Book picks similar to
Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India by Rina Agarwala
class
indian-politics
labor-movement
political-sociology
Nathuram Godse: The Hidden Untold Truth
Anup SarDesai - 2017
This person is Nathuram Vinayakrao Godse, India’s most hated criminal. Yes …. Nathuram Godse is the very man who assassinated ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, the ‘Father of the Nation’ on 30th January 1948 as he was walking towards his prayer ground at the Birla House, New Delhi. He was arrested at the scene of the crime and sentenced to death by hanging after a trial that lasted for over a year. Almost seven decades have passed since the ‘Apostle of Peace’ was assassinated but, even today the story of his murder continues to remain one of the most closely guarded secrets in Indian history. Since independence, various political organizations in India have resorted to a total misuse of state machinery to suppress information on the life of Nathuram Godse and have made the people of India believe in fictional cooked up stories based on unfound theories that the murder of the ‘Mahatma’ was an act of religious fanaticism. Through extensive research the author of this book has succeeded in unearthing facts that lay suppressed for almost seven decades and has managed to uncover the truth that the murder of ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ was not an act of religious fanaticism but an act of devout patriotism. This book covers the entire lifespan of Nathuram Godse, from his birth till his death. The motive behind writing this book is neither to denigrate the Mahatma nor to glorify his assassin but to unmask the people of India from the delusion that the ‘Mahatma’ was a victim of religious fanaticism.
So, You Want to Join the Peace Corps: What to Know Before You Go
Dillon Banerjee - 2000
As you contemplate the reality of volunteering, your mind races with questions. Which programs are my skills best suited to? How will the culture shock affect me? What will my life overseas be like? Will my work really make a difference? Written by a returned Peace Corps volunteer, SO, YOU WANT TO JOIN THE PEACE CORPS...is a candid, straightforward guide that answers all these questions and many more. Author Dillon Banerjee shares his personal insights--and those of returned volunteers who served all over the world--to help prepare you for the experience of a lifetime. Whether you're thinking of joining, or have already been accepted and are getting ready to leave, this book provides answers you simply can't find elsewhere.
The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts
Jeff Goodwin - 2002
The Social Movements Reader, Second Edition, provides the most important and readable articles and book selections on recent social movements from around the world.With selected readings and editorial material this book combines the strengths of a reader and a textbookReflects new developments in the study of social movements, both empirical and theoreticalProvides original texts, many of them classics in the field of social movements, which have been edited for the non-technical readerSidebars offer concise definitions of key terms as well as biographies of famous activists and chronologies of several key movementsRequires no prior knowledge about social movements or theories of social movements
2019: How Modi Won India
Rajdeep Sardesai - 2019
To some, the numbers of Modi's victory came as something of a surprise; for others, the BJP's triumph was a vindication of their belief in the government and its policies. Irrespective of one's political standpoint, one thing was beyond dispute: this was a landmark verdict, one that deserved to be reported and analysed with intelligence - and without bias. Rajdeep Sardesai's new book, 2019: How Modi Won India, does just that. What was it that gave Modi an edge over the opposition for the second time in five years? How was the BJP able to trounce its rivals in states that were once Congress bastions? What was the core issue in the election: a development agenda or national pride? As he relives the excitement of the many twists and turns that took place over the last five years, culminating in the 2019 election results, Rajdeep helps the reader make sense of the contours and characteristics of a rapidly changing India, its politics and its newsmakers. If the 2014 elections changed India, 2019 may well have defined what 'new India' is likely to be all about. 2019: How Modi Won India takes a look at that fascinating story, which is still developing.
There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America
Philip Dray - 2010
From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first real factories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the contest between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Philip Dray’s ambition is to show us the vital accomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution. There Is Power in a Union is an epic, character-driven narrative that locates this struggle for security and dignity in all its various settings: on picket lines and in union halls, jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the halls of Congress, and the White House. The author demonstrates, viscerally and dramatically, the urgency of the fight for fairness and economic democracy—a struggle that remains especially urgent today, when ordinary Americans are so anxious and beset by economic woes.
General Theory of Law and State
Hans Kelsen - 1945
This classic work by the important Austrian jurist is the fullest exposition of his enormously influential pure theory of law, which includes a theory of the state. It also has an extensive appendix that discusses the pure theory in comparison with the law of nature, positivism, historical natural law, metaphysical dualism and scientific-critical philosophy. "The scope of the work is truly universal. It never loses itself in vague generalities or in unconnected fragments of thought. On the contrary, precision in the formulation of details and rigorous system are characteristic features of the exposition: only a mind fully concentrated upon that logical structure can possibly follow Kelsen's penetrating analysis. Such a mind will not shrink from the effort necessary for acquainting itself with...the pure theory of law in its more general aspects, and will then pass over to the theory of the state which ends up with a carefully worked out theory of international law." Julius Kraft, American Journal of International Law 40 (1946):496.
Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move
Reece Jones - 2016
‘We may live in an era of globalization,’ he writes, ‘but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people.’ In Violent Borders, Jones travels the border regions of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects, and their dire consequences for the majority of the people in the world. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slums and the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel freely, exploiting pools of cheap labour and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, argues Jones, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, the growth of slums, and the persistence of global wealth inequality.
Why You Should be a Trade Unionist
Len McCluskey - 2020
Drawing on anecdotes from his own long involvement in unions, he looks at the history of trade unions, what they do and how they give a voice to working people, as democratic organisations.He considers the changing world of work, the challenges and opportunities of automation and why being trade unionists can enable us to help shape the future. He sets out why being a trade unionist is as much a political role as it is an industrial one and why the historic links between the labour movement and the Labour Party matter.Ultimately, McCluskey explains how being a trade unionist means putting equality at work and in society front and centre, fighting for an end to discrimination, and to inequality in wages and power.
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
Ganesh Sitaraman - 2017
A New York Times Notable Book of 2017For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable--and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic. Over the next two centuries, generations of Americans fought to sustain the economic preconditions for our constitutional system. But today, with economic and political inequality on the rise, Sitaraman says Americans face a choice: Will we accept rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy or will we rebuild the middle class and reclaim our republic?The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution is a tour de force of history, philosophy, law, and politics. It makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our constitutional system.
On New Terrain: How Capital is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War
Kim Moody - 2017
From the logistics revolution to the unprecedented concentration of business and wealth in the hands a shrinking few, Moody examines the impact of this new economic terrain on potential working class resistance movements.
Public Administration: Concepts and Cases
Richard J. Stillman II - 1976
Case studies and examples cover topics such as the Columbia space shuttle disaster, the shootings at Columbine High School, and the war in Iraq--making it easy to engage students in the readings.
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
Incite! Women of Color Against ViolencePaula X. Rojas - 2007
From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks and government surveillance rises, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the nonprofit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers original essays by radical activists from around the globe who are critically rethinking the long-term consequences of this investment. Together with educators and nonprofit staff they finally name the “nonprofit industrial complex” and ask hard questions: How did politics shape the birth of the nonprofit model? How does 501(c)(3) status allow the state to co-opt political movements? Activists--or careerists? How do we fund the movement outside this complex? Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded is an unbeholden exposé of the “nonprofit industrial complex” and its quietly devastating role in managing dissent.
Human Trafficking
Louise Shelley - 2010
Using a historical and comparative perspective, it demonstrates that there is more than one business model of human trafficking and that there are enormous variations in human trafficking in different regions of the world. Drawing on a wide body of academic research - actual prosecuted cases, diverse reports, and field work and interviews conducted by the author over the last sixteen years in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the former socialist countries - Louise Shelley concludes that human trafficking will grow in the twenty-first century as a result of economic and demographic inequalities in the world, the rise of conflicts, and possibly global climate change. Coordinated efforts of government, civil society, the business community, multilateral organizations, and the media are needed to stem its growth.
State of the Union: A Century of American Labor
Nelson Lichtenstein - 2002
From the steel foundry to the burger-grill, from Woodrow Wilson to John Sweeney, from Homestead to Pittston, Lichtenstein weaves together a compelling matrix of ideas, stories, strikes, laws, and people in a streamlined narrative of work and labor in the twentieth century.The "labor question" became a burning issue during the Progressive Era because its solution seemed essential to the survival of American democracy itself. Beginning there, Lichtenstein takes us all the way to the organizing fever of contemporary Los Angeles, where the labor movement stands at the center of the effort to transform millions of new immigrants into alert citizen unionists. He offers an expansive survey of labor's upsurge during the 1930s, when the New Deal put a white, male version of industrial democracy at the heart of U.S. political culture. He debunks the myth of a postwar "management-labor accord" by showing that there was (at most) a limited, unstable truce.Lichtenstein argues that the ideas that had once sustained solidarity and citizenship in the world of work underwent a radical transformation when the rights-centered social movements of the 1960s and 1970s captured the nation's moral imagination. The labor movement was therefore tragically unprepared for the years of Reagan and Clinton: although technological change and a new era of global economics battered the unions, their real failure was one of ideas and political will. Throughout, Lichtenstein argues that labor's most important function, in theory if not always in practice, has been the vitalization of a democratic ethos, at work and in the larger society. To the extent that the unions fuse their purpose with that impulse, they can once again become central to the fate of the republic. "State of the Union" is an incisive history that tells the story of one of America's defining aspirations.
Poverty in America: A Handbook
John Iceland - 2003
This edition has been updated and includes a new preface.