David's bookshelf: read en-US Sun, 04 May 2025 01:34:44 -0700 60 David's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Knight (The Wizard Knight #1)]]> 60212
Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, wizards, and dragons. His adventure will conclude in the second volume of The Wizard Knight, The Wizard.

With this new series, Wolfe not only surpasses all the most popular genre writers of the last three decades, he takes on the legends of the past century, in a work that will be favorably compared with the best of J. R. R. Tolkien, E. R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, and T. H. White. This is a book---and a series---for the ages, from perhaps the greatest living writer in (or outside) the fantasy genre.]]> 544 Gene Wolfe 0765347016 David 0 to-read 3.77 2004 The Knight (The Wizard Knight #1)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Fisherman of the Inland Sea 68022 A Fisherman of the Inland Sea range from the everyday to the outer limits of experience, where the quantum uncertainties of space and time are resolved only in the depths of the human heart. Astonishing in their diversity and power, they exhibit both the artistry of a major writer at the height of her powers and the humanity of a mature artist confronting the world with her gift of wonder still intac]]> 207 Ursula K. Le Guin 0060763515 David 5 4.06 1994 A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: David
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/04
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA["Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide]]> 909011 "Exterminate All the Brutes" is a searching examination of Europe's dark history in Africa and the origins of genocide. Using Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as his point of departure, Sven Lindqvist takes us on a haunting tour through the colonial past, interwoven with a modern-day travelogue. Retracing the steps of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward, the author exposes the roots of genocide in Africa via his own journey through the Saharan desert. As Lindqvist shows, fantasies not merely of white superiority but of actual extermination--"cleansing" the earth of the so-called lesser races--deeply informed European colonialism and racist ideology that ultimately culminated in Europe's own Holocaust.

Chosen as one of the Best Books of 1998 by the New Internationalist, which called it "a beautifully written integration of criticism, cultural history, and travel writing, underpinned by a passion for social justice," "Exterminate All the Brutes" is a powerful reckoning with the past and an indispensable contribution to the literature of colonial Africa and European genocide.

]]> 179 Sven Lindqvist 1565843592 David 0 to-read 4.23 1992 "Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide
author: Sven Lindqvist
name: David
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Homo Faber 574850 219 Max Frisch 0141188669 David 0 to-read 3.72 1957 Homo Faber
author: Max Frisch
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 David 0 to-read 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: David
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Giants: The Global Power Elite]]> 40923001 A look at the top 300 most powerful players in world capitalism, who are at the controls of our economic future.Who holds the purse strings to the majority of the world's wealth? There is a new global elite at the controls of our economic future, and here former Project Censored director and media monitoring sociologist Peter Phillips unveils for the general reader just who these players are. The book includes such power players as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett. As the number of men with as much wealth as half the world fell from sixty-two to just eight between January 2016 and January 2017, according to Oxfam International, fewer than 200 super-connected asset managers at only 17 asset management firms—each with well over a trillion dollars in assets under management—now represent the financial core of the world's transnational capitalist class. Members of the global power elite are the management—the facilitators—of world capitalism, the firewall protecting the capital investment, growth, and debt collection that keeps the status quo from changing. Each chapter in Giants identifies by name the members of this international club of multi-millionaires, their 17 global financial companies—and including NGOs such as the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission—and their transnational military protectors, so the reader, for the first time anywhere, can identify who constitutes this network of influence, where the wealth is concentrated, how it suppresses social movements, and how it can be redistributed for maximum systemic change.]]> 355 Peter Phillips 160980872X David 4 3.79 2018 Giants: The Global Power Elite
author: Peter Phillips
name: David
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Spear Cuts Through Water 55868456 Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

But that god cannot be contained forever.

With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.
]]> 525 Simon Jimenez 0593156595 David 0 to-read 4.17 2022 The Spear Cuts Through Water
author: Simon Jimenez
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name]]> 51174256 A groundbreaking, controversial dive into the role psychedelics have played in the human experience of the Divine throughout Western history, and the answer to a 2,000 year old mystery that could shake the Church to its foundations.

The Immortality Key connects the lost, psychedelic sacrament of Greek religion to early Christianity—exposing the true origins of Western Civilization. In the tradition of unsolved historical mysteries like David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon and Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, Brian Muraresku’s 10-year investigation takes the reader through Greece, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, offering unprecedented access to the hidden archives of the Louvre and the Vatican along the way.

In The Immortality Key, Muraresku explores a little-known connection between the best-kept secret in Ancient Greece and Christianity. This is the real story of the most famous human being who ever lived (Jesus) and the biggest religion the world has ever known. Today, 2.4 billion people are Christian. That's one third of the planet. But do any of them really know how it all started?

Before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca—there was Eleusis: the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It promised immortality to Plato and the rest of Athens's greatest minds with a very simple formula: drink this potion, see God. Shrouded in secrecy for millennia, the Ancient Greek sacrament was buried when the newly Christianized Roman Empire obliterated Eleusis in the fourth century AD.

Renegade scholars in the 1970s claimed the Greek potion was psychedelic, just like the original Christian Eucharist that replaced it. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The rapidly growing field of archaeological chemistry has proven the ancient use of visionary drugs. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psycho-pharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. No one has ever found hard, scientific evidence of drugs connected to Eleusis, let alone early Christianity. Until now.

Armed with key documents never before translated into English, convincing analysis, and a captivating spirit of quest, Muraresku mines science, classical literature, biblical scholarship and art to deliver the hidden key to eternal life, bringing us to what clinical psychologist William Richards calls "the edge of an awesomely vast frontier."

Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.]]> 352 Brian C. Muraresku 1250207142 David 0 to-read 4.24 2020 The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name
author: Brian C. Muraresku
name: David
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom]]> 208919891
It’s easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality—and yet many of us feel powerless to do anything about these profound issues. We’ve been assured that unfettered capitalism is necessary to ensure our freedom and prosperity, even as we see its corrosive effects proliferating daily. Why, in our age of unchecked corporate power, are most of us living paycheck to paycheck? When the economy falters, why do governments bail out corporations and shareholders but leave everyday people in the dust?

Now, economic and political journalist and progressive star on the rise Grace Blakeley exposes the corrupt system that is failing all around us, pulling back the curtain on the free market mythology we have been sold, and showing how, as corporate interests have taken hold, governments have historically been shifting away from competition and democracy and towards monopoly and oligarchy.

Tracing over a century of neoliberal planning and backdoor bailouts, Blakeley takes us on a deeply reported tour of the corporate crimes, political maneuvering, and economic manipulation that elites have used to enshrine a global system of “vulture capitalism”—planned capitalist economies that benefit corporations and the uber-wealthy at the expense of the rest of us—at every level, from states to empires. Blakeley exposes the cracks already emerging within capitalism, lighting a path forward for how we can democratize our economy, not just our politics, to ensure true freedom for all.]]> 394 Grace Blakeley 152663807X David 0 to-read 4.02 2024 Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom
author: Grace Blakeley
name: David
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Existentialism is a Humanism 51985
The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. He creates his essence—his self, his being—through the choices he freely makes (“existence precedes essence�). Were it not for the contingency of his death, he would never end. Choosing to be this or that is to affirm the value of what we choose. In choosing, therefore, we commit not only ourselves but all of mankind.

This book presents a new English translation of Sartre’s 1945 lecture and his analysis of Camus’s The Stranger, along with a discussion of these works by acclaimed Sartre biographer Annie Cohen-Solal. This edition is a translation of the 1996 French edition, which includes Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre’s introduction and a Q&A with Sartre about his lecture.]]> 122 Jean-Paul Sartre 0300115466 David 0 4.04 1946 Existentialism is a Humanism
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: David
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem]]> 335090
When trying to find books to give to “the countless brave and smart women I met who didn’t think of themselves as either brave or smart,� Gloria Steinem realized that books either supposed that external political change would cure everything or that internal change would. None linked internal and external change together in a seamless circle of cause and effect, effect and cause. She undertook to write such a book, and ended up transforming herself as well as others.

The result of her external plus internal reflection is this bestselling and truly transforming book: part collection of personal stories from her own life and the lives of many others, part revolutionary guide to finding community and inspiration. Steinem finds role models in a very young and uncertain Gandhi as well as unlikely heroes from the streets to history. Revolution from Within addresses the core issues of self-authority and unjust external authority, and argues that the first is necessary to transform the second.]]> 431 Gloria Steinem 0316812471 David 0 to-read 4.12 1991 Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem
author: Gloria Steinem
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture]]> 60653 This book challenges those who argue that we can change the world by changing the way people think. The author shows that no matter how bizarre a people's behavior may seem, it always stems from concrete social and economic conditions. It is by isolating and identifying these conditions that we will be able to understand and cope with some of our own apparently senseless life styles. In a devastating attack on the shamans of the counterculture, the author states the case for a return to objective consciousness and a rational set of political commitments.

]]> 288 Marvin Harris 0679724680 David 0 to-read 3.95 1974 Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture
author: Marvin Harris
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s]]> 195790601
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.� Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today.

In When the Clock Broke , the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con� right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk� took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals� whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long.

In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.]]> 432 John Ganz 0374605440 David 0 to-read 4.08 2024 When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
author: John Ganz
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism]]> 36738613 Chosen by Pankaj Mishra as one of the Best Books of the Summer

Neoliberals hate the state. Or do they? In the first intellectual history of neoliberal globalism, Quinn Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the World Trade Organization to show that neoliberalism emerged less to shrink government and abolish regulations than to redeploy them at a global level.

Slobodian begins in Austria in the 1920s. Empires were dissolving and nationalism, socialism, and democratic self-determination threatened the stability of the global capitalist system. In response, Austrian intellectuals called for a new way of organizing the world. But they and their successors in academia and government, from such famous economists as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises to influential but lesser-known figures such as Wilhelm Röpke and Michael Heilperin, did not propose a regime of laissez-faire. Rather they used states and global institutions--the League of Nations, the European Court of Justice, the World Trade Organization, and international investment law--to insulate the markets against sovereign states, political change, and turbulent democratic demands for greater equality and social justice.

Far from discarding the regulatory state, neoliberals wanted to harness it to their grand project of protecting capitalism on a global scale. It was a project, Slobodian shows, that changed the world, but that was also undermined time and again by the inequality, relentless change, and social injustice that accompanied it.]]> 400 Quinn Slobodian 0674979524 David 0 to-read 4.14 2018 Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism
author: Quinn Slobodian
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Civilized to Death: What Was Lost on the Way to Modernity]]> 28596619
As comedian Louis C.K. put it, “Everything’s amazing, but nobody’s happy.�
Even for the most fortunate among us, material abundance comes at a very high price. Facebook is a hollow replacement for face time. We produce more food than ever, but hunger and malnutrition are standard in most of the world while the rest of us stuff ourselves quite literally to death. Despair darkens ever more lives as rates of clinical depression and suicide continue their grim climb in the developed world. A third of all American children are obese or seriously overweight, and fifty four million of us are pre-diabetic. Pre-schoolers represent the fastest-growing market for anti-depressants, while the rate of increase of depression among children is over twenty percent, according to a recent Harvard study. Twenty four million American adults are thought to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—mostly attributable to the never-ending wars that have become part of modern life for the swelling underclass with few other employment opportunities.

It’s common to wonder how an anthropologist from Mars would view our world or what sage advice an emissary from the future would bring back. But how would a time-traveler from our prehistoric past assess the lives we lead and the future prospects for the path we’re on? Such a visitor from 200 centuries ago would no doubt be impressed by much of what she found here. But once her amazement at iPhones, air travel, and liver transplants subsided, what would she make of our daily lives? Would she ultimately be more impressed by our advances or dismayed by what we’ve lost in our always accelerating rush toward the future?

With faith in the future melting like an overheated glacier even as contentment with the present evaporates, it’s high time for a sober reassessment of the past. Ten thousand years since turning from the ancient path our ancestors trod forever, it’s time for a scientifically-informed, multidisciplinary look at the effects of this fateful divergence. It’s time to ask what may be the most subversive question of all: Are modern humans, even the most fortunate among us, living significantly better lives than our pre-civilized ancestors? Taken as a whole, is civilization a net gain for individual human beings?]]> 400 Christopher Ryan David 0 to-read 4.14 2018 Civilized to Death: What Was Lost on the Way to Modernity
author: Christopher Ryan
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History]]> 357199 216 Michel-Rolph Trouillot 0807043117 David 0 to-read 4.35 1995 Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
author: Michel-Rolph Trouillot
name: David
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[It's Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self]]> 36585127 Fascinating patient stories and dynamic exercises help you connect to healing emotions, ease anxiety and depression, and discover your authentic self. Sara suffered a debilitating fear of asserting herself. Spencer experienced crippling social anxiety. Bonnie was shut down, disconnected from her feelings. These patients all came to psychotherapist Hilary Jacobs Hendel seeking treatment for depression, but in fact none of them were chemically depressed. Rather, Jacobs Hendel found that they’d all experienced traumas in their youth that caused them to put up emotional defenses that masqueraded as symptoms of depression. Jacobs Hendel led these patients and others toward lives newly capable of joy and fulfillment through an empathic and effective therapeutic approach that draws on the latest science about the healing power of our emotions. Whereas conventional therapy encourages patients to talk through past events that may trigger anxiety and depression, accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP), the method practiced by Jacobs Hendel and pioneered by Diana Fosha, PhD, teaches us to identify the defenses and inhibitory emotions (shame, guilt, and anxiety) that block core emotions (anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, excitement, and sexual excitement). Fully experiencing core emotions allows us to enter an openhearted state where we are calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, and clear. In It’s Not Always Depression, Jacobs Hendel shares a unique and pragmatic tool called the Change Triangle—a guide to carry you from a place of disconnection back to your true self. In these pages, she teaches lay readers and helping professionals alike � why all emotions—even the most painful—have value. � how to identify emotions and the defenses we put up against them. � how to get to the root of anxiety—the most common mental illness of our time. � how to have compassion for the child you were and the adult you are. Jacobs Hendel provides navigational tools, body and thought exercises, candid personal anecdotes, and profound insights gleaned from her patients� remarkable breakthroughs. She shows us how to work the Change Triangle in our everyday lives and chart a deeply personal, powerful, and hopeful course to psychological well-being and emotional engagement.]]> 296 Hilary Jacobs Hendel 0399588159 David 0 to-read 4.23 2018 It's Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self
author: Hilary Jacobs Hendel
name: David
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT]]> 3250347
The techniques presented in The Happiness Trap will help readers to:

•Reduce stress and worry
•Handle painful feelings and thoughts more effectively
•Break self-defeating habits
•Overcome insecurity and self-doubt
•Create a rich, full, and meaningful life]]> 240 Russ Harris 1590305841 David 0 to-read 4.09 2007 The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT
author: Russ Harris
name: David
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian—Strategies, Tools, and Models]]> 40936456 The capacity to comply with abusive authority is humanity’s “fatal flaw.� Fortunately, there are anti-authoritarians—people comfortable questioning the legitimacy of authority and resisting its illegitimate forms. However, as Resisting Illegitimate Authority reveals, these rebels are regularly scorned, shunned, financially punished, psychopathologized, criminalized, and even assassinated.

Profiling a diverse group of US anti-authoritarians—from Thomas Paine to Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Lenny Bruce, and Noam Chomsky—in order to glean useful lessons from their lives, Resisting Illegitimate Authority provides political, spiritual, philosophical, and psychological tools to help those suffering violence and vilification in a society whose most ardent cheerleaders for “freedom� are often its most obedient and docile citizens. Discussing anti-authoritarian approaches to depression, relationships, and parenting, Levine makes it clear that far from being a disease, disobedience may be our last hope.

"A startlingly original book, one that prompts you to think anew about important aspects of the American character, past and present.� —Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic

“Levine’s writing simmers with a kind of optimistic rage meant to prod and provoke us out of our paralytic compliance with faceless authority.� —Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch

]]> 270 Bruce E. Levine 1849353247 David 0 to-read 4.00 Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian—Strategies, Tools, and Models
author: Bruce E. Levine
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism]]> 399136
Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa.

This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the develpment of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which, all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.]]> 224 Benedict Anderson 0860915468 David 0 to-read 4.13 1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
author: Benedict Anderson
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism]]> 123844668
‘Argues that a radical politics of neurodiversity is necessary, not only for neurodivergent folk, but for our collective liberation’� Professor Hel Spandler, editor, Asylum magazine
‘A vital book that kindles the flames of a neurodivergent revolution’� Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-author of Health Communism

Neurodiversity is on the rise. Awareness and diagnoses have exploded in recent years, but we are still missing a wider understanding of how we got here and why. Beyond simplistic narratives of normativity and difference, this groundbreaking book exposes the very myth of the ‘normal� brain as a product of intensified capitalism.

Exploring the rich histories of the neurodiversity and disability movements, Robert Chapman shows how the rise of capitalism created an ‘empire of normality� that transformed our understanding of the body into that of a productivity machine. Neurodivergent liberation is possible � but only by challenging the deepest logics of capitalism. Empire of Normality is an essential guide to understanding the systems that shape our bodies, minds and deepest selves � and how we can undo them.

Robert Chapman is a neurodivergent philosopher who has taught at King’s College London and Bristol University. They are currently Assistant Professor in Critical Neurodiversity Studies at Durham University. They blog at Psychology Today and at Critical Neurodiversity .]]> 204 Robert Chapman 0745348661 David 0 to-read 4.34 2023 Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism
author: Robert Chapman
name: David
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay]]> 55935922 The first book to address the historical failures of philosophy—and what we can learn from themPhilosophers are generally unaware of the failures of philosophy, recognizing only the failures of particular theories, which are then remedied with other theories. But, taking the long view, philosophy has actually collapsed several times, been abandoned, sometimes for centuries, and been replaced by something quite different. When it has been revived it has been with new aims that are often accompanied by implausible attempts to establish continuity with a perennial philosophical tradition. What do these failures tell us?The Failures of Philosophy presents a historical investigation of philosophy in the West, from the perspective of its most significant attempts to provide an account of the good life, to establish philosophy as a discipline that can stand in judgment over other forms of thought, to set up philosophy as a theory of everything, and to construe it as a discipline that rationalizes the empirical and mathematical sciences. Stephen Gaukroger argues that these failures reveal more about philosophical inquiry and its ultimate point than its successes ever could. These failures illustrate how and why philosophical inquiry has been conceived and reconceived, why philosophy has been thought to bring distinctive skills to certain questions, and much more.An important and original account of philosophy’s serial breakdowns, The Failures of Philosophy ultimately shows how these shortcomings paradoxically reveal what matters most about the field.]]> 303 Stephen Gaukroger 069120957X David 0 to-read 4.33 2020 The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay
author: Stephen Gaukroger
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Leviathan and Its Enemies: Mass Organization and Managerial Power in Twentieth-Century America]]> 31571379 685 Samuel T. Francis 1593680503 David 0 to-read 4.43 2016 Leviathan and Its Enemies: Mass Organization and Managerial Power in Twentieth-Century America
author: Samuel T. Francis
name: David
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Human Scale 1860480 558 Kirkpatrick Sale 0698110137 David 0 to-read 4.26 1980 Human Scale
author: Kirkpatrick Sale
name: David
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The State 3121027 201 Franz Oppenheimer 1551643006 David 0 to-read 4.12 1914 The State
author: Franz Oppenheimer
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1914
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy]]> 2048410
This work analyses the power structures of organizations such as political parties and trade unions. Michels's main argument is that all organizations, even those in theory most egalitarian and most committed to democracy � like socialist political parties � are in fact oligarchical, and dominated by a small group of leadership. The book also provides a first systematic analysis of how a radical political party loses its radical goals under the dynamics of electoral participation. The origins of moderation theory can be found in this analysis.

(This is a translation. Book was first published in German under the title Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie; Untersuchungen über die oligarchischen Tendenzen des Gruppenlebens.)]]> 379 Robert Michels 0029212502 David 0 to-read 3.96 1911 Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy
author: Robert Michels
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom]]> 1250190
In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing—and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained—or lost—by the decisions we make today.]]> 528 Yochai Benkler 0300125771 David 0 to-read 3.79 2006 The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
author: Yochai Benkler
name: David
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty]]> 12880259 440 Gary Chartier 1570272425 David 0 to-read 3.84 2011 Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty
author: Gary Chartier
name: David
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle Against Work]]> 25074134 Reading Capital Politically was first published in 1978, Harry Cleaver has been a central figure for anti-authoritarian Marxists and radicals seeking to understand the working class as an autonomous force, capable of acting independently and not simply reacting to the depredations of capitalism. Rupturing the Dialectic brings this project up to date, interpreting capitalism's most recent crises and demonstrating how ordinary men and women can, and do, rupture the smooth functioning of the system that exploits them.

Harry Cleaver retired from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. His book Reading Capital Politically has been translated into seven languages and republished in ten countries.
]]> 200 Harry Cleaver 1849352275 David 0 to-read 3.83 2015 Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle Against Work
author: Harry Cleaver
name: David
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons]]> 39090938 240 Silvia Federici 1629635693 David 0 to-read 4.29 2018 Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
author: Silvia Federici
name: David
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)]]> 45154547 WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Now a USA Today bestseller!
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2021
Amazon's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Bookpage's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
ŷ Choice Awards Nominee for Best Science Fiction Book of 2021

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.

Or it might create something far stranger . . .
]]> 496 Arkady Martine 125018648X David 0 to-read 4.31 2021 A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)
author: Arkady Martine
name: David
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beyond the Hallowed Sky (Lightspeed Trilogy, #1)]]> 58605538
When a brilliant scientist gets a letter from herself about faster-than-light travel, she doesn't know what to believe. The equations work, but her paper is discredited - and soon the criticism is more than scientific. Exiled by the establishment, she gets an offer to build her starship from an unlikely source. But in the heights of Venus and on a planet of another star, a secret is already being uncovered that will shake humanity to its foundations.

Science fiction legend Ken MacLeod begins a new space opera trilogy by imagining humankind on the precipice of discovery - the invention of faster-than-light travel unlocks a universe of new possibilities, and new dangers.]]> 320 Ken MacLeod 035651479X David 0 to-read 3.80 2021 Beyond the Hallowed Sky (Lightspeed Trilogy, #1)
author: Ken MacLeod
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Star Fraction (The Fall Revolution #1)]]> 185822
In a balkanized twenty-first century, where the "peace process" is deadlier than war, the US/UN's spy satellites have everyone in their sights. But the Watchmaker has other plans, and the lives of Moh, Janis, and Jordan are part of the program. A specter is haunting the fight for space and freedom, the specter of the betrayed revolution that happened before...

With The Star Fraction, Ken MacLeod burst onto the SF scene and began the Fall Revolution sequence that continued with The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division, and The Sky Road.]]> 320 Ken MacLeod 0765301563 David 0 to-read 3.72 1995 The Star Fraction (The Fall Revolution #1)
author: Ken MacLeod
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling]]> 225850 142 John Taylor Gatto 086571519X David 0 to-read 4.13 2002 Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
author: John Taylor Gatto
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing]]> 192784 592 Michael Mann 0521538548 David 0 to-read 4.02 2004 The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing
author: Michael Mann
name: David
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760]]> 397228 560 Michael Mann 0521308518 David 0 to-read 4.32 1986 The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760
author: Michael Mann
name: David
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tools for Conviviality 253076 110 Ivan Illich 0714509744 David 0 to-read 4.05 1973 Tools for Conviviality
author: Ivan Illich
name: David
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Selections from the Prison Notebooks]]> 85935
Columbia University Press's multivolume Prison Notebooks is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. The notebooks' integral text gives readers direct access not only to Gramsci's influential ideas but also to the intellectual workshop where those ideas were forged. Extensive notes guide readers through Gramsci's extraordinary series of reflections on an encyclopedic range of topics. Volume 3 contains notebooks 6, 7, and 8, in which Gramsci develops his concepts of hegemony, civil society, and the state; reflects extensively on the Renaissance, the Reformation, and Machiavelli's political philosophy; and offers a trenchant critique of the cultural and political practices of fascism. A detailed analysis of positivism and idealism brings Gramsci's philosophy of praxis and conception of historical materialism into sharp relief. Also included are the author's extensive observations on articles and books read during his imprisonment.]]> 483 Antonio Gramsci 071780397X David 0 to-read 4.20 1947 Selections from the Prison Notebooks
author: Antonio Gramsci
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Corporations Rule the World]]> 50923 The new material in the book:
Documents the consolidation since 1995 of financial and corporate power at the expense of democracy, people, communities, and the planet
Looks in depth at the nature and cultural underpinnings of the burgeoning Living Democracy movement to resist corporate power
Offers a vision of a what a civil society grounded in life-centered values rather than immediate financial gain might look like.]]> 385 David C. Korten 1887208046 David 0 to-read 4.08 1995 When Corporations Rule the World
author: David C. Korten
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That]]> 23132200 Bad Science and Bad Pharma. In Bad Science, Ben Goldacre hilariously exposed the tricks that quacks and journalists use to distort science. In Bad Pharma, he put the $600 billion global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. Now the pick of the journalism by one of our wittiest, most indignant and most fearless commentators on the worlds of medicine and science is collected in one volume.]]> 400 Ben Goldacre 0007462484 David 0 to-read 4.06 2014 I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That
author: Ben Goldacre
name: David
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History]]> 530104 368 John Robert McNeill 0393925684 David 0 to-read 3.67 2003 The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History
author: John Robert McNeill
name: David
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy & the World's Getting Worse]]> 203306 256 James Hillman 0062506617 David 0 to-read 4.01 1992 We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy & the World's Getting Worse
author: James Hillman
name: David
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work]]> 25102832
In this thought-provoking book, David Frayne questions the central place of work in mainstream political visions of the future, laying bare the ways in which economic demands colonise our lives and priorities. Drawing on his original research into the lives of people who are actively resisting nine-to-five employment, Frayne asks what motivates these people to disconnect from work, whether or not their resistance is futile, and whether they might have the capacity to inspire an alternative form of development, based on a reduction and social redistribution of work.

A crucial dissection of the work-centred nature of modern society and emerging resistance to it, The Refusal of Work is a bold call for a more humane and sustainable vision of social progress.]]> 280 David Frayne 1783601175 David 4 4.27 2015 The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work
author: David Frayne
name: David
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police]]> 36217641 312 Micol Seigel 1478000023 David 0 to-read 3.94 Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police
author: Micol Seigel
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste]]> 80336
"A complex, rich, intelligent book. It will provide the historian of the future with priceless materials and it will bring an essential contribution to sociological theory."
� Fernand Braudel

"One of the more distinguished contributions to social theory and research in recent years . . . There is in this book an account of culture, and a methodology of its study, rich in implication for a diversity of fields of social research. The work in some ways redefines the whole scope of cultural studies."
� Anthony Giddens, Partisan Review

"A book of extraordinary intelligence."
� Irving Louis Horowitz, Commonweal

“Bourdieu’s analysis transcends the usual analysis of conspicuous consumption in two ways: by showing that specific judgments and choices matter less than an esthetic outlook in general and by showing, moreover, that the acquisition of an esthetic outlook not only advertises upper-class prestige but helps to keep the lower orders in line. In other words, the esthetic world view serves as an instrument of domination. It serves the interests not merely of status but of power. It does this, according to Bourdieu, by emphasizing individuality, rivalry, and ‘distinction� and by devaluing the well-being of society as a whole.�
� Christopher Lasch, Vogue]]> 613 Pierre Bourdieu 0674212770 David 0 to-read 4.15 1979 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
author: Pierre Bourdieu
name: David
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Understanding Socialism 49114605
"Richard Wolff's book is the best accessible and reliable treatment we have of what socialism is, was, and should be.� - Cornel West

“In the same accessible style that has made his programs and lectures such a hit, he explains his subject in a way that's not only smart, but makes the rest of us feel smart. It's actionable intelligence for the every person.� - Laura Flanders

“Lucid, brilliant and uncompromising in his dissection of the capitalist system he also provides a sane and just socialist alternative to capitalist exploitation, one we must all fight to achieve.� - Chris Hedges]]> 150 Richard D. Wolff 0578227347 David 0 to-read 4.00 2019 Understanding Socialism
author: Richard D. Wolff
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tyranny of Structurelessness]]> 133579236 12 Jo Freeman David 0 to-read 4.38 1970 The Tyranny of Structurelessness
author: Jo Freeman
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power]]> 108583 The Corporation contends that the corporation is created by law to function much like a psychopathic personality, whose destructive behavior, if unchecked, leads to scandal and ruin.

Over the last 150 years the corporation has risen from relative obscurity to become the world’s dominant economic institution. Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends that today's corporation is a pathological institution, a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.

In this revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation, Bakan backs his premise with the following observations:

-The corporation’s legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others.
-The corporation’s unbridled self-interest victimizes individuals, society, and, when it goes awry, even shareholders and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
-Governments have freed the corporation, despite its flawed character, from legal constraints through deregulation and granted it ever greater authority over society through privatization.

But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a far-reaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control.

Featuring in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and cultural critic Noam Chomsky, The Corporation is an extraordinary work that will educate and enlighten students, CEOs, whistle-blowers, power brokers, pawns, pundits, and politicians alike.]]> 228 Joel Bakan 0743247469 David 0 to-read 4.08 2003 The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
author: Joel Bakan
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism]]> 185161 316 Ellen Meiksins Wood 0521476828 David 0 to-read 4.29 Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism
author: Ellen Meiksins Wood
name: David
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder (RIPE Series in Global Political Economy Book 16)]]> 18987226
This book offers a radical alternative. According to the authors, capital is not a narrow economic entity, but a symbolic quantification of power. It has little to do with utility or abstract labour, and it extends far beyond machines and production lines. Capital, the authors claim, represents the organized power of dominant capital groups to reshape � or creorder � their society.

Written in simple language, accessible to lay readers and experts alike, the book develops a novel political economy. It takes the reader through the history, assumptions and limitations of mainstream economics and its associated theories of politics. It examines the evolution of Marxist thinking on accumulation and the state. And it articulates an innovative theory of ‘capital as power� and a new history of the ‘capitalist mode of power�.]]> 466 Jonathan Nitzan David 0 to-read 4.20 2009 Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder (RIPE Series in Global Political Economy Book 16)
author: Jonathan Nitzan
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic]]> 41591040
Yet the situation was vastly different a century ago, as Christopher W. Shaw shows. This book upends the conventional thinking that financial policy in the early twentieth century was set primarily by the needs and demands of bankers. Shaw shows that banking and politics were directly shaped by the literal and symbolic investments of the grassroots. This engagement remade financial institutions and the national economy, through populist pressure and the establishment of federal regulatory programs and agencies like the Farm Credit System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Shaw reveals the surprising groundswell behind seemingly arcane legislation, as well as the power of the people to demand serious political repercussions for the banks that caused the Great Depression. One result of this sustained interest and pressure was legislation and regulation that brought on a long period of relative financial stability, with a reduced frequency of economic booms and busts. Ironically, this stability led to the decline of the very banking politics that brought it about.

Giving voice to a broad swath of American figures, including workers, farmers, politicians, and bankers alike, Money, Power, and the People recasts our understanding of what might be possible in balancing the needs of the people with those of their financial institutions.]]> 400 Christopher W. Shaw 022663633X David 0 to-read 4.00 2019 Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic
author: Christopher W. Shaw
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World]]> 53054943 The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States.

In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.

In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.]]> 320 Vincent Bevins 1541742400 David 0 to-read 4.62 2020 The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
author: Vincent Bevins
name: David
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death]]> 58999183
For decades, biology has been dominated by the study of genetic information. Information is important, but it is only part of what makes us alive. Our inheritance also includes our living metabolic network, a flame passed from generation to generation, right back to the origin of life. In Transformer, biochemist Nick Lane reveals a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight —how the same simple chemistry gives rise to life and causes our demise.

Lane is among the vanguard of researchers asking why the Krebs cycle, the “perfect circle� at the heart of metabolism, remains so elusive more than eighty years after its discovery. Transformer is Lane’s voyage, as a biochemist, to find the inner meaning of the Krebs cycle—and its reverse—why it is still spinning at the heart of life and death today.

Lane reveals the beautiful, violent world within our cells, where hydrogen atoms are stripped from the carbon skeletons of food and fed to the ravenous beast of oxygen. Yet this same cycle, spinning in reverse, also created the chemical building blocks that enabled the emergence of life on our planet. Now it does both. How can the same pathway create and destroy? What might our study of the Krebs cycle teach us about the mysteries of aging and the hardest problem of all, consciousness?

Transformer unites the story of our planet with the story of our cells—what makes us the way we are, and how it connects us to the origin of life. Enlivened by Lane’s talent for distilling and humanizing complex research, Transformer offers an essential read for anyone fascinated by biology’s great mysteries. Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.]]> 400 Nick Lane 0393651487 David 0 to-read 4.07 2022 Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
author: Nick Lane
name: David
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Power: A Radical View 815124 Power: A Radical View assesses the main debates about how to conceptualize and study power, including the influential contributions of Michel Foucault. Power Revisited reconsiders Steven Lukes' own views in light of these debates and of criticisms of his original argument.

With a new introduction and bibliographical essay, this book has consolidated its reputation as a classic work and a major reference point within Social and Political Theory. It can be used on modules across the Social and Political Sciences dealing with the concept of power and its manifestation in the world. It is also essential reading for all undergraduate and postgraduates interested in the history of Social and Political Thought.]]> 200 Steven Lukes 0333420926 David 0 to-read 3.86 1974 Power: A Radical View
author: Steven Lukes
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cancer Stage of Capitalism]]> 317838 320 John McMurtry 0745313477 David 0 to-read 4.33 1998 The Cancer Stage of Capitalism
author: John McMurtry
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Critique of Economic Reason 356747
At the heart of his alternative is an advocacy not of “full employment,� but of an equal distribution of the diminishing amount of necessary paid work. He presents a practical strategy for reducing the working week, and develops a radical version of a guaranteed wage for all. Above all, he argues that a utopian vision is now the only realistic proposal, and that “economic reason must be returned to its true—that is subordinate—place.”]]> 262 André Gorz 0860919684 David 0 to-read 4.28 1988 Critique of Economic Reason
author: André Gorz
name: David
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bubble and Beyond 15779179 The Bubble and Beyond describes how the fabulous expansive forces of industrial capitalism have been subverted by a predatory finance capitalism. What the FED hailed as The Great Moderation has left the middle class to take on a lifetime of bank debt to obtain access to housing, education to get a job, an auto to drive to it, and simply to maintain living standards that wages and salaries no longer support. What has derailed the economy is the take-over of academic economics and politics by the financial sector in order to censor criticism and misrepresent statistics so as to give the impression that the economy can borrow its way out of debt. The reality is that income used to pay down today s debt overhead is not available to be spent on goods and services. The result is debt deflation, followed by austerity and the the "fire sale" or decay of infrastructure at the national and local levels. The most controversial claim by Prof. Hudson is that Debts that can't be paid, won't be. The question he poses is whether their non-payment will lead to worldwide foreclosures including sell-offs of the public domain by debt-strapped local and national governments or whether they will be written down in line with the ability to pay. This is the economic issue that will dominate politics over the next generation. Illustrated with charts and exhibits that make it plain where money goes versus where it should go.]]> 504 Michael Hudson 3981484207 David 0 to-read 4.08 2012 The Bubble and Beyond
author: Michael Hudson
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Can't You Afford a Home? (The Future of Capitalism)]]> 43230171
Leading economist Josh Ryan-Collins argues that to understand this crisis, we must examine a crucial paradox at the heart of modern capitalism. The interaction of private home ownership and a lightly regulated commercial banking system leads to a feedback cycle. Unlimited credit and money flows into an inherently finite supply of property, which causes rising house prices, declining home ownership, rising inequality and debt, stagnant growth and financial instability. Radical reforms are needed to break the cycle.

This engaging and topical book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why they can’t find an affordable home, and what we can do about it.]]> 136 Josh Ryan-Collins 1509523294 David 0 to-read 4.41 Why Can't You Afford a Home? (The Future of Capitalism)
author: Josh Ryan-Collins
name: David
average rating: 4.41
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium]]> 3166603
In a bravura conclusion, Chris Harman exposes the reductive complacency of contemporary capitalism, and asks, in a world riven as never before by suffering and inequality, why we imagine that it can—or should—survive much longer. Ambitious, provocative and invigorating, A People’s History of the World delivers a vital corrective to traditional history, as well as a powerful sense of the deep currents of humanity which surge beneath the froth of government.]]> 736 Chris Harman 1844672387 David 0 to-read 4.08 1999 A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium
author: Chris Harman
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior]]> 2131522
The political flexibility of our species is we can be quite egalitarian, we can be quite despotic. Hierarchy in the Forest traces the roots of these contradictory traits in chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and early human societies. Boehm looks at the loose group structures of hunter-gatherers, then at tribal segmentation, and finally at present-day governments to see how these conflicting tendencies are reflected.

Hierarchy in the Forest claims new territory for biological anthropology and evolutionary biology by extending the domain of these sciences into a crucial aspect of human political and social behavior. This book will be a key document in the study of the evolutionary basis of genuine altruism.]]> 304 Christopher Boehm 0674006917 David 0 to-read 4.05 1999 Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior
author: Christopher Boehm
name: David
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen]]> 31451192 A vibrant portrait of the original affluent society - the Bushmen of southern Africa - by the anthropologist who has spent the better part of the last twenty-five years documenting their encounter with modernity.

If the success of a civilization is measured by its endurance over time, then the Bushmen of the Kalahari are by far the most successful in human history. A hunting and gathering people who made a good living by working only as much as needed to exist in harmony with their hostile desert environment, the Bushmen have lived in southern Africa since the evolution of our species nearly two hundred thousand years ago.

In Affluence Without Abundance, anthropologist James Suzman asks whether understanding how hunter-gatherers like the Bushmen found contentment by having few needs easily met might help us address some of the environmental and economic challenges we face today. Vividly bringing to life a proud and private people, introducing unforgettable members of their tribe, Affluence Without Abundance tells the story of the collision between the modern global economy and the oldest hunting and gathering society on earth. In rendering an intimate picture of a people coping with radical change, it asks profound questions about how we now think about matters such as work, wealth, equality, contentment, and even time.

Not since Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's The Harmless People in 1959 has anyone provided a more intimate or insightful account of the Bushmen or of what we might learn about ourselves from our shared history as hunter-gatherers.]]> 320 James Suzman 1632865726 David 0 to-read 3.99 2017 Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen
author: James Suzman
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 (Persephone Book, #5)]]> 105617 433 Etty Hillesum 095347805X David 0 to-read 4.28 1981 An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 (Persephone Book, #5)
author: Etty Hillesum
name: David
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance]]> 237949

"A major contribution to peasant studies, Malaysian studies, and the literature on revolutions and class consciousness."
--Benedict R. Anderson, Cornell University


"The book is a splendid achievement. Because Scott listens closely to the villagers of Malaysia, he enormously expands our understanding of popular ideology and therefore of popular politics. And because he is also a brilliant analyst, he draws upon this concrete experience to develop a new critique of classical theories of ideology."
—Frances Fox Piven, Graduate Center of the City University of New York


“An impressive work which may well become a classic.�
—Terence J. Byres, Times Literary Supplement


“A highly readable, contextually sensitive, theoretically astute ethnography of a moral system in change�. Weapons of the Weak is a brilliant book, combining a sure feel for the subjective side of struggle with a deft handling of economic and political trends.�
—John R. Bown, Journal of Peasant Studies


“A splendid book, a worthy addition to the classic studies of Malay society and of the peasantry at large�. Combines the readability of Akenfield or Pig Earth with an accessible and illuminating theoretical commentary.�
—A.F. Robertson, Times Higher Education Supplement


“No one who wants to understand peasant society, in or out of Southeast Asia, or theories of change, should fail to read [this book].�
—Daniel S. Lev, Journal of Asian Studies


“A moving account of the poor’s refusal to accept the terms of their subordination�. Disposes of the belief that theoretical sophistication and intelligible prose are somehow at odds.�
—Ramachandra Guha, Economic and Political Weekly


“A seminally important commentary on the state of peasant studies and the global literature�. This enormously rich work in Asian and comparative studies is� an essential contribution to participatory development theory and practice.”—Guy Gran, World Development


James C. Scott is professor of political science at Yale University.]]> 392 James C. Scott 0300036418 David 0 to-read 4.20 1985 Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance
author: James C. Scott
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity]]> 44179415
In The View from Somewhere , Lewis Raven Wallace dives deep into the history of “objectivity� in journalism and how its been used to gatekeep and silence marginalized writers as far back as Ida B. Wells. At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it—not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves. He highlights the stories of journalists who question “objectivity� with sensitivity and Desmond Cole of the Toronto Star ; New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse; Pulitzer Prize-winner Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah; Peabody-winning podcaster John Biewen; Guardian correspondent Gary Younge; former Buzzfeed reporter Meredith Talusan; and many others. Wallace also shares his own experiences as a midwestern transgender journalist and activist who was fired from his job as a national reporter for public radio for speaking out against “objectivity� in coverage of Trump and white supremacy.

With insightful steps through history, Wallace stresses that journalists have never been mere passive observers. Using historical and contemporary examples—from lynching in the nineteenth century to transgender issues in the twenty-first—Wallace offers a definitive critique of “objectivity� as a catchall for accurate journalism. He calls for the dismissal of this damaging mythology in order to confront the realities of institutional power, racism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation in the news industry.

The View from Somewhere is a compelling rallying cry against journalist neutrality and for the validity of news told from distinctly subjective voices. ]]> 240 Lewis Raven Wallace 022658917X David 0 to-read, journalism, media 4.33 2019 The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity
author: Lewis Raven Wallace
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read, journalism, media
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy]]> 45731395 A New York Times Bestseller
The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society.

Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.


Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis.


MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.]]> 327 Stephanie Kelton 1541736184 David 0 to-read 4.02 2020 The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy
author: Stephanie Kelton
name: David
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology]]> 1440798 251 Dorothy E. Smith 1555530362 David 0 to-read 4.11 1987 The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology
author: Dorothy E. Smith
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cruel Optimism 11347563
Arguing that the historical present is perceived affectively before it is understood in any other way, Berlant traces affective and aesthetic responses to the dramas of adjustment that unfold amid talk of precarity, contingency, and crisis. She suggests that our stretched-out present is characterized by new modes of temporality, and she explains why trauma theory—with its focus on reactions to the exceptional event that shatters the ordinary—is not useful for understanding the ways that people adjust over time, once crisis itself has become ordinary. Cruel Optimism is a remarkable affective history of the present.]]> 342 Lauren Berlant 0822351110 David 0 to-read 4.15 2011 Cruel Optimism
author: Lauren Berlant
name: David
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back]]> 233737 355 Thomas Geoghegan 1565848861 David 0 to-read 4.18 1991 Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back
author: Thomas Geoghegan
name: David
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work]]> 6261332
Called "the sleeper hit of the publishing season" (The Boston Globe), Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant bestseller, attracting readers with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.]]> 241 Matthew B. Crawford 1594202230 David 5 3.74 2009 Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work
author: Matthew B. Crawford
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers]]> 279812 Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, Moral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation. Jackall reveals a world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but where sharp
talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. Cheerfully-bland public faces mask intense competition in this world where people hide their intentions, and accountability often depends on the ability to outrun mistakes.
In this topsy-turvy world, managers must bring often unforgiving technology and always difficult people together to make money, an uncompromising task demanding continual compromises with conventional truths. Moral questions become merely practical concerns and issues of public relations.
Sooner or later, managers find themselves wondering how to act in such a world and still maintain a sense of personal integrity.
This brilliant, sometimes disturbing, often wildly funny study of corporate thinking, decision-making, and morality presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America. It will interest anyone concerned with how big organizations actually
function, or with the current moral malaise in our public life.]]> 272 Robert Jackall 0195060806 David 0 to-read 3.94 1988 Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers
author: Robert Jackall
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences]]> 119561 Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.

With vast erudition, Foucault cuts across disciplines and reaches back into seventeenth century to show how classical systems of knowledge, which linked all of nature within a great chain of being and analogies between the stars in the heavens and the features in a human face, gave way to the modern sciences of biology, philology, and political economy. The result is nothing less than an archaeology of the sciences that unearths old patterns of meaning and reveals the shocking arbitrariness of our received truths.

In the work that established him as the most important French thinker since Sartre, Michel Foucault offers startling evidence that “man”—man as a subject of scientific knowledge—is at best a recent invention, the result of a fundamental mutation in our culture.]]> 416 Michel Foucault 0679753354 David 0 to-read 4.12 1966 The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences
author: Michel Foucault
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love]]> 17601
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.]]> 208 bell hooks 0743456084 David 5 4.38 2003 The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
author: bell hooks
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World]]> 205363978
"The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently," wrote David Graeber. A renowned anthropologist, activist, and author of such classic books as Debt and the breakout New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything (with David Wengrow), Graeber was as well-known for his sharp, lively essays as he was for his iconic role in the Occupy movement and his paradigm-shifting tomes.

There are converging political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics is dominated by either business as usual or nostalgia for a mythical past. Thinking against the grain, Graeber was one of the few who dared to imagine a new understanding of the past and a liberatory vision of the future—to imagine a social order based on humans� fundamental freedom. In essays published over three decades and ranging across the biggest issues of our time� inequality, technology, the identity of “the West,� democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid, and protest—he challenges the old assumptions about political life. A trenchant critic of the order of things, and driven by a bold imagination and a passionate commitment to human freedom, he offers hope that our world can be different.

During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, the incisive, entertaining, and urgent essays collected in The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . . , edited and with an introduction by Nika Dubrovksy and a foreword by Rebecca Solnit, make for essential and inspiring reading. They are a profound reminder of Graeber’s enduring significance as an iconic, playful, necessary thinker.]]> 384 David Graeber 0374610223 David 5 4.22 The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World
author: David Graeber
name: David
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)]]> 301082
Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.]]> 292 Charlaine Harris 0441008534 David 0 to-read 3.98 2001 Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)
author: Charlaine Harris
name: David
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism]]> 45320354 From the prophetic author of the now-classic What's the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal, an eye-opening account of populism, the most important--and misunderstood--movement of our time.



Rarely does a work of history contain startling implications for the present, but in The People, No Thomas Frank pulls off that explosive effect by showing us that everything we think we know about populism is wrong. Today "populism" is seen as a frightening thing, a term pundits use to describe the racist philosophy of Donald Trump and European extremists. But this is a mistake.

The real story of populism is an account of enlightenment and liberation; it is the story of American democracy itself, of its ever-widening promise of a decent life for all. Taking us from the tumultuous 1890s, when the radical left-wing Populist Party--the biggest mass movement in American history--fought Gilded Age plutocrats to the reformers' great triumphs under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, Frank reminds us how much we owe to the populist ethos. Frank also shows that elitist groups have reliably detested populism, lashing out at working-class concerns. The anti-populist vituperations by the Washington centrists of today are only the latest expression.

Frank pummels the elites, revisits the movement's provocative politics, and declares true populism to be the language of promise and optimism. The People, No is a ringing affirmation of a movement that, Frank shows us, is not the problem of our times, but the solution for what ails us.]]> 307 Thomas Frank 1250220114 David 0 to-read 4.23 2020 The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
author: Thomas Frank
name: David
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Message 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 David 0 to-read 4.51 2024 The Message
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: David
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity]]> 200128457
Math has a reputation for being inaccessible. People think that it requires a special gift or that comprehension is a matter of genes. Yet the greatest mathematicians throughout history, from René Descartes to Alexander Grothendieck, have insisted that this is not the case. Like Albert Einstein, who famously claimed to have “no special talent,� they said that they had accomplished what they did using ordinary human doubts, weaknesses, curiosity, and imagination.

David Bessis offers an illuminating guide toward deeper mathematical comprehension and reconnects us with the mental plasticity we experienced as children. With simple, concrete examples, Bessis shows how mathematical comprehension is integral to the great learning milestones of life, such as learning to see, to speak, to walk, and to eat with a spoon.

Focusing on the deeply human roots of mathematics, Bessis dispels the myths of mathematical genius and offers an engaging initiation into the experience of math not as a series of discouragingly incomprehensible logic problems but as a physical activity akin to yoga, meditation, or a martial art. He opens the door to changing the way you think not only about math but about intelligence, intuition, and everything that goes on inside your head.]]> 344 David Bessis 0300270887 David 0 to-read 4.29 Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity
author: David Bessis
name: David
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lord of Light 13821 296 Roger Zelazny 0060567236 David 0 to-read 4.08 1967 Lord of Light
author: Roger Zelazny
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1)]]> 256008 Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.

Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.]]> 960 Larry McMurtry 067168390X David 5 4.53 1985 Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove, #1)
author: Larry McMurtry
name: David
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis and Other Stories]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,� a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. �The Judgment,� which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and �The Stoker,� which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with �The Metamorphosis,� form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,� and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are �In the Penal Colony,� a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and �A Hunger Artist,� about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 David 4 4.08 1915 The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
author: Franz Kafka
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: magical-realism, philosophical-fiction, short-stories, existentialism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945]]> 29658 Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award
One of theNew York Times'Ten Best Books of the Year.

Table of contents

About the author
Copyright page
Dedication
Preface & acknowledgement
Introduction

PART ONE - Post-War: 1945-1953
1. The legacy of war
2. Retribution
3. The rehabilitation of Europe
4. The impossible settlement
5. The coming of the Cold War
6. Into the whirlwind
7. Culture wars
CODA The end of old Europe

PART TWO - Prosperity and its discontents: 1953-1971
8. The politics of stability
9. Lost illusions
10. The age of affluence
POSTSCRIPT: A Tale of two economies
11. The Social Democrat moment
12. The spectre of revolution
13. The end of the affair

PART THREE - Recessional: 1971-1989
14. Diminished expectations
15. Politics in a new key
16. A time of transition
17. The new realism
18. The power of the powerless
19. The end of the old order

PART FOUR - After the Fall: 1989-2005
20. A fissile continent
21. The reckoning
22. The old Europe -and the new
23. The varieties of Europe
24. Europe as a way of life

Photo crdits
Suggestions for further readings]]> 933 Tony Judt 0143037757 David 0 to-read 4.36 2005 Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
author: Tony Judt
name: David
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Making of the English Working Class]]> 947848 "Thompson's book has been called controversial, but perhaps only because so many have forgotten how explosive England was during the Regency & the early reign of Victoria. Without any reservation, The Making of the English Working Class is the most important study of those days since the classic work of the Hammonds."--Commentary
"Mr Thompson's deeply human imagination & controlled passion help us to recapture the agonies, heroisms & illusions of the working class as it made itself. No one interested in the history of the English people should fail to read his book."--Times Literary Supplement]]> 848 E.P. Thompson 0394703227 David 0 to-read 4.20 1963 The Making of the English Working Class
author: E.P. Thompson
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution]]> 167530
In The World Turned Upside Down, Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them.

The relations between rich and poor classes, the part played by wandering 'masterless men,' the outbursts of sexual freedom and deliberate blasphemy, the great imaginative creations of Milton and Bunyan - these and many other elements build up into a marvellously detailed and coherent portrait of this strange, sudden effusion of revolutionary beliefs. It is a portrait not of the bourgeois revolution that actually took place, but of the impulse towards a far more fundamental overturning of society.

"Incorporates some of Dr. Hill's most profound statements yet about the 17th-century revolution as a whole."
-- The Economist]]> 431 Christopher Hill 0140137327 David 0 to-read 4.13 1972 The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution
author: Christopher Hill
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Catch-22 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 David 5
“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
And what difference does that make?�

Stop what you're doing, and go and read this book right now, force yourself to read the first 150 pages no matter what, it takes a while to "get it" but once you do, boy will you be glad.]]> 3.99 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: political-fiction, funny, dark-humor, favorites, war, ww2
review:
Catch-22 is almost unequivocally the best work of fiction I've ever read. It's definitely a grower, but boy when it does, you're in for a wild ride. Reading this book you are bombarded with a slew of hilarious stories about an insane cast of characters. Slowly but surely there comes into focus a tragic tale of a bunch of officers trying to make it through a horrible war with their mind and body in one piece. This novel manages to capture with perfect clarity the absurdism of war and the (funny) craziness of bureaucracy and hierarchy. Never has a book managed to be so funny and sad at the same time. Not to mention the fact that it's endlessly quotable:

“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
And what difference does that make?�

Stop what you're doing, and go and read this book right now, force yourself to read the first 150 pages no matter what, it takes a while to "get it" but once you do, boy will you be glad.
]]> <![CDATA[Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital (World Social Change)]]> 2690635
Bagchi thus broadens our understanding of the nature and history of capitalism and challenges the fetishism of commodities that limits the perspective of most economic historians. The book also challenges the Eurocentrism that still underlies the conceptual framework of many mainstream historians, joining earlier narratives that chronicle the history of human beings as living persons rather than as puppets serving the abstract cause of "economic growth."

His unflinching examination of the human costs of development—not only in the colonial periphery but in the core nations—includes not only economic processes and issues of inequality within and among nations but also the intertwining of economics and war-making on a world scale. The book also contributes to our knowledge of how and in what sequence human health has been shaped by public health care, sanitation, modern medicine, income levels and nutrition. Written with extraordinary range and depth, Perilous Passage will change the ways in which we think about many of the largest issues in world history and development.]]> 422 Amiya Kumar Bagchi 0742539210 David 0 to-read 4.38 2005 Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital (World Social Change)
author: Amiya Kumar Bagchi
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lord of the Rings 2527331 Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, the Lord of the Rings is timeless because it's the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in the Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic.]]> 1193 J.R.R. Tolkien 004823091X David 0 to-read 4.63 1954 The Lord of the Rings
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: David
average rating: 4.63
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sadomasochism in Everyday Life: The Dynamics of Power and Powerlessness]]> 677177


In the first part of the book, Chancer discusses the prevalence of sadomasochistic cultural imagery in contemporary America and examines sadomasochism through several perspectives. She develops a set of definitional traits both through existential analysis of an instance of S/M sex and by incorporating a number of Hegelian and psychoanalytic concepts. In the second part of the book, she places sadomasochism in a broader context by exploring whether and how it appears in the workplace and how it relates to gender and race.]]> 252 Lynn S. Chancer 0813518083 David 0 to-read 3.78 1992 Sadomasochism in Everyday Life: The Dynamics of Power and Powerlessness
author: Lynn S. Chancer
name: David
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Frailty Myth: Redefining the Physical Potential of Women and Girls]]> 457578 These are key questions that Colette Dowling, author of the bestselling The Cinderella Complex , raises in her provocative new book. The myth of female frailty, with its roots in nineteenth-century medicine and misogyny, has had a damaging effect on women's health, social status, and physical safety. It is Dowling's controversial thesis that women succumb to societal pressures to appear weak in order to seem more "feminine."
The Frailty Myth presents new evidence that girls are weaned from the use of their bodies even before they begin school. By adolescence, their strength and aerobic powers have started to decline unless the girls are exercising vigorously--and most aren't. By sixteen, they have already lost bone density and turned themselves into prime candidates for osteoporosis. They have also been deprived of motor stimulation that is essential for brain growth.
Yet as breakthroughs among elite women athletes grow more and more astounding, it begins to appear that strength and physical skill--for all women--is only a matter of learning and training. Men don't have a monopoly on physical prowess; when women and men are matched in size and level of training, the strength gap closes. In some areas, women are actually equipped to outperform men, due partly to differences in body structure, and partly to the newly discovered strengthening benefits of estrogen.

Drawing on extensive research in motor development, performance assessment, sports physi-ology, and endocrinology, Dowling presents an astonishing picture of the new physical woman. And she creates a powerful argument that true equality isn't possible until women learn how to stand up for themselves--physically.]]> 352 Colette Dowling 0375758151 David 0 to-read 4.11 2000 The Frailty Myth: Redefining the Physical Potential of Women and Girls
author: Colette Dowling
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Deschooling Society 223403 116 Ivan Illich 0714508799 David 4 4.07 1971 Deschooling Society
author: Ivan Illich
name: David
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1971
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction]]> 54909 110 Immanuel Wallerstein 0822334429 David 4 3.89 2004 World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
author: Immanuel Wallerstein
name: David
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves:
review:

]]> זכרון דברים 13989908
דמויות הספר משתייכות ברובן למגזר החברתי של פועלים, פקידים ואינטליגנציה, שהשתמר עד לפני שנים לא רבות בצביונו המקורי, ואשר ניתן לכנותו "מעמד ההסתדרות". דמויות אלה באות ויוצאות כאן בתהליך של שקיעה והתפוררות, והן נעות בין מַפָּחים לבין בולמוס של פירורי-הנאות.

'זיכרון דברים' היה הרומאן הראשון של יעקב שבתאי, לאחר ספר הסיפורים 'הדוד פרץ ממריא'. המשפטים שלעיל הם הנוסח הצנוע, היבש, שהוכן בעצה אחת עם המחבר, כשהספר ראה אור לראשונה ב"ספרי סימן קריאה" ב-1977. נדרש עוד זמן-מה עד שהביקורת וקהל-הקוראים עמדו על גדולתו של הספר הזה, ורק כעבור זמן נוסף זכה גם לתהילתו הבינלאומית כרומאן מודרניסטי ייחודי (מבקרו 'של 'האינדיפנדנט', גבריאל יוסיפוביצ'י, בחר בו ב-1989 כָּרומאן של העשור, והשווה את גדולתו לזו של 'בעקבות הזמן האבוד' של פרוסט). במשאל שערך עיתון 'מעריב' (יוני 2007) בין אנשי ספרות מובילים � מבקרים, עורכים, מו"לים וחוקרי ספרות � נבחר 'זיכרון דברים לטוב ביותר בין עשרת ספרי הפרוזה "הטובים ביותר שנכתבו בעברית מקום המדינה". אין לתאר את הספרות העברית בלי ספר זה, שיש כיום הסכמה כללית שהוא ניצב בפסגת הישגיה.]]> 282 Yaakov Shabtai David 0 to-read 4.38 1977 זכרון דברים
author: Yaakov Shabtai
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Anarchy in Action 667765 144 Colin Ward 0900384204 David 4 anarchism 3.96 1973 Anarchy in Action
author: Colin Ward
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: anarchism
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life]]> 90635 220 Richard Sennett 0393309096 David 0 to-read 3.89 1970 The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life
author: Richard Sennett
name: David
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio]]> 205582 432 Philippe Bourgois 0521017114 David 0 to-read 4.20 1995 In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
author: Philippe Bourgois
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism]]> 1088620 Eva Illouz rejects these conventional ideas and argues that the culture of capitalism has fostered an intensely emotional culture in the workplace, in the family, and in our own relationship to ourselves. She argues that economic relations have become deeply emotional, while close, intimate relationships have become increasingly defined by economic and political models of bargaining, exchange, and equity. This dual process by which emotional and economic relationships come to define and shape each other is called emotional capitalism. Illouz finds evidence of this process of emotional capitalism in various social sites: self-help literature, women's magazines, talk shows, support groups, and the Internet dating sites. How did this happen? What are the social consequences of the current preoccupation with emotions? How did the public sphere become saturated with the exposure of private life? Why does suffering occupy a central place in contemporary identity? How has emotional capitalism transformed our romantic choices and experiences? Building on and revising the intellectual legacy of critical theory, this book addresses these questions and offers a new interpretation of the reasons why the public and the private, the economic and the emotional spheres have become inextricably intertwined.]]> 144 Eva Illouz 0745639054 David 0 to-read 3.82 2022 Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism
author: Eva Illouz
name: David
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Sociological Imagination 414773 248 C. Wright Mills 0195133730 David 0 to-read 4.17 1959 The Sociological Imagination
author: C. Wright Mills
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Outsiders: Studies In The Sociology Of Deviance]]> 72252
A compulsively readable and thoroughly researched exploration of social deviance and the application of what is known as "labeling theory" to the studies of deviance. With particular research into drug culture, Outsiders analyzes unconventional individuals and their place in normal society.]]> 224 Howard S. Becker 0684836351 David 0 to-read 3.98 1963 Outsiders: Studies In The Sociology Of Deviance
author: Howard S. Becker
name: David
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naïve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TܰԱ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 David 0 to-read 4.05 1892 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: David
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need]]> 34814047 New York Times Bestseller
National Book Award Longlist
Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017

“This is one attempt to uncover how we got to this surreal political moment. It is also an attempt to predict how, under cover of shocks and crises, it could get a lot worse. And it’s a plan for how, if we keep our heads, we might just be able to flip the script and arrive at a radically better future.�
–From the Introduction

Donald Trump’s takeover of the White House is a dangerous escalation in a world of cascading crises. His reckless agenda—including a corporate coup in government, aggressive scapegoating and warmongering, and sweeping aside climate science to set off a fossil fuel frenzy—will generate waves of disasters and shocks to the economy, national security, and the environment.

Acclaimed journalist, activist, and bestselling author Naomi Klein has spent two decades studying political shocks, climate change, and “brand bullies.� From this unique perspective, she argues that Trump is not an aberration but a logical extension of the worst, most dangerous trends of the past half-century—the very conditions that have unleashed a rising tide of white nationalism the world over. It is not enough, she tells us, to merely resist, to say “no.� Our historical moment demands more: a credible and inspiring “yes,� a roadmap to reclaiming the populist ground from those who would divide us—one that sets a bold course for winning the fair and caring world we want and need.

This timely, urgent book from one of our most influential thinkers offers a bracing positive shock of its own, helping us understand just how we got here, and how we can, collectively, come together and heal.]]> 273 Naomi Klein 0735273995 David 0 to-read 4.10 2017 No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need
author: Naomi Klein
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World]]> 138505710
Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now―and an intellectual adventure story for our times.]]> 416 Naomi Klein 0374610320 David 4 4.21 2023 Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
author: Naomi Klein
name: David
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves:
review:

]]>