logo for Pluto Press
Talking to North Korea
Ending the Nuclear Standoff
Glyn Ford
Pluto Press, 2018
Few attempts have been made to understand the internal logic of Kim Jong-un’s regime and why life in North Korea is so difficult.
 
This provocative insider’s account blasts apart the myths which paint North Korea as a rogue state run by a mad leader. Informed by extraordinary access to the country's leadership, Glyn Ford investigates the regime from the inside, providing game-changing insights. Acknowledging that North Korea is a deeply flawed and barbaric state, he nonetheless shows that sections of the leadership are desperate to modernize and end their isolation.
 
With chapters on recent developments including the Trump / Kim summit, Ford supports a dialogue between East and West and provides a road map to avert the looming threat of a war that would threaten the lives of millions.
[more]

front cover of Tax Haven Ireland
Tax Haven Ireland
Brian O’ Boyle
Pluto Press, 2021
This is the story of how a small island on the edge of Europe became one of the world’s major tax havens. From global corporations such as Apple and Google, to investment bankers and mainstream politicians, those taking advantage of Ireland’s pro-business tax laws and shadow banking system have amassed untold riches at enormous social cost to ordinary people at home and abroad.

Tax Haven Ireland uncovers the central players in this process and exposes the coverups employed by the Irish state, with the help of accountants, lawyers, and financial services companies. From the lucrative internet porn industry to corruption in the property market, this issue distorts the economy across the state and in the wider international system, and its history runs deep, going back the country’s origins as a British colonial outpost.

Today, in the wake of Brexit and in the shadow of yet another economic crash, what can be done to prevent such dangerous behaviour and reorganize our economies to invest in the people? Can Ireland – and all of us – build an alternative economy based on fairness and democratic values?
[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Tears of the Crocodile
From Rio to Reality in the Developing World
Neil Middleton
Pluto Press, 1993

logo for Pluto Press
Terrorism for Humanity
Inquiries in Political Philosophy
Ted Honderich
Pluto Press, 2003
Ted Honderich is one of the world's foremost philosophers of the Left. This is a revised edition of his classic text, Violence for Equality, which became a benchmark in political philosophy when it was first published over twenty years ago. Now extensively revised and updated by Honderich, Terrorism for Humanity raises important questions about the uses and ethics of political violence -- questions that are all the more pertinent in the light of recent events & the 'war on terror'. What can be said for & against terrorism and political violence? When is such terrorism right, if it ever is, & when is it wrong? In six lucid essays, Honderich challenges the presuppositions, inconsistencies and prejudices of liberal-democratic thinking. He tackles such emotive subjects as the IRA, the PLO and the ANC, arguing the importance of understanding the justification for political violence in all manifestations. Exploring the moral issues that lie at the heart of these difficult questions, Honderich reminds us that political philosophy should be an attempt to inquire with an open mind -- & that to open one's mind is not necessarily to lose one's convictions. This remarkable book should be of interest to all teachers & students of philosophy & politics, & anyone who is curious to explore the theoretical framework of the morality of 'terrorism'.
[more]

front cover of The New Authoritarians
The New Authoritarians
Convergence on the Right
LastName
Pluto Press, 2019

front cover of Theatre of the Oppressed
Theatre of the Oppressed
LastName
Pluto Press, 2019

logo for Pluto Press
Theorizing Social Movements
Joe Foweraker
Pluto Press, 1995

front cover of A Theory of ISIS
A Theory of ISIS
Political Violence and the Global Order
Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou
Pluto Press, 2017
In the course of a few years, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—more commonly known as ISIS—has become classified as the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world. It is the subject of intense Western scrutiny, demonized by all, and shrouded in numerous myths and narratives.
 
Against these established narratives, Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou now presents his new theory of ISIS. Tracing the genealogy of ISIS and documenting its evolution in Iraq and Syria, he argues that ISIS has actually transcended Osama Bin Laden’s original scheme of Al Qaeda, mutating into a unprecedented hybrid between postcolonial violence, postmodernity, and postglobalization. A Theory of ISIS offers an original take on the militant group. Mohamedou explains the proliferation of terrorist attacks on the West and deepens our understanding of the group's impact on the very nature of contemporary political violence.
 
[more]

logo for Pluto Press
The Therapy Industry
The Irresistible Rise of the Talking Cure, and Why It Doesn't Work
Paul Moloney
Pluto Press, 2013

Across the world anxiety, stress and depression are on the increase, a trend which looks set to continue as austerity measures bite. The official response tells people that unhappiness is just a personal problem, rather than a social one.

Written by a practising psychologist, with nearly thirty years' experience in the fields of mental health and learning disabilities, The Therapy Industry offers a concise, accessible and critical overview of the world of psychological practice in Britain and the USA. Paul Moloney argues that much therapy is geared towards compliance and acceptance of the status quo, rather than attempting to facilitate social change.

The Therapy Industry fundamentally challenges our conceptions of happiness and wellbeing. Moloney argues that therapeutic and applied psychology have little basis in science, that their benefits are highly exaggerated and they prosper because they serve the interests of power.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy
Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy
Edited by David Miller and William Dinan
Pluto Press, 2007
Leading writers expose the scandalous world of corporate spin and its impact on media freedom, democracy and the health of our planet.

Bringing together leading activists and writers from the United States and beyond, this book unmasks the covert and undemocratic world of corporate spin.

Wherever big business is threatened or corporate advantage can be gained, spin doctors, lobbyists, think tanks and front groups are on hand to push the corporate interest, often at the wider public¹s expense.

The authors challenge the notion that corporate PR is only about celebrity gossip. They show how it extends much further, and how the techniques of the PR industry are now in use across a wide range of political fields, driven by corporate interests.

The authors reveal the secrets of the PR trade, including deception, the use of fake Œinstitutes¹ and think tanks, behind the scenes influence-peddling, spying and dirty tricks. Most importantly, they show the devastating impact spin has had--as the public is denied access to the truth, the results are rising inequality and environmental catastrophe.

The book covers the misdeeds of some of the best-known companies including BP, Coca Cola, British Aerospace, Exxon and Monsanto. It also reveals startling new information about the covert funding of apparently independent thinks tanks and institutes in the US, EU and around the globe.

Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy also offers a guide to resisting deceptive PR. The authors describe concrete campaigns involving the internet and new communication technology to organise, raise awareness and campaign to roll back corporate power and the influence of PR.

This volume is edited by William Dinan and David Miller (University of Strathclyde and Spinwatch). Contributors include: Laura Miller (PR Watch), Gerry Sussman (Portland State University), Kert Davies (Greenpeace US), Leslie Sklair (LSE, UK), Bob Burton (PR Watch, Australia), Judith Richter (author and activist), Olivier Hoedeman (Corporate Europe Observatory, Netherlands), Andy Rowell (Spinwatch, UK), Eveline Lubbers (Spinwatch, Netherlands), James Marriott and Greg Muttitt (Platform, UK), Aeron Davis (City University, UK), and Granville Williams (Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and Huddersfield University, UK).

Published by Pluto Press in association with Spinwatch (www.spinwatch.org) .

William Dinan is Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Geography and Sociology at Strathclyde University, specializing in corporate PR and lobbying.

David Miller is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Geography and Sociology at the University of Strathclyde. He has previously edited Arguments Against G8 and Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq for Pluto Press.
[more]

logo for Pluto Press
This Little Kiddy Went to Market
The Corporate Capture of Childhood
Sharon Beder, Wendy Varney, and Richard Gosden
Pluto Press, 2009

This book investigates the way that corporations are strategically shaping children to be under-aged hyperconsumers as well as the submissive employees and uncritical citizens of the future.

Sharon Beder shows how marketers and advertisers are targeting ever younger children in a relentless campaign, transforming children's play into a commercial opportunity and taking advantage of childish anxieties. 

Beder investigates the corporate relations and ideals that infiltrate every aspect of our lives. She presents an alarming picture of how a child's social development -- through education, health care and nutrition -- has become an ordered conveyor belt of consumerist conditioning. Focusing on education in particular, Beder explains how businesses are taking control of more and more aspects of schooling, not only for profit but to erode state schooling and promote business values. Similarly, she shows how 'difficult' children are taught from an early age that pharmaceuticals can be used to discipline them or to make them 'happy'.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
Society's Betrayal of the Child
Alice Miller
Pluto Press, 1998

logo for Pluto Press
The Threat of Liberation
Imperialism and Revolution in Zanzibar
Amrit Wilson
Pluto Press, 2013

The Threat of Liberation returns to the tumultuous years of the Cold War, when, in a striking parallel with today, imperialist powers were seeking to institute ‘regime change’ and install pliant governments.

Using iconic photographs, declassified US and British documents, and in-depth interviews, Amrit Wilson examines the role of the Umma Party of Zanzibar and its leader, the visionary Marxist revolutionary, Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu. Drawing parallels between US paranoia about Chinese Communist influence in the 1960s with contemporary fears about Chinese influence, it looks at the new race for Africa’s resources, the creation of AFRICOM and how East African politicians have bolstered US control. The book also draws on US cables released by Wikileaks showing Zanzibar's role in the ‘War on Terror’ in Eastern Africa today.

The Threat of Liberation reflects on the history of a party which confronted imperialism and built unity across ethnic divisions, and considers the contemporary relevance of such strategies.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Threat
Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israel
Edited by Abeer Baker and Anat Matar
Pluto Press, 2011

Palestinian prisoners charged with security-related offences are immediately taken as a threat to Israel's security. They are seen as potential, if not actual, suicide bombers. This stereotype ignores the political nature of the Palestinian prisoners' actions and their desire for liberty.

By highlighting the various images of Palestinian prisoners in the Israel-Palestine conflict, Abeer Baker and Anat Matar chart their changing fortunes. Essays written by prisoners, ex-prisoners, Human rights defenders, lawyers and academic researchers analyse the political nature of imprisonment and Israeli attitudes towards Palestinian prisoners. These contributions deal with the prisoners' status within Palestinian society, the conditions of their imprisonment and various legal procedures used by the Israeli military courts in order to criminalise and de-politicise them. Also addressed are Israel's breaches of international treaties in its treatment of the Palestinian prisoners, practices of torture and solitary confinement, exchange deals and prospects for release.

This is a unique intervention within Middle East studies that will inspire those working in human rights, international law and the peace process.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
The Three Worlds of Social Democracy
A Global View
Edited by Ingo Schmidt
Pluto Press, 2016
The twentieth century saw social democracy emerge to become the dominant ideology of governance in Western Europe, and today its influence spreads far beyond the continent, reaching into the Global South. At the same time, however, social democracy appears to be on shakier ground than ever, its programs eroded by new geopolitical and sociopolitical realities.
            The Three Worlds of Social Democracy presents a view of the current state of social democracy through close looks at the experiences of social democratic parties and governments in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, India, and South Africa. The contributors review the ideas and policies of the different parties and discuss efforts to deal with contemporary economic and social challenges. The result is a volume that will be of value to students of comparative politics even as it furthers the debate about the future of social democratic policies.
 
[more]

front cover of To Exist is to Resist
To Exist is to Resist
Black Feminism in Europe
Edited by Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande
Pluto Press, 2019
This book brings together activists, artists, and scholars of color to show how Black feminism and Afrofeminism are being practiced in Europe today, exploring their differing social positions in various countries, and exploring the ways in which they organize and mobilize to imagine a Black feminist Europe.
                                              Deeply aware that they are constructed as “others” living in a racialized and hierarchical continent, the contributors explore gender, class, sexuality, and legal status to show that they are both invisible—presumed to be absent from and irrelevant to European societies—and hyper-visible, assumed to be passive and sexualized, angry and irrational.
                                              In imagining a future outside the neocolonial frames and practices of contemporary Europe, this book explores a variety of critical spaces including motherhood and the home, friendships and intimate relationships, activism and community, and literature, dance, and film.
 
[more]

logo for Pluto Press
To Live and Die in America
Class, Power, Health and Healthcare
Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson
Pluto Press, 2013

To Live and Die in America details how the United States has among the worst indicators of health in the industrialised world and at the same time spends significantly more on its health care system than any other industrial nation.

Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson explain this contradictory phenomenon as the product of the unique brand of capitalism that has developed in the US. It is this particular form of capitalism that created both the social and economic conditions that largely influence health outcomes and the inefficient, unpopular and inaccessible health care system that is incapable of dealing with them.

The authors argue that improving health in America requires a change in the conditions in which people live and work as well as a restructured health care system.

[more]

front cover of Totalled
Totalled
Salvaging the Future from the Wreckage of Capitalism
Colin Cremin
Pluto Press, 2015
Have you ever felt totaled? In this book, Colin Cremin tackles the overbearing truth that capitalism encompasses the totality of our social relations, having woven itself deeply into the fabric of what it means to be human. He shows how the capitalist system totalizes everything in its path, as evidenced in industrialized warfare, modern surveillance, commodification, and political control. With ever deepening social crises and ecological catastrophes this system threatens civilization as we know it. But among the wreckage of capitalism, Cremin argues, we can still find functioning parts, machines to be salvaged. To do so, it is imperative that we be able to both imagine and realize a future other than the apocalypticism forewarned by scientists, prescribed by economists, accommodated by politicians, and made into spectacle by the entertainment industry.
            Totalled maps the deteriorating socio-economic, political, and ecological conditions in which we live. Yet Cremin asks how a utopian possibility discernable in the power of human creation can be realized even though as a society we are bound up materially, ideologically, libidinally—totally—to the capitalist machine of destruction. Totalled concludes with a politically and economically grounded set of propositions on how we might begin to imagine such a possibility.
[more]

front cover of Towards a Gay Communism
Towards a Gay Communism
Elements of a Homosexual Critique
Mario Mieli
Pluto Press, 2018

First published in Italian in 1977, Mario Mieli's groundbreaking book is an early landmark of revolutionary queer theory - now available for the first time in a complete and unabridged English translation.

Among the most important works ever to address the relationship between homosexuality, homophobia and capitalism, Mieli's essay continues to pose a radical challenge to today's dominant queer theory and politics.

With extraordinary prescience, Mieli exposes the efficiency with which capitalism co-opts 'perversions' which are then 'sold both wholesale and retail'. In his view the liberation of homosexual desire requires the emancipation of sexuality from both patriarchal sex roles and capital.

Drawing heavily upon Marx and psychoanalysis to arrive at a dazzlingly original vision, Towards a Gay Communism is a hitherto neglected classic that will be essential reading for all who seek to understand the true meaning of sexual liberation under capitalism today.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Traffick
The Illicit Movement of People and Things
Gargi Bhattacharyya
Pluto Press, 2005

logo for Pluto Press
The Tragedy of Bukharin
Donny Gluckstein
Pluto Press, 1994

logo for Pluto Press
Transcend and Transform
An Introduction to Conflict Work
Johan Galtung
Pluto Press, 2004

front cover of Transgender Marxism
Transgender Marxism
Jules Joanne Gleeson
Pluto Press, 2021
The first collection of its kind, Transgender Marxism is a provocative and groundbreaking union of transgender studies and Marxist theory.

Exploring trans lives and movements, the authors delve into the experience of surviving as transgender under capitalism. They explore the pressures, oppression and state persecution faced by trans people living in capitalist societies, their tenuous positions in the workplace and the home, and give a powerful response to right-wing scaremongering against 'gender ideology'.

Reflecting on the relations between gender and labour, these essays reveal the structure of antagonisms faced by gender non-conforming people within society. Looking at the history of transgender movements, Marxist interventions into developmental theory, psychoanalysis and workplace ethnography, the authors conclude that for trans liberation, capitalism must be abolished.
[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Transit States
Labour, Migration and Citizenship in the Gulf
Omar AlShehabi
Pluto Press, 2014
The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar) form the largest destination for labour migration in the global South. In all of these states, however, the majority of the working population is composed of temporary, migrant workers with no citizenship rights.

The cheap and transitory labour power these workers provide has created the prodigious and extraordinary development boom across the region, and neighbouring countries are almost fully dependent on the labour markets of the Gulf to employ their working populations. For these reasons, the Gulf takes a central place in contemporary debates around migration and labour in the global economy.

This book attempts to bring together and explore these issues. The relationship between ‘citizen’ and ‘non-citizen’ holds immense significance for understanding the construction of class, gender, city and state in the Gulf, however too often these questions are occluded in too scholarly or overly-popular accounts of the region. Bringing together experts on the Gulf, Transit States confronts the precarious working conditions of migrants in a accessible, yet in-depth manner.
[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Transnational Political Islam
Religion, Ideology and Power
Edited by Azza Karam
Pluto Press, 2003

Political Islam, to be distinguished from Islam as a culture or a religion, and from Islamic Fundamentalism, is an increasingly important feature of the western political scene. The ideologies of Political Islam reflect the fact that some of their adherents live and work within a Western socio-political context.

Although Political Islam has been widely written about in Muslim countries, very little has been published the West, and this book attempts to redress that imbalance.

With a range of outstanding contributors that includes academics and human rights advocates this book tackles the diversity of Islamist thinking and practice in various Western countries and explores their transnational connections in both East and West.

The book analyses developments in Islamist thinking and activities, and their connections to the latest global political and economic trends, and discusses future evolutions of the ideology and its manifestations.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Travels in the Skin Trade
Tourism and the Sex Industry
Jeremy Seabrook
Pluto Press, 2001

logo for Pluto Press
Travesty
The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice
John Laughland
Pluto Press, 2007
In 2006, Slobodan Milosevic died in prison in the Hague during a four-year marathon trial for war crimes. John Laughland was one of the last Western journalists to meet with him. Laughland had followed the trial from its beginning and wrote extensively on it in the Guardian and the Spectator, challenging the legitimacy of the Yugoslav Tribunal and the hypocrisy of "international justice."



In this short book, Laughland gives a full account of the trial---the longest trial in history---from the moment the indictment was issued at the height of NATO's attack on Yugoslavia to the day of Milosevic's mysterious death in custody. "International justice" is supposed to hold war criminals to account, but---as the trials of both Milosevic and Saddam Hussein show---the indictments are politically motivated and the judicial procedures are irredeemably corrupt. Laughland argues that international justice is an impossible dream and that such show trials are little more than propaganda exercises designed to distract attention from the war crimes committed by Western states.



"Study this story. . . . The truth is hard to find, but in John Laughland we are fortunate to have a man blessed with the desire to find the truth."
---Ramsey Clark, from the Foreword

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
The Trouble with Community
Anthropological Reflections on Movement, Identity and Collectivity
Vered Amit and Nigel Rapport
Pluto Press, 2002
'Community' is one of social science's longest-standing concepts. The assumption, of much social science, has been that it is in communities -- and to communities -- that human individuals, as social and cultural beings, belong. Communities are said to embody that interactive environment from which individuals' identities and senses of self derive, and in which they continue to dwell.

The trouble with 'community' is that this is not necessarily so; the personal social networks of individuals' actual experience crosscut collective categories, situations and institutions. Communities can prove unviable or imprisoning; the reality of community life and identity can often be very different from the ideology and the ideal.

In this provocative new book, anthropologists Vered Amit and Nigel Rapport draw on their various ethnographic experiences to reappraise the concept and the reality of 'community', in the light of globalization, religious fundamentalism, identity politics, and renascent localisms. How might anthropology better apprehend social identities which are intrinsically plural, transgressive and ironic? What has anthropology to say about the way in which civil society might hope to accommodate the on-going construction and the rightful expression of such migrant identities? Nigel Rapport and Vered Amit give their own answers to these questions before entering into dialogue to assess each other's positions.

Nigel Rapport is Professor of Anthropological and Philosophical Studies at the University of St. Andrews. He is author of Transcendent Individual (1997). Vered Amit is an Associate Professor at Concordia University in Montreal. She is the editor of Realizing Community (2002).
[more]

front cover of The Truth About Modern Slavery
The Truth About Modern Slavery
Emily Kenway
Pluto Press, 2021

'A powerful treatise' - Amelia Gentleman, Guardian

In 2019, over 10,000 possible victims of slavery were found in the UK. From men working in Sports Direct warehouses for barely any pay, to teenaged Vietnamese girls trafficked into small town nail bars, we’re told that modern slavery is all around us, operating in plain sight.

But is this really slavery, and is it even a new phenomenon? Why has the British Conservative Party called it 'one of the great human rights issues of our time', when they usually ignore the exploitation of those at the bottom of the economic pile? The Truth About Modern Slavery reveals how modern slavery has been created as a political tool by those in power. It shows how anti-slavery action acts as a moral cloak, hiding the harms of the ‘hostile environment’ towards migrants, legitimising big brands’ exploitation of the poorest workers and oppressing sex workers.

Blaming the media's complicity, rich philanthropists' opportunism and our collective failure to realise the lies we’re being told, The Truth About Modern Slavery provides a vital challenge to conventional narratives on modern slavery.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Turkey Reframed
Constituting Neoliberal Hegemony
Baris Ozden
Pluto Press, 2013

Turkey Reframed documents the first decade of the 2000s, a period of radical change in Turkish society and politics, which has been marked by the major economic crisis of 2001 and the coming to power of ex-Islamist cadres organised under the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The contributors analyse this period of radical change, with its continuities and breaks, and its main actor, the AKP, in relation to the creation of a neoliberal hegemony in post-1980 Turkey. They look at the conflictual, turbulent and painful history of neoliberal hegemony and the contested stabilisation strategy of the AKP government.

Turkey Reframed is a cutting-edge guide for students, scholars and other interested readers who want to understand this period in Turkey’s recent history and its social tensions.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Tweets and the Streets
Social Media and Contemporary Activism
Paolo Gerbaudo
Pluto Press, 2012

Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the 'indignados' protests in Spain and the Occupy movement, Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest.

Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a 'cyberspace' detached from physical reality. Instead, social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space, which involves the assembling of different groups around 'occupied' places such as Cairo’s Tahrir Square or New York’s Zuccotti Park.

An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent, Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.

[more]

logo for Pluto Press
Tyranny of the Moment
Fast and Slow Time in the Information Age
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Pluto Press, 2001


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter