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Developing a new political thought to address today’s planetary crises

What is “planetary thinking” today? Arguing that a new approach is urgently needed, Yuk Hui develops a future-oriented mode of political thought that encompasses the unprecedented global challenges we are confronting: the rise of artificial intelligence, the ecological crisis, and intensifying geopolitical conflicts.

Machine and Sovereignty starts with three premises. The first affirms the necessity of developing a new language of coexistence that surpasses the limits of nation-states and their variations; the second recognizes that political forms, including the polis, empire, and the state, are technological phenomena, which Lewis Mumford terms “megamachines.” The third suggests that a particular political form is legitimated and rationalized by a corresponding political epistemology. The planetary thinking that this book sketches departs from the opposition between mechanism and organism, which characterized modern thought, to understand the epistemological foundations of Hegel’s political state and Schmitt’s Großraum and their particular ways of conceiving the question of sovereignty. Through this reconstruction, Hui exposes the limits of the state and reflects on a new theoretical matrix based on the interrelated concepts of biodiversity, noodiversity, and technodiversity.

Arguing that we are facing the limit of modernity, of the eschatological view of history, of globalization, and of the human, Hui conceives necessary new epistemological and technological frameworks for understanding and rising to the crises of our present and our future.

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A concise and comprehensive biography of Mao Zedong, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

A half-century after his death in September 1976, Mao Zedong remains one of history’s most polarizing figures: a peasant boy who became a revolutionary leader, a general in World War II, and finally the Great Helmsman, the founding father of the People's Republic of China. His legacy is a mix of national liberation and human tragedy. Today, Mao is no static icon on a banknote but the architect of a superpower whose ideas, methods, and personal life are continually reexamined through a modern lens.

This comprehensive biography bridges the gap between the revolutionary and the man without overlooking the events that led to the end of China’s Century of Humiliation, the brutal cost of the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, reevaluating his “mass line” ideology.

Based on new archival information and startling revelations from his inner circle—including his personal physician, Dr. Li Zhisui, and former nurses—Clements offers a clear and accessible portrait of a leader whose persistent influence reminds us why Mao’s story remains essential to understanding the global power dynamics of today.

Memoirs of an Early Arab Feminist is the first English translation of the memoirs of Anbara Salam Khalidi, the iconic Arab feminist. At a time when women are playing a leading role in the Arab Spring, this book brings to life an earlier period of social turmoil and women's activism through one remarkable life.

Anbara Salam was born in 1897 to a notable Sunni Muslim family of Beirut. She grew up in 'Greater Syria', in which unhindered travel between Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus was possible, and wrote a series of newspaper articles calling on women to fight for their rights within the Ottoman Empire. In 1927 she caused a public scandal by removing her veil during a lecture at the American University of Beirut.

Later she translated Homer and Virgil into Arabic and fled from Jerusalem to Beirut following the establishment of Israel in 1948. She died in Beirut in 1986. These memoirs have long been acclaimed by Middle East historians as an essential resource for the social history of Beirut and the larger Arab world in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Here is an authoritative reference work that makes biographies of prominent Mexican national politicians from the period 1884–1934 available in English. Like the author's biographical directory for the years 1935–2009, it draws on many years of research in Mexico and the United States and seeks not only to provide accurate biographical information about each entry but also, where possible and appropriate, to connect these politicians to more recent leadership generations. Thus, Mexican Political Biographies, 1884-1934 not only is a useful historical source but also provides additional information on the family backgrounds of many contemporary figures.

The work includes those figures who have held specific posts at the national level or who have served as state governors. Each biographical entry contains the following information: date of birth, birthplace, education, elective political office, political party positions, appointive governmental posts at all levels, group activities, nongovernmental positions and professions, relatives, mentors and important friends, military experience, unusual career activities, and published biographical sources.

Another unique feature of the directory is appendixes with complete lists of the names and dates of cabinet members, supreme court justices, senators, deputies, selected ambassadors, and party leaders.

This fourth edition of Roderic Camp's highly respected Mexican Political Biographies is an updated comprehensive biographical directory of leading state and national politicians in Mexico, covering the years 1935–2009. The original edition, published in 1976, was the first and only comprehensive biographical work on contemporary political figures in any language and served as the prototype for the Mexican government's brief foray into its own official biographical directory. The Mexican Supreme Court has cited every biography of justices in the third edition as the basis of its biographies in the late 1980s.

With updates of the existing biographies and appendices, plus almost 1,000 additional biographies, this fourth edition now features close to 3,000 entries and serves as a unique resource list of the chronological occupants of all leading national political posts. The need for such information has become even more pronounced since Mexico's political transformation from a semi-authoritarian to a democratic model.

This latest edition allows readers access to information about Mexican politicians into the new century, and like its earlier versions, will be a valuable tool for government officials, journalists, historians, social scientists, the business community, and students.

Finally, it includes a detailed bibliographic essay that identifies and explains the significance of biographical sources and has been enhanced by numerous up-to-date Internet sources. An added convenience is an accompanying CD that allows readers to search the biographies and appendices, enhancing the longevity, usefulness, and uniqueness of this edition.

Set in the High Atlas in pre-modern Morocco, Moon and Henna Tree chronicles the rise and fall of a local potentate, Hmmu. Not content with the territory left to him upon his father’s death, Hmmu, under the influence of his scheming advisor, Ibn al-Zara, begins a campaign to acquire those lands that adjoin his, either through marriage or physical force.

Ahmed Toufiq’s subtle investigation of the abuse of power and its effects on those who suffer under its tyranny also provides a unique look at Amazigh (Berber) culture. While most of Toufiq’s contemporaries focus on modern urban Morocco, he provides a fascinating, and accurate, account of the customs and traditions of a large, yet often ignored, segment of the population. Moon and Henna Tree (in the original Arabic) won the Moroccan Book Prize in 1989.

This is the inside story of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), from its beginnings in 1964 to the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993.

For over three decades, the main goal of the PLO was to achieve a just peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and to build a democratic state in Palestine for all its citizens. Shafiq Al-Hout, a high ranking PLO official until his resignation in 1993, provides previously unavailable details on the key events in its history such as its recognition by the UN and the Oslo peace negotiations. Taking us right to the heart of the decision making processes, this book explains the personalities and internal politics that shaped the PLO's actions and the Palestinian experience of the twentieth century.

Although he was an insider, Al-Hout's book does not shy from analysing and criticising decisions and individuals, including Yasser Arafat. This book is an essential piece of history that sheds new light on the significance of the PLO in the Palestinian struggle for justice.