The Impasse of the Latin American Left Franck Gaudichaud, Jeffery R. Webber, and Massimo Modonesi Duke University Press, 2022 Can the firebrand Hugo Chávez, with his embrace of ”21st century socialism,” be placed in the same category as the pragmatic Lula? Writers across the political spectrum make a sharp distinction
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centre of the universe: Iskocēs Tipiskak: A Spark in the Dark – Book Review
Have you ever had one of those experiences where something comes at you out of the dark and ends up being a pleasant surprise? A time where you weren’t expecting anything but something happened anyway? Or when a complete stranger found you and you ended up kind of grokking each
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Atlantis, Ukraine
Scene from Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Atlantis. Photo courtesy Grasshopper Film. Atlantis Directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych Grasshopper Film, 2019 “I’d rather take pictures than use weapons.” —Valentyn Vasyanovych Warning: This review contains spoilers. It is the year 2025. The war in Donbas is over and the National Guard of Ukraine has emerged
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Nora Loreto’s ‘Spin Doctors’ is a book everyone in Canada should read
Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic Nora Loreto Fernwood, 2021 Rather than treading over ground that other journalists and writers have covered, Nora Loreto has done something very different with her new book, Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic. While others have
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Caroline Elkins explores the ruthless violence and ideology of the British Empire
“The Battle of Isandlwana” by Charles Edwin Fripp (1854–1906), depicting one of the worst disasters suffered by the British Army in the late nineteenth century. Image from Wikimedia Commons. Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire Caroline Elkins Penguin Random House, 2022 “What is imperialism but a political
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canadian internationalists and the people’s war against apartheid
Vigil for the victims of apartheid in South Africa, 1988. Photo by Peter Power, Toronto Star Archives. Courtesy of Toronto Public Library Digital Archives. International Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the War that Liberated South Africa Edited by Ronnie Kasrils Jacana Media, 2021 Histories of radical internationalism are often dominated
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Every weakness is claimed as strength
Worker in protective gear near the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Photo courtesy Chinatopix/AP. Social Contagion: and Other Material on Microbiological Class War in China Chuang Charles H. Kerr, 2021 The following review is reprinted from the website of the Lausan Collective, an organization formed out of the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: ‘Don’t Look Up’ or: How Adam McKay learned to keep worrying and love the nihilism
Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up. Still image courtesy Netflix. Don’t Look Up Adam McKay Netflix, 2021 “Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” —Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 “We are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Cheri DiNovo reflects on life as a queer evangelist
The Queer Evangelist: A Socialist Clergy’s Radically Honest Tale Cheri DiNovo Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2021 Cheri DiNovo is a well-known figure among activists, including the queer community, progressive religious groups, and socialists in Toronto. This autobiographical book is a remarkable story of transformation, a perspective on challenging church and
Continue readingmark a. rayner: Three more great reviews of Alpha Max
The great reviews continue to come in for Alpha Max! Naturally, it’s nice for a writer to get positive comments and reviews, but really what… The post Three more great reviews of Alpha Max appeared first on mark a. rayner.
Continue readingcmkl.ca: How to steal rides from winter part 1: hands
I like to keep riding outside as long as I can. Road salt, snow and ice-covered roads are hard limits for me. But temperature is a moveable one. It’s quite easy to keep your core warm. And whoever heard of cold thighs. So shorts under tights and enough base layers
Continue readingcmkl.ca: How to steal rides from winter part 1: hands
I like to keep riding as long as I can. Road salt, snow and ice-covered roads are hard limits for me. But temperature is a moveable one. It’s quite easy to keep your core warm. And whoever heard of cold thighs. So shorts under tights and enough base layers to
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Byung-Chul Han and capitalism’s ‘death drive’
Capitalism and the Death Drive Byung-Chul Han Polity, 2021 Capitalism and the Death Drive is a set of 19 essays and interviews published between 2012 and 2020 by South Korean-born Swiss-German philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han. All the essays and interviews are short and accessible, and at 150 pages,
Continue readingmark a. rayner: Amazing Stories loves Alpha Max
So, once upon a time there was this incredible maniac. He invented stuff like The Isolator and was really into home brewing radio sets. Oh,… The post Amazing Stories loves Alpha Max appeared first on mark a. rayner.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Chronicling the decline of the industrial age in Hamilton
Shift Change: Scenes from a Post-industrial Revolution Stephen Dale Between the Lines, 2021 How do you write a city? The lives, the languages, the million tangled paths. The strip malls, the mosques, the tents in parks, the queer bars. Exploitative bosses, helpful strangers, sexual violence, racist police. Tattered posters for
Continue readingmark a. rayner: Launch day reviews of Alpha Max
Launch day is always a nail-biting affair. So, in an attempt to keep a skein of control on this thing, I thought I’d list the… The post Launch day reviews of Alpha Max appeared first on mark a. rayner.
Continue readingmark a. rayner: Early rave reviews of Alpha Max
Wow, there are some early rave reviews of Alpha Max, which I just have to share! Reedsy Discovery Reedsy Discover has a wonderful and beautifully… The post Early rave reviews of Alpha Max appeared first on mark a. rayner.
Continue readingmark a rayner: Bad Chemicals & Babel Fish: My Favourite Humorous Science Fiction Books
Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. This may be a controversial choice to top a list of humorous science fiction books, but I have… The post Bad Chemicals & Babel Fish: My Favourite Humorous Science Fiction Books appeared first on mark a rayner.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: ‘The Green Knight,’ apocalyptic anxiety and the new avatars of climate change
Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain in David Lowery’s medieval fantasy film The Green Knight. Still image courtesy A24. The Green Knight David Lowery A24, 2021 As climate breakdown and the Anthropocene progress into increasingly dire territory, more and more artists and filmmakers are endeavouring to capture the anxiety driven
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Extractivism and resistance in Latin America
Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective Edited by Steve Ellner Rowman & Littlefield, 2021 The stated goal of Steve Ellner’s edited volume titled Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective is to generate greater analytical daylight between the performance of neoliberal
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