Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy


Michael T. Klare - 2008
    But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources. Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments rather than corporations are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world-- where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging "Chindia" juggernaut--the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies through international cooperation.

The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis


Ira Shapiro - 2012
    Senate an empty chamber; politicians have lamented that the institution is broken--yet the Senate was once capable of greatness. Senators of the 1960s and '70s overcame southern opposition to civil rights, passed Great Society legislation, and battled the executive branch on Vietnam, Watergate, and its abuses of power. The right's sweep of the 1980 elections shattered that Senate, leaving a diminished institution in its wake. Ira Shapiro spent 12 years working for Senators Gaylord Nelson, Abraham Ribicoff, Thomas Eagleton, Robert Byrd, and Jay Rockefeller. The Last Great Senate is his vivid portrait of the statesmen who helped steer America during the crisis years of the late 1970s, transcending partisanship and overcoming procedural roadblocks that have all but strangled the Senate since their departure. The Last Great Senate is necessary reading for all those who wonder how the Senate used to work and what happened to the world's greatest deliberative body.

Capital Is Dead. Is This Something Worse?


McKenzie Wark - 2019
    Yet, if this is not capitalism anymore, could it be something worse? What if the world we're living in is more dystopian than the techno utopias of the Silicon Valley imagination? And, if this is the case, how do we find a way out? Capital Is Dead offers not only the theoretical tools to analyze this new world of information, but the ones to change it, too.A follow-up to their groundbreaking A Hacker Manifesto, Wark takes us on a tour of our information age. Drawing on the writings of the Situationists and a range of contemporary theorists, they offer a vast panorama of the contemporary condition and the classes that control it.

The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire


Leo Panitch - 2012
    Globalization had appeared to be the natural outcome of this unstoppable process. But today, with global markets roiling and increasingly reliant on state intervention to stay afloat, it has become clear that markets and states aren’t straightforwardly opposing forces.In this groundbreaking work, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin demonstrate the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an “informal empire” promoting free trade and capital movements. Through a powerful historical survey, they show how the US has superintended the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets and coordinated the management of increasingly frequent financial crises.The Making of Global Capitalism, through its highly original analysis of the first great economic crisis of the twenty-first century, identifies the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them. These emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements transforming nation states and transcending global markets.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed


Paulo Freire - 1968
    The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.

The Modern Prince and Other Writings: And Other Writings


Antonio Gramsci - 1959
    His views on 'hegemony', 'oreganic intellectuals' and his conceren for 'unity of theory and action' are considered his greatest contributions to the socialist/communist movements. Even left-popularism of these modern days can apply these views. Gramsci had a good slice of anarchism by distrusting the center of any organisation, political party and government. He is the father of democracy and communism. Modern majority worker-ownership movements can attribute their existence to Gramsci as well as Marshall Tito in the Balkins. The fascist dictator Mussoline had Gramsci imprisoned for 11 years in the 1920's and 30's where he continued to write in code as his health worsened. He was released from prison and died soon afterwards. A Collector's Edition.

Bal Thackeray & The Rise of The Shiv Sena


Vaibhav Purandare - 2012
    It examines Thackeray the person and his intriguing political personality, his party’s militaristic methods of operation, its controversial role at major junctures, the fight between Thackeray’s nephew Raj and son Uddhav, the end of an era in Maharashtra politics after his death in November 2012 and the future of the Shiv Sena without his imposing presence. A must-read for an understanding of contemporary Indian politics and the rise of the Hindu nationalist phenomenon.

Global Political Economy: Evolution and Dynamics


Robert O'Brien - 2003
    It introduces an unusually wide range of theoretical approaches and highlights how useful they are in tackling key issues - from trade, production and finance to social divisions, development and the environment. The second edition has been revised and updated throughout with the addition of additional chapters on gender, on ideas, and on key current issues and debates.

Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe


Michael Löwy - 2005
    In this new collection of essays, long time revolutionary and environmental activist Michael Löwy offers a vision of ecosocialist transformation. This vision combines an understanding of the destructive logic of the capitalist system with an appreciation for ongoing struggles, particularly in Latin America.

How Nonviolence Protects the State


Peter Gelderloos - 2007
    Today protest is often shaped by cooperation with state authorities—even organizers of rallies against police brutality apply for police permits, and anti-imperialists usually stop short of supporting self-defense and armed resistance. How Nonviolence Protects the State challenges the belief that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. In a call bound to stir controversy and lively debate, Peter Gelderloos invites activists to consider diverse tactics, passionately arguing that exclusive nonviolence often acts to reinforce the same structures of oppression that activists seek to overthrow.Contemporary movements for social change face plenty of difficult questions, but sometimes matters of strategy and tactics receive low priority. Many North American activists fail to scrutinize the role of nonviolence, never posing essential questions:• Is nonviolence effective at ending systems of oppression?• Does nonviolence intersect with white privilege and the dominance of North over South?• How does pacifism reinforce the same power dynamic as patriarchy?• Ultimately, does nonviolence protect the state?Peter Gelderloos is a radical community organizer. He is the author of Consensus: A New Handbook for Grassroots Political, Social, and Environmental Groups and a contributor to Letters From Young Activists. He is the co-facilitator of a workshop on the prison system, and is also involved in independent media, copwatching, anti-oppression work, and anarchist organizing.

Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq


Sheldon Rampton - 2003
    strategies."The First Casualty": Lies that were told related to the Iraq war.Euphemisms and jargon related to the Iraq war, e.g. "shock and awe," "Operation Iraqi Freedom," "axis of evil," "coalition of the willing," etc."War as Opportunity": How the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq have been used as marketing hooks to sell products and policies that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism."Brand America": The efforts of Charlotte Beers and other U.S. propaganda campaigns designed to win hearts overseas."The Mass Media as Propaganda Vehicle": How news coverage followed Washington's lead and language.The book includes a glossary — "Propaganda: A User's Guide" — and resources to help Americans sort through the deceptions to see the strings behind Washington's campaign to sell the Iraq war to the public.

The Communist Hypothesis


Alain Badiou - 2009
    All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracy—the form of state suited to capitalism—and to the inevitable and ‘natural’ character of the most monstrous inequalities.”—Alain Badiou Alain Badiou’s “communist hypothesis,” first stated in 2008, cut through the cant and compromises of the past twenty years to reconceptualize the Left. The hypothesis is a fresh demand for universal emancipation and a galvanizing call to arms. Anyone concerned with the future of the planet needs to reckon with the ideas outlined within this book.

The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land


Andrew P. Napolitano - 2006
    Today that parchment has been shred to ribbons, explains Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, as the federal government trounces state and individual rights and expands its reach far beyond what the Framers intended.An important follow-up to Judge Napolitano's best-selling Constitutional Chaos, this book shows with no-nonsense clarity how Congress has "purchased" regulations by bribing states and explains how the Supreme Court has devised historically inaccurate, logically inconsistent, and even laughable justifications to approve what Congress has done.It's an exciting excursion into the dark corners of the law, showing how do-gooders, busybodies, and control freaks in government disregard the limitations imposed upon Congress by the Constitution and enact laws, illegal and unnatural, in virtually every area of human endeavor.Praise for The Constitution in Exile from Left, Right, and Center"Does anyone understand the vision of America's founding fathers? The courts and Congress apparently don't have a clue. But Judge Andrew P. Napolitano does, and so will you, if you read The Constitution in Exile."-BILL O'REILLY"Whatever happened to states rights, limited government, and natural law? Judge Napolitano, in his own inimitable style, takes us on a fascinating tour of the destruction of constitutional government. If you want to know how the federal government got so big and fat, read this book. Agree or disagree, this book will make you think."-SEAN HANNITY"In all of the American media, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is the most persistent, uncompromising guardian of both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, very much including the Bill of Rights. Increasingly, our Constitution is in clear and present danger. Judge Napolitano--in The Constitution in Exile--has challenged all Americans across party lines to learn the extent of this constitutional crisis." -NAT HENTOFF"Judge Napolitano engages here in what I do every day on my program-make you think. There's no question that potential Supreme Court nominees and what our Constitution says and doesn't say played a major role for many voters in our last couple of elections. What the judge does here is detail why the federal government claims it can regulate as well as tax everything in sight as it grows and grows. Agree or disagree with him-you need to read his latest book, think, and begin to arm yourself as you enter this important debate." -RUSH LIMBAUGH"At a time when we are, in Benjamin Franklin's words, sacrificing essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, here comes the judge with what should be mandatory reading for the executive branch cronies who are busy stealing power while they think we're not watching. Thank goodness the judge is watching and speaking truth to power. More than a book, this is an emergency call to philosophical arms, one we must heed before it's too late." -ALAN COLMES

Power and Place: Indian Education in America


Vine Deloria Jr. - 2001
    This collection of sixteen essays is at once philosophic, practical, and visionary. It is an effort to open discussion about the unique experience of Native Americans and offers a concise reference for administrators, educators, students and community leaders involved with Indian Education.

Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State


Samuel Stein - 2019
    Around the world, more and more money is being invested in buildings and land. Real estate is now a $217 trillion dollar industry, worth thirty-six times the value of all the gold ever mined. It forms sixty percent of global assets, and one of the most powerful people in the world—the president of the United States—made his name as a landlord and developer.Samuel Stein shows that this explosive transformation of urban life and politics has been driven not only by the tastes of wealthy newcomers, but by the state-led process of urban planning. Planning agencies provide a unique window into the ways the state uses and is used by capital, and the means by which urban renovations are translated into rising real estate values and rising rents.Capital City explains the role of planners in the real estate state, as well as the remarkable power of planning to reclaim urban life.