Tag: reviews

The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism Henry A. Giroux Routledge, 2018 This new work by one of the world’s leading social critics, the founding theorist of critical pedagogy, represents an attempt to develop both a political discourse and call to action, by examining what is

Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake against the State Shiri Pasternak University of Minnesota Press, 2017 Events from a chilling October day in 2008, on a gravel road entering Algonquin First Nation bush territory, epitomize the contentious history of jurisdiction in what is now known as Canada. Riot cops

May Made Me: An Oral History of the 1968 Uprising in France Mitchell Abidor AK Press, 2018 This month marks the 50th anniversary of the wave of radical revolts and revolutionary uprisings that startled the world in 1968 and which – although ultimately crushed by the forces of reaction that

The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon David Webber Harvard University Press, 2018 In her 2016 book No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, union organizer Jane McAlevey argued that unions have repeatedly and fruitlessly searched for quick fixes to the long decline of

Indian Horse Stephen Campanelli Elevation Pictures, 2017 Indian Horse, a film based on the late Richard Wagamese’s bestselling novel, opens in theatres nationwide on April 13th. Wagamese was a masterful storyteller as well as a long-time columnist for Canadian Dimension; however, people (especially settler Canadians) should gather to watch and

The Young Karl Marx Raoul Peck Diaphana Films, 2017 Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx opened on Friday, February 23 at the Metrograph in N.Y. and the Laemmle Royal in L.A. It is the story of how the youthful Marx and Engels became fast friends and worked together as a

Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam Mark Bowden Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017 For Mark Bowden, author of Hué 1968, the pivotal battle of the War in Vietnam did not follow the script most Americans were used to scanning in their newspapers or visualizing on the

Force of Evil Abraham Polonsky The Enterprise Studios, 1948 Years ago I worked in the law office of attorney Leon Despres, former Alderman for Chicago’s Fifth Ward, which comprehends Hyde Park and the University of Chicago. Despres was a Chicago legend, famous for his opposition to the regime of Richard

Wormwood Errol Morris Fourth Floor Productions, 2017 We see a wall with murky brown floral wallpaper and a door with a peephole and the number 1018A. A man is talking on the phone. He says: “See you tomorrow. I love you, Alice.” The camera pans out and reveals another man,

Great review in the January 2018 edition of IndiePicks Magazine! Keelan Cavanaugh has been sentenced to a very different kind of prison. Uncomfortably installed at the Calorie Reduction Centre (CRC) — also known as the Fatness, or the Girth Gulag — he will lose weight, whether he wants to or

Downsizing Alexander Payne Paramount Pictures, 2017 Alexander Payne’s new film Downsizing, is an uneven, but engaging science-fiction satire that proposes to solve the earth’s ecological and other problems by “downsizing,” or physically shrinking, human beings. The creator of such noteworthy films as Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002) and Nebraska (2013),

Roman J. Israel, Esq. Directed by Dan Gilroy Sony Pictures, 2017 Dan Gilroy, writer-director of Nightcrawler (2014)—about a ruthless, amoral crime photographer—and now the legal drama Roman J. Israel, Esq., has something to say about contemporary society: “[We] have entered a time of hyper-capitalism, and for me it’s sort of

Confronting Injustice: Social Activism in the Age of Individualism Umair Muhammed Haymarket, 2014 Drawing on his years of activism and academic research, Umair Muhammed delivers a compelling case for change within activist communities in his book, Confronting Injustice. The book is a quick read and constructed cleverly; it unites political

Washington’s Long War on Syria Stephen Gowans Baraka Books, 2017 The impression of a region teeming with internecine enmities along bewilderingly archaic ethnic and religious lines hampers understanding of the Middle East. Stephen Gowans’s book on Syria contests this impression powerfully. It focuses on the origins, motivations and interactions of