In January 2013, Aaron Swartz, under arrest and threatened with thirty-five years of imprisonment for downloading material from the JSTOR database, committed suicide. He was twenty-six years old. But in that time he had changed the world we live in: reshaping the Internet, questioning our assumptions about intellectual property, and creating some of the tools we use in our daily online lives. Besides being a technical genius and a passionate activist, he was also an insightful, compelling, and cutting critic of the politics of the Web. In this collection of his writings that spans over a decade he shows his passion for and in-depth knowledge of intellectual property, copyright, and the architecture of the Internet. The Boy Who Could Change the World contains the life’s work of one of the most original minds of our time.
A timely, no-holds barred, critical political history of the modern Olympic GamesThe Olympics have a checkered, sometimes scandalous, political history. Jules Boykoff, a former US Olympic team member, takes readers from the event's nineteenth-century origins, through the Games' flirtation with Fascism, and into the contemporary era of corporate control. Along the way he recounts vibrant alt-Olympic movements, such as the Workers' Games and Women's Games of the 1920s and 1930s as well as athlete-activists and political movements that stood up to challenge the Olympic machine.
Cultural critic Fredric Jameson, renowned for his incisive studies of the passage of modernism to postmodernism, returns to the movement that dramatically broke with all tradition in search of progress for the first time since his acclaimed A Singular Modernity .The Modernist Papers is a tour de froce of anlysis and criticism, in which Jameson brings his dynamic and acute thought to bear on the modernist literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jameson discusses modernist poetics, including intensive discussions of the work of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarm, Wallace Stevens, Joyce, Proust, and Thomas Mann. He explores the peculiarties of the American literary field, taking in William Carlos Williams and the American epic, and examines the language theories of Gertrude Stein. Refusing to see modernism as simply a Western phenomenon he also pays close attention to its Japanese expression; while the complexities of a late modernist representation of twentieth-century politics are articulated in a concluding section on Peter Weiss’s novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.Challenging our previous understanding of the literature of this pperiod, this monumental work will come to be regarded as the classic study of modernism.
The brief rise and precipitous fall of ';Islamic liberalism'Just a few short years ago, the ';Turkish Model'was being hailed across the world. The New York Times gushed that prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had ';effectively integrated Islam, democracy, and vibrant economics,'making Turkey, according to the International Crisis Group, ';the envy of the Arab world.'And yet, a more recent CNN headline wondered if Erdogan had become a "e;dictator.'In this incisive analysis, Cihan Tugal argues that the problem with this model of Islamic liberalism is much broader and deeper than Erdogan's increasing authoritarianism. The problems are inherent in the very model of Islamic liberalism that formed the basis of the AKP's ascendancy and rule since 2002an intended marriage of neoliberalism and democracy. And this model can also only be understood as a response to regional politicsespecially as a response to the ';Iranian Model'a marriage of corporatism and Islamic revolution.The Turkish model was a failure in its home country, and the dynamics of the Arab world made it a tough commodity to export. Tugal's masterful explication of the demise of Islamic liberalism brings in Egypt and Tunisia, once seen as the most likely followers of the Turkish model, and provides a path-breaking examination of their regimes and Islamist movements, as well as paradigm-shifting accounts of Turkey and Iran.
Historian and political thinker Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that theories of ';postmodern' fragmentation, ';difference,' and con-tingency can barely accommodate the idea of capitalism, let alone subject it to critique. In this book she sets out to renew the critical program of historical materialism by redefining its basic concepts and its theory of history in original and imaginative ways, using them to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. She goes on to explore the concept of democracy in both the ancient and modern world, examining its relation to capitalism, and raising questions about how democracy might go beyond the limits imposed on it.
An urgent and provocative account of the modern ';militant', a transformative figure at the front line of emancipatory politics. Around the world, recent events have seen the creation of a radical phalanx comprising students, the young, workers and immigrants. It is Badiou's contention that the politics of such militants should condition the tasks of philosophy, even as philosophy clarifies the truth of our political condition.To resolve the conflicts between politics, philosophy and democracy, Badiou argues for a resurgent communism returning to the original call for universal emancipation and organizing for militant struggle.
Leading sociologist examines how different readings of class enrich our understanding of capitalismFew ideas are more contested today than ';class.' Some have declared its death, while others insist on its centrality to contemporary capitalism. It is said its relevance is limited to explaining individuals' economic conditions and opportunities, while at the same time argued that it is a structural feature of macro-power relations. In Understanding Class, leading left sociologist Erik Olin Wright interrogates the divergent meanings of this fundamental concept in order to develop a more integrated framework of class analysis. Beginning with the treatment of class in Marx and Weber, proceeding through the writings of Charles Tilly, Thomas Piketty, Guy Standing, and others, and finally examining how class struggle and class compromise play out in contemporary society, Understanding Class provides a compelling view of how to think about the complexity of class in the world today.
Graphic true-life spy thriller about the CIA mission that overthrew Iran's democracy
Traces of History presents a new approach to race and to comparative colonial studies. Bringing a historical perspective to bear on the regimes of race that colonizers have sought to impose on Aboriginal people in Australia, on Blacks and Native Americans in the United States, on Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe, on Arab Jews in Israel/Palestine, and on people of African descent in Brazil, this book shows how race marks and reproduces the different relationships of inequality into which Europeans have coopted subaltern populations: territorial dispossession, enslavement, confinement, assimilation, and removal. Charting the different modes of domination that engender specific regimes of race and the strategies of anti-colonial resistance they entail, the book powerfully argues for cross-racial solidarities that respect these historical differences.
Journalist and bestselling author Max Blumenthal reports on Israel's 2014 Operation Protective Edge that razed Gaza.
A brilliant novel about memory, love, and the clash between the old world and the new, set in 1950s Spain ';He turned his back on the old man to mourn in silence this unnecessary death and his part in it; but the sight of the coffin brought anger instead ...'In 1957, a burned-out British journalist leaves London to recuperate in the idyllic Andalusian village of Benalamar, a place little changed since the tumult of Spain's civil war. But when a foreign businessman arrives with plans to develop the area, the community is thrown into turmoil. During a time of drought, the promise of a reservoir is meant to allay the fears of the local populace, but the developer has little idea what he is playing with. A local farmer commits suicide, and the investigation that follows leads back into recent history, lost love and civil war all a far cry from the tranquil retreat that once promised respite from a world of lurid headlines and backroom shenanigans.Drought is a keenly felt novel about memory, love and the clash between the old world and the new.
Part of the "Islam Quintet" series, this novel deals with the Muslim experience in China. It moves between the cities of the twenty-first century, from Lahore to London, from Paris to Beijing.
Set in 12th-century Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem, this is the fictional memoir of Saladin, the Kurdish liberator of Jerusalem. It is the second in a series of historical novels depicting the confrontation between Islamic and Christian civilisations.
The product of five years' investigative reporting, the subject of intense national controversy, and the source of death threats that forced the National Human Rights Commission to assign two full-time bodyguards to its author, Anabel Hernndez, Narcoland has been a publishing and political sensation in Mexico. The definitive history of the drug cartels, Narcoland takes readers to the front lines of the ';war on drugs,' which has so far cost more than 60,000 lives in just six years. Hernndez explains in riveting detail how Mexico became a base for the mega-cartels of Latin America and one of the most violent places on the planet. At every turn, Hernndez names names not just the narcos, but also the politicians, functionaries, judges and entrepreneurs who have collaborated with them. In doing so, she reveals the mind-boggling depth of corruption in Mexico's government and business elite. Hernndez became a journalist after her father was kidnapped and killed and the police refused to investigate without a bribe. She gained national prominence in 2001 with her exposure of excess and misconduct at the presidential palace, and previous books have focused on criminality at the summit of power, under presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon. In awarding Hernndez the 2012 Golden Pen of Freedom, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers noted, ';Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with violence and impunity remaining major challenges in terms of press freedom. In making this award, we recognize the strong stance Ms. Hernndez has taken, at great personal risk, against drug cartels.'
A clearly written and highly organized introduction of the work of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers Octave Mannoni worked in France, Madagascar and Africa throughout the twentieth century to extend Lacanian psychoanalytical methods into the field of ethnology. He is best known for his research into the psychic repercussions of colonialism's constitutive elements: the domination of a mass by a minority, economic exploitation, paternalism and racialism.Freud: The Theory of the Unconscious is a well-crafted and concise introduction to the life, work and theories of psychoanalysis' founder. Mannoni draws on the perspective provided by his Lacanian work on colonialism to provide a unique intellectual biography of Freud, tracing the genesis and development of various key psychoanalytical concepts. Mannoni provides a critical account of the various shortcomings in Freud's work, as well as its strengths.
A Communist, feminist, and analysand asks what the social function of psychoanalysis should be and condemns what it has become The Weary Sons of Freud lambasts mainstream psychoanalysis for its failure to grapple with pressing political and social matters pertinent to its patients' condition. Gifted with insight and compelled by fury, Catherine Clement contrasts the original, inspirational psychoanalytical work of Freud and Lacan to the obsessive imitations of their uninspired followersthe weary sons of Freud.The analyst's once attentive ear has become deaf to the broader questions of therapeutic practice. Clement asks whether the perspective of socialism, brought to this study by a woman who is herself an analysand, can fill the gap. She reflects on her own history, as well as on that of psychoanalysis and the French left, to show what an activist and feminist restoration of the talking cure might look like.
Originally published in 1978, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman caused a storm of controversy. Michele Wallace blasted the masculine biases of the black politics that emerged from the sixties. She described how women remained marginalized by the patriarchal culture of Black Power, demonstrating the ways in which a genuine female subjectivity was blocked by the traditional myths of black womanhood. With a foreword that examines the debate the book has sparked between intellectuals and political leaders, as well as what hasand, crucially, has notchanged over the last four decades, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman continues to be deeply relevant to current feminist debates and black theory today.
Cinema, like language, can be said to exist as a system of differences. In his latest book, acclaimed philosopher Jacques Ranciere looks at cinematic art in comparison to its corollary forms in literature and theatre. From literature, he argues, cinema takes its narrative conventions, while at the same time effacing literature's images and philosophy; and film rejects theatre, while also fulfilling theatre's dream. Built on these contradictions, the cinema is the real, material space in which one is moved by the spectacle of shadows. Thus, for Ranciere, film is the perpetually disappointed dream of a language of images.
Powerful critique of UK and US surveillance and repression of Muslims and prosecution of homegrown terrorism The new front in the War on Terror is the ';homegrown enemy,' domestic terrorists who have become the focus of sprawling counterterrorism structures of policing and surveillance in the United States and across Europe. Domestic surveillance has mushroomedat least 100,000 Muslims in America have been secretly under scrutiny. British police compiled a secret suspect list of more than 8,000 al-Qaeda ';sympathizers,' and in another operation included almost 300 children fifteen and under among the potential extremists investigated. MI5 doubled in size in just five years. Based on several years of research and reportage, in locations as disperate as Texas, New York and Yorkshire, and written in engrossing, precise prose, this is the first comprehensive critique of counterradicalization strategies. The new policy and policing campaigns have been backed by an industry of freshly minted experts and liberal commentators. The Muslims Are Coming! looks at the way these debates have been transformed by the embrace of a narrowly configured and ill-conceived anti-extremism.
A probing collection of essays and interviews addressing police brutality and racial injustice.
A literary fiction about climate disaster and a scientist imploding on a journey to the AntarcticZeno Hintermeier is a scientist working as a travel guide on an Antarctic cruise ship, encouraging the wealthy to marvel at the least explored continent and to open their eyes to its rapid degradation. It is a troubling turn in the life of an idealistic glaciologist. Now in his early sixties, Zeno bewails the loss of his beloved glaciers, the disintegration of his marriage, and the foundering of his increasingly irrelevant career. Troubled in conscience and goaded by the smug complacency of the passengers in his charge, he starts to plan a desperate gesture that will send a wake-up call to an overheating world.The Lamentations of Zeno is an extraordinary evocation of the fragile and majestic wonders to be found at a far corner of the globe, written by a novelist who is a renowned travel writer. Poignant and playful, the novel recalls the experimentation of high-modernist fiction without compromising a limpid sense of place or the pace of its narrative. It is a portrait of a man in extremis, a haunting and at times irreverent tale that approaches the greatest challenge of our ageperhaps of our entire history as a speciesfrom an impassioned human angle.
Louis Althusser's renowned short text ';Ideology andIdeological State Apparatuses' radically transformed theconcept of the subject, the understanding of the stateand even the very frameworks of cultural, political andliterary theory. The text has influenced thinkers such asJudith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj iek.The piece is, in fact, an extract from a much longer book,On the Reproduction of Capitalism, until now unavailablein English. Its publication makes possible a reappraisalof seminal Althusserian texts already available in English,their place in Althusser's oeuvre and the relevance ofhis ideas for contemporary theory. On the Reproductionof Capitalism develops Althusser's conception of historicalmaterialism, outlining the conditions of reproductionin capitalist society and the revolutionary struggle forits overthrow. Written in the afterglow of May 1968, the text addressesa question that continues to haunt us today: in a societythat proclaims its attachment to the ideals of liberty andequality, why do we witness the ever-renewed reproductionof relations of domination? Both a conceptuallyinnovative text and a key theoretical tool for activists,On the Reproduction of Capitalism is an essential additionto the corpus of the twentieth-century Left.
Author of the acclaimed Liberalism: A Counterhistory dissects the revisionist attempts to expunge or criminalize revolutions
A dizzying menagerie of anti-capitalist thought.
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