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…
reviews
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,…
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…
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 &…
‘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…
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…
Reimagining the left in times of crisis
Challenging the Right, Augmenting the Left: Recasting Leftist Imagination Edited by Robert Latham, A. T. Kingsmith, Julian von Bargen and Niko Block Fernwood, 2020 It is a commonplace on the…
Making the world big enough for all of us: A review of Max Ajl’s ‘A People’s Green New Deal’
In his new, eminently readable work, researcher and postdoctoral fellow Max Ajl systematically dismantles ruling class and ostensibly progressive visions for a Green New Deal. A People’s Green New Deal…
Why the ‘New Corporation’ is bad news for democracy
The New Corporation: How “Good” Corporations Are Bad for Democracy Joel Bakan Allen Lane, 2020 Joel Bakan begins his latest book, The New Corporation, by noting that, in 2019, “…the…
‘Capitalism must die to protect the sacred’
The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth The Red Nation Common Notions, 2021 The Red Deal, a new book by the Red Nation—an American grassroots organization dedicated to…
Charting a course for the future of feminist organizing
Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age Nora Loreto Fernwood, 2020 In reading Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age, it dawned on me…
Communist love in the time of capitalist doom
The Communism of Love: An Inquiry Into the Poverty of Exchange Value Richard Gilman-Opalsky AK Press, 2020 “This book is about the communism of love. It is, in other words,…
Musings on Poets and Poetry
For me, reading the American literary critic, Harold Bloom, is often like wading in molasses. Intellectual molasses, to be sure, but slow going nonetheless. His writing is thick with difficult…
How to blow up a movement: Andreas Malm’s new book dreams of sabotage but ignores consequences
Andreas Malm’s latest book calls for rapid escalation by the global climate movement into the realm of sabotage and property destruction. Image by Canadian Dimension, adapted from a photo by…
Does the left really hate the working class?
Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class Paul Embery Polity, 2021 The Labour Party’s dismal performance in the 2019 UK general election has generally been attributed to its…
How Cuba survived and surprised in a post-Soviet world
We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World Helen Yaffe Yale University Press, 2020 The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the consequent…
Confronting medical colonialism
Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism Against Indigenous Children in Canada Samir Shaheen-Hussain McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 Anyone who thinks that racism in Canada is more benign…
Places of freedom: Reimagining the future of Standing Rock
Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance Nick Estes Verso, 2019 In the fall of 2016, in a…
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…