Bøker utgitt av Pluto Press

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a Caribbean and African psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary whose works, including Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth are hugely influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and post-Marxism. His legacy remains with us today, having inspired movements in Palestine, Sri Lanka, the US and South Africa.*BR**BR*This is a critical biography of his extraordinary life. Peter Hudis draws on the expanse of his life and work - from his upbringing in Martinique and early intellectual influences to his mature efforts to fuse psychoanalysis and philosophy and contributions to the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria - to counter the monolithic assumption that Fanon's contribution to modern thought is defined by the advocacy of violence.*BR**BR*He was a political activist who brought his interests in psychology and philosophy directly to bear on such issues as mutual recognition, democratic participation and political sovereignty. Hudis shows that, as a result, Fanon emerges as neither armchair intellectual nor intransigent militant.

Anarchist politics are at the heart of today's most vibrant and radical social movements. From squatted social centres and community gardens to acts of sabotage and raucous summit blockades, anarchist groups and networks are spreading an ethos of direct action, non-hierarchical organizing and self-liberation that has redefined revolutionary struggle for the 21st century.*BR**BR*Anarchy Alive! is a fascinating, in-depth look at the practice and theory of contemporary anarchism. Uri Gordon draws on his activist experience and on interviews, discussions and a vast selection of recent literature to explore the activities, cultures and agendas shaping today's explosive anti-authoritarian revival. Anarchy Alive! also addresses some of the most tense debates in the contemporary movement, using a theory based on practice to provocatively reshape anarchist discussions of leadership, violence, technology and nationalism. *BR**BR*This is the ideal book for anyone looking for a fresh, informed and critical engagement with anarchism, as a mature and dynamic political force in the age of globalisation.

Is war ever a just way to resolve conflict? Diana Francis argues that it is not. With passion and eloquence, she mounts a head-on challenge to the belief that war as an institution is either necessary or effective for good.*BR**BR*Refuting the notion that human nature condemns us to perpetual carnage, she argues that we can change the ways we think and the systems we live by. In a tightly reasoned discussion of the ethics of war and peace she asserts that war is a gross denial of the core values on which peace depends, and that the Just War Theory has failed and deceived us.*BR**BR*The book explores alternative ways of confronting aggression and injustice, showing that these are neglected but well proven. Francis argues that our security can be enhanced by recognition of our shared responsibility for each other and our planet. Practical solutions require a new level of participation in public affairs. Recent events have shown that this is possible. Francis outlines the steps we must take to bring about the radical shift so urgently needed.

Extrajudicial execution, enforced disappearance and torture - these are the tools used by death squads across South Asia. Across the region, human rights abuses are perpetrated behind the closed doors by the 'jallad', or hangmen, of secret detention facilities, while death squads roam the streets with impunity.*BR**BR*By using first-hand experience and newly discovered sources, Tasneem Khalil connects these abuses to a disturbing fact - that Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are national security states connected to an international system of state terror, patronised by sponsors like the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Israel.*BR**BR*Looking at infamous 'enforcers' such as The Rapid Action Battalion of Bangladesh, the 'encounter specialists' of India, army units of Nepal, the Frontier Corps of Pakistan and 'the men in white vans' of Sri Lanka, Khalil reveals a huge system of specialists in violence deployed by the state in campaigns of state terror, a bloody logic of domination and repression that lies at the very core of statecraft in South Asia.

First published in 2001, Propaganda and the Public Mind constitutes a series of discussions with the journalist David Barsamian and is the perfect complement to Chomsky's major works of media study such as Manufacturing Consent and Necessary llusions. Events discussed in detail are the so-called 'Battle of Seattle' protests against the World Trade Organisation, US involvement in East Timor, and the beginning of the movement towards a second Iraq War - as well as timeless explorations of Chomsky's political friends and influences such as the Pakistani scholar Eqbal Ahmad. This book is an invitation to take part in a conversation with one of the great minds of our time.

For decades, Noam Chomsky has been considered one of the most important critics of American's foreign policy in Central and Latin America and yet Turning the Tide is one of his only written works which makes that region its sole focus. *BR**BR*At last back in print after almost thirty years, Turning the Tide explores such neglected but vital issues as Jimmy Carter's interventions in El Salvador, the violation of human rights in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and American involvement with death squads in many countries including Bolivia and El Salvador. For all activists and scholars whose work focuses on Central and Latin America, Turning the Tide remains essential.

With a detailed critique of Irangate, Culture of Terrorism demonstrates how America's ruling elite perpetrates a particularly vile form of cultural imperialism - accusing America's enemies of precisely those 'terrorist' attributes that might more accurately describe the actions of America itself.

In a potent act of myth busting, Noam Chomsky turns his critical gaze upon the Kennedy Administration and draws controversial parallels between the Presidency of JFK and that of Ronald Reagan, with particular focus on the Vietnam War. For anyone persuaded that changing the world is simply a question of changing its leading figures this work will act both as a bitter pill and a powerful stimulant to action.

Indispensable for human existence yet increasingly owned and controlled by private capital; the last decade has witnessed an intensifying battle for water. The Last Drop is a wake-up call to everyone who takes for granted what comes out of their kitchen tap.*BR**BR*This book traces a path through the arguments that surround the question of water, setting out to make the scientific arguments more accessible and the political questions more urgent. The exploding profits of the multinational companies which dominate the water industry are testimony to how high the stakes are - by 2012 it had become a worth a trillion dollars. *BR**BR*Against the market fundamentalists, the authors argue that it is both possible and necessary that considerations of equity and social justice prevail. They call for our water supply to be saved from subordination to the whims of the multinationals and placed under direct democratic public control.

* Shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2016**BR**BR*Modern warfare has a new form. The days of international combat are fading. So how do major world powers maintain control over their people today?*BR**BR*This book is a disturbing insight into the new ways world powers such as the US, Israel, Britain and China forge war today. It is a subliminal war of surveillance and whitewashed terror, conducted through new, high-tech military apparatuses, designed and first used in Israel against the Palestinian population. Including nano-technology, hidden camera systems, information databases on civilian activity, automated targeting systems and unmanned drones, it is used to control the very people the nation's leaders profess to serve.*BR**BR*Jeff Halper reveals that this practice is much more insidious than was previously thought. As Western governments claw back individual liberties, War Against the People is a reminder that fundamental human rights are being compromised for vast sections of the world, and that this is a subject that should concern everyone.

The international development sector has found itself confronting new challenges to poverty eradication and the promotion of human rights. Climate change has loomed large as a crisis for development practitioners and environmentalists, affecting the most vulnerable in the Global South. The ongoing financial crisis has created recurrent recessions in the global North, while causing budget lines to be reduced for development aid.*BR**BR*This textbook highlights the extent to which the local and global are interconnected in today's globalised economy. It questions the legitimacy of the neoliberal model of development which propelled us into the crisis. *BR**BR*Including chapters on Latin America, China and sub-Saharan Africa, and topics such as debt injustice, gender and migration, this completely revised third edition takes stock of the international development environment as it embarks on new policy frameworks to confront new challenges.

'There is no alternative' has been the unofficial mantra of the neoliberal order since its utterance by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. However, there is an alternative to our crisis-ridden, austerity-inflicted world - and not just one alternative, but many.*BR**BR*Challenging the arguments for markets, mainstream economics and capitalism from Adam Smith onwards, Economics After Capitalism provides a step-by-step guide to various writers, movements and schools of thought, critical of neoliberal globalisation. These range from Keynesian-inspired reformists such as Geroge Soros and Joseph Stiglitz, critics of inequality like Thomas Piketty and Amaitya Sen, to more radical voices including Naomi Klein, Marxists such as David Harvey, anarchists, and autonomists including Toni Negri and Michael Hardt.*BR**BR*By providing a clear and accessible guide to the economics of anti-capitalism, Derek Wall successfully demonstrates that an open source eco-socialist alternative to rampant climate change, elite rule and financial chaos is not just necessary, but possible.

An edited collection which critiques mainstream economic analysis of the BRICS nations from an anti-capitalist viewpoint.

The wave of popular uprisings that swept across the Arab world starting in December 2010 rattled regimes from Morocco to Oman. However, Lebanon's sectarian system proved immune to the domestic and regional pressures unleashed by the Arab Spring. How can this be explained? How has the country's political elite dealt with challenges to the system? And, finally, what lessons can other Arab states draw from Lebanon's sectarian experience?*BR**BR*This book looks at the mix of institutional, clientelist, and discursive practices that sustain the sectarian nature of Lebanon. It exposes snapshots of an ever-expanding sectarian web that occupies substantial areas of everyday life and surveys struggles waged by opponents of the system - by women, teachers, public sector employees, students or coalitions across NGOs - and how their efforts are often sabotaged or contained by numerous systematic forces.

--A highly readable guide to how the economy really works--Economics is too important to be left to the economists. This brilliantly concise and readable book provides non-specialist readers with all the information they need to understand how capitalism works (and how it doesn't).Jim Stanford's book is an antidote to the abstract and ideological way that economics is normally taught and reported. Key concepts such as finance, competition and wage labour are explored, and their importance to everyday life is revealed. Stanford answers questions such as "e;Do workers need capitalists?"e;, "e;Why does capitalism harm the environment?"e;, and "e;What really happens on the stock market?"e; He offers both a realistic assessment of capitalism's strengths, and a robust critique of its many failures.This book will appeal to those working for a fairer world, and students of social sciences who need to engage with economics. The book is illustrated with humorous and educational cartoons by Tony Biddle, and is supported with a comprehensive set of web-based course materials for popular economics courses.

A completely revised third edition of a classic development studies textbook

An unsparing analysis of class power and computerisation, Cyber-Proletariat shows us the dark-side of the information revolution. From Coltan mines in the Congo; electronics factories in China and devastated neighbourhoods in Detroit, this book reveals how technology facilitates growing polarisation between wealthy elites and precarious workers. *BR**BR*Nick Dyer-Witheford reveals the class domination behind everything from expanding online surveillance to intensifying robotisation. At the same time, he looks at possibilities for information technology within radical movements; contemporary struggles are cast in the blue glow of the computer screen.*BR**BR*This book brings heterodox Marxist analysis to bear on modern technological developments. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Silicon Valley shapes the way we live today.

This book takes the long-view by analysing Islamic State's beginnings in Iraq to their involvement in the Arab Spring and through to the present day.*BR**BR*The world is watching IS's advance through the Middle East. The US risks being drawn into another war in the region despite its experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. IS are creating catastrophic waves across the region, but it is still unclear what lies behind its success. *BR**BR*Michael Griffin uncovers the nature of IS through investigating the myriad of regional players engaged in a seemingly endless power game: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iraq, which have all contributed to the success of IS by supplying arms and funds. *BR**BR*He foregrounds the story of the uprising against President Assad of Syria, the role played by the Free Syrian Army, Islamist groups, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, the chemical weapons attacks in 2013 and the House of Commons vote not to impose a no-fly zone over the country.

The site of industrial struggle is shifting. Across the Global South, peasant communities are forced off the land to live and work in harsh and impoverished conditions. Inevitably, new methods of combating the spread of industrial capitalism are evolving in ambitious, militant and creative ways. This is the first book to theorise and examine the present and future shape of global class struggles.*BR**BR*Immanuel Ness looks at three key countries: China, India and South Africa. In each case he considers the broader historical forces at play - the effects of imperialism, the decline of the trade union movement, the class struggle and the effects of the growing reserve army of labour. For each case study, he narrows his focus to reveal the specifics of each grassroots insurgency: export promotion and the rise of worker insurgency in China, the new labour organisations in India, and the militancy of the miners in South Africa. *BR**BR*This is a study about the nature of the new industrial worker in the Global South; about people living a terrifying, precarious existence - but also one of experimentation, solidarity and struggle.

The USA is widely seen as the country at the centre of the recent economic crash. But will this be the case the next time the system goes into shock? This book analyses how the political and economic imbalances in China will exacerbate system collapse, and how this could happen much sooner than we imagine, possibly within a decade.*BR**BR*By looking at the big questions of class struggle, global economic imbalances, peak oil, climate change and political power play, Minqi Li argues that by the time of the next crisis, China will be at the epicentre of these contradictions.*BR**BR*China is the last large region, and source of cheap labour, into which capital could expand: the system is at its limits. By combining this argument with issues surrounding the planet's ecological limits and the internal politics of the Chinese Communist Party, Li commands a narrative of China at a pivotal, and possibly apocalyptic stage.

Percy Shelley (1792-1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. This biography emphasises the political, revolutionary side of his dramatic life. *BR**BR*Shelley has long been revered for his poems To A Skylark and The Mask of Anarchy, but this was not always the case. During his short and tragic life he was regarded with loathing as an immoral atheist and his work received damning reviews as a result.*BR**BR*His was a story of extremes - his radical ideas were unusual as he was the son of a wealthy landowner and set to become a Whig MP. Today, a focus on his belief in sexual freedom and vegetarianism often eclipses his informed internationalist and revolutionary politics.*BR**BR*Admired by Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats and Karl Marx, Shelley's legacy remains with us today - his words have been used by popular movements from the Chartists and the Suffragettes to Tiananmen Square, the Poll Tax protesters and modern Greek solidarity movements.

In this bold and innovative book, Massimo Modonesi weaves together theory and political practice by relating the concepts of subalternity, antagonism and autonomy to contemporary movements in Latin America and elsewhere.*BR**BR*In a sophisticated account, Modonesi reconstructs the debates between Marxist authors and schools of thought in order to sketch out informed strategies of resistance. He reviews the works of Gramsci, Negri, Castoriadis and Lefort, and engages with the arguments made by E. P. Thompson, Spivak, Laclau and Mouffe.*BR**BR*Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy firmly roots key theoretical arguments from a range of critical thinkers within specific political movements in order to recover these concepts as analytical instruments which can help to guide contemporary struggles.

Language and Hegemony in Gramsci introduces Gramsci's social and political thought through his writings on language. It shows how his focus on language illuminates his central ideas such as hegemony, organic and traditional intellectuals, passive revolution, civil society and subalternity. Peter Ives explores Gramsci's concern with language from his university studies in linguistics to his last prison notebook. Hegemony has been seen as Gramsci's most important contribution, but without knowledge of its linguistic roots, it is often misunderstood.*BR**BR*This book places Gramsci's ideas within the linguistically influenced social theory of the twentieth century. It summarizes some of the major ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure, Ludwig Wittgenstein, language philosophy and post-structuralism in relation to Gramsci's position. By paying great attention to the linguistic underpinnings of Gramsci's Marxism, Language and Hegemony in Gramsci shows how his theorization of power, language and politics address issues raised by post-modernism and the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Chantal Mouffe, and Ernesto Laclau.

This book tells the remarkable story of Birzeit University, Palestine's oldest university in the Occupied Territories. *BR**BR*Founded against the backdrop of occupation, it is open to all students, regardless of income. Putting the study of democracy and tolerance at the heart of its curriculum, Birzeit continues to produce idealistic young people who can work to bring about a peaceful future. *BR**BR*Gabi Baramki explains how the University has survived against shocking odds, including direct attacks where Israeli soldiers have shot unarmed students. Baramki himself has been dragged from his home at night, beaten and arrested. Yet Birzeit continues to thrive, putting peace at the heart of its teaching, and offering Palestinians the opportunities that only education can bring.

Examines the influence of McCarthyism and the CIA on anthropology in the cold war era.

Israel is an incorrigible human rights offender because, by discriminating against Arabs, it is guilty of 'state-sponsored racism' argues Joel Kovel. Like apartheid South Africa, the best hope for peace in Israel is to return to the idea of a one-state solution, where Jews and Palestinians can co-exist in a secular democracy.*BR**BR*Kovel is well-known writer on the Middle East conflict. This book draws on his detailed knowledge to show that Zionism and democracy are essentially incompatible. He offers a thoughtful account of the emotional and psychological aspects of Zionism that helps us understand the relationship between ideology, culture and political processes. *BR**BR*Ultimately, Kovel argues, a two-state solution is essentially hopeless as it concedes too much to the regressive forces of nationalism, wherein lie the roots of continued conflict.

Capital Volume I is essential reading on many undergraduate courses, but the structure and style of the book can be confusing for students, leading them to abandon the text. This book is a clear guide to reading Marx's classic text, which explains the reasoning behind the book's structure and provides help with the more technical aspects that non-economists may find taxing.*BR**BR*Students are urged to think for themselves and engage with Marx's powerful methods of argument and explanation. Shapiro shows that Capital is key to understanding critical theory and cultural production.*BR**BR*This highly focused book will prove invaluable to students of politics, cultural studies and literary theory.

This is a comprehensive account of the momentous events which shaped the political landscape not only of Palestine and Israel but of the entire Middle East region. *BR**BR*Addressing the most controversial issues, including the alarming escalation in suicide bombings, and the construction of the Separation Wall, he reports on the huge rate of unemployment and hunger in the Occupied Territories - statistics so critical that NGOs compare their magnitude to African nations such as the Congo. From the brutality of the Israeli army to the ever-compromising nature of the Palestinian Authority, few are spared Ramzy Baroud's thoughtful critique.*BR**BR*The book is clear and concise, with one chapter dedicated to the major events of each year, and includes a comprehensive timeline.

Leading Marxist thinkers re-evaluate Trotsky's key theories