Results by title

Are nations that are journeying away from communism succeeding in becoming free-market democracies? In what ways do decades of totalitarian rule continue to distort the institutional shape of these societies? Which of communism's legacies may remain as permanent features of their landscape? In an effort to answer these questions, Roman Frydman, Kenneth Murphy, and Andrzej Rapaczynski analyze the turbulent transitions that have taken place in the post-Communist world since the revolutions of 1989-1991.

Each of the essays in this collection dissects the institutional upheaval in a particular institution in transition, such as central banking, the trade union movement, capital markets, or corporate govern-ance. In a lively and accessible style, the authors bring out the links between what was and what will be in the social fabric of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. They expose the fragility of political and economic institutions that can easily threaten the region's rebirth, but they also believe that many post-Communist countries are successfully seizing the opportunity to become reunited with the West and the global economy.

With both sweeping perspective and critical depth, Frydman, Murphy, and Rapaczynski show the wide range of institutional improvisations under way. They weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different reform strategies and assess the role of politics in fostering or arresting the process of transformation. Each essay illuminates the pro-found difficulties of reconciling the needs of economic development with the special interests fighting for their survival.

Using Marx as a touchstone, Timothy W. Luke warns that if communities are not to be overwhelmed by new class economic and political agendas, then the practice of democracy must be reconstituted on a more populist basis. However, the galvanizing force for this new, more community-centered populism will not be the proletariat, as Marx predicted, nor contemporary militant patriotic groups. Rather, Luke argues that many groups unified by a concern for ecological justice present the strongest potential opposition to capitalism.

Wide-ranging and lucid, Capitalism, Democracy, and Ecology is essential reading in the age of information.

In the troubled days before the American Civil War, both Northern protectionists and Southern free trade economists saw political economy as the key to understanding the natural laws on which every republican political order should be based. They believed that individual freedom was one such law of nature and that this freedom required a market economy in which citizens could freely pursue their particular economic interests and goals.

But Northern and Southern thinkers alike feared that the pursuit of wealth in a market economy might lead to the replacement of the independent producer by the wage laborer. A worker without property is a potential rebel, and so the freedom and commerce that give birth to such a worker would seem to be incompatible with preserving the content citizenry necessary for a stable, republican political order.

Around the resolution of this dilemma revolved the great debate on the desirability of slavery in this country. Northern protectionists argued that independent labor must be protected at the same time that capitalist development is encouraged. Southern free trade economists answered that the formation of a propertyless class is inevitable; to keep the nation from anarchy and rebellion, slavery—justified by racism—must be preserved at any cost.

Battles of the economists such as these left little room for political compromise between North and South as the antebellum United States confronted the corrosive effects of capitalist development. And slavery's retardant effect on the Southern economy ultimately created a rift within the South between those who sought to make slavery more like capitalism and those who sought to make capitalism more like slavery.

Women throughout the world have always played their part in struggles against colonialism, imperialism and other forms of oppression. However, there are few books on Arab political prisoners, fewer still on the Palestinians who have been detained in their thousands for their political activism and resistance.

Nahla Abdo's Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolutions, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance. Based on stories of the women themselves, as well as her own experiences as a former political prisoner, Abdo draws on a wealth of oral history and primary research in order to analyse their anti-colonial struggle, their agency and their appalling treatment as political detainees.

Making crucial comparisons with the experiences of female political detainees in other conflicts, and emphasising the vital role Palestinian political culture and memorialisation of the 'Nakba' have had on their resilience and resistance, Captive Revolution is a rich and revealing addition to our knowledge of this little-studied phenomenon.

Audiobook edition

A forceful reckoning with the relationship between energy and power through the history of what was once East Asia’s largest coal mine.

The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality.

In Carbon Technocracy, Victor Seow uses the remarkable story of the Fushun colliery to chart how the fossil fuel economy emerged in tandem with the rise of the modern technocratic state. Taking coal as an essential feedstock of national wealth and power, Chinese and Japanese bureaucrats, engineers, and industrialists deployed new technologies like open-pit mining and hydraulic stowage in pursuit of intensive energy extraction. But as much as these mine operators idealized the might of fossil fuel–driven machines, their extractive efforts nevertheless relied heavily on the human labor that those devices were expected to displace. Under the carbon energy regime, countless workers here and elsewhere would be subjected to invasive techniques of labor control, ever-escalating output targets, and the dangers of an increasingly exploited earth.

Although Fushun is no longer the coal capital it once was, the pattern of aggressive fossil-fueled development that led to its ascent endures. As we confront a planetary crisis precipitated by our extravagant consumption of carbon, it holds urgent lessons. This is a groundbreaking exploration of how the mutual production of energy and power came to define industrial modernity and the wider world that carbon made.

Playwright, journalist, and spectacularly successful governor, Carlos Lacerda was Brazil's foremost orator in the 20th century and its most controversial politician. He might have become president in the 1960s had not the military taken over. In the words of eminent historian José Honório Rodrigues, "No one person influenced the Brazilian historical process as much as Carlos Lacerda from 1945 to 1968."

In this volume, the first of a two-volume biography, Professor Dulles paints a portrait of a rebellious youth, who had the willfulness of his prominent father and who crusaded for Communism before becoming its most outspoken foe. Recalling Lacerda's rallying cry, "Brazil must be shaken up," Dulles traces the career of the journalist whose unsparing attacks on the men in power led authorities to imprison him and employ thugs who pummeled him physically. The story covers events in which Lacerda helped alter Brazil, such as the redemocratization in 1945 and his revelation of scandals in high places in the early 1950s. An unsuccessful attempt by government men to murder him in 1954 led to the suicide of President Getulio Vargas in 1954.

Lacerda's spirited oratory helped him become Brazil's most popular congressman, but it scared the rulers of Brazil and they prohibited the broadcast of his speeches after he returned from exile in 1956. Their effort to deprive him of his mandate stirred the entire nation and culminated in one of the most dramatic sessions ever held in the Chamber of Deputies.

Dulles, who knew Lacerda well and had access to his papers, sheds light on Lacerda the man, ardent in courtship and in all his undertakings, intellectually restless, and scornful of routine and mediocrity. Lacerda had a vitriolic pen that made bitter enemies, but, as disclosed in these pages, his courage and incorruptibility attracted an enthusiastic following, evident in the landslide election victories that brought him seats on Rio de Janeiro's city council and in the federal Congress.

From reviews of Volume I:

"Brazilian Crusader is no doubt the best biography yet produced on Lacerda and the second volume . . . is certainly worth waiting for."

—Luso-Brazilian Review

Journalist and spectacularly successful governor, Carlos Lacerda was Brazil's foremost orator in the 20th century and its most controversial politician. He might have become president in the 1960s had not the military taken over.

In the first volume, John F. W. Dulles paints a portrait of a rebellious youth, who had the willfulness of his prominent father and who crusaded for Communism before becoming its most outspoken foe. Recalling Lacerda's rallying cry, "Brazil must be shaken up," Dulles traces the career of the journalist whose unsparing attacks on the men in power led authorities to imprison him and employ thugs who pummeled him physically. Lacerda's spirited oratory helped him become Brazil's most popular congressman, but it scared the rulers of Brazil, who prohibited the broadcast of his speeches after he returned from exile in 1956. Their effort to deprive him of his mandate stirred the entire nation and culminated in one of the most dramatic sessions ever held in the Chamber of Deputies.

In the second and final volume, Dulles explores the political and private life of Lacerda from 1960, when he became governor of Brazil's Guanabara state, until his death in 1977. Dulles focuses particularly on the years 1960 to 1968, in which Lacerda played a central role in some of the most drastic political changes that Brazil has experienced in this century.

Lacerda's story ranges from the headlines constantly generated by his political attacks and journalistic sensationalism to private moments of personal tragedy. In telling his story, Dulles draws on hundreds of interviews, as well as extensive research in press archives, Lacerda's public papers, and the private collections of Lacerda's family and associates. This material paints a compelling portrait of an honest administrator who alienated top figures in politics, the press, and the military.

The growing influence of sport has created a unique opportunity to build international relationships for a number of purposes, including cultural, economic, shared humanitarian, and increasingly, political diplomacy.  Case Studies in Sport Diplomacy explores the influence and effectiveness of sport diplomacy in improving long-term relations between nations by opening a dialogue with international leaders, raising awareness of host countries and to bridging cultural differences, and in building international relationships through ambassadors that could increase trade and legislative agreements, and even bring peace to nations in conflict.

Authored by talented scholars from all over the world, many of whom served as sport diplomats, their unique perspective in each case sheds light on the ways in which sport diplomacy can succeed or falter in achieving strategic objectives between influential – and in some cases historically adversarial – countries.

A thoroughly intriguing look at sport diplomacy’s past and ongoing efforts to improve relations with countries such as Brazil, Russia, Iran and China, Case Studies in Sport Diplomacy brings to the forefront an area in which sport has been able to open up and increase opportunities to build relationships between people, communities, governments and countries.

A groundbreaking feminist perspective on Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) rule in Bolivia and the country’s radical transformation under Evo Morales
 

The presidency of Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006–2019) has produced considerable academic scholarship, much of it focused on indigenous social movements or extractivism, and often triumphalist about the successes of Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). Turning a new lens on the movement, Cash, Clothes, and Construction presents the first gender-based analysis of “pluri-economy,” a central pillar of Bolivia’s program under Morales, evaluating the potential of this vision of “an economy where all economies fit” to embrace feminist critiques of capitalism and economic diversity. 

Based on more than twelve years of empirical research exploring the remarkable transformations in Bolivia since 2006, this book focuses on three sectors—finance, clothing, and construction—in which indigenous women have defied gendered expectations. Kate Maclean presents detailed case studies of women selling secondhand high street clothes from the United States in the vast, peri-urban markets of Bolivian cities; Aymaran designers of new pollera (traditional Andean dress) fashions, one of whom exhibited her collection in New York City; and the powerful and rich chola paceña, whose real estate investments have transformed the cultural maps of La Paz and El Alto. 

Cash, Clothes, and Construction offers a gendered analysis of the mission of MAS to dismantle neoliberalism and decolonize politics and economy from the perspective of the Indigenous women who have radically transformed Bolivia’s economy from the ground up.

What happens when ancient systems of oppression travel across oceans? How do Indian diaspora communities across five nations challenge centuries-old systems of oppression while building new forms of solidarity? Caste, Country, and Creed: Struggles for Social Justice in the Contemporary Indian Diaspora takes readers inside the dynamic world of contemporary social justice activism spanning Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

This groundbreaking collection brings together the voices of artists, activists, and scholar-activists who are reshaping conversations about caste discrimination, Islamophobia, and Hindu nationalism beyond India's borders. Through intimate first-person accounts and critical reflections, contributors reveal how diaspora activists are creating powerful counter-narratives and mobilizing collective resistance across local and transnational networks.

The book documents the lived realities of organizing—the values, knowledge traditions, and pivotal moments that spark political protest. Caste, Country, and Creed shows how activists construct alternative knowledge to dissent, build solidarity, and inspire political participation. Contributors offer nuanced insights into the complex relationships and power dynamics that sustain collective action for social justice in the Indian diaspora.

For copyright reasons, this edition is not for sale in India.
 

A. Sivanandan is a highly influential thinker on race, racism, globalisation and resistance. Since 1972, he has been the director of the Institute of Race Relations and the editor of Race & Class, which set the policy agenda on ethnicity and race in the UK and worldwide. Sivanandan has been writing for over forty years and this is the definitive collection of his work.

The articles selected span his entire career and are chosen for their relevance to today's most pressing issues. Included is a complete bibliography of Sivanandan’s writings, and an introduction by Colin Prescod (chair of the IRR), which sets the writings in context.

This book is highly relevant to undergraduate politics students and anyone reading or writing on race, ethnicity and immigration.