Book Review - Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis
While the US prison population has surpassed 2 million people, this figure is more than 20 percent of the entire global imprisoned population combined. Angela Y. Davis shows, in her most recent book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, that this alarming situation isn’t as old as one might think.
Book Review - Policing the National Body, eds. Anannya Bhattacharjee and Jael Silliman
For some, the curbing of civil liberties started with September 11th. For others, the struggle had been going on long before. There are many complex details to understanding the US government’s record on human rights.
Book Review - Stupid White Men, by Michael Moore
It seems that most people who have reviewed Stupid White Men from a left perspective have focused mostly on the last few chapters that are embroiled in the controversy over the Greens and the Democrats. What is missing is praise for Michael Moore’s biting sarcasm, his well-researched criticism and his plucky humor that enable the reader to get through the book psychologically intact.
Book Review - Globalization and Its Discontents
Joseph Stiglitz is no radical. He is a mainstream “free market” economist who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. He served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Bill Clinton, starting in 1993. Globalization and Its Discontents is a fascinating insider’s look at the process of capitalist globalization.
Book Review - Marx's Revenge, by Meghnad Desai
Meghnad Desai is the director of the Centre for the study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, and Marx’s Revenge is his analysis of the glories of globalization, free trade and the everlastingness of capitalism.
Book Review - Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
William Gibson, best known for the sci-fi thriller Necromancer, in Pattern Recognition spins a post-9/11 tale of espionage and mystery set in the world of high-finance advertising.
Book Review - The New Red Negro, by James Smethurst
A study of the diversity and complexity of African American poetry during the 1930s and 1940s, Smethurst’s The New Red Negro compellingly and subtly articulates a new view of this long-neglected period and genre of American letters.
Book Review - Secret Trials and Executions, by Barbara Olshansky
In recent years, the conservative assault on the democratic values at the heart of our legal system has manifested itself in a range of sweeping repressive powers. In 2001, after Congress passed the dubious USA Patriot Act and the Department of Justice announced that it would authorize the federal government to monitor attorney-client conversations, George W. Bush signed a Military Order allowing the trial of non-citizens in military tribunals.
