Search results for ""Pluto Press""

On 16th August 2012, thirty-four black mineworkers were gunned down by the police under the auspices of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) in what has become known as the Marikana massacre. This attempt to drown independent working-class power in blood backfired and is now recognised as a turning point in the country's history. The Spirit of Marikana tells the story of the uncelebrated leaders at the world's three largest platinum mining companies who survived the barrage of state violence, intimidation, torture and murder which was being perpetrated during this tumultuous period. What began as a discussion about wage increases between two workers in the changing rooms at one mine became a rallying cry for economic freedom and basic dignity. This gripping ethnographic account is the first comprehensive study of this movement, revealing how seemingly ordinary people became heroic figures who transformed their workplace and their country.

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*Shortlisted for the JQ Wingate Literary Prize, 2018* Drawing on a decade of courageous and pioneering reporting, Mya Guarnieri Jaradat brings us an unprecedented and compelling look at the lives of asylum seekers and migrant workers in Israel, who hail mainly from Africa and Asia. From illegal kindergartens to anti-immigrant rallies, from detention centres to workers' living quarters, from family homes to the high court, The Unchosen sheds light on one of the most little-known but increasingly significant aspects of Israeli society. In highlighting Israel's harsh and worsening treatment of these newcomers, The Unchosen presents a fresh angle on the Israel-Palestine conflict, calling into question the state’s perennial justification for mistreatment of Palestinians: 'national security'. More fundamentally, this beautifully written book captures the voices and the struggles of some of the most marginalised and silenced people in Israel today.

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Revolutionary Learning explores the Marxist and feminist theorisation of dialectics, praxis and consciousness in education and learning. Moving beyond previous books on Marxism and education, which tend to focus on the reproductive nature of educational institutions, this groundbreaking text draws upon work by leading feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial scholars in its exploration of the key philosophical concepts that build the Marxist analysis of learning. Alongside chapters dealing with adult education, institutional ethnography and the promotion of civic engagement, the authors also reassess the contributions of Marx, Gramsci and Freire to educational theory. Adopting an innovative and explicitly feminist perspective, they relocate these theorists' Marxist analyses of education into a more complex relation to patriarchal and imperialist capitalism. With significant implications for critical education scholarship, research and practice, Revolutionary Learning's importance lies not only in its contribution to theory, but its extension into pedagogical practice with special attention to how a revolutionary critique of ideology is taken up by educators in their daily work.

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Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a Caribbean and African psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary whose works, including Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth are hugely influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and post-Marxism. His legacy remains with us today, having inspired movements in Palestine, Sri Lanka, the US and South Africa. This is a critical biography of his extraordinary life. Peter Hudis draws on the expanse of his life and work - from his upbringing in Martinique and early intellectual influences to his mature efforts to fuse psychoanalysis and philosophy and contributions to the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria - to counter the monolithic assumption that Fanon's contribution to modern thought is defined by the advocacy of violence. He was a political activist who brought his interests in psychology and philosophy directly to bear on such issues as mutual recognition, democratic participation and political sovereignty. Hudis shows that, as a result, Fanon emerges as neither armchair intellectual nor intransigent militant.

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The economics profession has a lot to answer for. After the late 1970s, the ideas of influential economists have justified policies that have made the world more prone to economic crisis, remarkably less equal, more polluted and less secure than it might be. How could ideas and policies that proved to be such an abject failure come to dominate the economic landscape? By critically examining the work of the most famous economists of the neoliberal period including Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, and Robert Lucas, the authors Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson demonstrate that many of those who rose to prominence did so primarily because of their defence of, and contribution to, rising corporate profits and not their ability to predict or explain economic events. An important and controversial book, The Profit Doctrine exposes the uses and abuses of mainstream economic canons, identify those responsible and reaffirm the primacy of political economy.

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The tumultuous events that began in Egypt in 2011 have embraced revolution and counter-revolution. For Philip Marfleet, they are a complex and continuing process in which millions of people from a range of political formations and socio-economic and religious backgrounds became ‘agents of change’. Amidst a surge of publishing on the ‘Arab Spring’ this book aims to close a critical gap by examining the specific character and composition of the Egyptian struggle. The social and cultural initiatives that constituted ‘the carnival of the oppressed’ come alive in the testimonies of participants across the political spectrum, allowing us to explore activist engagements in the streets, workplaces, campuses and neighbourhoods, as well as in the formal political arena. Following the 2011 revolution was, the Ittihaiddya demonstrations, the anti-Mursi marches and countless smaller protests, rallies, mass meetings, community mobilisations and labour actions, which indicate that the revolutionary energy is undiminished. With this in mind, Marfleet asks what can be learned from the Egyptian case about political upheavals that continue to affect societies of the Global South. Five years after the start of the ‘Arab Spring', this offers one of the best participant-orientated accounts of the country's struggle.

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A world-famous singer and actor, a trained lawyer, an early star of American professional football and a polyglot who spoke over a dozen languages. These could be the crowning achievements of a life well-lived, yet for Paul Robeson the higher calling of social justice led him to abandon both the NFL and Hollywood and become one of the most important political activists of his generation - battling both Jim Crow and Joseph McCarthy. Gerald Horne's biography uses Robeson's remarkable and revolutionary life to tell the story of the 20th century's great political struggles: against racism, against colonialism, and for international socialism. This critical and searching account provides an opportunity for readers to comprehend the triumphs and tragedies of the revolutionary progressive movement of which Robeson was not just a part, but, perhaps, its most resonant symbol.

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The Situationist International were a group of anti-authoritarian, highly cultured, revolutionary artists whose energy and enragement fundamentally shaped the revolutions of the late 1960's, most famously in Paris in May '68. They took on their shoulders the history of the workers' struggle, saw that it had been corrupted by authoritarianism and transformed it, with influences incorporating the avant-garde via Dada and Surrealism. They were not Marxologists, defenders of the faith. Marxism came back to life in their raging analyses, the use of the 'spectacle' and at the heart of the project was the idea of the constructed situation. This book by Frances Stracey offers itself up as the 'first historiography of constructed situations'. Within it are new insights into the movement, and with them, a sense of relevance to political situations and practice today. As an archivist, Stracey uncovered new documents which, amongst other things, revealed how the SI related to representations of sexuality; and is able to discuss whether they could be considered as feminists or not. She also looked at their famous motto 'Never Work' and again shows how alienated labour is even more relevant to us today. Constructed Situations is not a history of celebrated personalities, or cultural influences, or political circumstances. It is instead an open door to one of the most influential art movements in modern history, and an invitation for us to reclaim inspiration from this ubiquitous movement.

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*Shortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2017* Karl Polanyi's contribution to political economy and social science is immeasurable. In Reconstructing Karl Polanyi, Gareth Dale, foremost scholar and biographer of Polanyi, provides a sweeping survey of his contributions to the social sciences. An opponent of traditional economics and a believer in economics' contingency to society and culture, Polanyi's work has a cross-disciplinary appeal, finding popularity in anthropology, economic history, economic sociology and political science. Paradoxical formulations, such as 'liberal socialist' and 'cosmopolitan patriot', are often used to describe Polanyi's intellectual and political vision. In exploring these paradoxes, Dale draws upon original writings and transcripts to reconstruct Polanyi's views on a range of topics long neglected in critical literature; including the history of antiquity, the evolution and dynamics of Stalin's Russia, McCarthyism and Polanyi's critical dialogue with Marxism. Accompanying the reconstruction of his work is Dale's analysis of Polanyi's relevance to current issues, notably the 'clash' between democracy and capitalism, and the nature and trajectory of European unification. This proves an indispensable critical guide to Polanyian thought.

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This book offers a pioneering window into the elusive workings of state-corporate crime within the mining industry. It follows a campaign of resistance organised by indigenous activists on the island of Bougainville, who struggled to close a Rio Tinto owned copper mine, and investigates the subsequent state-corporate response, which led to the shocking loss of some 10,000 lives. Drawing on internal records and interviews with senior officials, Kristian Lasslett examines how an articulation of capitalist growth mediated through patrimonial politics, imperial state-power, large-scale mining, and clan-based, rural society, prompted an ostensibly 'responsible' corporate citizen, and liberal state actors, to organise a counterinsurgency campaign punctuated with gross human rights abuses. State Crime on the Margins of Empire represents a unique intervention rooted in a classical Marxist tradition that challenges positivist streams of criminological scholarship, in order to illuminate with greater detail the historical forces faced by communities in the global south caught in the increasingly violent dynamics of the extractive industries.

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This book offers a pioneering window into the elusive workings of state-corporate crime within the mining industry. It follows a campaign of resistance organised by indigenous activists on the island of Bougainville, who struggled to close a Rio Tinto owned copper mine, and investigates the subsequent state-corporate response, which led to the shocking loss of some 10,000 lives. Drawing on internal records and interviews with senior officials, Kristian Lasslett examines how an articulation of capitalist growth mediated through patrimonial politics, imperial state-power, large-scale mining, and clan-based, rural society, prompted an ostensibly 'responsible' corporate citizen, and liberal state actors, to organise a counterinsurgency campaign punctuated with gross human rights abuses. State Crime on the Margins of Empire represents a unique intervention rooted in a classical Marxist tradition that challenges positivist streams of criminological scholarship, in order to illuminate with greater detail the historical forces faced by communities in the global south caught in the increasingly violent dynamics of the extractive industries.

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Women throughout the world have always played their part in struggles against colonialism, imperialism and other forms of oppression. However, there are few books on Arab political prisoners, fewer still on the Palestinians who have been detained in their thousands for their political activism and resistance. Nahla Abdo's Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolutions, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance. Based on stories of the women themselves, as well as her own experiences as a former political prisoner, Abdo draws on a wealth of oral history and primary research in order to analyse their anti-colonial struggle, their agency and their appalling treatment as political detainees. Making crucial comparisons with the experiences of female political detainees in other conflicts, and emphasising the vital role Palestinian political culture and memorialisation of the 'Nakba' have had on their resilience and resistance, Captive Revolution is a rich and revealing addition to our knowledge of this little-studied phenomenon.

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Indispensable for human existence yet increasingly owned and controlled by private capital; the last decade has witnessed an intensifying battle for water. The Last Drop is a wake-up call to everyone who takes for granted what comes out of their kitchen tap. This book traces a path through the arguments that surround the question of water, setting out to make the scientific arguments more accessible and the political questions more urgent. The exploding profits of the multinational companies which dominate the water industry are testimony to how high the stakes are - by 2012 it had become a worth a trillion dollars. Against the market fundamentalists, the authors argue that it is both possible and necessary that considerations of equity and social justice prevail. They call for our water supply to be saved from subordination to the whims of the multinationals and placed under direct democratic public control.

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When Hugo Chavez, then President of Venezuela, died in 2013, millions across the globe mourned. In an age where most politicians inspire only apathy and cynicism, Chavez's popularity, radicalism and vibrant personality were truly unique. Released one year after Chavez's unexpected death, this dramatic and intimate biography traces Chavez's life from an impoverished rural family to the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas. Mike Gonzalez shows how Chavez's 'Bolivarian revolution' aimed to complete Simon Bolivar's promise of a Latin America free from imperialism. Gonzalez details Chavez's close connection to the masses and how he enraged wealthy elites by declaring his support for 21st century socialism. He concludes that the struggle for social justice inspired by Chavez can and must continue. This is an ideal guide to Chavez's inspiring life and legacy.

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Poverty, it seems, is a constant in today's news, usually the result of famine, exclusion or conflict. In Blaming the Victim, Jairo Lugo-Ocando sets out to deconstruct and reconsider the variety of ways in which the global news media misrepresent and decontextualise the causes and consequences of poverty worldwide. The result is that the fundamental determinant of poverty - inequality - is removed from their accounts. The books asks many biting questions. When - and how - does poverty become newsworthy? How does ideology come into play when determining the ways in which 'poverty' is constructed in newsrooms - and how do the resulting narratives frame the issue? And why do so many journalists and news editors tend to obscure the structural causes of poverty? In analysing the processes of news production and presentation around the world, Lugo-Ocando reveals that the news-makers' agendas are often as problematic as the geopolitics they seek to represent. This groundbreaking study reframes the ways in which we can think and write about the enduring global injustice of poverty.

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How can we unmask the vested interests behind capital's 'cultural' urban agenda? Limits to Culture pits grass-roots cultural dissent against capital's continuing project of control via urban planning. In the 1980s, notions of the 'creative class' were expressed though a cultural turn in urban policy towards the 'creative city'. De-industrialisation created a shift away from how people understood and used urban space, and consequently, gentrification spread. With it came the elimination of diversity and urban dynamism - new art museums and cultural or heritage quarters lent a creative mask to urban redevelopment. This book examines this process from the 1960s to the present day, revealing how the notion of 'creativity' been neutered in order to quell dissent. In the 1960s, creativity was identified with revolt, yet from the 1980s onwards it was subsumed in consumerism, which continued in the 1990s through cool Britannia culture and its international reflections. Today, austerity and the scarcity of public money reveal how the illusory creative city has given way to reveal its hollow interior, through urban clearances and underdevelopment.

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*Shortlisted for the BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Award for Ethnography 2015* This book follows the global trail of one of the world's most unremarkable and ubiquitous objects - flip-flops. Through this unique lens, Caroline Knowles takes a ground level view of the lives and places of globalisation's back roads, providing new insights that challenge contemporary accounts of globalisation. Rather than orderly product chains, the book shows that globalisation along the flip-flop trail is a tangle of unstable, shifting, ad hoc and contingent connections. This book displays both the instabilities of the 'chains' and the complexities, personal topographies and skills with which people navigate these global uncertainties. Flip-Flop provides new ways of thinking about globalisation from the vantage point of the shifting landscape crossed by a seemingly ordinary and everyday commodity.

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The first decade of the 2000s was a period of radical change in Turkish society and politics, marked by the major economic crisis of 2001 and the coming to power of ex-Islamist cadres organised under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). As the 'Turkish model' gains traction across the Middle East, this chronicle of Turkey's recent history dispels some important myths. This period of radical change, with its continuities and breaks, pays close attention to the AKP, the main actor in the creation of a neoliberal hegemony in post-1980 Turkey. The contributors map relations between the AKP and the Kurdish people, the evolution of Turkish nationalism under the AKP and look at how everyday politics, from social welfare to housing, have been effected by the AKP's 'stabilisation strategy'. What is revealed is modern Turkey's conflictual, turbulent and painful recent histories, which vary wildly from the national myths that sustain neoliberal hegemony in the country.

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One of the core aspects of the Palestinian refugee question is that of compensation or reparations for Palestinian refugees forcibly displaced by the establishment of Israel. The Nakba saw the displacement of 85% of the Palestinian Arab population and the descendants of these displaced peoples numbers almost 5 million. Despite the gravity of the situation and the importance of restorative justice, many of the complex technical issues compensation would entail have not received adequate attention. Applying their expertise and looking at past examples of claims mechanisms, a rich variety of contributors - including Palestinian, Israeli, and international scholars, analysts, and former officials - examine the topic from an array of legal, economic, and political perspectives. Answering questions such as: How would property losses be recovered? What about displaced persons within Israel? What would the Israeli response be to reparations? The contributors cast new and important light on the way the issue has been approached in past negotiations, the structure of possible compensation regimes and potential challenges and obstacles to implementation.

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This is a one-stop introduction to the multifaceted phenomenon of the 'Arab Spring', from the writers of Jadaliyya. Covering the full range of issues involved in these historic events, from political economy and the role of social media, to international politics, gender, labour and the impact on culture, these firsthand accounts explore the inspirational uprisings in a way unavailable through mainstream Western and Arab media. Covering all the major centres of disruption, including Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya and Bahrain, the writers also look further afield, to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings is the best place to start for anyone wanting to understand and interpret these dramatic events.

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The Second World War casts a long shadow, portrayed as a necessary and paradigmatic war that defeated fascism. During recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, US presidents and British prime ministers have tried to claim they were following in the footsteps of Winston Churchill by standing up to dictators. In The Second World War Chris Bambery tests this position in a thorough account of the war and demonstrates why it continues to dominate TV history channels and school history books. Arguing that the conflict was as much about a division of the world between the great powers as it was as a rising of ordinary people against fascism, he offers a nuanced and radical analysis that sets the book apart from conventional histories of the war.

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Undocumented migration is a huge global phenomenon, yet little is known about the reality of life for those involved. Sans Papiers combines a contemporary account of the theoretical and policy debates with an in-depth exploration of the lived experiences of undocumented migrants in the UK from Zimbabwe, China, Brazil, Ukraine and Turkish Kurdistan. Built around their voices, the book provides the reader with a unique understanding of migratory processes, gendered experiences and migrant aspirations. Moving between the uniqueness of individual experience and the search for commonalities, the book explores the ambiguities and contradictions of being an undocumented migrant. With its insights into personal experiences alongside analysis of wider policy issues, Sans Papiers will have wide appeal for students, academics, policy-makers and practitioners.

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In the last three decades China has experienced the largest population movement in human history. Millions have left behind homes to find work and new opportunities in the emerging mega-cities. Through months of sustained interpersonal contact with migrant workers and factory owners, Behzad Yaghmaian paints a unique portrait of a country experiencing the turmoil of rapid development. His close listening has produced an intimate look at the hopes, hardships, triumphs and tragedies of those behind the Chinese 'economic dragon'. The Accidental Capitalist reveals the human reality behind China's rise to global-superpower status.

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In this carefully curated and beautifully presented photobook, Ariella Azoulay offers a new perspective on four crucial years in the history of Palestine/Israel. The book reconstructs the processes by which the Palestinian majority in Mandatory Palestine became a minority in Israel, while the Jewish minority established a new political entity in which it became a majority ruling a minority Palestinian population. By reading over 200 photographs from that period, most of which were previously confined to Israeli state archives, Azoulay recounts the events and the stories that for years have been ignored or only partially acknowledged in Israel and the West. Including substantial analytical text, this book will give activists, scholars and journalists a new perspective on the origins of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

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Following 9/11, 7/7 and the War on Terror, Islamophobia has become a ubiquitous expression of political racism; its presence is felt in immigration restrictions, critiques of multiculturalism and the co-option of feminism that casts Muslim women as abject figures. Throughout the book, what emerges is that most of our knowledge of Muslim communities is apprehended through signifiers, as defined by 'liberal' politicians and media: there is the - aforementioned - maligned Muslim female, the ontically pure religious Muslim and the fundamentalist terrorist. Through study of instances where politicians - from Tony Blair and David Cameron, to Geert Wilders and Enoch Powell - activate these racist essentialisms we begin to see how Islamophobia takes form as an expression of racialised governmentality. By mobilising accounts across different national contexts, David Tyrer reveals how Islamophobia is defining relations between states and ethnicised minorities.

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During the United States military occupation of Iraq, the Kurdistan region was one of the few places in the country where insurgent violence was not a daily occurrence. However, as tension with the Iraqi central government increases over issues of security, oil and gas management and the disputed territory of Kirkuk, and with Turkey and Iran continuing their cross border military operations, Kurdistan Iraq faces numerous challenges. The current context allows for a fresh look at the situation of the Kurds in Iraq. No longer subject to the cruel regime of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds are set to be important figures in the shaping of Iraq's future. The Future of Kurdistan: The Iraqi Dilemma focuses on how issues faced by Kurdistan Iraq today are being dealt with by both central government and international forces as well as on the prospects for Kurdistan and Iraq’s political, economic and cultural future.

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The election of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) to power in Bolivia in 2006 marked a historic break from centuries of foreign domination and indigenous marginalisation. Evo Morales, leader of the MAS, became the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Kepa Artaraz looks at the Morales' government's attempt to 'refound the nation'. He shows how the mix of Marxism, indigenous liberation politics, anti-imperialism and environmentalism has made Bolivia one of the most interesting and unique political experiments of Latin America's 'red decade'. As the historic left-turn in Latin America reaches a crossroads, this book guides us through the politics and ideas which have animated this popular movement, drawing out important lessons for progressive politics everywhere.

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Footwork is an original street-corner ethnography drawing on the themes of urban regeneration, lost space and the 24-hour city. From the rough sleeping homeless to street drinkers and sex workers, it shows how urban modernisation, development and austerity politics impact the hidden lives of people living and working on the streets. To create this anthropology of the modern British city, Footwork follows the work of a team of outreach workers in Cardiff, tasked to look out for the homeless and others similarly vulnerable, harried and exposed. Tom Hall’s fieldwork study encompasses aspects of urban geography, care work and street-level poverty, violence and isolation, this book reveals the stories of the vulnerable and isolated - people living in the city we often choose to ignore.

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Does conflict transformation work? Or is the total rejection of global militarism the only route to peace? Reviewing developments in the field of conflict transformation, Diana Francis acknowledges the work help it has afforded those engulfed in violent conflict to respond constructively. However, she argues that the dominant culture of power, resting on coercion and violence, must be displaced by the principles of interdependence, kindness and nonviolent solidarity. This is the only way that pacification - efforts to dominate and control - will be replaced by genuine peacebuilding. Calling upon peacemakers worldwide to embrace and develop the practice of nonviolent power, she rejects the culture and institutions of war and working with movements around the world for global demilitarisation and 'positive peace'.

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Agrofuels were heralded as a key weapon in the fight against climate change, but the deforestation and theft of agricultural land that was essential to farmers in the developing world, suggests that they are doing more harm than good. Francois Houtart argues that the green potential of agrofuels has been hijacked by businesses that put profits above environmental protection. This has led to the absurd situation where an energy source that should be sustainable actually increases human and ecological damage, simply due to the profit-maximising decisions of capitalists rather than a flaw in the concept of agrofuels. Houtart reveals that we need to rethink neoliberalism's relationship to green politics and ask is capitalism compatible with climate change, or do we need to overhaul our economic system in order to save the planet?

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Forcibly demonstrates how social capital has expanded across the social sciences only by degrading the different disciplines it touches.

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In the light of the deepening crisis of capitalism and continued non-Western capitalist accumulation, Henry Heller re-examines the debates surrounding the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe and elsewhere. Focusing on arguments about the origin, nature and sustainability of capitalism, Heller offers a new reading of the historical evidence and a critical interrogation of the transition debate. He advances the idea that capitalism must be understood as a political as well as an economic entity. This book breathes new life into the scholarship, taking issue with the excessively economistic approach of Robert Brenner, which has gained increasing support over the last ten years. It concludes that the future of capitalism is more threatened than ever before. The new insights in this book make it essential reading for engaged students and scholars of political economy and history.

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For nearly two decades, the US and its allies have prosecuted war and aggression in Iraq. Erasing Iraq shows in unparalleled detail the devastating human cost of the war in Iraq. Western governments and the mainstream media continue to ignore or play down the human costs of the war on Iraqi citizens This has allowed them to present their role as the benign guardians of Iraqi interests. The authors deconstruct this narrative by presenting a portrait of the total carnage in Iraq today. From Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and the West, to civilians left behind, and other witnesses, this the story of the war told by those who experienced it firsthand.

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Although they are one of the most powerful military forces in Latin American history, little is known about the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP). This book explains why this political military movement came into existence and assesses whether the methods employed by the insurgency have the potential to free those marginalised in Colombia. By evaluating the FARC-EP's actions, ideological construction, and their theoretical placement, the book gauges how this guerrilla movement relates to revolutionary theory and practice and through what tangible mechanisms, if any, they are creating a new Colombia.

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Over a millennium after the end of its unrivalled dominance, the spectre of Rome figures highly in western culture. This book explores what the empire meant to its subjects. The idea of Rome has long outlived the physical empire that gave it form, and now holds sway over vastly more people and a far greater geographical area than the Romans ever ruled. It continues to shape our understanding of the nature of imperialism and influence the workings of the world. It is through the lens of Rome that we answer questions such as: How do empires grow? How are empires ruled? Do empires exploit their subjects or civilise them? Rejecting the simplistic narrative of military triumph followed by decline and fall, the books analyses the origins of Roman imperialism, its wide-ranging impact on the regions it conquered, and its continuing influence in debates about modern imperialism.

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The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967 has many important economic aspects that are often overlooked. In this highly original book, Shir Hever shows that understanding the economic dimensions of the occupation is crucial to unravelling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hever rejects the premise that Israel keeps control over Palestinian territories for material gain, and also the premise that Israel is merely defending itself from Palestinian aggression. Instead, he argues that the occupation has reached an impasse, with the Palestinian resistance making exploitation of the Palestinians by Israeli business interests difficult, but the Israeli authorities reluctant to give up control. With traditional economic analysis failing to explain this turn of events, this book will be invaluable for students, activists and journalists struggling to make sense of the complex issues surrounding Israel's occupation.

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Hatim Kanaaneh is a Palestinian doctor who has struggled for over 35 years to bring medical care to Palestinians in Galilee, against a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. This is the story of how he fought for the human rights of his patients and overcame the Israeli authorities' cruel indifference to their suffering. Kanaaneh is a native of Galilee, born before the creation of Israel. He left to study medicine at Harvard, before returning to work as a public health physician with the intention of helping his own people. He discovered a shocking level of disease and malnutrition in his community and a shameful lack of support from the Israeli authorities. After doing all he could for his patients by working from inside the system, Kanaaneh set up The Galilee Society, an NGO working for equitable health, environmental and socio-economic conditions for Palestinian Arabs in Israel. This is a brilliant memoir that shows how grass roots organisations can loosen the Zionist grip upon Palestinian lives.

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How have politics and activism been transformed by digital media, including digital television, online social networking and mobile computing? Since the emergence of new technologies, new modes of cooperation, deliberation and representation have risen to the fore, @ is for Activism maps out how political relationships have been reconfigured and new have emerged through the use of new technologies. A host of critical thinkers populate the study, from Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse criticism of technology's close relation to capitalism, to media networks' actualising the Habermasian ideal of collective communicative action, Hands delineates the potentials and the pitfalls of a technologised politics. From anti-war activism, to global justice movements, peer production and 'Twitter' activism, we see how politics is being shaped by the new technological environment.

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George W. Bush calls them an 'alternative set of procedures', vital tools needed 'to protect the American people and our allies'. American Torture reveals how torture became standard practice in today's War on Terror. 'Tools' including being forced standing for up to forty hours, sleep deprivation for weeks on end and dousing naked prisoners with ice are undeniably torture, and they are used by the United States of America. Long before Abu Ghraib became a household name, the US military and CIA used torture with impunity at home and abroad. Billions of dollars were spent during the Cold War studying, refining, then teaching these techniques to American interrogators and to foreign officers charged with keeping Communism at bay. This book writes the history of these methods and their invention and adoption by US military personnel.

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Concluding the Deutscher Memorial Prize winning trilogy on 'Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy', this is a magisterial historical sociology of International Relations theory. In The Discipline of Western Supremacy Kees van der Pijl argues that, from the late European Middle Ages, Anglophone thinkers articulated an imperial world-view which was adopted by aspirant elites elsewhere. Nation-state formation under the auspices of the English-speaking West has henceforth informed thinking about international affairs. After decolonisation the study of comparative politics continued to develop under those same auspices as part of a comprehensive framework. As the first major sociological analysis of the field of International Relations, this book advances a comprehensive overview of mainstream IR as a set of theories which translate Western supremacy into intellectual hegemony.

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This book explores the phenomenon of regionalism. In a seeming contradiction to globalization, there is a growing tendency for countries to enter into regional arrangements as a response to the pressures of operating in a global marketplace. But regionalism is also emerging as a phenomenon in its own right, serving distinct purposes and taking different forms in different areas. The contributors explore how these patterns impact on wider issues such as global governance, democracy and trade. The book reviews the major theoretical approaches to regional cooperation including perspectives from international relations, political economy, economics and sociology. It is divided into three main sections: theoretical approaches to regionalism; issues of regional cooperation (such as security, monetary issues, identity and integration); and an exploration of specific case studies including the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, China, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. With an international range of contributors, including Bjorn Hettne, Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell, this in-depth and multi-disciplinary guide will be of interest to students across the social sciences and to the wider policy community.

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Sometimes described as ‘the British Brecht’, Ewan MacColl (1915-1989) was a major twentieth-century political artist. This is the first biography of MacColl, and was prepared with the authorisation of his collaborator and widow, Peggy Seeger. MacColl became a communist at fourteen and spent six decades at the cultural forefront of numerous political struggles, producing plays, songs and radio programmes on subjects ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the Poll Tax. Charting his involvement in radical theatre, his ground breaking radio work in the UK and the USA, as well as his musical influences and legacy, his three marriages, and his relationship with his songwriter daughter Kirstie MacColl, this is a lively account of a much-loved icon of 20th century folk music. Drawing on extensive research, Class Act is a freshly conceived and energetically written account of a highly creative and controversial activist.

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This is a new edition of a classic work by one of the world's leading progressive political philosophers. Ted Honderich examines ideology and reality in British and American politics in order to establish the true distinctions of conservatism. Conservatives often claim to believe in reform, but not change, to rely on instinct rather than abstract theories. So what is the conservative rationale? Does conservatism have a philosophical founding principle that unifies it? Ted Honderich’s search for the fundamental principle of conservatism is an enlightening one. He examines influential thinkers in the conservative tradition, from Edmund Burke and Adam Smith to Michael Oakeshott and Robert Nozick. He brings rigorous analytic philosophy to bear on the Republican party in the United States, and the Conservative party and the New Labour party in Britain.

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