Libris Vox Populi
"Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon."
—Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956]
Someone once quipped that if you buy a book after having read a review written by a paid whore and end up disappointed, you should not be surprised: you got what you paid for. Books have become a commodity, much like a Diet Coke or a PDA. With ever-shorter shelf lives, books are ferociously marketed and reviewers are paid accordingly.
No worry, at Swans, reviewers are not financially compensated. They select books of their own choosing -- no assignment from the editor. Sometimes they pay for them; sometimes they receive a courtesy or preview copy; but they always write according to their own views and perspectives. From time to time we may add a book that has not been reviewed but that one of our regular contributors thinks is worth your time and money.
When you decide to buy one or more of these books, please do so from your local independent bookstore, not from the chains and megastores. You can't whine about Wal*Mart or Amazon, then turn around and shop with them! A link to Booksense is appended at the bottom of this page for your convenience.
Without further ado, welcome to Swans' Reading Room, where you'll find some of the books we have reviewed and recommend. For a list of all the reviews we have published as well as book excerpts, please visit our archives.
Non Fiction
- Title: A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq
Author: Hans C. von Sponeck
Publisher/date/ISBN: Berghahn Books, New York & Oxford, September 2006; ISBN 1-84545-222-4 (hardback), 322 pages.
Description: Hans von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator to Iraq, has written a remarkable and shocking book about the devastation and destruction brought upon the people of Iraq. A Different Kind of War reveals the anything-but-humanitarian treatment of this country by the Western powers in the name of Regime Change.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on May 21, 2007. Read the review - Title: A History of Bombing
Author: Sven Lindqvist, translated by Linda Haverty Rugg
Publisher/date/ISBN: New Press, 2001, ISBN: 1-56584-625-7
Description: The title says it all. There are always barbarians at the gate. The first bombs began to be used in warfare as far back as 1044. Since then it's been refined and improved, from catapults to cluster bombs... This book is a descent into the darkest of labyrinths -- the depths of depravity that one human being can sink to against another.
Reviewed? Yes; by Aleksandra Priestfield on July 15, 2002. Read the review - Title: A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives and 'Low Mechanicks'
Author: Cliff Conner
Publisher/date/ISBN: Nation Books, New York, 2006, ISBN 1-56025-748-2, 554 pages, $17.95 (paperback)
Description: An important guide on the humble people on the front lines of scientific revolution and the role of the common man and woman in scientific innovation over the ages.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on February 27, 2006. Read the review - Title: Afflicted Powers: Spectacle and Capital in a New Age of War
Author: Iain Boel, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews, Michael Watts
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso, New York, London, June 2005, ISBN 1-84467-031-7, 224 pages, $16.00 (paperback)
Description: Marxist and post-modernist perspectives on 9/11, an important historical moment that was almost immediately buried in layers of cliché and propaganda.
Reviewed? Yes; by Robert Wrubel on September 26, 2005. Read the review - Title: Alec Guinness: The Authorized Biography
Author: Piers Paul Read
Publisher/date/ISBN: Simon & Schuster, June 2005, ISBN 0-74324-498-2, 632 pages, $35.00 (hardcover)
Description: The enigmatic Sir Alec in a variety of roles where a mask could be fitted over the mask that was his face.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on October 10, 2005. Read the review - Title: Been Brown So Long it Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature
Author: Jeffrey St. Clair
Publisher/date/ISBN: Common Courage Press, 2004; ISBN: 1-56751-258-5, 406 pages
Description: A virtual handbook for radical environmentalists that will help understand the impasse traditional politics has reached in the U.S., particularly on the question of the environment.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on March 29, 2004. Read the review - Title: Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970
Author: Ray Monk
Publisher/date/ISBN: Free Press, March 2001, ISBN 0-74321-215-0, 592 pages, cloth, $40.00.
Description: Bertrand Russell: a sad decline from icon of the mid 1960s to mildewed hero.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on January 3, 2005. Read the review - Title: Camus and Sartre: the story of a friendship and the quarrel that ended it
Author: Ronald Aronson
Publisher/date/ISBN: University of Chicago Press, 2004, ISBN 0-226-02796-1, 291 pages, $32.50 (hardcover)
Description: A look at the strained relationship between Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, and a critique of Ronald Aronson's 2004 book on the subject.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on August 1, 2005. Read the review - Title: Chicago's Nelson Algren
Author: Art Shay
Publisher/date/ISBN: Seven Stories Press, NYC, 2007, ISBN 978-1-58322-764-0, 167 pages
Description: Art Shay is a man and photographer of exception, whose pictures range from punning frivolity to hard truth. Byrne reviews Shay's book of photos on his dear friend, writer Nelson Algren, revealing their likes and differences.
Reviewed? Yes; by Peter Byrne on May 19, 2008. Read the review - Title: Child of the Sit-Downs: the Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger
Author: Carlton Jackson
Publisher/date/ISBN: Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 2008 ISBN 978-0-87338-944-0, 216 pages
Description: The struggles of a woman who rose to the occasion against racism, imperialist war, class oppression, and alienation in the 1930s -- an inspiration to the similar world we confront today.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on October 6, 2008. Read the review - Title: Chronicles Volume One
Author: Bob Dylan
Publisher/date/ISBN: Simon and Schuster, New York, 2004, ISBN 0-7432-2815-2, 293 pages, $14.00 (paperback)
Description: Bob Dylan finds his voice -- this time, in writing. A look at his ascent and decline as activist icon. Worth discovering -- or re-discovering.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on October 10, 2005. Read the review - Title: Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils
Author: Jeffrey St. Clair & Alexander Cockburn, Editors
Publisher/date/ISBN: Consortium Publishers, September 2004, ISBN 1-90485-903-8, 160 pages
Description: Essays by authors such as, Bruce Anderson, Robin Blackburn, Kevin Alexander Gray, et al. on how little differences, if any, exist between the Democrats and the Republicans.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on October 4, 2004. Read the review - Title: Dollars for Terror, The United States and Islam
Author: Richard Labévière, translated by Martin DeMers
Publisher/date/ISBN: Algoa Publishing, New York, 2000, ISBN: 1-892941-06-6
Description: A precise documentation of how the US agencies, primarily the CIA, DIA, and DEA, are inextricably enmeshed in aiding and abetting Wahabi interests, as well as an examination of the origins and radical ideology of Wahabism.
Reviewed? Yes; by Milo Clark on May 6, 2002. Read the review - Title: Fightback, A Collection of Socialist Essays
Author: Sylvia Weinstein
Publisher/date/ISBN: Socialist Viewpoint Publishing, March 2003, ISBN 0-9763570-0-3, 358 pages, $25.00 (paperback)
Description: Excellent collection of essays by the late Sylvia Weinstein, who relates personal experience to more general problems of life in class-divided society.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on September 12, 2005. Read the review - Title: FOOLS' CRUSADE: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions
Author: Diana Johnstone
Publisher/date/ISBN: Monthly Review Press, New York, N.Y, 2002; ISBN 1-58367-084-X. $19.95 paper; 288 pp.
Description: An outstanding rigorous analysis of the Yugoslav tragedy. The author examines much ground left largely uncovered or obfuscated in the English-language studies of the Balkans -- with an indubitable purpose to put the story into perspective and to place these events within an historical context.
Reviewed? Yes, three reviews; by Louis Proyect on May 26, 2003, Read the review
also by Edward S. Herman on same date, Read the review
and by Gilles d'Aymery. Read the review
In addition, we published the introduction of the book. Read the excerpt - Title: From the Lower East Side to Hollywood
Author: Paul Buhle
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso, 2004; ISBN: 1-85984-598-3
Description: Comprehensive and excellent investigation of Jewish influence upon American popular culture; written by one of the foremost scholars of Jewish popular culture, with much wit and story-telling.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on June 21, 2004. Read the review - Title: How Race Survived U.S. History: from settlement and slavery to the Obama phenomenon
Author: David Roediger
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso 2008; ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-275-2, 240 pages
Description: David Roediger's How Race Survived U.S. History demonstrates that we are far from "beyond race" in America, where the capitalist system continues to unite millions against the minorities.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on June 1, 2009. Read the review - Title: I Am Justice, A Journey Out Of Africa
Author: Paul Kenyon
Publisher/date/ISBN: Preface Publishing, London, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-84809-145-0, 250 pages
Description: Paul Kenyon's account of the ten-day ordeal endured by twenty-seven Africans seeking an escape to Italy follows the classic men-adrift-in-a-life-boat story.
Reviewed? Yes; by Peter Byrne on July 27, 2009. Read the review - Title: In and Out of the Working Class
Author: Michael Yates
Publisher/date/ISBN: Arbeiter Ring Publishing Winnipeg, 2009, ISBN 978-1-894037-35-8, 217 pages
Description: Michael Yates's In and Out of the Working Class is graced by some of the finest writing that you are likely to encounter from someone whose background is primarily in political and economic analysis and which reveals the tensions between his blue-collar sensibilities and academic career.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on October 19, 2009. Read the review - Title: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy
Author: Arundhati Roy
Publisher/date/ISBN: AK Press, Oakland, CA, 2004, DVD Video, color, ISBN: 1-902593-93-6, 210 minutes, $29.00
Description: a DVD Video featuring Arundhati Roy in two powerful lectures in Santa fe, NM and in the Riverside Church, NY, and conversations with Howard Zinn.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on November 1, 2004. Read the review - Title: Leo Strauss and the American Right
Author: Shadia B. Drury
Publisher/date/ISBN: Palgrave Macmillan, February 1999, ISBN 0-31221-783-8, 256 pages, $29.95 (hardcover)
Description: The association of liberalism with nihilism and Nazism and the subversive transformation of the United States into the Straussian State, based on elitism, secrecy, and deception.
Reviewed? Yes; by Michael Doliner on October 10, 2005. Read the review - Title: LETTERS AGAINST THE WAR
Author: Tiziano Terzani
Publisher/date/ISBN: tizianoterzani.com, December 2002, No ISBN, 107 pages (in PDF format), free
Description: A remarkable series of letters against war, favoring non-violence, cooperation, and understanding among various cultures. The author offers a deep knowledge of the cultures of Central and South Asia. The entire book can be read on Swans. Very highly recommended.
Reviewed? No, but you can read introductory remarks written by Gilles d'Aymery on September 8, 2008. Read the introductory remarks - Title: Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits
of Tolerance
Author: Ian Buruma
Publisher/date/ISBN: The Penguin Press, N.Y., 2006, ISBN 9781594201080, pp. 288 (hardcover)
Description: The Netherlands, once the beacon of tolerance, was shocked by the assassination of Theo van Gogh, an act representative of the growing anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe and portrayed in Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam.
Reviewed? Yes; by Peter Byrne on March 12, 2007. Read the review - Title: My Times: A Memoir of Dissent
Author: John L. Hess
Publisher/date/ISBN: Seven Stories Press, September 2003, ISBN 1-58322-604-4, 288 pages, cloth, $35.00.
Description: The life of an exceptional reporter and human being who presents a critical insider's account of how The New York Times operates.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on January 31, 2005. Read the review - Title: Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy
Author: Michael Yates
Publisher/date/ISBN: Monthly Review Press, 2003; ISBN: 1-58367-079-3, 288 pages
Description: In his methodical debunking of neoliberalism and globalization, which are function of capitalism, Yates presents a powerful refutation of neoclassical economics of the kind put forward by Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong as well as a defense of classical Marxism. In doing so, Yates sets a new the standard for clarity, scholarship and a commitment to working class politics.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on March 1, 2004. Read the review - Title: Ralph's Revolt: The Case for Joining Nader's Rebellion
Author: Greg Bates
Publisher/date/ISBN: Common Courage Press, 2004; ISBN: 1-56751-316-6
Description: Bates concentrates on the debate among progressives about the merit of a third party strategy and makes a strong case for such a strategy by demonstrating how the Democrats have been complicit in the right wing drive to make war abroad, deprive us of decent jobs and curtail civil liberties.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on July 19, 2004. Read the review - Title: Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance With The Left
Author: Ronald and Allis Radosh
Publisher/date/ISBN: Encounter Books, 2005, ISBN: 1-893-55496-1, 292 pages, cloth, $25.95
Description: R. & A. Radosh's Red Star Over Hollywood, a tendentious, vindictive and equivocating account of a shameful period in American history: the witch hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on August 1, 2005. Read the review - Title: Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage
Author: Joel Berkowitz
Publisher/date/ISBN: University of Iowa Press, May 2002, ISBN 0-87745-800-6, 283 pages, cloth, $32.95.
Description: A critical review of Berkowitz's chronicle of the growth of Yiddish theatre and its connection with Shakespeare.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on January 31, 2005. Read the review - Title: Stardust Lost
Author: Stefan Kanfer
Publisher/date/ISBN: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007, ISBN 1-4000-4288-7, 220 pages, cloth.
Description: A review of the early origins of Yiddish theatre in New York, brillantly chronicled by Stefan Kanfer.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on June 4, 2007. Read the review - Title: The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome
Author: Michael Parenti
Publisher/date/ISBN: The New Press, New York, N.Y, 2003; ISBN: 1-56584-797-0. $24.95 (hc); 276 pp.
Description: This is a story, in Parenti's words, "of latifundia and death squads, masters and slaves, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, profiteering slumlords and urban rioters. . . . a struggle between the plutocratic few and the indigent many, the privileged versus the proletariat, featuring corrupt politicians, money-driven elections, and the political assassination of popular leaders."
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on November 17, 2003. Read the review - Title: The Cabaret
Author: Lisa Appignanesi
Publisher/date/ISBN: Yale University Press, November 2004, ISBN 0-30010-580-0, 265 pages, cloth, $35.00
Description: An intelligent and entertaining guide to the history of Cabaret and satire.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on November 15, 2004. Read the review - Title: The Case Against Israel
Author: Michael Neumann
Publisher/date/ISBN: CounterPunch, Petrolia, CA, 2006; ISBN: 1-90485-946-1, pbk., 220 pages, $16.50
Description: A most cogent, reasoned, and lucid argumentation in support of a two-state solution to the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on December 19, 2005. Read the review - Title: The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile
Author: Conversations with Arundhati Roy, interviews by David Barsamian
Publisher/date/ISBN: South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004; ISBN: 1-89608-710-7, pbk., 178 pages, $16.00
Description: A clear-minded and passionate dissenter, Ms. Roy is increasingly becoming the much talented voice of the South. She speaks as a "subject of the empire," reaching out to the hearts and minds of the people who need to understand what Power is doing to the world (and themselves), in their name.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on August 16, 2004. Read the review - Title: The Emperor's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power
Author: Paul Street
Publisher/date/ISBN: Paradigm, 2010, ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-845-4, 274 pages
Description: Street makes the case that there is long-standing evidence that Obama has more in common with Herbert Hoover or even Calvin Coolidge than with FDR.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on March 14, 2011. Read the review - Title: The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America
Author: edited by Kimberly Blaker
Publisher/date/ISBN: New Boston Books, Inc., Michigan, 2003; ISBN: 0-9725496-1-7 (Paper)
Description: This meticulous analysis of the Christian Right exposes the danger that these extremists pose to the future of the United States as a secular nation governed under laws elaborated by men and women pertaining to its polity and evolving with the society at large, and not according to Biblical literalism, which is what the fundamentalists are seeking.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on July 7, 2003. Read the review - Title: The Good Fight: Declare Your Independence & Close the Democracy Gap
Author: Ralph Nader
Publisher/date/ISBN: ReganBooks, 2004; ISBN 0-06-075604-7
Description: Nader puts forward a profound analysis of how progressive change takes place. It is not based on enlightened leaders, but on the power of an aroused citizenry. Unite, unite, unite! While not prone to ideology, Nader is attempting to shake up the US capitalist consensus, which has operated on the basis of an electoral duopoly ever since the end of Reconstruction.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on July 19, 2004. Read the review - Title: The Liberal Defence of Murder
Author: Richard Seymour
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso Press, 2008, ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-240-0, 358 pages
Description: In-depth analysis of the roots of what Edward Herman called the Cruise Missile left. Not only does it dissect the likes of Paul Berman and Christopher Hitchens, it goes back to the earliest days of colonialism to show how racism is rooted in the relentless and violent drive for profit.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on February 23, 2009. Read the review - Title: The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World
Author: Samir Amin
Publisher/date/ISBN: Monthly Review Press, 2004, ISBN 1-58367-107-2, 128 pages, $15.95 (paperback)
Description: Excellent neo-Marxian analysis of the dangers the U.S. poses to the world, from pillaging natural resources and destroying the lives of the poor, with a fine examination of the differences between European liberalism and American extreme neo-liberalism.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on October 10, 2005. Read the review - Title: The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism
Author: Roger D. Hodge
Publisher/date/ISBN: HarperCollins, 2010, ISBN-13: 978-0-06-201126-8, 259 pages
Description: A critique of President Obama by the former editor of Harper's magazine.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on March 14, 2011. Read the review - Title: The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad
Author: Tariq Ali
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso, 2010, ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-449-7, 153 pages
Description: A Marxist critique of President Obama, covers the broken promises and corporate/militarist agenda of the Obama administration.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on March 14, 2011. Read the review - Title: The Other Chekhov: A Biography of Michael Chekhov the Legendary Actor, Director & Theorist
Author: Charles Marowitz
Publisher/date/ISBN: Applause Books, 2004, ISBN 1-55783-640-X, 302 pages
Description: A review of Charles Marowitz's indispensable introduction to the seemingly fragile but in fact indomitable man of the theatre who was Michael Chekhov.
Reviewed? Yes; by Peter Byrne on February 12, 2007. Read the review - Title: The Politics of Anti-Semitism
Author: edited by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
Publisher/date/ISBN: CounterPunch and AK Press, 2003; ISBN: 1-90259-377-7. 178 pages, $12.95
Description: A series of incisive essays by a variety of thoughtful authors whose views would much deserve the broader dissemination The New York Times could offer...if we lived in a perfect world. Wide spread anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism baiting are properly debunked; the Israeli repressive policies against the Palestinians lucidly tackled, showing that contrary to the line propagated by Officialdom Jewish Americans are far from forming a monolithic, pro-Israel block; and, the case is made, albeit less convincingly, on the influence of Israel and US Jewish organizations on official Washington.
Reviewed? Yes (two-part review); by Gilles d'Aymery on April 26, 2004. Read the review, Part I and Part II - Title: The President of Good & Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush
Author: Peter Singer
Publisher/date/ISBN: Dutton, New York, 2004; ISBN: 0-525-94813-9 - Cloth: 280 pages, $24.95
Description: Singer offers an exhaustive analysis of George W. Bush's ethics as applied to his domestic agenda, his stance on social matters, and his approach to foreign police, providing a step-by-step deconstruction of the inconsistencies, or better stated, hypocrisies therein. It is a timely work in the context of a frayed US social infrastructure, troubled economy, environmental decay, the destruction of countries in the name of "war on terrorism," and the resulting demise of America in world opinion.
Reviewed? Yes; by Jan Baughman on June 7, 2004. Read the review - Title: The Seventeen Traditions
Author: Ralph Nader
Publisher/date/ISBN: HarperCollins, New York, 2007; ISBN: 0-06-123827-9 - Cloth: 150 pages, $19.95
Description: Ralph Nader's book opens a window to his family and the values that shaped the life of this extraordinary man, and because of his service to country, our lives as well. Writing with reverence and love for his remarkable parents the author provides much needed advice for parents and children alike. Highly recommended.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on December 3, 2007. Read the review - Title: The Treason of the Intellectuals ("La trahison des Clercs," 1927)
Author: Julien Benda, translated by Richard Aldington
Publisher/date/ISBN: William Morrow & Company, New York; 1928
Description: "Unquestionably one of the greatest controversialists of our time, what M. Benda has to say concerning the subordination of this age of political ideas to political passions, and his particularizations upon this theme are arresting, revealing and disquieting in the extreme," wrote then William A. Drake in the New York Herald-Tribune. A book definitely worth discovering, or rediscovering in our modern times, as reason once again is subordinated to passion.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on March 31, 2003. Read the review
In addition, we published an excerpt of the book. Read the excerpt - Title: TO KILL A NATION, The Attack on Yugoslavia
Author: Michael Parenti
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso, 2000, ISBN: 1-85984-776-5
Description: A brilliant analysis of the events that brought the wrath of our Western gods to the peoples of Southern Europe, and more precisely to the Serbian people.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on February 19, 2001. Read the review - Title: Walking Tractor, And Other Tales of Old Anderson Valley
Author: Bruce Patterson
Publisher/date/ISBN: 4Mules Productions, Boonville, CA, 2006; no ISBN; (Paper), 220 p., $19.95
Description: A collection of powerful essays on rural life of workingmen and women in Northern California.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on December 4, 2006. Read the review - Title: War Talk
Author: Arundhati Roy
Publisher/date/ISBN: South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003; ISBN: 0-89608-724-7 (Paper), 142 p.
Description: A collection of essays on India and on our navel-centered western, feel-good, BBQ and beer, NASCAR and LPGA, laden selves. An admirer of Noam Chomsky, Roy is a storyteller at heart whose hors pair craftsmanship captivates the audience, be they readers or listeners.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on July 21, 2003. Read the review - Title: When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
Author: George Carlin
Publisher/date/ISBN: Hyperion, October 2004, ISBN 1-40130-134-7, 320 pages, cloth, $23.95
Description: A conglomeration of aperçus, sallies, quips, puns, ripostes, conceits, sermons, fables and abbreviated editorials.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on February 14, 2005. Read the review - Title: Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World
Author: Edited by Paul Buhle & Nicole Schulman
Publisher/date/ISBN: Verso, 2005, ISBN 1-84467-525-4, 305 pages, $25.00
Description: The history of the Wobblies through the graphics of some of the most talented cartoonists of the underground. A fitting retrospective for the 100th anniversary of the creation of the IWW. A book not to be missed.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on April 11, 2005. Read the review - Title: World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred And Global Instability
Author: Amy Chua
Publisher/date/ISBN: Doubleday, December 2002; ISBN: 0-385-50302-4
Description: College courses and texts on the glories of free trade generally do not identify mass murder as an aspect of supply and demand. Once you've read Chua's analysis of the social dynamics of the rapidly developing global economy, you'll think twice about the consequences of neoliberalism.
Reviewed? Yes; by Scott Albers on December 15, 2003. Read the review - Title: Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular & the New Land
Author: Edited by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle
Publisher/date/ISBN: Abrams ComicArts, New York, September 2011, ISBN 978-0-8109-9749-3, 240 pages, $29.95 (hard cover)
Description: Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle's superbly edited and illustrated Yiddishkeit is a significant Yiddish historical and cultural book not to be missed.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on August 29, 2011. Read the review
- Title: A Coffin For Dimitrios
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher/date/ISBN: Vintage Books, October 2001; ISBN: 0-37572-671-3, 304 pages
Description: A superb spy novel that beats in subtlety the like of Ian Fleming or Tom Clancy, based on greed and venality, seduction, extortion and, eventually, destruction.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on August 4, 2003. Read the review - Title: Anthills of the Savannah
Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher/date/ISBN: Anchor Books, 1987; ISBN: 0-38526-045-8
Description: Set in the fictional nation of Kangan, a thinly disguised version of Nigeria, the plot of the novel revolves around the fate of two prominent male intellectuals victimized in a military crackdown orchestrated by the nation's president-for-life who is a childhood friend.... by one of Africa's leading intellectuals and anti-imperialists.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on December 1, 2003. Read the review - Title: Breakout
Author: Martin Muries
Publisher/date/ISBN: Packrat Books, North Bangor, New York, 2005; ISBN: 0-9702922.3.6; (Paper), 306 p., $15.00
Description: A novel about old nurses and crocks who fight greed and defend the environment
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on December 4, 2006. Read the review - Title: By Night in Chile
Author: Robert Bolaño
Publisher/date/ISBN: Harvill Press, London, 2000; ISBN: 1-84343-035-5
Description: Story of an Opus Dei priest and member of the literary scene who attempts to justify his collaboration with the Pinochet regime. Not only is this work a devastating attack on the spinelessness of certain literati in the face of capitalist brutality, it is also a literary achievement that breaks new ground in Latin American fiction.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on May 10, 2004. Read the review - Title: Changer Of Days: Volume I
Author: Alma Hromic
Publisher/date/ISBN: HarperCollins New Zealand, 2001, ISBN: 1-86950-390-2 (paper)
Description: A medieval tale that encompasses the ageless pursuit of an individual to understand and hone her inner strength so that she can stand up to one man's quest for power.
Reviewed? Yes; by Jan Baughman on January 28, 2002. Read the review - Title: How it All Began
Author: Nikolai Bukharin, translated by George Shriver; with an introduction by Stephen F. Cohen
Publisher/date/ISBN: Columbia University Press, New York, 1998; ISBN: 0-23110-731-5, 345 pp., $28.95
Description: Nikolai Bukharin, a leader of the Workers Revolution in Russia, wrote this autobiographical novel in the bowels of the Lubyanka Prison, until the very moment he was interrupted by the executioner's bullet on Stalin's order. Outstanding literature in the most unpropitious circumstances...
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on February 3, 2003. Read the review - Title: Letters from the Fire
Author: Alma Hromic & R. A. Deckert
Publisher/date/ISBN: HarperCollins New Zealand, 1999, ISBN: 1-86950-336-8 (paper)
Description: A wrenching autobiographical novel in the historical context of the 1999 illegal Kosovo war against Serbia.
Reviewed? Yes; by Jan Baughman on September 18, 2000. Read the review - Title: Philosophical Arabesques
Author: Nikolai Bukharin
Publisher/date/ISBN: Monthly Review Press, New York, 2005; ISBN 1-58367-102-1, 407 pages, $49.95 (cloth)
Description: Nikolai Bukharin's Philosophical Arabesques, written in 1937 while he was imprisoned and awaiting execution, reflects the cultural and psychological mood of the period and will play an invaluable role in assessing Bukharin's humanitarian approach to Marxism.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on January 30, 2006. Read the review - Title: Red Gold
Author: Alan Furst
Publisher/date/ISBN: Random House, New York, 1999; ISBN: 0-375-75859-3
Description: A master spy novelist in the tradition of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, Furst offers an expertly plotted affair with riveting dialogue, set within the communist resistance in France during WWII.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on January 5, 2004. Read the review - Title: river with lights
Author: John Bart Gerald
Publisher/date/ISBN: Gerald and Maas, editions, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 2005; ISBN: 0-9731090-1-7; (Paper), 70 p., $20.00
Description: A collection of poems with drawings by Julie Maas finding beauty in the struggle against injustice.
Reviewed? Yes; by Gilles d'Aymery on December 4, 2006. Read the review - Title: The Jungle Novels
Author: B. Traven
Publisher/date/ISBN: Elephant Paperbacks, 1971; ISBN: 1-5666-303-8
Description: Set in Chiapas, Mexico, these novels are filled with the same kind of passionate commitment to the oppressed found in a Subcommandante Zero speech while embodying the same sorts of contradictions that face the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) today.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on October 20, 2003. Read the review - Title: The Mystery Of Olga Chekhova
Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher/date/ISBN: Viking Books, 2004, ISBN 0-67003-340-5, 300 pages, cloth, $24.95.
Description: The Mystery of Olga Chekhova reveals more about post-World War II Russia and Germany than the mystery of this alleged spy and Russian actress.
Reviewed? Yes; by Charles Marowitz on February 28, 2005. Read the review - Title: The People From Heaven
Author: John Sanford
Publisher/date/ISBN: U. of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1995; ISBN: 0-252-06491-7. 232 pages
Description: An unstinting attempt to root out the original sin of white racism, this novel is also a challenge to create a new radical culture to accompany revolutionary activism.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on June 9, 2003. Read the review - Title: Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life
Author: Herman Melville
Publisher/date/ISBN: Penguin Books, NY, Reprint edition February 1996, ISBN 0-14043-488-7, 328 pages
Description: If you want to understand modern day colonialism, rush for this book. Written such a long time ago that it looks like yesterday. Melville was a genius of literature.
Reviewed? Yes; by Louis Proyect on October 18, 2004. Read the review
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