Politics
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Best of Le Monde diplomatique 2012
Edited by Wendy Kristianasen
Le Monde diplomatique is one of the most highly respected independent periodicals. Published monthly in French and English, it brings together a diverse range of high-calibre writers from across the world. This book collects the paper’s highlights from the last year. The articles have been carefully selected and are arranged around the key themes in our changing world including US imperialism, the financial crisis and the Arab Spring. Among the contributors are Slavoj Žižek, James K Galbraith… (more information)
State Violence, Collusion and the Troubles
Counter Insurgency, Government Deviance and Northern Ireland
Maurice Punch
The period in Northern Ireland known as ‘the Troubles’ (1968-98) seemed to have been conclusively ended by the official peace process. But recent violence from dissident Republicans shows that tensions from the past remain unresolved. State Violence, Collusion and the Troubles reveals disturbing unanswered questions about the use of state violence during this period. Maurice Punch documents in chilling detail how the British government turned to desperate, illegal measures in a time… (more information)
Flammable Societies
Studies on the Socio Economics of Oil and Gas
Edited by John Andrew McNeish
The impact of the oil and gas industry – paradoxially seen both as a blessing and a curse on socio-economic development – is a question at the heart of the comparative studies in this volume stretching from Northern Europe to the Caucasus, the Gulf of Guinea to Latin America. Britain’s transformation under Margaret Thatcher into a supposedly post-industrial society orientated towards consumer sovereignty was paid for with revenues from the North Sea oil industry, an industry… (more information)
Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping
The Truth May Hurt
Yves Engler
Lester Pearson is one of Canada’s most important political figures. A Nobel Peace laureate, he is considered a great peacekeeper and ‘honest broker.’ But in this critical examination of his work, Pearson is exposed as an ardent cold warrior who backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, Zionism, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. A beneficiary of U.S. intervention in Canadian political affairs, he also provided important… (more information)
Rethinking the Politics of Labour in Canada
Edited by Stephanie Ross, Larry Savage
Though the Canadian labour movement’s postwar political, economic and social achievements may have seemed like irrevocable contributions to human progress, they have proven to be anything but. Since the mid-1970s, labour’s political influence and capacity to defend, let alone extend, these gains has been seriously undermined by the strategies of both capitalist interests and the neoliberal state. Electoral de-alignment and the decline of class-based voting, bursts of unsustained extra… (more information)
Rise of the Tea Party
Political Discontent and Corporate Media in the age of Obama
Anthony DiMaggio
What to make of the Tea Party? To some, it is a grassroots movement aiming to reclaim an out-of-touch government for the people. To others, it is a proto-fascist organization of the misinformed and manipulated lower middle class. Either way, it is surely one of the most significant forms of reaction in the age of Obama. In this definitive socio-political analysis of the Tea Party, Anthony DiMaggio examines the Tea Party phenomenon, using a vast array of primary and secondary sources as well as… (more information)
Posthuman International Relations
Complexity, Ecologism and Global Politics
Erika Cudworth, Stephen Hobden
In this bold intervention, Cudworth and Hobden draw on recent advances in thinking about complexity theory to call for a profound re-envisioning of the study of international relations. As a discipline, IR is wedded to the enlightenment project of overcoming the ‘hazards’ of nature, and thus remains constrained by its blinkered ‘human-centred’ approach. Furthermore, as a means of predicting major global-political events and trends, it has failed consistently. Instead, the… (more information)
Israeli Rejectionism
A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process
Zalman Amit, Daphna Levit
The Palestine-Israel conflict is one of the longest running and seemingly intractable confrontations in the modern world. This book delves deep into the ‘peace process’ to find out why so little progress has been made on the key issues. Zalman Amit and Daphna Levit find overwhelming evidence of Israeli rejectionism as the main cause for the failure of peace. They demonstrate that the Israeli leadership has always been against a fairly negotiated peace and have deliberately… (more information)
Right-wing Politics in the New Latin America
Reaction and Revolt
Edited by Francisco Dominguez, Geraldine Lievesley, Steve Ludlum
The focus for students of Latin America in the past decade has been on the political forces of the left and the so-called ‘pink tide’ presidencies attempting to bring about social and economic change in the region. However, there has been far less attention paid to the rightwing political forces resisting such change. Such opposition is being orchestrated by political parties, business, the private media and other social and cultural institutions and is linked to the ‘soft power… (more information)
Lumpencity
Discourses of Marginality | Marginalizing Discourses
Edited by Alan Bourke, Tia Dafnos, Markus Kip
While it has been fashionable to think that academic research benefits marginalized groups, representational and methodological choices have often served to produce and legitimize marginalizing practices. The contributions to this volume reveal how authors have sought to engage with and transform their scholarly repertoires into tools of analysis useful for political action. We hope to encourage scholars, activists, and activist-scholars to reflect upon the complementarity of their academic and… (more information)
21st Century Socialism
Reinventing the Project, 2nd edition
Edited by Henry Veltmeyer
The growing polarization between the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, the yawning social and developmental divide and the multidimensional systemic crisis of capitalism have given rise to a fundamental problem of our times: barbarism or socialism? Will we continue on the path of capitalist barbarism or move to a more just socialist system? Bringing together a passionate group of socialists, 21st Century Socialism participates in the emerging and critical debate concerned with reinventing… (more information)
Congo Masquerade
The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure
Theodore Trefon
Congo Masquerade is about mismanagement, hypocrisy and powerlessness in what has proved to be one of Africa’s most troublesome and volatile states. In this scathing study of catastrophic aid inefficiency, Trefon argues that whilst others have examined war and plunder in the Great Lakes region, none have yet evaluated the imported ‘template format’ reform package pieced together to introduce democracy and improve the well-being of ordinary Congolese. It has, the book demonstrates… (more information)
Local Governance and ICTs in Africa
Case Studies and Guidelines for Implementation and Evaluation
Edited by Timothy Mwololo Waema, Edith Ofwona Adera
With governance high on the agenda in Africa, many governments are using information and communications technologies (ICTs) to introduce innovations in their structure, practices and capacities as well as in the ways they use human capital and deliver services to citizens. But the potential for e-governance in Africa remains largely unexploited. Progress requires infrastructure improvement, the enactment of appropriate laws and policies, and capacity and content development. This book addresses… (more information)
State of Islam
Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan
Saadia Toor
The State of Islam tells the story of Pakistan through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the global rise of militant Islam. Unlike existing scholarship on nationalism, Islam and the state in Pakistan, which tends to privilege events in a narrowly-defined ‘political’ realm, Saadia Toor highlights the significance of cultural politics in Pakistan from its origins to the contemporary… (more information)
Crises of Multiculturalism
Racism in a Neoliberal Age
Alana Lentin, Gavan Titley
Across the West, something called multiculturalism is in crisis. Regarded as the failed experiment of liberal elites, commentators and politicians compete to denounce its corrosive legacies; parallel communities threatening social cohesion, enemies within cultivated by irresponsible cultural relativism, mediaeval practices subverting national ‘ways of life’ and universal values. This important new book challenges this familiar narrative of the rise and fall of multiculturalism by challenging… (more information)
Politics in Africa
A New Introduction
Anna Mdee, Nana Poku
Democracy, prosperity and self-rule, this was the vision of African independence. Across the continent, however, the ‘optimism’ that characterized the immediate post-independence period has largely faded. Meanwhile, ordinary Africans lurch between undemocratic, unaccountable and unresponsive governments and a decaying traditional African past. How did things go so wrong? Why has the continent lagged behind others in economic development despite its potential natural resources? Why… (more information)
Worst-Case Scenario?
Governance, Mediation and the Security Regime
Stuart Price
In this original and provocative new book, Stuart Price identifies the existence of a practice that lies at the core of the western security regime–the worst-case scenario. This consists of the projection of a significant material threat, made by an authoritative or executive power, used to bolster the security agenda of the neo-liberal state. This in turn has altered the conduct of military and police operations, which are increasingly directed against any substantial expression of dissent… (more information)
Private Affluence, Public Austerity
Economic Crisis and Democratic Malaise in Canada
Stephen McBride, Heather Whiteside
Examining Canadian political and economic developments of the twenty-first century, Private Affluence, Public Austerity provides a systematic analysis of the dynamics of Canadian politics in the era of neoliberal globalization. Stephen McBride and Heather Whiteside conclude that, although the last three decades of neoliberal rule are characterized by recurrent crises, the system has proven to be resilient — even in the face of a severe recession. Canada’s “business as usual&rdquo… (more information)
Canadian Labour in Crisis
Reinventing the Workers’ Movement
David Camfield
Does Canada have a working-class movement? Though many of us think of ourselves as middle class, most of us are, in fact, working class: we work for a wage. And though many of us are members of unions — the most significant organizations of the working-class movement in Canada — most people do not understand themselves to be part of this movement. Canadian Labour in Crisis asks why this is so. Through an analysis of the contemporary Canadian working-class movement and its historical… (more information)
Politics of Postcolonialism
Empire, Nation and Resistance
Rumina Sethi
In a period of vast global restructuring, unrestricted capital has eroded the traditional distinctions between nations and nationhood. In The Politics of Postcolonialism, Rumina Sethi devises a new form of postcolonial studies that makes sense of these dramatic changes. Returning to the origins of the discipline, Sethi identifies it as a tool for political protest and activism among people of the third world. Using a sophisticated mix of spatial theory and local politics, she examines the uneven… (more information)
Ballot Box China
Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One-Party State
Kerry Brown
Since 1988, China has undergone one of the largest, but least understood experiments in grassroots democracy. Across 600,000 villages in China, with almost a million elections, some three million officials have been elected. The Chinese government believes that this is a step towards `democracy with Chinese characteristics’. But to many involved in them, the elections have been mired by corruption, vote-rigging and cronyism. This book looks at the history of these elections, how they arose… (more information)
Angry Nation
Turkey Since 1989
Kerem Öktem
Since Turkey was catapulted back onto the world stage in 1989 it has turned into a major power broker and has developed into one the largest economies in the world. The country has, however, failed to peacefully resolve its ethnic, religious and historical conflicts. Today, as the foundations of the ethno-nationalist Kemalist state are eroding rapidly, Turkey appears to be coming to terms with the many sources of its anger, if cautiously and slowly. At this historical turning point, Angry Nation… (more information)
Stop Signs
Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay
Yves Engler, Bianca Mugyenyi
In North America, human beings have become enthralled by the automobile: A quarter of our working lives are spent paying for them; communities fight each other for the right to build more of them; our cities have been torn down, remade and planned with their needs as the overriding concern; wars are fought to keep their fuel tanks filled; songs are written to praise them; cathedrals are built to worship them. In Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay… (more information)
Decent Capitalism
A Blueprint for Reforming our Economies
Sebastien Dullien, Hansjörg Herr, Christian Kellermann
The recent crisis, created by finance capitalism, has brought us to the economic abyss. The excessive freedom of international markets has rapidly transformed into international panic, with states struggling to rescue and bail out a globalised financial sector. Reform is promised by our leaders, but in governments dominated by financial interests there is little hope of meaningful change. Decent Capitalism argues for a response that addresses capitalism’s systemic tendency towards crisis,… (more information)
Bathtubs but No Water
A Tribute to the Mushuau Innu
Gerry Steele
In 1967, the Mushuau Innu — the Aboriginal people of Labrador — were resettled on Davis Inlet by the Canadian government. Originally a land-based people, this move to the coast created cultural, economic and spiritual upheaval, and Davis Inlet became synonymous with shocking substance abuse and suicide rates. In Bathtubs but No Water, Gerry Steele offers the reader a participant observer’s perspective on Davis Inlet. An employee of the federal government working with the Mushuau… (more information)
Good Places to Live
Poverty and Public Housing in Canada
Jim Silver
Public housing projects are stigmatized and stereotyped as bad places to live, as havens of poverty, illegal activity and violence. In many cities they are being bulldozed, ostensibly for these reasons but also because the land on which they are located has become so valuable. In Good Places to Live, Jim Silver argues that the problems with which it is so often associated are not inherent to public housing but are the result of structural inequalities and neoliberal government policies. This book… (more information)
Sex and the Supreme Court
Obscenity and Indecency Law in Canada
Richard Jochelson, Kirsten Kramar
Canadian laws pertaining to pornography and bawdy houses were first developed during the Victorian era, when ”non-normative” sexualities were understood as a corruption of conservative morals and harmful to society as a whole. Tracing the socio-legal history of contemporary obscenity and indecency laws, Kramar and Jochelson contend that the law continues to function to protect society from harm. Today, rather than seeing harm to conservative values, the court sees harm to liberal political… (more information)
Devil’s Milk
A Social History of Rubber
John Tully
From the early stages of primitive accumulation to the heights of the industrial revolution and beyond, rubber is one of a handful of commodities that has played a crucial role in shaping the modern world, and yet, as John Tully shows in this remarkable book, laboring people around the globe have every reason to regard it as “the devil’s milk.” All the advancements made possible by rubber have occurred against a backdrop of seemingly endless exploitation, conquest, slavery, and… (more information)
Antonio Negri Illustrated
An Interview in Venice
Claudio Calia
Revolutionary, philosopher, best-selling author, political prisoner and one-time exile, Antonio Negri is today considered one of the world’s most influential radicals. His long-standing participation in political struggle and his contemporary analysis of social movements have reshaped the way we view resistance and the potential for revolution in an age of globalization. Claudio Calia takes us on an intimate visit to Negri’s Venice home as we sit amidst busts of Lenin, communist… (more information)
Politics of Equality
An Introduction
Jason Myers
Why are socialists, communists and social democrats concerned with the distribution of wealth? Why do they place so much importance on public goods such as education and health care? To what extent does democracy matter to socialist ideologies? In The Politics of Equality, Jason C. Myers sheds new light on questions like this, providing a readable, contemporary introduction to egalitarian political philosophy. Concentrating on ideas and values rather than on the rise and fall of parties and movements… (more information)
Cuban Revolution in the 21st Century
George Lambie
While most books and articles on Cuba seek to analyse the island’s socialist experiment from the perspective of internal dynamics or international relations, this book attempts to understand the revolutionary process as part of a counter-current against neoliberal globalization. Rather than presenting Cuba as a socialist survivor, whose performance must be measured against the standards set by the ‘international community’, George Lambie judges Cuban socialism on the goals which… (more information)
No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics
Derek Wall
Climate chaos and pollution, deforestation and consumerism: the crisis facing human civilization is clear enough. But the response of politicians has been cowardly and inadequate, while environmental activists have tended to favour single-issue campaigns rather than electoral politics. The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics measures the rising tide of eco-activism and awareness and explains why this event heralds a new political era worldwide: in the near future there will be no other politics… (more information)
Voices from the Other Side
An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba
Keith Bolender
Since the early 1960s, few other countries have endured more acts of terrorism against civilian targets than Cuba, and the US has had its hand in much of it. This book gives a voice to the victims. Keith Bolender brings to bear the enormous impact that terrorism has had on Cuba’s civilian population, with over 1,000 documented incidents resulting in more than 3,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries. Bolender allows the victims to articulate the atrocities the Cuban people have suffered&ndash… (more information)
The Aid Triangle
Recognising the Human Dynamics of Dominance, Justice and Identity
Stuart C. Carr, Malcolm MacLachlan, Eilish McAuliffe
The Aid Triangle focuses on the human dynamics of international aid, from impoverished farmers to aid workers, donor diplomats to multilateral bureaucrats, celebrities to activists, and to the unconcerned and uninvolved. This timely work illustrates how the aid system incorporates power relationships, and therefore relationships of dominance. It explores how such dominance can be both a cause and a consequence of injustice and how the experience of injustice is both a challenge and a stimulus to… (more information)
Zapatistas
Rebellion from the Grassroots to the Global
Alex Khasnabish
In 1994 a guerilla army of Indigenous Mayan peasants in Southeast Mexico emerged and declared ‘Enough!’ to 500 years of colonialism, racism, exploitation, oppression and genocide. The effects of the Zapatista uprising were profound and would be felt beyond the borders of Mexico. At a time when state-sponsored socialism had all but vanished and other elements of the left appeared defeated in the face of neoliberalism’s ascendancy, the Zapatista uprising sparked a powerful new wave… (more information)
Losing Control
Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights
Tom Warner
Losing Control takes a hard, critical look at Canada’s social conservative (religious right) movement and its efforts to re-establish Canada as a nation predicated on the supremacy of God. It explores the nature of social conservatism’s holy war on homosexuality and its efforts to secure more morality-based state regulation of sexuality and reproduction. For social conservatives, the ideal Canada would be a place where there would be no separation of church and state, or of faith and… (more information)
Public Service, Private Profits
The Political Economy of Public-Private Partnerships in Canada
John Loxley, Salim Loxley
PPPs/P3s have become all the rage amongst every level of government in Canada in recent years. Proponents claim P3s reduce the costs of building and operating public projects and services,that projects and services are delivered more efficiently through the P3 model, so that in the end taxpayers are better off economically and as consumers of public goods. This book tests all of these claims, and more, finding them mostly empty, ideological assertions. Through an exhaustive series of case studies… (more information)
Global Capitalism in Crisis
Karl Marx & The Decay of the Profit System
Murray E.G. Smith
The world economy is currently experiencing a devastating slump not seen since the Second World War. Unemployment rates are skyrocketing and salaries are plummeting in the developed world, while astronomical food prices and starvation ravage the developing world. The crisis in global capitalism, Smith argues, should be understood as both a composite crisis of overproduction, credit and finance, and a deep-seated systemic crisis. Using Marx to analyze the origins, implications and scope of the current… (more information)
Economic Democracy
The Working Class Alternative to Capitalism
Allan Engler
Identifying capitalism as a system of socialized labour, privately owned capitalist collectives (corporations) and workplace (dictatorships), this book proposes economic democracy as an alternative form of organization. Unlike the capitalist system, which centralizes power with a small elite, economic democracy entitles everyone to a voice and equal vote in their communities’ economic and political decisions. Workplace and community democracy will replace capitalist (corporate) dictatorship… (more information)
Between Terror and Democracy
Algeria since 1989
James D. Le Sueur
Algeria’s democratic experiment is seminal in post-Cold War history. In this book Le Sueur shows that Algeria is at the very heart of contemporary debates about Islam and secular democracy. Between Terror and Democracy is a lively examination of how the fate of one country is entwined with much greater global issues. (more information)
No-Nonsense Guide to Democracy, 2nd Edition
Richard Swift
In this updated edition of The No-Nonsense Guide to Democracy, Richard Swift explores democracy has been constricted and deformed by economic power-brokers and a self-serving political class from Birmingham to Bangalore. The book includes chapter-length discussions of such as the economic meltdown, Barack Obama, eco-democracy, democratizing the economy, democracy in the global South. It is not only a guide to the rich diversity of forms of elected government but also contains practical ideas for… (more information)
Canada and Israel
Building Apartheid
Yves Engler
This book is the first critical primer about Canada’s ties to Israel. It is a devastating account of Canadian complicity in 20th and 21st century colonialism, dispossession and war crimes. The book documents the history of Canadian Christian Zionism, Lester Pearson’s important role in the United Nations negotiations to create a Jewish state on Palestinian land, the millions of dollars in tax-deductable donations used to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Canadian Security… (more information)
Communist Manifesto (Illustrated)
Chapter One: Historical Materialism
Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, George S. Rigakos, Red Viktor
”A spectre is haunting Europe–the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies...” (more information)
The Communist Manifesto (Illustrated)
Chapter Two: The Bourgeoisie
Edited by Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, George S. Rigakos
”The bourgeoisie... compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.” (more information)
Beyond the Bubble
Imagining a New Canadian Economy
James Laxer
With the onset of the current economic crisis, one chapter in the economic history of the world is ending and new one is beginning. What role will Canada play in this vastly altered world? James Laxer examines the anatomy of the crash: the forces that have controlled the global system and the forces that have the capacity to usher in a new global system as the U.S.-centered age of globalization comes to an end. He explores what needs to be done to combat the crash in Canada, and poses the questions… (more information)
Parliamentary Socialism
A Study in the Politics of Labour
Ralph Miliband
Of political parties claiming socialism to be their aim, the Labour Party has always been one of the most dogmatic—not about socialism, but about the parliamentary system. This is not simply to say that the Labour Party has never been a party of revolution: such parties have normally been quite willing to use the opportu-nities the parliamentary system offered as one means of furthering their aims. It is rather that the leaders of the Labour Party have always rejected any kind of political… (more information)
The State in Capitalist Society
Ralph Miliband
Almost as soon as The State in Capitalist Society was published in 1969, it was recognized as one of the most important books in political science and sociology to have appeared since the Second World War. Four decades later, and in the wake of a neoliberal era almost universally characterized in terms of the re-treat of the state, “the massive scale of state intervention today makes the re-publication of Ralph Miliband’s classic study extremely timely. Its famous opening sentences… (more information)
Bankruptcies and Bailouts
Edited by Wayne Antony, Julie Guard
Recession? Depression? Market adjustment? Billion-dollar bailouts? Just what is happening to the economy? Like the rest of the industrialized world, Canada is in the midst of an economic crisis that is cleary of global proportions. Yet, Nobel Prize winning economists failed to see it coming. This is unsurprising since, in the words of the newly humble Alan Greenspan, the crisis revealed “a flaw in the model ... that defines the way the world works.” Bankruptcies and Bailouts explains… (more information)
Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy
Yves Engler
Shortlisted for the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction in the Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards This book could change how you see Canada. Most of us believe this country’s primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes. But, contrary to the mythology of Canada as a force for good in the world, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy sheds light on many dark corners: from troops that joined the British in Sudan in 1885 to gunboat diplomacy… (more information)
Anti-Terrorism
Security and Insecurity after 9/11
Edited by Sandra Rollings-Magnusson
This edited collection critically analyzes the concept of “terrorism,” the Canadian and American government responses to terrorist activity since the events of 9/11 and the problem of government policies infringing on basic human rights and freedoms. The authors direct their attention to various topics including the relationship between the capitalist economic system and the war on terror, the legality and efficacy of of the Anti-Terrorism Act and the USA PATRIOT Act, and the insecurities… (more information)
Blowback
A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home
Chris Arsenault
The village of Enniskillen, a sleepy cluster of a few dozen houses in New Brunswick’s Queens County, has never been invaded by a foreign power. But during the 1950s to 1970s, the village was ground zero for a different kind of offensive, this one launched by the American and Canadian military against its own people with the deadly dioxin Agent Orange. Between 1956 and 1984 the Canadian military and its private subcontractors sprayed more than 1 million litres of rainbow herbicides around New… (more information)
About Canada: Health Care
Hugh Armstrong, Pat Armstrong
Health care is Canada’s best-loved social program—and for good reason. For more than 30 years, Canadians have enjoyed high quality health care based on need and not on ability to pay. But it is a complex system: changes proposed and those already underway can be difficult to understand and evaluate. What do ‘public’ and ‘private’ mean as they apply to our current health care system and in proposed reforms? As the boomer generation ages, will the growing number… (more information)
The Socialist Register 2008
Global Flashpoints Reactions to Imperialism
Edited by Colin Leys, Leo Panitch
Socialist Register 2008 takes a look at the forces at work in opposition to the American Empire and analyzes their nature—are they reactionary or progressive? Further, what are the prospects for the Left, in the Islamic world, in Latin America and in the capitalist north? The contributors seek to identify the distinguishing features of neoliberalism today and point out its emerging contradictions. (more information)
Pubs, Pulpits and Prairie Fires
Elroy Deimert
History professor Paul Wessner hangs out at BJ’s Bar and Cue Club on Tuesday nights sharing his accounts of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot in 1935. Due to local interest in his research, he invites Doc Savage and Matt Shaw, real-life leaders on the Trek, to deliver first-hand accounts of the Trek and the Riot. He encourages listeners to contribute when no guests are scheduled to tell their stories. The narratives broaden to the evolution of the Social Credit and CCF prairie fires… (more information)
Risk and Trust
Including or Excluding Citizens?
Edited by Law Commission of Canada
In recent years politicians, academics and social commentators have discussed and debated aspects of the “risk society.” For some, embracing a risk frame fulfils a socially productive role in that it helps identify and manage a range of harms and fears. However, as this multidisciplinary collection illustrates, peeling back the veneer of this often highly technocratic discourse reveals a series of moral judgments about the constitution of risk and its role in organizingcontemporary society… (more information)
Our Board Our Business
Why Farmers Support the Canadian Wheat Board
Edited by Darrell McLaughlin, Terry Pugh
Our Board Our Business is based on presentations made to a symposium on the Canadian Wheat Board organized by the National Farmers union held in Regina, Saskatchewan, February 24 and 25, 2006. The central purpose of the book is to help farmers and non-farmers better understand the essential role of the CWB in the lives of western wheat producers and their communities, and the Canadian economy. The need for such an understanding has been made all the more urgent by Prime Minister Harper’s neo… (more information)
The Power of Israel in the United States
James Petras
This book is a chapter-by-chapter analysis and documentation of the power of Israel via the Israeli, Jewish or Pro-Zionist Lobby on u.S. Middle East policy. It raises serious questions as to the primary beneficiary of u.S. policy and its destructive results for the united States. The extraordinary extent of political, economic, military and diplomatic support for the state of Israel is explored, along with the means whereby such support is generated and consolidated. Contending that Zionist power… (more information)
Big Death
Funeral Planning in the Age of Corporate Deathcare
Doug Smith
Over the last twenty years the corporate death “care” industry, has taken over Canada’s funerals and funeral planning, in preparation for the Golden Age of Death in North America, which will commence in 2016, when the first baby boomer turns seventy. In Big Death, Winnipeg writer Doug Smith shows how “Big Death” has bought up countless funeral homes, jacked up prices and maintained the facade of local ownership by not changing the name over the door. The book also… (more information)
Liquid Gold
Energy Privatization in British Columbia
John Calvert
Secure, affordable, reliable energy has been one of British columbia’s most important competitive advantages and a key contributor to the province’s prosperity. BC’s energy costs have been based on the actual cost of production. Under new government policy, future energy will not be generated by BC hydro, but will be purchased from private energy producers. John Calvert shows how BC’s successful public energy system is being supplanted by a deregulated private electrical… (more information)
On the Move
The Caribbean Since 1989
Alejandra Bronfman
The Caribbean stands out in the popular imagination as a “place without history,” a place which has somehow eluded modernity. In On the Move, Alejandra Bronfman argues the opposite is true; the caribbean is, and has always been, deeply engaged with the wider world. From drugs and tourism to international political struggles, these islands form an integral part of world history and of the present, and are in a constant state of economic and social flux in the face of global transformations… (more information)
Canada’s Deadly Secret
Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System
Jim Harding
Canada’s Deadly Secret chronicles the struggle over Saskatchewan’s uranium mining, the front end of the global nuclear system. It digs into impacts on Aboriginal rights, environmental health and the effect of free trade, tracing Saskatchewan’s pivotal role in nuclear proliferation and the spread of contamination and cancer. Harding shows that nuclear energy cannot address global warming, nor is there a “peaceful atom.” The book goes inside biased public inquiries;… (more information)
Bipolar Orders
The Two Koreas Since 1989
Hyung Gu Lynn
North Korea has experienced severe economic deterioration and increasing international isolation, while South Korea has undergone democratization and witnessed the emergence of a vibrant consumer culture. Paradoxically, this growing gap in ideologies and material standards led to improved relations between the two countries. Why has this counterintuitive development occurred? Is north Korea really a threat, and if so, for whom? Amidst the recent tendency to repackage the last embers of the cold… (more information)
The Enemy of Nature (Second Edition)
The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? 2nd Edition
Joel Kovel
We live in and from nature, but the way we have evolved of doing this is about to destroy us. capitalism and its by-products—imperialism, war, neoliberal globalization, racism, poverty and the destruction of community—are all playing a part in the destruction of our ecosystem. only now are we beginning to realize the depth of the crisis and the kind of transformation that will have to occur to ensure our survival. This second, thoroughly updated, edition of The Enemy of Nature speaks… (more information)
Energy Security and Climate Change
A Canadian Primer
Cy Gonick
Peak oil and climate change were mere hypotheses only a few years ago. This book brings together some of Canada’s and the world’s leading authorities to explore the origins of twin crises of our times and to evaluate the various solutions being advanced. What emerges is an engrossing discussion that is critical, sophisticated and plain spoken, challenging and controversial. Energy Security and Climate Change will be of interest to those seeking an introduction to the issues, as well… (more information)
Power and Contestation
India Since 1989
Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam
1989 marks the unraveling of India’s “Nehruvian Consensus” of a modern, secular nation with a selfreliant economy. Caste and religion play major roles in national politics. Global economic integration led to conflict between the state and dispossessed people, but processes of globalization have also enabled new spaces for political assertion. In a world of American Empire, India as a nuclear power has abandoned nonalignment, a shift contested by voices within. Power and Contestation… (more information)
Turning the World Right Side Up
Science, Community and Democracy
John Kearney, Patrick Kerans
The focus of this book is on the un-sustainability of the system that economists, in the name of science, have foisted upon society. Corporations and the economists who act as their apologists, say the authors, are the cultural driving force in contemporary society. They are reductionists: they are locked into a single-minded pursuit of one narrow facet of human well-being. Framing their study within an analysis of contemporary neoliberalism, the authors explore new directions leading to a broad… (more information)
Realizing Hope
Life Beyond Capitalism
Michael Albert
Something is profoundly wrong with capitalism. Vast inequalities of wealth and power won’t take the world to a better future. “What is the alternative?” is a question echoing all around the globe. Michael Albert has wrestled with this question for many years, and his answer regarding economics has captured the imagination of many. Participatory Economics—“Parecon” for short—Albert’s proposed economic system to replace capitalism, rejects competitive… (more information)
The Anti-Capitalist Dictionary
Movements, Histories and Motivations
David E. Lowes
This dictionary is an alternative and a counter-balance to the many political dictionaries that ignore or marginalize the history and influence of anti-capitalist movements. It paints a rich picture of the ideas and issues that inform today’s anti-capitalist activity. Anti-capitalism has existed in many forms and with a variety of names since the advent of capitalism. But this kind of oppositional force has often been ignored, misrepresented or trivialized by many in the media and academia… (more information)
Paradigm Shift (Second Edition)
Globalization and the Canadian State, Second Edition
Stephen McBride
Canada has always been a global nation, integrated with the international economy and having close relations with succeeding hegemonic powers. Recently, globalization was accompanied by an intellectual paradigm shift: moderate state interventionism associated with Keynesian economic theories was replaced by an economic orthodoxy that confined the state to a minimal role and trumpeted the virtue of market solutions. Paradigm Shift evaluates the globalization debate through a Canadian lens and places… (more information)
Challenges and Perils
Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times
Edited by William K. Carroll, R.S. Ratner
This book explores the problems and prospects for social democratic governance in the contemporary Canadian context. It provides an indepth case study of social democratic governance at the provincial level in Canada during the 1990s and the early part of the 21st century. The authors deal with the constraints that neoliberal globalization has imposed upon social democratic governance in Canada and elsewhere. Case studies of regimes in five Canadian provinces bring out nuances and examine differences… (more information)
Ruling Canada
Corporate Cohesion and Democracy
Jamie Brownlee
Ruling Canada critically examines Canada’s “economic elite”—a collection of the country’s richest and most powerful individuals, many of whom preside over Canada’s largest corporations. Brownlee argues that this corporate elite is increasingly unified and class conscious. As a direct result, a broad array of state policies and programs have been cut and/or implemented which serve the interests of this elite minority at the expense of most Canadian citizens. Business… (more information)
Human Rights
Social Justice in the Age of the Market
Koen de Feyter
Rampant market economics has led to violations of human rights. Koen de Feyter questions how far the international human rights system provides effective protection against the adverse effects of globalization. His innovative suggestions for improving the human rights system include rethinking the states’ obligations, creating human rights responsibilities for big companies and international financial institutions and developing human rights obligations for states beyond their own national… (more information)
Borders Matter
Homeland Security and the Search for North America
Daniel Drache
The great North American border has always been a blend of the porous and the “impermeable.” If the border, in all its aspects, is working well, then Canadian sovereignty will be effective and focused. When the fundamentals are neglected, sovereignty becomes threatened, and economic integration becomes the focus of debate. Borders Matter examines the importance of the US–Canada border against the background of the new pressures of increased security practices and the continuing… (more information)
Inventing Tax Rage
Misinformation in the National Post
Larry Patriquin
During the National Post’s first year of publication, it claimed that Canada’s supposedly exorbitant taxes were causing great damage to the economy and had produced a form of “tax rage” among the middle class. In contrast, Larry Patriquin suggests that the paper’s writers were engaged in a dubious form of “reasoning” in order to promote an ideology that mostly benefits the wealthy. This involved presenting the Post’s aspiration for tax cuts as the &… (more information)
Social Torment
Atlantic Canada in the New World Order
Thom Workman
For Atlantic Canadians the much vaunted “New World Order,” with its free-trade/privitazion mantra, has been anything but good. In fact by all accounts to date, it has brought nothing but social torment for all but the very rich and very powerful. In this revealing new book, Thom Workman traces the impact that the new order has had on working people, the working poor, people on social assistance and the elderly. The impact of the new order on health care, education, the environment and… (more information)
John Saville
Memoirs from the Left
John Saville
John Saville has been one of the most influential writers of the second half of the twentieth century in the field of British Labour History. He was a Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Hull. He has written or edited over twenty books including 1848, The Consolidation of the Capitalist State, and the Dictionary of Labour Biography. His political memoirs touch upon: • Early life; joining the Communist Party at the LSE, travels in France and Nazi Germany • Stories… (more information)
Alternative Budgets
Budgeting as if People Mattered
John Loxley
Alternative budgets are becoming an increasingly popular form of political action both in Canada and internationally. They are a means of advancing an alternative social and economic perspective to the neo-conservative agenda of slashing social services, reducing the role of the government and cutting taxes for the rich, all in the name of “necessity.” Alternative budgets demonstrate that there really are more enlightened alternatives which are, at the same time, fiscally responsible… (more information)
Challenging Politics
COPE, Electoral Politics and Social Movements
Donna Vogel
Founded in 1968, the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) claims to represent a coming together of “ordinary citizens” united around a program of people’s needs. As a municipal political party in Vancouver, COPE has attempted to voice the diverse issues and objectives of progressive movements in civic politics, and has placed itself in direct opposition to its chief opponent, the corporate-sponsored Non-Particisan Association (NPA). Challenging Politics is a history that… (more information)
Taxing Illusions
Taxation, Democracy and Embedded Political Theory
Phil Hansen
For several years now, the business community, politicians, the media and many academics have been actively pro-moting tax cuts as the key to successful economic development. Governments everywhere, regardless of party label, have responded with policies of tax reduction. But taxation is about more than raising revenue or shaping economic activity. Taxation helps define the nature of a political community and the values of a political culture. Through examining two Saskatchewan tax reports, one… (more information)
The Impasse of Modernity
Debating the Future of the Global Market Economy
Christian Comeliau
There is a deep unease is growing over the direction of modern society. Christian Comeliau, a well-known French economist, argues that understanding the historical logic of modernity must start with the economy, but that constructive discussion of the future must look at economics within the framework of society’s goals and the limits of Nature. Comeliau critiques the dominant position of market economics in our social system–whose core social value has become the maximization of profit… (more information)
Social Economy
Health and Welfare in Four Canadian Provinces
Edited by Louise Tremblay, Yves Vaillancourt
The fundamental principles of the social economy are solidarity, democratic organization of work, and user and community participation. Based on a three-year study carried out by researchers at the Université du Québec “ Montréal, Université de Moncton, the University of Ottawa and the University of Regina, the essays here testify to the value and diversity of the social economy sector in four Canadian provinces. Researchers explore the realities of the third sector… (more information)
Bringing the Food Economy Home
Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness
Steven Gorelick, Todd Merrifield, Helena Norberg-Hodge
There has been much discussion about the quality of food being provided by global agribusiness and the serious environmental impact it produces. The benefits of fostering a local food production are often dismissed, but it would address a range of health, social and environmental problems. The authors argue if the trend of large agribusiness were thought about rather than accepted without question, then local food production would be seen as a viable means of supplementing this existing system.… (more information)
Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left
Michael Newman
Ralph Miliband (1924–94) was a key 20th-century political thinker. His books The State in Capitalist Society (Quartet) and Parliamentary Socialism (Merlin) influenced a generation of the left and provided a focus for academic debate. Miliband’s life and work were devoted to the attempt to define and apply an independent form of socialism. As a result of his published works, teaching and role in political movements, he became the most influential socialist political theorist writing… (more information)
History in the Making
Raymond Williams, Edward Thompson and Radical Intellectuals, 1936-1956
Steven Woodhams
For a generation of political activists growing up in the 1930s opposing fascism was a priority. The policy of appeasing Hitler and the non-partisan stance of the Labour Party in the face of the Spanish Civil War made the Communist Party an attractive alternative. From this generation emerged key figures in academia and publishing: Eric Hobsbawm, Ralph Miliband, John Saville, Martin Eve, Dorothy and Edward Thompson and Raymond Williams. Woodhams studies the experiences of this generation, the motives… (more information)
The Tragedy of Progress
Marxism, Modernity and the Aboriginal Question
David Bedford, Danielle Irving-Stephens
The Left in Canada has had an uneasy relationship with the Aboriginal struggle for justice. There is a natural sympathy and alliance between the working class and its political representatives who are struggling against the exploitation of labour and Aboriginal peoples and nations who are resisting the dispossession of their lands and the loss of their culture. Yet the co-incidence of interests has very rarely led to any support by labour and the Left for Aboriginal resistance. In fact, rather than… (more information)
State Theories (Third edition)
Classical, Global and Feminist Perspectives
Murray Knuttila, Wendee Kubik
The Third Edition of State Theories: Classical, Global and Feminist Perspectives formally introduces a new co-author, Wendee Kubik. Since the first edition of State Theories was published thirteen years ago the capitalist system has undergone major transformations. These changes in the “real world” have been accompanied by major new theoretical developments in how scholars attempt to understand the structure, role, and operation of the state in capitalist societies. The revised text… (more information)
Citizens or Consumers?
Social Policy in a Market Society
Edited by Wayne Antony, Dave Broad
Social policy is about citizens choosing the kind of society they want to live in. The mid-20th Century Keynesian welfare state can be seen as a citizenship package which included acceptance of intervention by the state to maintain economic growth and social stability, that meant the inclusion of many previously excluded groups in the social policy process and the institutionalization of a collective responsibility for individual welfare. But, with the ascendancy of neo-liberalism, the politics… (more information)
Journeying Forward
Dreaming First Nations’ Independence
Patricia Monture-Angus
Activist and scholar Patricia Monture-Angus examines her own intellectual and personal colonization as a way to share ideas about what she, as a Mohawk woman, sees as the next steps on the path to finding a solution to the continued oppression of First Nations people. She is dissatisfied with the circuitous progress with which Aboriginal claims and issues are being dealt with in both Canadian courts and Canadian politics. As well, because many current day First Nations political institutions are… (more information)
Neo-Liberalism or Democracy?
Economic Strategy, Markets and Alternatives for the 21st Century
Arthur MacEwan
This book explores important alternatives to the neo-liberal ideology of free trade. MacEwan subjects some of the central tenets of modern economics to close scrutiny. He argues that current policies are delivering neither sustained economic growth nor many of the other things fundamental to people’s well-being. MacEwan argues forcefully that it is possible to construct a democratically controlled economic strategy which both delivers growth and meets everyone’s needs on a basis of equality… (more information)
Shrinking the State
Globalization and Public Administration
Bryan Evans, John Shields
This book provides a political economy perspective on recent changes within Canadian public administrative practice and structure, revealing the theoretical and practical underpinnings of neo-liberal public administration. It also addresses itself to the search for more democratic alternatives. This work is intended to serve as a text for courses in public administration and Canadian government and politics. The role of globalization, state fiscal crisis, economic restructuring and the ideological… (more information)
The Communist Manifesto
Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx
An English translation by Samuel Moore of the original maifesto of the Communist Party, published in London in 1848. (more information)
Dismantling A Nation (Second Edition)
The Transition to Corporate Rule in Canada (second edition)
Stephen McBride, John Shields
This new edition is reorganized to make it a more usable text and updated to include the Liberal government’s pursuit of neo-liberal policies. William K. Carroll, Sociology, University of Victoria, said of the first edition: “All the aspects of the neo-conservative policy matrix–privatization, deregulation, NAFTA, the obsession with deficits, attacks on collective bargaining, the cutbacks to social programs, the weakening of federal powers–are carefully analyzed as elements… (more information)
Open for Business/Closed to People
Mike Harris’s Ontario
Edited by Diana Ralph, Andre Regimbald, Neree St-Amand
For anyone concerned about Mike Harris’s neo-conservative “Common Sense Revolution,” this book is a must. It chronicles Harris’s first year as premier and the emerging resistance movement. Part 1 puts the Harris “revolution” in context, exposing its underlying transnational corporate agenda and the previous right-wing U.S. and British governments on which it draws. It demonstrates how the smoke screen of populism and fiscal responsibility hides a fundamental attack… (more information)
Reinventing Political Science
A Feminist Approach
Jill Vickers
This book provides an alternate version of political science for students who want to make space for themselves and for the political activities they want to study. Vickers presents a framework which builds bridges between political science and feminism, allowing for a women-centred analysis of both formal and informal politics. It incorporates radical redefinitions of politics which can open up space to study identity politics, oppression, exploitation and the struggles against sexism, racism,… (more information)
Banking on Deception
The Discourse of the Fiscal Crisis
Thom Workman
Through the discourse of the fiscal crisis the proponents of the neo-liberal agenda deceive Canadians by presenting this agenda as the only rational alternative. Workman discusses the success of this appeal to common sense, analyzing how it resonates positively within the Canadian cultural context. (more information)
Thin Ice
Money, Politics and the Demise of an NHL Franchise
Jim Silver
Thousands of Winnipegers rallied on the streets while corporate businessmen fought each other behind closed doors. Information was manipulated. Arms were twisted. Politicians capitulated. Adults wept on open-line radio shows. Children broke open their piggy banks. This was the campaign to keep the NHL’s Jets from leaving Winnipeg. The book is about hockey, but it is not about The Game. It is about the business of hockey and how changes in this business are threatening the games survival in… (more information)
Apostles of Greed
Capitalism and the Myth of the Individual in the Market
Allan Engler
”Provides a readable history of the eighteenth century origins of the ‘myth of the individual in the market,’ traces subsequent modifications of this idea, and details its contemporary revival...Like other religious relics, once removed from its ritual setting, the mythology of the individual in the market looks so tawdry and illogical one wonders how it became so potent.” - Libby Davis, Pacific Current (more information)
Invisible Giant
Cargill and Its Transnational Strategies
Brewster Kneen
Transnational corporations(TNCs) straddle the globe, largely unseen by the public. Cargill is the epitome of transnational corporation – the largest private corporation in North America, and possibly in the world, it trades in all agricultural commodities and produces and processes a great many of them. Cargill is both wealthy and influential, and there are few national economies unaffected by its activities. Et Cargill remains largely invisible to most people and accountable to no one… (more information)
Politics on the Margins
Restructuring and the Canadian Women’s Movement
Janine Brodie
“Janine Brodie’s thoughtful and insightful analysis of the impact of international restructuring on the women’s movement asks all the right questions. Her challenge to develop new strategies in the face of the destruction of the welfare state should be taken up by feminists everywhere.” - Judy Rebick (more information)
Plot Against the NHS, The
Colin Leys, Stewart Player
Revealing the British coalition government’s plans, this examination demonstrates how a small “policy community” inside and outside the department of health have schemed for 10 years to replace the National Health Service (NHS) with a U.S.-style health care market without informing parliament or the public. While ex-ministers, officials, and the like profit from lucrative positions in private health companies, the population must cope with the increasing health care costs… (more information)