Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos


Bucky Sinister - 2008
    He was afraid of losing his artistic abilities and had big problems with the higher power concept. In spite of his hesitations, he stuck with the program and it rewarded him greatly. In Get Up, he shares the knowledge he gained on his journey, from being afraid of AA philosophies to embracing them, motivating others to join him in their own efforts to get clean. Sinister, a spoken word artist, poet, and performer, wellknown on the West Coast for his grabbing, truthful, funny performances, puts out his own story, no frills, no excuses, and no holds barred. He offers a toughlove approach to recovery for all those, like him, who are turned off by traditional "recovery" books. Sinister got sober in AA and has stayed sober in AA, and now he leads the very group he joined on his path to recovery. In Get Up, he shares the stories and the steps that come from the "selfidenti?ed scum bags who just might save your life." He talks straight to readers about how to make it work if they can't buy into the program right away. For example, "Higher Power" can be a whole lot of things -- Thor and metaphor among them. He helps readers to accept the group in spite of their differences, rather than walking away. Get Up is the book that Sinister would have bought for himself, with the advice he wanted to hear when he ?rst ventured into recovery.

Stoicism for Inner Peace


Einzelgänger - 2021
    Equanimity or ‘inner peace’ is a prerequisite for being a happy and flourishing person according to Stoic philosophy. Therefore, it’s no surprise that ancient Stoic texts contain invaluable wisdom on how to calm the mind. The challenge, however, is to find and translate this wisdom in a way that’s simple and comprehensible in our modern context, while still maintaining its profundity.

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture


Roxane GayLisa Mecham - 2018
    Cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay has edited a collection of essays that explore what it means to live in a world where women are frequently belittled and harassed due to their gender, and offers a call to arms insisting that "not that bad" must no longer be good enough.

On Fairness


Sally McManus
    Why then do we have creeping inequality in the land of the fair go? The answer lies in stagnant wage rises, gender pay inequity, insecure work and the lack of real opportunities for all while corporations are still consuming large profits and executives claim record bonuses. Sally McManus confronts these truths every day. In On Fairness, she explores the true cost of social injustice and argues for advancing Australia fair.

Love, Anarchy, Emma Goldman: A Biography


Candace Falk - 1983
    And it gives the reader a rare glimpse into Goldman as a woman, alone, searching for the intimacy of a love relationship to match her radiant social vision. Falk explores the clash between Goldman's public vision and private life, focusing on her intimate relationship with Ben Reitman, Chicago's celebrated social reformer, hobo king, and red-light district gynecologist. During this passionate and stormy relationship, Goldman lectured in public about free love and women's independence, while in private she struggled with intense jealousy and longed for the comfort of a secure relationship. Falk's account draws upon a serendipitous discovery of a cache of intimate letters between Goldman and Reitman. Falk then goes beyond Goldman's ten-year relationship with Reitman, following Goldman's inner passions through her years of exile and later life. Written with a literary sensitivity, Falk tells a riveting story, consistently placing Goldman in the context of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century radicalism.

No Logo


Naomi Klein - 2000
    First published before the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, this is an infuriating, inspiring, and altogether pioneering work of cultural criticism that investigates money, marketing, and the anti-corporate movement.As global corporations compete for the hearts and wallets of consumers who not only buy their products but willingly advertise them from head to toe—witness today's schoolbooks, superstores, sporting arenas, and brand-name synergy—a new generation has begun to battle consumerism with its own best weapons. In this provocative, well-written study, a front-line report on that battle, we learn how the Nike swoosh has changed from an athletic status-symbol to a metaphor for sweatshop labor, how teenaged McDonald's workers are risking their jobs to join the Teamsters, and how "culture jammers" utilize spray paint, computer-hacking acumen, and anti-propagandist wordplay to undercut the slogans and meanings of billboard ads (as in "Joe Chemo" for "Joe Camel").No Logo will challenge and enlighten students of sociology, economics, popular culture, international affairs, and marketing."This book is not another account of the power of the select group of corporate Goliaths that have gathered to form our de facto global government. Rather, it is an attempt to analyze and document the forces opposing corporate rule, and to lay out the particular set of cultural and economic conditions that made the emergence of that opposition inevitable." —Naomi Klein, from her Introduction

Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty


Jeffrey Tucker - 2017
    Most people of the current generation lack a sense of the historical sweep of the intellectual side of the right-wing collectivist position. Jeffrey Tucker, in this collection written between 2015 and 2017, argues that this movement represents the revival of a tradition of interwar collectivist thought that might at first seem like a hybrid but was distinctly mainstream between the two world wars. It is anti-communist but not for the reasons that were conventional during the Cold War, that is, because communism opposed freedom in the liberal tradition.Right-collectivism also opposes traditional liberalism. It opposes free trade, freedom of association, free migration, and capitalism understood as a laissez-faire free market. It rallies around nation and state as the organizing principles of the social order—and trends in the direction of favoring one-man rule—but positions itself as opposed to leftism traditionally understood.We know about certain fascist leaders from the mid-20th century, but not the ideological orientation that led to them or the ideas they left on the table to be picked up generations later. For the most part, and until recently, it seemed to have dropped from history. Meanwhile, the prospects for social democratic ideology are fading, and something else is coming to fill that vacuum. What is it? Where does it come from? Where is it leading?This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap, to explain what this movement is about and why anyone who genuinely loves and longs for liberty classically understood needs to develop a nose and instinct for spotting the opposite when it comes in an unfamiliar form. We need to learn to recognize the language, the thinkers, the themes, the goals of a political ethos that is properly identified as fascist."Jeffrey Tucker in his brilliant book calls right-wing populism what it actually is, namely, fascism, or, in its German form national socialism, nazism. You need Tucker’s book. You need to worry. If you are a real liberal, you need to know where the new national socialism comes from, the better to call it out and shame it back into the shadows. Now."— Deirdre McCloskey

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?


Michael J. Sandel - 2009
    In his acclaimed book―based on his legendary Harvard course―Sandel offers a rare education in thinking through the complicated issues and controversies we face in public life today. It has emerged as a most lucid and engaging guide for those who yearn for a more robust and thoughtful public discourse. "In terms we can all understand," wrote Jonathan Rauch in The New York Times, Justice "confronts us with the concepts that lurk . . . beneath our conflicts."Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, the moral limits of markets―Sandel relates the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise―an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.

Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist


Eli Saslow - 2018
    This is a book to help us understand the American moment and to help us better understand one another.Derek Black grew up at the epicenter of white nationalism. His father founded Stormfront, the largest racist community on the Internet. His godfather, David Duke, was a KKK Grand Wizard. By the time Derek turned nineteen, he had become an elected politician with his own daily radio show—already regarded as the "the leading light" of the burgeoning white nationalist movement. "We can infiltrate," Derek once told a crowd of white nationalists. "We can take the country back."Then he went to college. At New College of Florida, he continued to broadcast his radio show in secret each morning, living a double life until a classmate uncovered his identity and sent an email to the entire school. "Derek Black ... white supremacist, radio host ... New College student???" The ensuing uproar overtook one of the most liberal colleges in the country. Some students protested Derek's presence on campus, forcing him to reconcile for the first time with the ugliness of his beliefs. Other students found the courage to reach out to him, including an Orthodox Jew who invited Derek to attend weekly Shabbat dinners. It was because of those dinners—and the wide-ranging relationships formed at that table—that Derek started to question the science, history, and prejudices behind his worldview. As white nationalism infiltrated the political mainstream, Derek decided to confront the damage he had done.Rising Out of Hatred tells the story of how white-supremacist ideas migrated from the far-right fringe to the White House through the intensely personal saga of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe, at tremendous personal cost. With great empathy and narrative verve, Eli Saslow asks what Derek Black's story can tell us about America's increasingly divided nature.

On Revolution


Hannah Arendt - 1956
    She looks at the principles which underlie all revolutions, starting with the first great examples in America and France, and showing how both the theory and practice of revolution have since developed. Finally, she foresees the changing relationship between war and revolution and the crucial changes in international relations, with revolution becoming the key tactic.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Fix


Damian Thompson - 2012
    Our most casual daily habits can quickly become obsessions that move beyond our control. Damian Thompson, who has himself struggled with a range of addictions, argues that human desire is in the process of being reshaped. Shunning the concept of addiction as disease, he shows how manufacturers are producing substances like ipads, muffins and computer games that we learn to like too much and supplement tradition addictions to alcohol, drugs and gambling. He argues that addictive behaviour is becoming a substitute for family and work bonds that are being swept away by globalisation and urbanisation. This battle to control addiction will soon overshadow familiar ideological debates about how to run the economy, and as whole societies set about "fixing" themselves, the architecture of human relations will come under strain as never before.

Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power


Lola Olufemi - 2020
    Feminism, Interrupted is a bold call to seize feminism back from the cultural gatekeepers and return it to its radical roots. Lola Olufemi explores state violence against women, the fight for reproductive justice, transmisogyny, gendered Islamophobia and solidarity with global struggles, showing that the fight for gendered liberation can change the world for everybody when we refuse to think of it solely as women's work. Including testimonials from Sisters Uncut, migrant groups working for reproductive justice, prison abolitionists and activists involved in the international fight for Kurdish and Palestinian rights, Olufemi emphasises the link between feminism and grassroots organising. Reclaiming feminism from the clutches of the consumerist, neoliberal model, Feminism, Interrupted shows that when 'feminist' is more than a label, it holds the potential for radical transformative work.

Prabhakaran: The Story of his struggle for Eelam


Chellamuthu Kuppusamy - 2013
    This book provides an account of the life of LTTE chief Prabhakaran, who led an armed struggle against the Sri Lankan state to create Eelam, a separate nation for the Sri Lankan Tamils.The book begins from Prabhakaran’s childhood days in the aftermath of India’s and Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain. The Sri Lankan Tamils were following Gandhi’s non-violent methods to fight for their rights as citizens of Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran, an ardent fan of Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose, felt that non-violence would not work against a Sinhala dominated government and began experimenting with violent acts against the Government to send a message. His initial success became the nucleus for the formation of LTTE, which became the quintessential guerrilla organization fighting the State.The book details various incidents of Prabhakaran’s life including terror attacks, assassination of politicians, heads of States and militant leaders; India’s role in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict; Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka; the Eelam wars, negotiations, betrayals and elections; through to his killing in May 2009.

Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith


James H. Billington - 1980
    Modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is new is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority. This inherently implausible idea energized Europe in the nineteenth century, and became the most pronounced ideological export of the West to the rest of the world in the twentieth century. Billington is interested in revolutionaries--the innovative creators of a new tradition. His historical frame extends from the waning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century to the beginnings of the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century.The theater was Europe of the industrial era; the main stage was the journalistic offices within great cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, and St. Petersburg. Billington claims with considerable evidence that revolutionary ideologies were shaped as much by the occultism and proto-romanticism of Germany as the critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment. The conversion of social theory to political practice was essentially the work of three Russian revolutions: in 1905, March 1917, and November 1917.Events in the outer rim of the European world brought discussions about revolution out of the school rooms and press rooms of Paris and Berlin into the halls of power.Despite his hard realism about the adverse practical consequences of revolutionary dogma, Billington appreciates the identity of its best sponsors, people who preached social justice transcending traditional national, ethnic, and gender boundaries. When this book originally appeared The New Republic hailed it as "remarkable, learned and lively," while The New Yorker noted that Billington "pays great attention to the lives and emotions of individuals and this makes his book absorbing." It is an invaluable work of history and contribution to our understanding of political life.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution


Francis Fukuyama - 2011
    Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.Francis Fukuyama, author of the bestselling The End of History and the Last Man and one of our most important political thinkers, provides a sweeping account of how today’s basic political institutions developed. The first of a major two-volume work, The Origins of Political Order begins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning of the rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.Drawing on a vast body of knowledge—history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics—Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics and its discontents.