Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights

Bob Torres, Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights

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Suggest to the average leftist that animals should be part of broader liberation struggles and—once they stop laughing—you'll find yourself casually dismissed. With a focus on labor, property, and the life of commodities, Making a Killing contains key insights into the broad nature of domination, power, and hierarchy. It explores the intersections between human and animal oppressions in relation to the exploitative dynamics of capitalism. Combining nuts-and-bolts Marxist political economy, a pluralistic anarchist critique, as well as a searing assessment of the animal rights movement, Bob Torres challenges conventional anti-capitalist thinking and convincingly advocates for the abolition of animals in industry—and on the dinner plate. Making A Killing is sure to spark wide debate in the animal rights and anarchist movements for years to come. Bob Torres' Making a Killing draws a very straight line between capitalism and the oppressive system of animal agribusiness. Drawing from social anarchist theory, Torres provides a convincing argument that in order to fight animal exploitation, we must also fight capitalism and, in doing so, animal rights activists will need to reconsider their methods and redirect their focus. 

Tony Benn, Free Radical: New Century Essays

Tony Benn, Free Radical: New Century Essays

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In 2001, Tony Benn, one of the most influential socialists in Europe, retired from the House of Commons in order to 'devote more time to politics'. He has since carried out a huge programme of public meetings in Britain and abroad and been a regular broadcaster. He also writes a weekly column for the Morning Star. Free Radical is a collection of the best of these columns, which reflect the breadth of Benn's political concerns over both domestic and international politics. Benn writes with knowledge and passion about the importance of democracy, internationalism and social justice. He argues that a renewal of the Labour party is needed so that it becomes an instrument for the improvement of our lives and an active partner in a new global movement that works for peace. Tony Benn, born in London in 1925, is a former Cabinet Minister and Chairman of the Labour Party. He served as an MP for over fifty years and is the author of fifteen books, including his published diaries covering the period 1940-2001. He was a visiting professor at the London School of Economics from 2001 until 2003. Dare to be a Daniel, his childhood memoirs plus a selection of essays and speeches in the House of Commons, will be published this autumn.

Benjamin Dangl, The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia

Benjamin Dangl, The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia

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New social movements have emerged in Bolivia over the “price of fire”—access to basic elements of survival like water, gas, land, coca, employment, and other resources. Though these movements helped pave the way to the presidency for indigenous coca-grower Evo Morales in 2005, they have made it clear that their fight for self-determination doesn’t end at the ballot box. From the first moments of Spanish colonization to today’s headlines, The Price of Fire offers a gripping account of clashes in Bolivia between corporate and people’s power, contextualizing them regionally, culturally, and historically. Benjamin Dangl has worked as an independent journalist throughout Latin America, writing for publications such as Z Magazine, The Nation, and The Progressive. He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, an online magazine covering activism and politics in Latin America. Benjamin won a 2007 Project Censored Award for his coverage of US military operations in Paraguay. “Price of Fire is not yet another bleak ‘tell-all’ account of globalization, its pages are filled with stories of resistance, struggle and, above all, hope.”—Teo Ballv?, editor of the NACLA Report on the Americas and co-editor of Dispatches from Latin America “Ben Dangl takes the reader on an unforgettable and inspiring journey through Bolivia and neighboring countries, providing a window on the revolutionary struggles of the poor and dispossessed, and particularly on the resurgence of indigenous resistance and leadership.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War “Most Americans know nothing of Bolivia, an ignorance that only plays into the hands of empire. Ben Dangl’s book is both informative and inspiring, a cure for the apathy that grows from that ignorance. A must-read for those already interested in solidarity with Latin America and indigenous people.”—Tom Hayden, author of The Zapatista Reader and Street Wars “Ben Dangl has found himself under the skin of the Bolivian freedom struggle: he accurately represents its constraints, its opportunities, and its hopes.”—Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World “With great empathy and lucid prose, Dangl captures the exemplary courage that has put Latin America in the vanguard of the new internationalism and has made it one of the few bright spots on an otherwise dismal global landscape.”—Greg Grandin, author of Empire’s Workshop "Price of Fire by Ben Dangl informs, outrages, and builds hope. People’s movements for societal betterment in South America are an inspiration for human rights activists worldwide and Dangl gives us a full serving of encouragement and hope. He documents how historical imperialism, dominated my US corporate/government capital interests, is being successfully challenged by indigenous activists. Price of Fire is the story of cultural resistance from the street to international geo-political alliances.

Alexandre Skirda, Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organisation from Proudhon to May 1968

Alexandre Skirda, Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organisation from Proudhon to May 1968

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Drawing on decades of research, Skirda traces anarchism as a major political movement and ideology across the 19th and 20th centuries. Critical and engaging, he offers biting and incisive portraits of the major thinkers, and more crucially, the organizations they inspired, influenced, came out of, and were spurned by. Bakuninist secret societies; the Internationals and the clash with Marx; the Illegalists, bombers and assassins; the mass trade unions; and of course, the Russian and Spanish Revolutions are all discussed through the prism of working people battling fiercely for a new world free of the shackles of Capital and the State. Alexandre Skirda is the foremost anarchist theorist and activist writing in Europe today.

Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep

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"Sleep, he argues, is perhaps the only area of human existence yet to be conquered by the productivity-maximizing logic of capitalism. Twentieth-century capitalism already squeezed our sleep into an artificially compact period of eight hours. Scientific, historical and even literary evidence (pulled from Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”) suggest that two separate chunks of nighttime sleep, plus daytime naps, are the more natural pattern for human beings. Electric lighting has irrevocably altered our circadian rhythms, and newer technologies and modes of production have done more damage. Siestas are incompatible with the assembly line or the all-night box store. (Just ask Spain, which is considering doing away with the tradition.)

The Pentagon has even been funding studies of the physiology of migratory birds to figure out how soldiers can go up to seven days sans sleep without experiencing a decline in cognitive functioning. Pills or genetic modifications that allow us to go days without sleep might sound far-fetched now, but Crary notes how many innovations by the military — microwaves, satellites, the Internet — have been widely adopted in civilian life.

But in the last year or so, we’ve actually conquered sleep in a more insidious way. We’ve shown that sleep is an element of continuous functioning. Instead of being a strange, wild, mysterious Land of Nod whose purpose we don’t fully understand, sleep has been colonized by our ambition, becoming just another zone of the day to be farmed for productivity, generating new components necessary for performance like serotonin and healthy glial cells. Crary suggests that we despise sleep because “the stunning, inconceivable reality is that nothing of value can be extracted from it,” but with our new science and the interventions of folks like Tony Schwartz, that no longer appears to be true. We can now sleep in order to maximize our economic value." --from Eve Fairbanks, "How Did Sleep Become So Nightmarish?" (New York Times) 

Alexandre Skirda, Paul Sharkey, Nestor Makhno--Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921

Alexandre Skirda, Paul Sharkey, Nestor Makhno--Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921

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Available for the first time in English, here`s the gripping story of Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno. With his usual wit and engaging style, Skirda chronicles the life of a legend and the insurgent army that fought in his name. Always controversial, Makhno has been described as everything from a drunken bandit to an inspirational hero. From Makhno’s imprisonment, to battles with the Bolsheviks and the White Army, to the final exile in Paris, Skirda captures the life of Makhno and the history of the Makhnovist movement.

Alexandre Skirda is the foremost anarchist theorist and activist writing in Europe today.

Antonio Negri, Arianna Bove, Factory of Strategy: Thirty-Three Lessons on Lenin

Antonio Negri, Arianna Bove, Factory of Strategy: Thirty-Three Lessons on Lenin

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Factory of Strategy is the last of Antonio Negri's major political works to be translated into English. Rigorous and accessible, it is both a systematic inquiry into the development of Lenin's thought and an encapsulation of a critical shift in Negri's theoretical trajectory.

Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy capitalism and reconfigure the state. Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Régime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally -- not anarchically -- dismantle centralized power.

AK Thompson, White Riot: Anti-globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent

AK Thompson, White Riot: Anti-globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent

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Are you taking over, or are you taking orders?Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards?White riot—I wanna riot.White riot—a riot of my own.—The Clash, "White Riot"Ten years after the battle in Seattle sparked an historic struggle against the forces of multinational conglomeration and American imperialism, the anti-globalization generation is ready to reflect on a decade of organizing that changed the face of mass action around the globe.Scholar and activist AK Thompson revisits the struggles against globalization in Canada and the United States at the turn of the century, and he explores the connection between political violence and the white middle class. Equal parts sociological study and activist handbook, Black Bloc, White Riot engages with the key debates that arose in the anti-globalization movement over the course of the past decade: direct or mass action? Summit-hopping or local organizing? Pacifism or diversity of tactics?Drawing on movement literature, contemporary and critical theory, and practical investigations, Thompson outlines the effect of the anti-globalization movement on the white, middle-class kids who were swept up in it, and he considers how and why violence must once again become a central category of activist politics.AK Thompson is a writer and activist living and working in Toronto, Canada. Currently completing his PhD in sociology at York University, Thompson teaches social theory and serves on the editorial committee of Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action. His publications include Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research (Fernwood Publishing, 2006).

Agustin Guillamon, The Friends of Durruti Group: 1937-1939

Agustin Guillamon, The Friends of Durruti Group: 1937-1939

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Revolutions without theory fail to make progress. We of the 'Friends Of Durruti' have outlined our thinking, which may be amended as appropriate in great social upheavals but which hinges upon two essential points which cannot be avoided. A program, and rifles.—El Amigo del Pueblo, No. 5, July 20, 1937.Spain 1936–1939: This is the story of a group of anarchists engaged in the most thoroughgoing social and economic revolution of all time. Essentially street fighters with a long pedigree of militant action, they used their own experiences to arrive at the finest contemporary analysis of the Spanish Revolution. In doing so, they laid down essential markers for all future revolutionaries. This study—drawing on interviews with participants and synthesizing archival information—is THE definitive text on these unsung activists.This volume is translated, edited, and introduced by Paul Sharkey, acknowledged internationally as the foremost expert on the Friends Of Durruti Group. 

Nancy Fraser, Fortunes of Feminism: From Women's Liberation to Identity Politics to Anti-Capitalism

Nancy Fraser, Fortunes of Feminism: From Women's Liberation to Identity Politics to Anti-Capitalism

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Nancy Fraser’s major new book traces the feminist movement’s evolution since the 1970s and anticipates a new—radical and egalitarian—phase of feminist thought and action.During the ferment of the New Left, “Second Wave” feminism emerged as a struggle for women’s liberation and took its place alongside other radical movements that were questioning core features of capitalist society. But feminism’s subsequent immersion in identity politics coincided with a decline in its utopian energies and the rise of neoliberalism. Now, foreseeing a revival in the movement, Fraser argues for a reinvigorated feminist radicalism able to address the global economic crisis. Feminism can be a force working in concert with other egalitarian movements in the struggle to bring the economy under democratic control, while building on the visionary potential of the earlier waves of women’s liberation. This powerful new account is set to become a landmark of feminist thought.

Sibt-e Hassan, Mazi Ki Mazar

سبط حسن، ماضی کے مزار

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Read online (transliteration) 

Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish revolution

Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish revolution

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Durruti was the ultimate working-class hero: carrying the future in his heart and a gun in each pocket. Abel Paz's magnificent biography resurrects the very soul of Spanish anarchism.”—Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums AK Press has commissioned an elegant, new and unabridged translation of the definitive biography of Spanish revolutionary and military strategist, Buenaventura Durruti. But Abel Paz, who fought alongside Durruti in the Spanish Civil War, has given us much more than an account of a single man’s life. Durruti in the Spanish Revolution is as much a biography of a nation and of a tumultuous historical era. Paz seamlessly weaves intimate biographical details of Durruti’s life—his progression from factory worker and father to bank robber, political exile and, eventually, revolutionary leader—with extensive historical background, behind-the-scenes governmental intrigue, and blow-by-blow accounts of major battles and urban guerrilla warfare. An amazing and exhaustive study of an incredible man and his life-long fight against fascism in both its capitalist and Stalinist forms. Includes Jose Luis Gutierres Molina’s introduction about Abel Paz’s life and the historiography of the Spanish Civil War. Abel Paz was born in 1921. At 15, he joined the Durruti Column and fought in the Spanish Revolution. After the revolution's defeat, he was active as a guerilla fighter against the Franco regime and spent eleven years in prison. He lives in Barcelona, Spain. Chuck Morse founded the Institute for Anarchist Studies, co-edited Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, and founded and edited The New Formulation: An Anti-Authoritarian Review of Books. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.