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…
reviews
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…
Growing cultures of despair in Middle America
Hillbilly Elegy Ron Howard Netflix, 2020 American director Ron Howard’s latest film, Hillbilly Elegy, released on Netflix in late November, is the latest Trump-era attempt to capture the decay of…
Andreas Malm’s new pamphlet on climate, corona, and communism fails to ignite
Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century Andreas Malm Verso, 2020 One of the left’s richest traditions is the polemical pamphlet written amidst crisis. Who can forget…
How the KKK capitalized on Canada’s racism
The Ku Klux Klan in Canada: A Century of Promoting Racism and Hate in the Peaceable Kingdom Allan Bartley Formac, 2020 Aside from accounts of the many acts of horrific,…
Attacking the substance: A review of Young, Banerjee, and Schwartz’s ‘Levers of Power’
Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It Kevin A. Young, Tarun Banerjee, and Michael Schwartz Verso, 2020 In their new book Levers…
Donald “Asshole” Trump
Back in 2012 — several years before the 2016 US election that saw what many believe was an inept, incompetent, lying, Russian agent and con artist get elected to the…
In a compelling call to arms, Seth Klein presents inspiring vision of Canada’s response to climate crisis
A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency Seth Klein ECW Press, 2020 In May 2019, the The Guardian made an important decision when it decided to stop using…
An odyssey indeed
Itineraries: An Intellectual Odyssey Philip Resnick Ronsdale Press, 2020 Although Philip Resnick did not run into any cyclopses in his life’s journey, the tale that he recounts is as fascinating…
The Jakarta Method: How to destabilize and control the Third World
The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World Vincent Bevins Public Affairs, 2020 Today, the “First World” typically refers to imagined “Western” countries…
New collection proposes bold ideas on rethinking systemic urban change
Social Ecology and the Right to the City: Towards Ecological and Democratic Cities Edited by Federico Venturini, Emet Değirmenci and Inés Morales Bernardos Black Rose Books, 2019 This collection, published…
New collection proposes bold ideas on systemic urban change
Social Ecology and the Right to the City: Towards Ecological and Democratic Cities Edited by Federico Venturini, Emet Değirmenci and Inés Morales Bernardos Black Rose Books, 2019 This collection, published…
Planet of the Humans opens important debate about green capitalism, unlimited economic growth
Planet of the Humans Jeff Gibbs Rumble Media, 2019 Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs and produced by Michael Moore, has hit a sensitive nerve with well-established environmental…
The Long Read part 2
In my previous post I wrote about reading during the lockdown, particularly delving into some longer reads like War and Peace. This time gives us ample opportunity to tackle books…
God or Mammon?
Jesus and the Politics of Mammon Hollis Phelps Cascade Books, 2019 The title of this book made me suspect it would simply advocate an anti-capitalist theology and present a vision…
Review: The Serpent of Venice
The Serpent of Venice is a mash-up extraordinaire of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Cask of Amontillado, starring Pocket, the lead from Moore’s… Continue ReadingReview: The Serpent of…
Social distancing and reading
With every responsible, mature adult practicing social distancing and self-isolation these days, it means spending lots of time at home, alone or within the small family unit. Trying for some,…
Critiquing capitalist spirituality
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality Ronald E. Purser Repeater Books, 2019 It is interesting to note just how many of the leaders of self-help culture present their…
Capturing the horror of war in Beanpole
Beanpole Kantemir Balagov Non-Stop Production, 2019 Opening at the Film Forum in New York City Beanpole is a Russian film set in Leningrad just after the Second World War has…