In this unusual exploration of the crises that Lenin overcame, the decisions he made, and actions that he took, Tariq Ali reveals an insightful political portrait of this most exemplary leader. From the first stirrings of revolutionary fervour, Lenin sought the right answer to a series of dilemmas that he faced and that still resonate with us today: Is terrorism ever a useful tactic? Can imperial wars ever be supported? What sort of political party do we need? What is the moral justification for seizing power? How does one overcome the burden of history? What role does friendship or love play in revolution? How do you establish a legacy that lasts? Ali reveals that no other modern thinker than Lenin has better understood, nor more clearly articulated, the need to change the world. But do Lenin's ideas, as expressed in his actions and his political writings, still have any significance for us? In this centenary year of the Russian Revolution, this book raises important questions related to political representation and the popular institutions necessary to challenge capitalism today.

    Elected in the midst of multiple crises—a Wall Street meltdown that imperiled the global economy and American troops entangled in two foreign wars—Barack Obama’s presidency promised, from the start, to be one of the most consequential presidencies in modern American history. Although he stabilized the economy and restored America’s prestige on the global stage, President Obama has been denied the credit he deserves, receiving instead acidic commentary from political opponents such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, who declared that Obama was “the worst president in [his] lifetime”—an accusation that reflects the politics of resentment and recrimination that has come to characterize the president’s critics. In The Best Worst President, Mark Hannah and renowned New Yorker illustrator Bob Staake swiftly and systematically debunk conservative lies and disinformation meant to negate the president’s accomplishments and damage his reputation—baseless charges too often left unchallenged by the national media. The Best Worst President is a whip-smart take-down of these half-truths and hypocrisies, each refuted in a smart, witty, fact-based style. Hannah and Staake not only defend the president but showcase his administration’s most surprising and underappreciated triumphs—making clear he truly is the best “worst president” our nation has ever known.

    Together, these experienced, undeterred Nicaraguan women offer powerful clues about a truly revolutionary and democratizing feminism."––Adrienne Rich"If it were not for writers like Margaret, how would women around the world find each other when there is such an institutional effort to keep us apart and silent? Here Margaret brings us the voice of Sandino's daughters, honoring his hat and wearing their own, wiser now, having been part of political and personal revolution."––Holly Near "Powerful, moving, and challenging. Everyone interested in decency and justice will want to read Sandino's Daughters Revisited."––Blanche Wiesen Cook Sandino's Daughters, Margaret Randall's conversations with Nicaraguan women in their struggle against the dictator Somoza in 1979, brought the lives of a group of extraordinary female revolutionaries to the American and world public. The book remains a landmark. Now, a decade later, Randall returns to interview many of the same women and others. In Sandino's Daughters Revisited, they speak of their lives during and since the Sandinista administration, the ways in which the revolution made them strong––and also held them back. Ironically, the 1990 defeat of the Sandinistas at the ballot box has given Sandinista women greater freedom to express their feelings and ideas. Randall interviewed these outspoken women from all walks of life: working-class Diana Espinoza, head bookkeeper of a employee-owned factory; Daisy Zamora, a vice minister of culture under the Sandinistas; and Vidaluz Meneses, daughter of a Somozan official, who ties her revolutionary ideals to her Catholicism. The voices of these women, along with nine others, lead us to recognize both the failed promises and continuing attraction of the Sandinista movement for women. This is a moving account of the relationship between feminism and revolution as it is expressed in the daily lives of Nicaraguan women.

    The narrative—sometimes shocking, other times hilarious in its absurdity—gives the listener a real-life understanding of how gun-control laws only make it more difficult for honest, law-abiding people to get guns, while violent crime continues to rise. Using facts and newly uncovered research, Miller exposes the schemes politicians on Capitol Hill, in the White House, and around the country are using to deny people their Second Amendment rights. She exposes the myths that gun grabbers and liberal media use to get new laws passed that infringe on our right to keep and bear arms.

    The demands have been varied, but have expressed a consistent commitment to the ideals of radical democracy.Similar experiments began appearing across Latin America twenty-five years ago, just as the left fell into decline in Europe. In Venezuela, poor barrio residents arose in a mass rebellion against neoliberalism, ushering in a government that institutionalized the communes already forming organically. In Building the Commune, George Ciccariello-Maher travels through these radical experiments, speaking to a broad range of community members, workers, students and government officials. Assessing the projects’ successes and failures, Building the Commune provides lessons and inspiration for the radical movements of today.

    10 to launch the first coalition government since the Second World War, it was amid a sea of uncertainty. Some doubted whether the coalition could survive a full term - or even a full year. Five years later, this bold departure for British politics had weathered storms, spending cuts and military strikes, rows, referendums and riots. In this compelling insider account, David Laws lays bare the inner workings of the coalition government from its birth in 2010 to its demise in 2015. As one of the chief Lib Dem negotiators, Laws had a front-row seat from the very beginning of the parliament. Holding key posts in the heart of government, he was there for the triumphs, the tantrums and the tactical manoeuvrings. Now, he brings this experience to bear, revealing how crucial decisions were made, uncovering the often explosive divisions between and within the coalition parties, and candidly exploring the personalities and positions of the leading players on both sides of the government. Honest, insightful and at times shocking, Coalition shines a powerful light on perhaps the most fascinating political partnership of modern times.

    This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story.In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately-held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve. Reflecting on the personal and ideological tensions within Labour and its successes and failures in power, he describes how to meet the challenge of pursuing a radical agenda within a credible party of government. He explains how as Chancellor he equipped Britain for a globalised economy while swimming against the neoliberal tide and shows what more must be done to halt rising inequality. In his behind-the-scenes account of the financial crisis and his leading role in saving the world economy from collapse, he addresses the question of who was to blame for the crash and why its causes and consequences still beset us. From the invasion of Iraq to the tragedy of Afghanistan, from the coalition negotiations of 2010 to the referendums on Scottish independence and Europe, Gordon Brown draws on his unique experiences to explain Britain’s current fractured condition. And by showing us what progressive politics has achieved in recent decades, he inspires us with a vision of what it might yet achieve today.Riveting, expert and highly personal, this historic memoir is an invaluable insight into our times.

    In this funny, fast-paced, razor-sharp, well-reasoned, and supremely savvy critique of the state of our union under the disastrous reign of Barack Obama, bestselling author, Fox News contributor, syndicated columnist, and popular radio host Monica Crowley asks (and answers) the pressing question: What the @$%& has happened to America? “The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback,” What the (Bleep) Just Happened? doesn’t simply bemoan the trashing of the American economy and the intentional firebombing of America’s international prestige, it offers inspiration and a positive message to conservatives and concerned Americans everywhere that the way to fight back and win is with principle, conviction…and a wicked sense of humor.

    From Jimmy Hoffa purportedly being buried somewhere beneath the end zone in Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, through allegations of a thoroughly corrupt medical and dental university, through Mafia influence at all levels, to a governor who suddenly declares himself a "gay American" and resigns, the Garden State might indeed be better named after the HBO mobsters.Where else would:- A state attorney general show up after police pulled over her boyfriend who was driving without a valid license?- A state senator and mayor of Newark (the same guy) spend thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money on a junket to Rio days before leaving office?- A politically connected developer hire a prostitute to tape sex acts with his own brother-in-law and then send the tape to his sister?Only in the Soprano State.

    Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

    Traveling to Baghdad and then to Mosul with the 1st Cavalry Division, McDonell offers an unforgettable look at the way things stand now—at the translators stranded in a country that doesn’t look kindly on their cooperation, at the infantrymen struggling to make something out of the soft counterinsurgency missions they call chai-ops, at the commanders inured to American journalists and Iraqi officials both—and what the so-called “end of major combat operations” means for where they’re going.

    These cracks are ordinary moments or spaces of rebellion in which we assert a different type of doing.John Holloway's previous book, Change the World Without Taking Power, sparked a world-wide debate among activists and scholars about the most effective methods of going beyond capitalism. Now Holloway rejects the idea of a disconnected array of struggles and finds a unifying contradiction - the opposition between the capitalist labour we undertake in our jobs and the drive towards doing what we consider necessary or desirable.Clearly and accessibly presented in the form of 33 theses, Crack Capitalism is set to reopen the debate among radical scholars and activists seeking to break capitalism now.

    

    The electrifying behind-the-scenes account of a year that brought Ireland to the brink and back - the inside story of Ireland’s struggle to contain Covid-19.Based on a wealth of original research and over a hundred interviews with cabinet members, public health officials, frontline workers, and ordinary people on whom the crisis exacted a personal toll, A State of Emergency is the incendiary untold story of Ireland’s response to the biggest public health emergency of the past century.Ranging from the halls of Government Buildings, where conflict between the new Cabinet and its public health advisors threatened to derail the official response, to the frontlines of the containment effort itself, where doctors, nurses, and the communities they served found themselves pushed to breaking point, A State of Emergency is a landmark work of journalism and a riveting insider account of the struggle to bring Ireland back from the brink.

    Her politics, from beginning to end, was based on resistance to that which thwarted the free development of the inner self. The right to stay alive in one’s senses, to enjoy freedom of thought and speech, to reject the arbitrary use of power—these were key demands in the many public protest movements she helped mount.Anarchist par excellence, Goldman is one of the memorable political figures of our time, not because of her gift for theory or analysis or even strategy, but because some extraordinary force of life in her burned, without rest or respite, on behalf of human integrity—and she was able to make the thousands of people who, for decades on end, flocked to her lectures, feel intimately connected to the pain inherent in the abuse of that integrity. To hear Emma describe, in language as magnetic as it was illuminating, what the boot felt like on the neck, was to experience the mythic quality of organized oppression. As the women and men in her audience listened to her, the homeliness of their own small lives became invested with a sense of drama that acted as a catalyst for the wild, vagrant hope that things need not always be as they were. All you had to do, she promised, was resist. In time, she herself would become a world-famous symbol for the spirit of resistance to the power of institutional authority over the lone individual.In Emma Goldman, Vivian Gornick draws a surpassingly intimate and insightful portrait of a woman of heroic proportions whose performance on the stage of history did what Tolstoy said a work of art should do: it made people love life more.