Books under review 2024

Following Hayek’s bastards from Murray Rothbard to Charles Murray to Javier Milei, we find that key strains of the Far Right emerged within the neoliberal intellectual movement not against it. What has been reported as an ideological backlash against neoliberal globalization in recent years is often more of a frontlash. This history of ideas shows us that the reported clash of opposites is more like a family feud.

An instant political classic. Quinn Slobodian has produced an extraordinary book, showing how capitalists have been punching holes in national governance to enrich themselves and marginalize democratic self-determination. Filled with characters too strange for fiction and written with engaging brio, Crack-Up Capitalism confirms Slobodian’s reputation as our leading historian of neoliberalism.”
—Samuel Moyn, author of Humane

In The Racket, Kennard spoke about his realisation in recent years that “the infrastructure of the US empire which had colonized so much of the world had also colonized my home country”. And actually, he stressed, Britain “appeared to be more completely under the control of its American ally than any country I’d looked into around the world for this book”.

What an amazing piece of work this is. Ground-breaking, thought-provoking and highly accessible. Everyone should read it. The dark, scary, exciting song of our age. 100 out of 100’ IRVINE WELSH

Capitalism is dead. Welcome to technofeudalism.

Corporate Coup looks at the attempted overthrow of the elected government of Venezuela, an intervention which, despite open backing by the United States, failed spectacularly. In January of 2019, the Trump Administration recognized a little-known opposition lawmaker named Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela.

While Washington’s history of coups in Latin America is well-documented, this step was unprecedented: Never before had the United States offered legal recognition to a new government before an actual change in leadership had taken place. Within months it became clear that the attempt at regime change had fallen flat: all Venezuelan territory, government ministries, and the country’s military remained under the control of President Nicolás Maduro.

An examination of the false and destructive rhetoric justifying the fossil-fuel economy, The Language of Climate Politics offers readers powerful new ways to talk about the climate crisis that will help create transformative change.

With incisive linguistic analysis, Dr. Genevieve Guenther shows that the climate debate is not, in fact, neatly polarized―with Republicans obstructing climate action and Democrats merely advancing climate solutions. Both sides often talk about the climate crisis in surprisingly similar terms. This bipartisan echo reflects a centrist consensus that helps to keep the fossil-energy system in place even as global heating accelerates.

Warfare is a geopolitical tool of the first order; only wars of scale can measure the real strength of nations. For decades American claims of hegemony, and by extension that of the West, have been based on what has now proved to be a carefully constructed mythology of economic and military supremacy. This is Andrei Martyanov’s fourth book addressing this issue, now as it concerns the war in Ukraine. In America’s Final War, he lays out in detail the underpinning causes and extent of its self-deception.

WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM

How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn

ASA WINSTANLEY

 

Asa Winstanley tells the story of how a hostile foreign government helped stop a socialist becoming Britain’s prime minister.

“For five years Jeremy Corbyn was portrayed as a bigot leading an anti-Semitic Labour Party. This important book makes the case for the defence.”

—Peter Oborne

 

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber’s most important essays and interviews.

‘The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,’ wrote David Graeber. This new collection brings together the renowned anthropologist, author and activist’s most visionary essays, showing him imagining a new understanding of the past – and a future based on humans’ fundamental freedom.

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, and ranging across the biggest issues of our time – inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West,’ democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid and protest – Graeber’s essays challenge the old assumptions about political life. Despite converging political, economic, and ecological crises, our politics is still dominated by either ‘business as usual’ or nostalgia for a mythical past. Instead, Graeber shows himself to be a trenchant critic of the order of things, driven by a bold imagination and a passionate hope that our world can be different.

The Pfizer Papers features new reports written by WarRoom/DailyClout research volunteers, which are based on the primary source Pfizer clinical trial documents released under court order and on related medical literature. The book shows in high relief that Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial was deeply flawed and that the pharmaceutical company knew by November 2020 that its vaccine was neither safe nor effective. The reports detail vaccine-induced harms throughout the human body, including to the reproductive system; show that women suffer vaccine-related adverse events at a 3:1 ratio; expose that vaccine-induced myocarditis is not rare, mild, or transient; and, shockingly, demonstrate that the mRNA vaccines have created a new category of multi-system, multi-organ disease, which is being called “CoVax Disease.”

Understanding Capitalism

by Richard D. Wolff

First Printing July 2024, by Democracy at Work

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7356013-6-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-7356013-5-9


Understanding Capitalism aims to answer the question: "Why capitalism fails us"?. It explores the different definitions of what capitalism is and is not – showing why definitions matter. It dissolves the many myths that make it hard to understand the system. Readers acquire tools needed to engage basic economic and social issues of our time by showing precisely how they depend upon the capitalist system. Then the book shows how and where we can go beyond capitalism to specific alternative systems. Doing that, we argue, can and should be part of solving today’s great issues, of making the world better than we found it.