From the Ground Up – Howard Schultz

February 16, 2019
From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America, Howard Schultz with Joanne Gordon, Random House New York, 2019, pp. 352, $37.00, ISBN 978-0-525-50944-8 Howard Schultz came in from the cold. Appearing on 60 Minutes in the last week of January, Howard Schultz, founder and former CEO

This Fight is Our Fight – Elizabeth Warren

February 7, 2019
This Fight is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class, Elizabeth Warren, Metropolitan Books, 2017, pp. 337, $39, ISBN 978-1-250-12061-8 Elizabeth Warren officially announced that she will be running for the presidency of the United States in 2020, thereby satisfying at least a portion of the population who

The Biggest Prison on Earth – Ilan Pappe

January 30, 2019
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories, Ilan Pappe, Oneworld, 2017, pp. 273, $30, ISBN 978-1-85168-587-5 In the six days of war, Israel emerged victorious against four Arab armies. Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, supported by Iraq, were defeated. In fact, by June 8, 1967, Israeli army

Germany’s Hidden Crisis – Oliver Nachtwey

January 21, 2019
Germany’s Hidden Crisis: Social Decile in the Heart of Europe, Oliver Nachtwey, Verso Books, 2018, pp. 247, $35.99, ISBN 978-1-78663-634-8 In the popular imagination, Germany is Europe’s most powerful economy and at the forefronts of industrial innovation. It is a country that keeps the other struggling economies afloat while making

Alt-America – David Neiwert

January 12, 2019
Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, David Neiwert, Verso Books, 2018, pp. 456, $39.99, ISBN 9781786634238 On the evening of September 11, 1941, Charles Lindbergh took to the stage in Des Moines, Iowa. The Time magazine man of the year was on a speaking

Choke Points – Alimahomed Wilson & Ness

January 4, 2019
Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain, Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Immanuel Ness (Eds.)  Pluto Press, 2018, pp. 272, £18.99, ISBN: 978-0-7453-3724-1 On Friday, November 26, 2018, the Royal Assent was given to Bill C-89, or, an ‘act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services’, thereby

Extinction: A Radical History – Ashley Dawson

December 29, 2018
Extinction: A Radical History, Ashley Dawson, OR Books / Counterpoint, 2016, pp. 126, $10.84, ISBN 978-1-944896 The non-human life that surrounds us is rapidly dying. The latest to depart was the 45 year old male white rhinoceros named Sudan. Sudan was living under constant armed guard at the Ol Pajeta

Waste of a Nation – Doron & Jeffrey

December 17, 2018
Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India, Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey, Harvard University Press, 2018, pp. 393, ISBN: 978-0-674-98060-0 “Why is India so filthy?”, asked the Ugly Indian, a masked man giving a TED Talk in Bengaluru. The anonymous man posed a question that has grappled many

Dirty Secrets – Richard Murphy

December 13, 2018
Dirty Secrets: How Tax Havens Destroy the Economy, Richard Murphy, Verso, February 2017, pp. 216, $23.95, ISBN 978-1-78663-167-1 When the mysterious John Doe provided the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with 11.5 million leaked documents that detailed information of more than 200,000 off-shore entities, he cited income

Lights in the Distance – Daniel Triling

December 4, 2018
Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe, Daniel Triling, Verso Books, 2018, pp. 282, $35.99, ISBN 978-1-78663-279-1 In the summer of 2016, I had the privilege to meet Ali and Prince. Ali and Prince were refugees from Afghanistan, passing through Serbia on their way to

The Great Acceleration – McNeill & Engelke

November 26, 2018
The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene Since 1945, J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke, Harvard University Press, 2014, pp. 275, $19.95, ISBN 9780674545038 There is hardly anyone who has not heard of the word Anthropocene. Officially, Anthropocene has become a buzzword since Paul Crutzen, a Dutch chemist,

Radical Technologies – Adam Greenfield

November 21, 2018
Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life, Adam Greenfield, Verso Books, 2017, pp. 359, $39.99, 978- 1- 78478 – 043 – 2 If we were to judge a book by its cover, Radical Technologies, published by the ‘largest independent, radical publishing house in the English speaking world’, one would assume

Against Creativity – Oli Mould

November 13, 2018
Against Creativity, Oli Mould, Verso Books, October 2018, pp. 240, $33, ISBN 978-1-78663-649-2 In 2015, Martin Prosperity Institute, affiliated with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management published a report titled Global Creativity Index. The report sought to assess the ‘creativity’ of countries by measuring their economic growth and

Climate Leviathan – Mann & Wainwright

November 7, 2018
Climate Leviathan: Towards a Political Theory of Our Planetary Future, Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright, Verso Books, February 2018, pp. 224, $35.99, ISBN 978 – 1786634290 Increasingly, our hopes for saving the planet from destruction are placed in international conferences; gatherings of heads of states and their delegates aimed at

Will Big Business Destroy Our Planet? – Dauvergne

October 30, 2018
Will Big Business Destroy Our Planet?, Peter Dauvergne, polity, 2018, pp. 139, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-5095-2400-6 The Earth system is in crisis. Summer after summer, we are confronted with unprecedented temperatures that warm up the seas, leading to ever stronger and more destructive winds which fuel raging forest fires and destroy

Listening to Grasshoppers – Arundhati Roy

October 24, 2018
Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy, Arundhati Roy, Hamish Hamilton Canada, 2009, pp. 256, paperback, $26, ISBN978-0-670-06398-7 ‘Listening to Grasshoppers’ is a collection of essays and lectures, written and delivered by Arundhati Roy between 2001 and 2008, amidst global and domestic turmoil. The essays and lectures themselves stand as
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