the rhetoric of recent Tory Governments, with its "go home vans", hostile environment and "legitimate" concerns, but over many decades, through a subtle marginalisation of the voices and interests of migrants. Maya Goodfellow alerts us to the human costs of those political decisions and the accompanying mainstream narratives. But, importantly, too, she also offers a pathway to a more just and humane system -- Laura Pidcock, Member of ParliamentAn essential book...Maya gives an excellent and detailed description of how prejudices against immigration are created through political action, rhetoric and historical legacies. * Ecologist *Hostile Environment expertly unpicks the background of how 2020's racism has been framed by this process and the widespread failure to challenge the basis of it. * Counterfire *An excellent companion reading for anyone following the UK Black Lives Matter movement. [Hostile Environment] is a valuable resource, with good references for further reading, for understanding how the government and the media's simplistic interpretation of public opinion have led to the creation of inhumane immigration controls. * Peace News *Urgently necessary ... a work of diligent scholarship, but also of great humanity, which holds up a mirror to a society that may finally be ready to start truly looking at itself. -- David Wearing * New Humanist *

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Book SynopsisOne of Europe's most mythologized Marxist intellectuals of the 20th century, Pier Paolo Pasolini was not only a poet, filmmaker, novelist, and political martyr. He was also a keen critic of painting. An intermittently practicing artist in his own right, Pasolini studied under the distinguished art historian Roberto Longhi, whose lessons marked a life-long affinity for figurative painting and its centrality to a particular cinematic sensibility. Pasolini set out wilfully to "contaminate" art criticism with semiotics, dialectology, and film theory, penning catalogue essays and exhibition reviews alongside poems, autobiographical meditations, and public lectures on painting. His fiercely idiosyncratic blend of Communism and classicism, localism and civic universalism, iconophilia and aesthetic "heresy," animated and antagonized Cold War culture like few European contemporaries. This book offers numerous texts previously available only in Italian, each accompanied by an editorial note elucidating its place in the tumultuous context of post-war Italian culture. Prefaced by the renowned art historian T.J. Clark, a historical essay on Pasolini's radical aesthetics anchors the anthology. One hundred years after his birth, Heretical Aesthetics sheds light on one of the most consequential aspects of Pasolini's intellectual life, further illuminating a vast cinematic and poetic corpus along the way.Trade ReviewVision in Pasolini is at once tactile, earthy, erotic, divine and communist. His way of seeing communes with the world rather than holding it at a distance. By bringing together his writings on art, Heretical Aesthetics gives the Anglophone reader the key to his at once singular and generous cinema and poetry. His is a perspective from elsewhere in history, one which holds our own times sternly to account. This is such a good book for understanding one of the very best of 'bad' Marxists. -- McKenzie WarkMagisterially translated and edited, this indispensable anthology is finally available to an English-speaking audience. It provides detailed and precise insight into Pasolini's convulsive and idiosyncratic relationship with the visual arts and the artists who inspired his aesthetic sense. This exhilarating trove sheds light on the contaminated and visionary visual landscape produced by one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema: a total artist who found expressive depth in the heretical forms of his vision. -- Pierpaolo AntonelloPasolini's intimate relation to painting and the history of art demonstrated in these essays is a revelation, especially for understanding his films. The texts are classic Pasolini - unfailingly brilliant and erudite, but also at once revolutionary and reactionary, observant of his times and blind to some of the most innovative developments. A fascinating collection. -- Michael Hardt, author of The Subversive SeventiesExtensively analyzed, Pasolini's cinematographic oeuvre constitutes a model of thinking the world, informed by a distinctive creative vision and his multiple interests and passions. In this unique publication, Ara H. Merjian and Alessandro Giammei provide a missing link in Pasolini's intellectual process: his deep interest in art history, and particularly painting. It is a fascinating read: Pasolini on Caravaggio, Pasolini on Warhol, Pasolini on Picasso, Pasolini on Fabio Mauri. These accomplished short essays cast a new light on his films, adding another significant layer to the work of one of the twentieth century's most prominent and fearless intellectuals. -- Alfredo JaarPier Paolo Pasolini was a visionary and anti-conformist polymath: a poet, painter, essayist, social critic, film-maker, novelist, traveller, and philosopher. This anthology is the very first of its kind and fills a huge lacuna in Pasoini's studies. A crucial source for anyone interested in Italian debates over aesthetics and the cultural history of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and a magnifying glass of post-war Europe during the Cold War. -- Angela Dalle Vacche

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Book SynopsisThe Storyteller gathers for the first time the fiction of the legendary critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin, best known for his groundbreaking studies of culture and literature, including Illuminations, One-Way Street and The Arcades Project. His stories revel in the erotic tensions of city life, cross the threshold between rational and hallucinatory realms, celebrate the importance of games, and delve into the peculiar relationship between gambling and fortune-telling, and explore the themes that defined Benjamin. The novellas, fables, histories, aphorisms, parables and riddles in this collection are brought to life by the playful imagery of the modernist artist and Bauhaus figure Paul Klee.Trade ReviewWalter Benjamin was the interlocutor of all the demons and angels of storytelling. And this is why he knew its endless secrets. Listen to him. -- John BergerThis volume collects an extraordinary array of short pieces by Walter Benjamin that lets us see the centrality of stories, dreams, and tales to his own experimental writings. During the time in which Benjamin sought to understand the conditions of communicability between languages, he was also testing the thesis in the stories he told. Telling the tale and reflecting on its very possibility, under conditions such as war and poverty, Benjamin gives us short forms that are broken up by interruptions and sudden closure. This elegant and moving volume is beautifully edited, including an introduction that shows how these collections of short tales and dream sequences are already doing the critical work of the essay form. This volume is a marvelous gift that will reorient our reading of Benjamin in startling ways -- Judith ButlerA complex and brilliant writer. -- J.M. CoetzeeWalter Benjamin was one of the unclassifiable ones... whose work neither fits the existing order nor introduces a new genre. -- Hannah ArendtBenjamin buckled himself to the task of revolutionary transformation. his life and work speak challengingly to us all." -- Terry EagletonThere has been no more original, no more serious critic and reader in our time. -- George SteinerHe drew, from the obscure disdained German baroque, elements of the modern sensibility: the taste for allegory, surrealist shock effects, discontinuous utterance, a sense of historical catastrophe. -- Susan SontagWalter Benjamin is the most important German aesthetician and literary critic of the twentieth century. * Sunday Times *One doesn't read him to feel better. One reads him to feel. In his universe nothing is as it appears to be and there is a vital need to go beyond surfaces and connect with humanity. -- Elif Shafak * Guardian *The greatest German critic of the 20th century -- Stuart Jeffries * Financial Times *Everything which fell under the scrutiny of his words was transformed, as though it had become radioactive. -- Theodor AdornoA circular book to visit again and again, a book one can start reading right in the middle or read backwards, playing with its chapters and sentences wildly and freely, just as the philosopher would have probably wished. -- Elif Shafak * FT *An event. -- Jonathon Sturgeon * Guardian *Dreams, diaries, reviews, fragments, and short fiction make up The Storyteller, but there's no denying that this potpourri by the German critic and philosopher Benjamin is an essential addition to the corpus of one of the 20th century's preeminent figures. As the translators note in an elegant introduction, these pieces explore both the European oral storytelling tradition and a curious mysticism under the aegis of modernist literature...thoroughly illuminating. * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisYoung people are inheriting a world of climate catastrophe. Young people are also one of the strongest forces leading movements for climate justice, and to halt the fossil fuel emissions that are making our Earth unlivable. As Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for the Future movement have made clear, solutions offered by adults are far too little, far too late: the measures in unenforceable international agreements won't halt our reliance on fossil fuels, or take the drastic steps humans need to take in order to keep our planet livable.What kinds of drastic steps are needed? What kind of bold actions can the climate justice begin using to bring a stop to climate destruction, and that can be employed alongside existing strategies of mass protest, awareness, and legal appeals? Why does our society consider profit for oil companies more important than the future of young people and the health of our shared environment? In this adaptation of Andreas Malm's best-selling book on the need for a bolder, more confrontational climate justice movement, How to Blow Up a Pipeline these urgent questions are brought to the most important audience of all: those who are growing up in a world on fire.Trade ReviewReading this brilliant book I found myself underlining whole passages, ticking repeatedly in the margins and inwardly cheering. Every school library should buy a copy. Every concerned parent should make sure their children have access to it. -- Tom Tolkien * School Reading List *The intensity and urgency of the need for meaningful climate action comes through loud and clear...This book has two goals: to provoke strong reactions and to create committed activists. Readers will find much to think about. * Booklist *Four hefty chapters chart a progressive path for a young would-be environmental activist, with information presented through a global lens...A persuasive, if provocative, polemic tackling an important subject. * Kirkus Reviews *A YA adaptation of a controversial missive on climate activism that encourages drastic measures to save the planet's-and this generation's-future. It focuses on why past movements haven't been sufficient to change the tide in environmental justice; nonviolence and civil disobedience are just not enough. * School Library Journal *I would recommend Fighting in a World on Fire to any young activist looking to learn more about the climate movement. It serves a great purpose as an introductory book into not only the world of the climate movement, but also reading political books in general. -- Dylan Williams * Socialist Worker *

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Book SynopsisFired up by the outbreak of the First World War and outraged by the capitulation of most socialist parties to the demands of national bourgeoisies, Lenin sought to understand the deeper roots of the crisis of the world movement. The result was Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which went on to become a core text for the international communist movement. But Lenin also sought to break with the Eurocentrism of the socialist movement, which tended to look down with disdain at or simply reject struggles for self-determination, especially among colonized peoples.This volume, with an introduction by the renowned abolitionist and anti-imperialist theorist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, brings together the texts on imperialism and those on the national question to provide a window into Lenin's global vision of revolution.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Ruthie Wilson GilmoreCritical Remarks on the National Question (1913)The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1915)Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline (1916)The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up (1916)Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for The Second Congress of The Communist International (1920)Memo Combatting Dominant Nation Chauvinism (1922)The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation' (1922)Notes

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Book SynopsisThis vivid selection, compiled and introduced by Tamara Deutscher, written by Lenin and those who knew him, brings us the revolution in his everyday life - the man who lived by politics but not by politics alone.Here, we see the Lenin of leisure as well as work, geared to his life's purpose and yet enjoying to the full all the pleasures of a healthy human existence - neither the humourless, monolithic cult hero of Soviet mythology nor the bogeyman of official anti-communism. What did Lenin read? How did he relax? What did he think and feel? This surprising collection, covering everything from his passionate baritone singing voice to his love of hunting wild game and beyond, reveals the man beyond the myth.

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Book SynopsisSOMEONE ELSE'S EMPIRE dispels the myth of a 'Global Britain' that punches above its weight in the world. The reality, argues Tom Stevenson, is that Britain lacks even the barest outline of an independent foreign policy. The impetus for so many policy decisions, from Iraq to AUKUS, comes from a supine desire to maintain lieutenant rank in the Washington hierarchy, whatever the consequences.Nostalgia for global influence has produced a compulsive Atlanticism and a reflexive resort to military actions that the UK is near incapable of actually performing. The net effect of Brexit has been an increase in vassalage. Yet for what must ultimately be psychological reasons, British leaders and national security clerks have tended to dislike seeing Britain framed by American power. Someone Else's Empire looks at the infrastructure of a US world order re-energised by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and fits the UK into the picture without the usual euphemisms. It is one thing to station military forces around the world to maintain your empire, but quite another to do so for someone else's.Trade ReviewA fascinating read about Britain's dreams of empire and embarrassing deference to Washington -- Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine LaboratoryThis lacerating book lays bare everything from the sanguinary politics of the British defence establishment to the management of venal political proxies in the Middle East. -- Laleh Khalili, author of Sinews of War and TradeStevenson writes vividly of the United States' relentless pursuit of international predominance and Britain's role as its loyal adjutant. An insight-laden exploration. -- Rajan Menon, author of The Conceit of Humanitarian InterventionWelcome ... evocative ... Reproduces a style of reportage, highly literary yet historically informed, that harkens back to a bygone era of journalism -- John-Baptiste Oduor * Jacobin *Table of ContentsI. Equerry Dreams1. Eternal Allies2. Someone Else's Empire3. The British Defence Intellectual4. The Anglo-settler Societies and World History5. Green Bamboo, Red SnowII. Instruments of Order6. The Economic Weapon7. Keys to the World8. The Proxy Doctrine9. On Thermonuclear War10. AstrostrategyIII. A Prize from Fairyland11. What Are We There For?12. The Benefits of Lawlessness13. In Egypt's Prisons14. Successors on the Earth15. The Revolutionary Decade16. Kinetic StrikesPostscript: Reactive Management of the World Empire

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Book SynopsisIn this groundbreaking work, the essayist and critic Adewale Maja-Pearce delivers a mordant verdict on Nigeria’s crisis of democracy. A mosaic of ethnic and religious groups, the most populous country in Africa was fabricated by British colonizers at the turn of the twentieth century. In the years since its independence in 1960, Nigeria spent an unbroken quarter century as a military dictatorship. Yet the blessings of today’s democracy are unclear to many, especially among the more than half of the population living in extreme poverty. Buffeted by unemployment, saddled with debt, menaced by bandits and Islamic fundamentalists, Nigeria faces the threat of disintegration.Maja-Pearce shows that recent mobilizations against police brutality, sexism, and homophobia reveal a powerful undercurrent of discontent, especially among the country’s youth. If Nigeria has a future, he shows here, it is in the hands of young people unwilling to go on as before.

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Book SynopsisDuring the 1948 War, Israeli fighters and residents alike plundered Palestinian homes, shops, businesses, and farms. This bitter truth was then suppressed or forgotten over the coming years.Tens of thousands took part in the pillage of Palestinian property, stealing the belongings of their former neighbours. The implications of this mass looting go far beyond the personality or moral fibre of those who took part. Plundering served a political agenda by helping to empty the country of its Palestinian residents. In this context, it was part of the prevailing policy during the war - one designed to crush the Palestinian economy, destroy villages, and to confiscate and sometimes destroy crops and harvests remaining in the depopulated zones.The participating Jewish public became a stakeholder, motivated to prevent Palestinian residents from returning to the villages and cities they had left. These ordinary people were mobilized in the push for the segregation of Jews and Ara

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Book SynopsisNicola Long is a few years out of a fine arts degree, listless and unenthusiastically employed in London. She begins to spend her hours at a small underfunded archive dedicated to women’s art. There she discovers one side of a correspondence beginning in 1976 and spanning a dozen years, written from one woman - a ceramics graduate, uncannily like Nicola - to a friend living a contrasting and conventionally moored life. As Nicola reads on, an acute sense of affinity turns into obsession.She abandons one job after another to make time for the archive. The litany of coincidences in the letters becomes uncanny, and Nicola’s feeling of ownership begets a growing dread: should she be afraid of where these letters are leading?

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Book SynopsisIf farce follows tragedy, what follows farce? Where does the double predicament of a post-truth and post-shame politics leave artists and critics on the left? How to demystify a hegemonic order that dismisses its own contradictions? How to belittle a political elite that cannot be embarrassed, or to mock party leaders who thrive on the absurd? How to out-dada President Ubu? And, in any event, why add outrage to a media economy that thrives on the same? What Comes After Farce? comments on shifts in art, criticism, and fiction in the face of the current regime of war, surveillance, extreme inequality, and media disruption. A first section focuses on the cultural politics of emergency since 9/11, including the use and abuse of trauma, paranoia, and kitsch. A second reviews the neoliberal makeover of art institutions during the same period. Finally, a third section surveys transformations in media as reflected in recent art, film, and fiction. Among the phenomena explored here are m

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Book SynopsisGroundbreaking exposé of Israel's reconceptualization of geopolitics in the Occupied Territories

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Book SynopsisGideon Levy is one of the most respected critics of Israel's apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. He is the outspoken award-winning journalist who has been writing on the conflict for decades. In The Killing of Gaza, he brings together his on-the-ground perspectives of the events leading up to the 7th October and the ensuing devastation of Gaza. His clear-eyed analysis is a vital aperture into current events but he also brings essential historical and political context to the moment. He is unafraid to speak truth to power, and his work is an urgent rebuttal to the propaganda that is distributed through the mainstream liberal press, throughout the world. Levy's words should be read by anyone who wants to get the heart of this most brutal conflict and see for themselves that silence is no longer possible in the face of such atrocity.

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Book SynopsisSteve Bell’s If… cartoon strip in the Guardian attracted generations of loyal readers. If… Stands Up is his hilarious commentary on the past six years of political madness.Unmissable highlights include a Jubilee fly-past over Buckingham Palace by Boris Johnson’s bottom. Liz Truss taking back control of her own eyeballs. A dead-horse race between zombie ‘Treeza’ May and pink-rubber fiend David Cameron, towing his bijou shepherd’s hut. Rishi Sunak flogging the skeletal remains of Margaret Thatcher. Donald Trump with a golden toilet seat brain. And Keir Starmer, aka Keeves the butler, assuring the toffs that ‘the below-stairs movement is realigning its values with those of the British people’. If… Stands Up also keeps a gimlet eye on Charles and the Royals.Bell draws an unforgettable picture of a nation that has left reality behind. Why did the chlorinated chicken cross the Atlantic? Wh

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2023 Moore Prize for Human Rights WritingShortlisted for the 2023 Walkley non fiction journalism prizeIsrael's military industrial complex uses the occupied, Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world to despots and democracies. For more than 50 years, occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an 'enemy' population, the Palestinians. It's here that they have perfected the architecture of control. Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in a global investigation with secret documents, revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting. This book shows in-depth, for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex: survei

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Book SynopsisAround the world, countries and companies are setting net-zero carbon emissions targets. But "net-zero" is a term that conveniently obscures multiple futures. There could be a version of net-zero where the fossil fuel industry is still spewing tens of billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and has built a corresponding industry in sucking it back out again. Holly Buck argues that focusing on emissions draws our attention away from where we need to be looking: the point of production. It is time to plan for the end of fossil fuel and the companies that profit from them. Fossil fuels still provide 80% of world energy and ceasing their use before there are ready alternatives brings risks of energy poverty. The fossil fuel industry provides jobs, as well as a source of revenue for some frontline communities. Conventional wisdom says that fossil fuels will be naturally priced out when cheaper, but this raises as many problems as it addresses. Ending Fossil Fuels tackles these problems seriously and also sets out a roadmap that offer opportunities for more liveable, inclusive future.Trade ReviewPraise for After Geoengineering: one of the strengths of Buck's approach to her topic is the narrative nonfiction treatment of an issue often too complex for individual human imaginations ... She expertly preserves the nuance and complexity of figuring out what to do with the remains of an industry on which the entire global economy currently depends. * Issues in Science and Technology *Praise for After Geoengineering: A book to be read on its own terms...Buck's eloquent and useful * New Socialist *Praise for After Geoengineering: This is the guide to the future ... Written in graceful prose ... this book shines. Anyone worried about what comes next should read it. -- Andreas Malm, author of The Progress of This Storm and How to Blow Up a PipelinePraise for After Geoengineering: A really fantastic book; as if Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a definitive study of carbon management options for the twenty-first century. A meticulously researched, beautifully drawn portrait of dozens of possible futures and how to make them reality. A must-read for anyone who cares about making a cooler and more just future for generations to come. -- Emma Marris, author of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild WorldPraise for After Geoengineering: Buck's brilliant-and hopeful-overview is not merely technical or economic, but addresses head-on the implications for climate justice. Beautifully written ... this book is required reading for how to navigate the crisis ahead. -- Matt Huber, author of Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Forces of CapitalPraise for After Geoengineering: Holly Jean Buck transcends stale debates and allows us to imagine a hopeful world beyond both capitalism and climate catastrophe. Providing a rigorous (and joyful!) look at technological options to buy time, adapt to change, and renew the planet, this radical book is long overdue. -- Paul Robbins, Nelson Institute for Environmental StudiesPraise for After Geoengineering: Original, thought-provoking * Nature *Considered, beautifully written, and mindful of the many actors at play in shaping our planet. Most importantly, it foregrounds the importance of ensuring frontline communities' prosperity in our future economy. -- Antonia Jennings and Eleanor Radcliffe * Stir to Action *Ending Fossil Fuels is a thought-provoking analysis of barriers to decarbonisation, a fascinating read for anyone concerned about the looming climate catastrophe. -- Dr Sibo Chen * LSE Review of Books *Read it and join the ongoing global project to make the phasing out of fossil fuels the new common sense. -- Gabriel Carlyle * Peace News *

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