Book picks similar to
La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants by Annette Aurelie Desmarais


non-fiction
politics
international-food-security
agriculture-peasantry-plantations

Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours


Emily J. Miller - 2013
    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.

Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle


Thomas W. Walker - 2003
    Its historical coverage considers Nicaragua from before independence as well as during the nationalist liberal era, the US marine occupation, the Somoza dictatorship, the Sandinista regime, and the conservative restoration following 1990. The Fourth Edition documents how the more enduring reality of this Central American country may not be the Sandinista Revolution but the historical and ongoing interventions by which the United States — the “eagle” to the north — continues to shape Nicaraguan political, economic, and social life. The new edition also includes a fully updated annotated bibliography.

The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo


John Garnaut - 2012
    Now, as the Party's 18th National Congress oversees the biggest leadership transition in decades, and installs the Bo family's long-time rival Xi Jinping as president, China's rulers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their poisonous internal divisions behind closed doors.Bo Xilai's breathtaking fall from grace is an extraordinary tale of excess, murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes going back to Mao himself, as the princeling sons of the revolutionary heroes ascend to control of the Party. China watcher John Garnaut examines how Bo's stellar rise through the ranks troubled his more reformist peers, as he revived anti-'capitalist roader' sentiment, even while his family and associates enjoyed the more open economy's opportunities. Amid fears his imminent elevation to the powerful Standing Committee was leading China towards another destructive Cultural Revolution, have his opponents seized their chance now to destroy Bo and what he stands for? The trigger was his wife Gu Kailai's apparently paranoid murder of an English family friend, which exposed the corruption and brutality of Bo's outwardly successful administration of the massive city of Chongqing. It also led to the one of the highest-level attempted defections in Communist China's history when Bo's right-hand man, police chief Wang Lijun, tried to escape the ruins of his sponsor's reputation.Garnaut explains how this incredible glimpse into the very personal power struggles within the CCP exposes the myth of the unified one-party state. With China approaching super-power status, today's leadership shuffle may set the tone for international relations for decades. Here, Garnaut reveals a particularly Chinese spin on the old adage that the personal is political.

I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism


A.M. Gittlitz - 2020
    Posadas, the movement's journey through the fractious and sectarian world of mid-20th century revolutionary socialism was unique. Although at times significant, Posadas' movement was ultimately a failure. As it disintegrated, it increasingly grew to resemble a bizarre cult, detached from the working class it sought to liberate. The renewed interest in Posadism today - especially for its more outlandish fixations - speaks to both a cynicism towards the past and nostalgia for the earnest belief that a better world is possible. Drawing on considerable archival research, and numerous interviews with ex- and current Posadists, I Want to Believe tells the fascinating story of this most unusual socialist movement and considers why it continues to capture the imaginations of leftists today.

Prisoner to the Streets


Robyn Travis - 2013
    A decade later it s claimed over one hundred young lives from knives and guns. Hackney boys had no respect for Islington boys. It wasn t like they were going to argue about whose endz it was. They weren t on our level. The only surrounding area we had respect for was Tottenham. We didn t have much ratings for Leyton, Walthamstow or Stratford. We were full of ourselves. We had to keep up this bad boy image. Maintain the hype.(from PRISONER TO THE STREETS) Written by the boy who was there when it started, Robyn Travis, this is the real story of the postcode wars. Robyn grew up right on the borders when it kicked off in Hackney, E8. For the first time ever he tells his story and his part in it - the fights, the stabbings, the shootings. The story that has never been told. I aint no gangsta. YOU might think so. That's not WHO I WAS on road. I more saw myself as a 'BAD BWOY'. A teenager who AIN T HAVING IT FROM NO ONE, going on like a RUDE BWOY to stop YOU f***ing with me. This kid spent nuff TIME ON ROAD. Raised on the border of HACKNEY and TOTTY. Caught in the crossfire. I ain t trying to be NO HERO, I just want to stop YOU from making as many BAD CHOICES as I did when I was a YUTE MAN. So be not offended. WHATEVER S SAID IN THIS BOOK STAYS IN THIS BOOK. This was me back in the day. I'm a couple years older now. I don't feel that way no more. NOW DAYS I RESPECT LIFE AND DEATH. I got love for all you brothers and sisters affected by this POSTCODE STRUGGLE. So journey with me into my past. NO FRONTING. Just honesty. See HOW THE POSTCODE WAR STARTED in Hackney, Holly Street and Fields. LIVICATED TO ALL MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO WANT TO BE FREE FROM OUR STREETS.

Crack House


Harry Keeble - 2008
    By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic. Narrated by the leader of the Harginey Drugs Squad, 'Crack House' describes a series of breathtaking raids as well as arrests, beatings, stabbings and shootings.

Enduring Cuba


Zoe Bran - 2002
    Interweaving history and current events, personal and wider viewpoints, she paints a vivid and compelling picture of contemporary Cuba.

An Elementary Study Of Islam


Mirza Tahir Ahmad - 1997
    The articles of faith, which all Muslims believe in, are: Unity of God, Angels, Prophets, Holy Books and Life after Death.

My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion


Michel Barnier - 2021
    As the EU's chief negotiator, for four years Michel Barnier had a seat at the table as the two sides thrashed out what 'Brexit' would really mean. The result would change Britain and Europe forever.During the 1600 days of complex and often acrimonious negotiations, Michel Barnier kept a secret diary. He recorded his private hopes and fears, and gave a blow-by-blow account as the negotiations oscillated between consensus and disagreement, transparency and lies.From Brussels to London, from Dublin to Nicosia, Michel Barnier's secret diary lifts the lid on what really happened behind the scenes of one of the most high-stakes negotiations in modern history. The result is a unique testimony from the ultimate insider on the hidden world of Brexit and those who made it happen.

The Coming Insurrection


The Invisible Committee - 2007
    We have to see that the economy is itself the crisis. It's not that there's not enough work, it's that there is too much of it. The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as “the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.” The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine capable of “spreading anarchy and live communism.” Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the “war on terror.” Hot-wired to the movement of '77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized life forms. It is a philosophical statement that addresses the growing number of those—in France, in the United States, and elsewhere—who refuse the idea that theory, politics, and life are separate realms.

The American Presidency


Gore Vidal - 1998
    An entertaining, insightful history of the men who've held the office, from the division between Jefferson and Hamilton through Bill Clinton's campaign for national health care.

A State of Emergency


Richard Chambers - 2021
    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.

The Verso Book of Dissent: From Spartacus to the Shoe-Thrower of Baghdad


Andrew Hsiao - 2010
    Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti-Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Baghdad to Caracas and Los Angeles.This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent will become an invaluable resource, reminding today’s citizens that these traditions will never die.

The Mind of a Madman: Norway's Struggle to Understand Anders Breivik


Richard Orange - 2012
    When he was arrested, he claimed to act on behalf of the Knights Templar, a militant network sworn to protect Europe from Islam. But Norwegian police could find no evidence such a group existed. Was Breivik a genuine terrorist, driven by far-right ideology, or a deluded madman? Over the next year, this question would draw in police specialists, lawyers, psychiatrists, and experts in the far-right, culminating in a trial that ceased to be simply about guilt or innocence. Instead, the court would confront a more troubling question: how could such brutal acts become possible for a young man brought up in some of the most privileged parts of Oslo? In "Mind of a Madman", journalist Richard Orange draws on his own court reporting, three court psychiatric reports, police interviews, and transcripts from the trial to give the most complete account yet of a shocked society's attempt to understand the killer.

The Handbook of Human Ownership: A Manual for New Tax Farmers


Stefan Molyneux - 2011
    So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp.Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don't accidentally act on the naive idealism you are required to project to the general public.The reality of political power is very simple: bad farmers own crops and livestock -- good farmers own human beings...