International Politics & Socialism

Yes, I want to donate to help ensure that all 308 members of parliament receive a copy of Kerry Pither's Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror.

• David Harvey
• Oxford University Press; January 2007
• Paperback; 254 pages
• 9780199283279

Neoliberalism - the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action - has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so.

Its spread has depended upon a reconstitution of state powers such that privatization, finance, and market processes are emphasized. State interventions in the economy are minimized, while the obligations of the state to provide for the welfare of its citizens are diminished.

David Harvey, author of 'The New Imperialism' and 'The Condition of Postmodernity', here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. While Thatcher and Reagan are often cited as primary authors of this neoliberal turn, Harvey shows how a complex of forces, from Chile to China and from New York City to Mexico City, have also played their part. In addition he explores the continuities and contrasts between neoliberalism of the Clinton sort and the recent turn towards neoconservative imperialism of George W. Bush. Finally, through critical engagement with this history, Harvey constructs a framework not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

• Silvio Pons and Roberot Service, Eds.
• Princeton, 2010
• Hardcover, 792 pages
• 9780691135854

The first book of its kind to appear since the end of the Cold War, this indispensable reference provides encyclopedic coverage of communism and its impact throughout the world in the 20th century. With the opening of archives in former communist states, scholars have found new material that has expanded and sometimes altered the understanding of communism as an ideological and political force. A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism brings this scholarship to students, teachers, and scholars in related fields. In more than 400 concise entries, the book explains what communism was, the forms it took, and the enormous role it played in world history from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond.

Silvio Pons is professor of eastern European history at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and director of the Gramsci Institute Foundation in Rome. His books include The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943-1953 and Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936-1941. Robert Service teaches Russian history at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Comrades!: A History of World Communism and A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, as well as biographies of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky.

• John Ralston Saul
• Penguin; Sept 2008
• Hardcover; 320 pages
• 978-0-670-06804-3

This book is not currently in stock, but is available to order (1-2 weeks).

In this startlingly original vision of Canada, thinker John Ralston Saul unveils 3 founding myths. Saul argues that the famous “peace, order, and good government” that supposedly defines Canada is a distortion of the country’s true nature. Every single document before the BNA Act, he points out, used the phrase “peace, welfare, and good government,” demonstrating that the well-being of its citizenry was paramount. He also argues that Canada is a Métis nation, heavily influenced and shaped by aboriginal ideas: egalitarianism, a proper balance between individual and group, and a penchant for negotiation over violence are all aboriginal values that Canada absorbed. Another obstacle to progress, Saul argues, is that Canada has an increasingly ineffective elite, a colonial non-intellectual business elite that doesn’t believe in Canada. It is critical that we recognize these aspects of the country in order to rethink its future.
 

• Greg Robinson
• Columbia UP, 2009
• Hardcover, 397 pages
• 9780231129220

The confinement of some 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, often called the Japanese American internment, has been described as the worst official civil rights violation of modern U. S. history. Greg Robinson not only offers a bold new understanding of these events but also studies them within a larger time frame and from a transnational perspective.

Drawing on newly discovered material, Robinson provides a backstory of confinement that reveals for the first time the extent of the American government's surveillance of Japanese communities in the years leading up to war and the construction of what officials termed "concentration camps" for enemy aliens. He also considers the aftermath of confinement, including the place of Japanese Americans in postwar civil rights struggles, the long movement by former camp inmates for redress, and the continuing role of the camps as touchstones for nationwide commemoration and debate.

• Malalai Joya
• Scribner, 2009
• Hardcover, 231 pages
• 9781439109465

Malalai Joya has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." At a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country's powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-five years old. Two years later, she became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan's new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of the warlords and drug barons and their cronies. She has survived four assassination attempts to date, is accompanied at all times by armed guards, and sleeps only in safe houses.

• Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls
• Seven Stories; September 2006
• Paperback
• 1-58322-731-8

This book is not currently in stock, but is available to order (2-4 weeks).

In the years following 9/11, U.S. policy in Afghanistan has received little scrutiny, either from the media or the public. Despite official claims of democracy and women’s freedom, Afghanistan has yet to emerge from the ashes of decades-long war. Through in-depth research and detailed historical context, Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls report on the injustice of U.S. policies in Afghanistan historically and in the post-9/11 era. Drawing from declassified government documents and on-the-ground interviews with Afghan activists, journalists, lawyers, refugees, and students, Bleeding Afghanistan examines the connections between the U.S. training and arming of Mujahideen commanders and the subversion of Afghan democracy today. Bleeding Afghanistan boldly critiques the exploitation of Afghan women to justify war by both conservatives and liberals, analyzes uncritical media coverage of U.S. policies, and examines the ways in which the U.S. benefits from being in Afghanistan.

• Yves Engler & Anthony Fenton
• Red/Fernwood Publishing, 2005
• Paperback, 120 pages
• 9781552661680

Based on documents gathered using the Access to Information Act and from human rights investigations and first-hand interviews, this report discloses how Canada, the United States, and France undermined the overthrow of Haiti's elected government. Discussing the current state of Haiti the poorest country in the western hemisphere topics cover the many deaths, unimaginable suffering, and continued impoverishment of the descendants of the world's only successful slave rebellion.

• Karl Marx
• Penguin Classics; 1990 reprinted edition
• Paperback; 1,141 pages
• 9780140445688

Capital, one of Marx's major and most influential works, was the product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode of production in England, the most advanced industrial society of his day. This new translation of Volume One, the only volume to be completed and edited by Marx himself, avoids some of the mistakes that have marred earlier versions and seeks to do justice to the literary qualities of the work. The introduction is by Ernest Mandel, author of Late Capitalism, one of the only comprehensive attempts to develop the theoretical legacy of Capital.

• Karl Marx
• Penguin Classics; 1992 edition reprinted
• Paperback; 624 pages
• 9780140445695

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories.

• Karl Marx
• Penguin Classics; 1991 edition reprinted
• Paperback; 1,152 pages
• 9780140445701

The third volume of the book that changed the course of world history, Capital's final chapters were Marx's most controversial writings on the subject, and were never completed.

Ali M. Ansari
Perseus Books Group; June 2006
Hardcover; 288 pages
0465003508

Iran has resumed its nuclear program, and President Bush is threatening military action. An expert on U.S.-Iranian relations explains the past, present, and possible future of this dangerous standoff.

In 2002, George W. Bush famously referred to Iran as a member of the "axis of evil." The fierce rhetoric highlights the persistent antagonism between the two nations. The standoff has taken on renewed urgency with election of hard-line conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's new president and his bold resumption of the country's nuclear program. Will Iran be the next front in America's war on terror?

Iran expert Ali Ansari sets the current crisis in the context of a long history of mutual antagonism. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations, Iran and the U.S. have loomed large in each other's domestic politics for decades. From the overthrow of Mosaddeq in 1953 to the hostage crisis in 1979 and, more recently, the Gulf War and the War in Iraq, both Iranian and American politicians have forged narratives about an "evil empire" lying half a world away. This mutual mistrust has militated against detente between the two nations--and may ultimately lead to war.
An authoritative account of failed foreign policy, this book will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this explosive region.

• Kerry Pither
• Penguin; Aug 2008
• Hardcover; 304 pages
• 978-0-670-06853-1

QUESTIONED. SHADOWED. IMPRISONED ABROAD. ISOLATED. INTERROGATED. TORTURED. RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE.

That’s what happened to FOUR CANADIAN MUSLIM MEN accused of terrorist links. One of them, Maher Arar has been fully exonerated by a public commission of inquiry. Now Dark Days chronicles the shocking story of how three other Canadian men experienced similarly devastating ordeals. One of these men, Ahmad El Maati, says that despite everything that’s happened, “I always remember that we are the lucky ones. Since 9/11 so many others have just disappeared, or are still in secret prisons, with no right to ask questions. At least we have the right to ask questions about why this happened. At least we might get answers.”

• Vijay Prashad
• New Press; January 2007
• Paperback; 384 pages

A landmark study that offers an alternative history of the Cold War from the point of view of the world's poor.

Here, from a brilliant young writer, is a paradigm-shifting history of both a utopian concept and global movement—the idea of the Third World. The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world’s impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II.

Spanning every continent of the global South, Vijay Prashad’s fascinating narrative takes us from the birth of postcolonial nations after World War II to the downfall and corruption of nationalist regimes. A breakthrough book of cutting-edge scholarship, it includes vivid portraits of Third World giants like India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, and Indonesia’s Sukarno—as well as scores of extraordinary but now-forgotten intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters. The Darker Nations restores to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World, whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced a much impoverished international political arena.

Vijay Prashad’s previous books include The Karma of Brown Folk and Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting. He is on the board of the Center for Third World Organizing and a co-founder of the Forum of Indian Leftists. He teaches at Trinity College, Connecticut, and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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• Dambisa Moyo
• Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009
• Hardcover, 188 pages
• 9780374139568

Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world's poorest countries.

• by Joshua Key as told to Lawrence Hill
• House of Anansi Press; 2007
• Hardcover; 256 pages
• 978-0-88784-208-5

In this first-ever memoir from a young US soldier who participated for eight months in the war in Iraq and then fled to Canada, Joshua Key offers a vivid and damning indictment of how the war is being waged.

Joshua Key is a husband and father from a conservative background who enlisted in the army to lift his family out of poverty. A year later, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq and Key was sent to Ramadi. The war he found there was not the campaign against terrorists and "evildoers" he had been told to expect. Key saw Iraqi civilians beaten, maimed, and shot for little or no provocation. He witnessed the killing of a seven-year-old girl who was scrounging leftover army rations, and watched while the dead bodies of Iraqis provided sport for US soldiers. When Key was sent home on leave he knew he could not return to the war. He went underground, finally seeking asylum in Canada. His case is now before the Canadian courts.

In clear-eyed, compelling prose crafted with the help of award-winning Canadian novelist and journalist Lawrence Hill, The Deserter's Tale tells the story of a man who went into the war believing unquestioningly in his government and who was transformed into a person who ethically, morally, and physically could no longer serve his country.

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• Amy Bartholomew (Ed.)
• Pluto Press/Between the Lines, 2006
• Paperback, 381 pages
• 9781897071090

Can democracy and human rights be imposed "by fire and sword"? Influential intellectuals, lawyers, and politicians from Canada, the U.S., and Europe, including Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, Reg Whitaker, Jurgen Habermas, Andrew Arato and Samir Amin, examine the impact that the doctrine of pre-emptive war has had on international law and human rights, and  its  implications for the future of global justice and the rule of law. Charting new ways forward, and drawing on a variety of legal and political arguments, the contributors provide a wide-ranging analysis that will be useful to anyone with an interest in imperialism and international law.

Amy Bartholomew is Associate Professor of Law at Carleton University. In April 2004, she was called as an expert witness at the World Tribunal on Iraq. She is the co-editor of several volumes on legal studies.

• Joe Sacco
• Henry Holt, 2009
• Hardcover, 432 pages
• 978-0-8050-7347-8

From the great cartoonist-reporter, a sweeping, original investigation of a forgotten crime in the most vexed of places

Rafah, a town at the bottommost tip of the Gaza Strip, is a squalid place. Raw concrete buildings front trash-strewn alleys. The narrow streets are crowded with young children and unemployed men. On the border with Egypt, swaths of Rafah have been bulldozed to rubble. Rafah is today and has always been a notorious flashpoint in this bitterest of conflicts.

Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinians dead, shot by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah—cold-blooded massacre or dreadful mistake—reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco immerses himself in daily life of Rafah and the neighboring town of Khan Younis, uncovering Gaza past and present. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, alive with the voices of fugitives and schoolchildren, widows and sheikhs, Footnotes in Gaza captures the essence of a tragedy.

As in Palestine and Safe Area Goražde, Sacco’s unique visual journalism has rendered a contested landscape in brilliant, meticulous detail. Footnotes in Gaza, his most ambitious work to date, transforms a critical conflict of our age into an intimate and immediate experience.

• Noam Chomsky
• Metropolitan Books; 2004
• Paperback; 320 pages
• 0-8050-7688-3

An immediate national bestseller, Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing -- as in the Cuban missile crisis -- to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.

With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government's aggressive pursuit of "full spectrum dominance" and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today's most influential thinkers.

Noam Chomsky is the author of numerous bestselling political works, from American Power and The New Mandarins to 9-11. Institute Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT, he is widely credited with having revolutionized modern linguistics. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

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• Brian Topp
• James Lorimer & Company Ltd.; 2010
• Paperback; 192 Pages
• 9781552775028

In November 2008 the opposition came very close to replacing Stephen Harper with a new government. It was an astonishing few days for Canadian politics; opposition party leaders came together, announcing a formal coalition of the Liberals and the NDP, while the Bloc offered guaranteed support for the new government in the House of Commons.

This came at a time of crisis. Many of the world's large financial institutions were tottering, leading to unprecedented government intervention in the U.S, the U.K. and elsewhere. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had attacked the opposition parties through a move to deny them public funding, along with other proposals which enraged them. There was no sign that he was ready to put aside his neo-conservative ideology to take action to address the worst recession in the past 50 years.

Brian Topp lived through this period as the key negotiator for the NDP, and in this book he offer's a day-by-day insider's account of how the coalition was put together - and how it fell apart. Topp participated in many key meetings to get the coalition under way. His narrative is built around the words of the participants, front-line as well as backroom, as they work to establish a deal, and then try to hold on to it in the face of a withering attack from the Conservatives. Among the key players in this story are Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Dawn Black - and behind the scenes Ed Broadbent, Jean Chrétien, Roy Romanow and Allan Blakeney are active too.

• Norman Finkelstein
• Verso; April 2003
• Paperback; 286 pages
• 978 1 85984 442 7

First published in 1995, this polemical study challenges generally accepted truths of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as much of the revisionist literature. This new edition critically reexamines dominant popular and scholarly images in the light of the current failures of the peace process.

• John Ralston Saul
• Gaspereau Press, 2006
• Paperback, 61 pages
• 9781554470181

On 20 March 2004, John Ralston Saul delivered the inaugural Joseph Howe lecture at King’s College School of Journalism in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One of Canada’s foremost thinkers on issues of media, politics and society, Saul spoke to the legacy of Joseph Howe, his famous defense in 1835, and of his contributions to a distinctly Canadian position on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. His speech recalls a time when political debate was prioritized in society and covered by the media, and when the democratic foundations of this country were first articulated and then pursued via social reforms.

“We’re curious. And we’re actually not in a rush,” says Saul of our current situation. Why then, with the collective level of education and individual life expectancy steadily on the rise, have we not allocated more time to engaging in public debate of ideas and to covering these debates in the media? Why, when the creation of Canada as a country is still remembered as the result of all-night discussions and passionate engagement, have we not chosen to continue discussion simply as a means of maintaining an active, conscious citizenry?

• Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky
• Pantheon Books, 2002
• Paperback, 412 pages
• 9780375714498

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

• McLellan, David
• Palgrave; 2007
• Paperback; 440 pages
• 9781403997289

The fourth edition of Marxism after Marx is an updated version of what has become the classic account of twentieth-century Marxism. It includes new bibliographical information and sections covering developments since the previous edition. This new edition represents a comprehensive and reliable guide to one of the most influential bodies of thought of the twentieth century.


About David McLellan

DAVID McLELLAN is Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmiths College, London, UK. His books on Marx and Marxism have been translated into many languages. His most recent publications are Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist and Unto Caesar: The Political Relevance of Christianity.