other important titles from
on Anarchism
THE RADICAL PAPERS
Dimitrios Roussopoulos, ed.
An extraordinary collection of essays that pose a real alternative to current views of public affairs. Some of the issues covered are: the limitations of the new ecology movements; “Irangate” and “Contragate”; North American free trade; the origins of male domination; women’s role in transforming the urban movement; and a different brand of socialism. These fresh insights are drawn from both history and contemporary social analysis.
The gallery of contributors includes some of the most stimulating social critics of our time: Noam Chomsky, Murray Bookchin, Juan Gómez Casas, Daniel Guérin, Rossella Di Leo, and others.
...attempts to make up the ground the left has lost...The essays...reflect a post-Reagan urgency in left-wing debates. Kingston Whig-Standard
About the Editor
Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos is an editor, writer and economist. He has written widely on international politics and social change. His most recent publication is Political Ecology.
| 175 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN: 0-920057-86-1 | $12.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 0-920057-87-X | $29.95 |
| Politics/Philosophy/Ecology | |
FUGITIVE WRITINGS
Peter Kropotkin
George Woodcock, ed.
This collection contains selected essays by Peter Kropotkin who was, unquestionably, the most widely read and respected theorist of anarchism. It is intended to make some of his most representative writings more accessible. The material consists of essays which either have not been previously published or have been out of print since their original publication.
While the entire scope of Kropotkin’s political thinking cannot possibly be projected in a single volume, it is hoped that many of his most fundamental conceptions have been exemplified here, for these essays embrace Kropotkin’s philosophy at a time when he was struggling to first give them expression. In this context, Kropotkin’s very first political essay, “Must We Occupy Ourselves With An Examination of the Ideal of a Future System,” written in 1873, which foreshadows most of his later writings, is of value.
About the Editor
George Woodcock—poet, author, essayist and widely known as a literary journalist and historian—has published more than ninety titles. In this volume he has prepared a preface to each essay allowing the reader to enter into the spirit of the time.
| 240 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-42-5 | $19.99 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-43-3 | $38.99 |
| Politics/Philosophy | |
more on Anarchism
BAKUNIN ON ANARCHISM
Sam Dolgoff, ed.
A new and revised selection of writings, nearly all published for the first time in English, by one of the leading thinkers of anarchism and one of the most important practitioners of social revolution —Michael Bakunin.
A titan among the social philosophers of the age that produced Proudhon, Marx, Blanqui, and Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin was involved in the Dresden uprising in 1848, which led to his imprisonment first in Germany, then in Russia, and his exile in Sibera, from where he escaped to Europe in 1861, and remained until his death in 1876. Bakunin’s voluminous writings are brought together in this collection for the general reader and student, having been edited, translated and introduced by Sam Dolgoff.
...with the publication of Sam Dolgoff’s lengthy and careful selection the vitality of Bakunin’s message is evident once again.
Labour History
[This book] is the most complete—and interestingly varied—anthology I’ve seen of this neglected writer. It confirms my suspicion that Bakunin is the most underrated of the classical 18th century theoreticians.
Dwight Macdonald
...by far the best available in English. Bakunin’s insights into power and authority, tyranny, the conditions of freedom, the new classes of specialists and technocrats, social tyranny, and many other matters of immediate concern are refreshing, original, and often still unsurpassed in clarity and vision. This selection provides access to the thinking of one of the most remarkable figures of modern history. I read it with great pleasure and profit.
Noam Chomsky
| 453 pages, bibliography | |
| Paperback ISBN: 0-919619-06-1 | $18.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 0-919619-05-3 | $37.95 |
| Politics/Philosophy | |
BAKUNIN
The Philosophy of Freedom
Brian Morris
Everything about him is colossal...he is full of a primitive exuberance and strength.
Richard Wagner
The life and thought of Michael Bakunin has a contemporary relevance, particularly for his definitions of freedom and his critiques of Marxism and scientism. He was not a conventional intellectual—if anything, he was anti-intellectual—and so never produced a systematic corpus of his ideas in the manner of Marx or Herbert Spencer. But his philosophy is by no means incoherent, and he fully deserves to be recognized as an important and influential political theorist
This book confirms Bakunin was a holistic thinker. That his anarchism was dominated by a desire to achieve a unity of theory and practice, of fact and value, of thought and action, within the reality of a given historical social order and that he opposed all the dualism which Western culture had bequeathed from mechanistic philosophy and bourgeois political theory—particularly the opposition between individual and society, philosophy and empirical knowledge, nature and humans.
About the Author
Brian Morris holds a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He teaches at Goldsmith’s College, University of London and has published Anthropological Studies of Religion and Western Conceptions of the Individual.
| 159 pages, index | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-66-2 | $18.99 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-67-0 | $37.99 |
| Political Philosophy/History | |
WORDS OF A REBEL
Peter Kropotkin
translated, with introduction, by George Woodcock
The first English-language translation of Paroles d‘un Révolté
First published in 1885 in Paris, this collection of articles constitutes Kropotkin’s first book. Originally titled Paroles d‘un Révolté, it includes his earliest works from the period 1879 to 1882. In the succeeding years it was translated into Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Russian, and Chinese. Long-awaited in English, Words of a Rebel is the first complete translation.
A different work from the more familiar books of the older Kropotkin, it is a product of an anarchist agitator and it derives its interest as much from what it reveals about an important transitional phase in the development of anarchism as it does for what it shows us of Kropotkin himself.
Seeing revolution as a popular insurrection, in the broadest terms, Kropotkin believed that public wealth should belong to its producers and consumers and not to the State or the rich.
About the Editor
This volume of Kropotkin’s articles was translated from the french by George Woodcock. A celebrated author, Woodcock is also an authority on the life and works of Peter Kropotkin and as a result, Words of a Rebel is not just a translation, but a scholarly work as well.
| 229 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-04-2 | $19.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-05-0 | $38.95 |
| Politics/History | |
EVOLUTION AND ENVIRONMENT
Peter Kropotkin
George Woodcock, ed.
While at one time Kropotkin’s view of our future might have been regarded as a utopian dream, today, as a result of the growing realization that the world’s resources of energy and raw materials are finite, that food is our most precious commodity and that most people’s working lives are futile and stultifying, the lessons of this book, for both the rich world and the poor, are topical and hopeful.
Evolution and Environment is a collection of seven essays on evolution and environment, written between 1910 and 1915, and never before published—a key text in the evolutionary controversy!
It would not be an exaggeration to describe this book as the crowning achievement of Kropotkin’s writing career In one way or another, it occupied a great deal of his thought, and the very tentativeness of this great book make its perceptions all the more relevant.
| 255 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN: 0-921689-44-1 | $19.99 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 0-921689-45-X | $38.99 |
| Philosophy/Environment | |
on Communications
BEYOND HYPOCRISY
Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda
Including A Doublespeak Dictionary for the 1990s
Edward S. Herman
Illustrations by Matt Wuerker
In a highly original volume that includes an extended essay on the Orwellian use of language that characterizes U.S. political culture, cartoons, and a cross-referenced lexicon of doublespeak terms with examples of their all too frequent usage, Herman and Wuerker highlight the deception and hypocrisy contained in the U.S. government’s favourite buzzwords. This spirited book offers abundant examples of duplicitous terminology, ranging from the crimes of free enterprise celebrated in the boardrooms of Wall Street and the press coverage of elections in El Salvador and Nicaragua, to George Bush’s condemnation of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait—after having just indulged in similarly straightforward aggression in Panama only one year previously.
Rich in irony and relentlessly forthright, Beyond Hypocrisy is a valuable resource for those interested in avoiding... ‘an unending series of victories over your own memory.’
Montreal Mirror
About the Author
Edward S. Herman is Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. A columnist for Z Magazine, he has written a number of books on foreign policy and mass media—The Real Terror Network, and with Noam Chomsky, The Political Economy of Human Rights, both of which have been published by Black Rose Books.
Matt Wuerker’s cartoons have appeared in Z Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Progressive.
| 239 pages, illustrations, index | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-48-4 | $19.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-49-2 | $38.95 |
| International Politics/Sociology/Communications | |
COMMON CENTS
Media Portrayal of the Gulf War and Other Events
James Winter
Using eight crucial case studies, ranging from the Gulf War, to Oka, the Ontario NDP budget, and the Montreal Massacre, James Winter shows how media coverage of events consistently casts them in what becomes a ‘common-sense’ framework.
This ‘common-sense’ view is the picture we carry around in our heads—a type of conventional wisdom that is inherent in our world view. Given our limited first hand exposure to world events, journalists play a crucial role in formulating our common-sense perspectives, so that today’s ‘common-sense’ view of the world is largely the result of yesterday’s mainstream news media coverage.
Winter provides strong evidence of a corporate tilt in the mass media...it is impossible to dismiss [his] arguements.
Vancouver Sun
Like Chomsky, he enjoys contrasting the “common-sense” interpretation with views from alternative sources. As facts and images clash, we end up with a better grasp of the issues at hand.
Montréal Gazette
About the Author
Dr. James Winter holds Bachelor and Master’s degrees in journalism, and a Ph.D. in mass communication. He has edited and authored numerous publications dealing with the media and society.
| 220 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-24-7 | $19.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-25-5 | $38.95 |
| Communications/Current Events/Canadian Studies | |
can the Middle East
THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA
Five Voices on Colonies, Nations, and Histories
Jocelyne Doray and Julian Samuel, eds.
The five voices, each brilliant and insightful...form a braid of thought that opens out the received ideas that bind colonizer and colonized into a world that oscillates between questions of deracination and re-territorialization. The Medusa tape is a journalistic tour de force. I am delighted there’s a book.
Vera Frenkel, video artist
In interviews with five academics and writers—Amin Maalouf, Thierry Hentsch, Sara Suleri, Marlene Nourbese Philip and Ackbar Abbas—history is discussed from a non-European perspective. The interviews examine such issues as Islamic fundamentalism and Occidental modernism, the Partition of India in 1947, the future of Hong Kong, and questions of identity in a postcolonial era.
In addition to the transcript of the video version of The Raft of the Medusa, this book also includes an interview with Marwan Hassan by Will Straw, providing a dialogue around the issues raised in the video, and an essay by Charles Acland examining colonial discourse as discussed in The Raft and how these themes are expressed in Bram Stokers’ Dracula.
About the Editors
Jocelyne Doray—editor, video consultant and translator—is currently at work on L‘âge de l’innocence, a book on child criminals. Julian Samuel is a film and video maker and writer. He has made Resisting the Pharaohs, a film about Montréal’s arms industry and weapons’ sales, and is the author of Lone Ranger in Pakistan.
| 132 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-76-X | $19.99 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-77-8 | $38.99 |
| International Politics/Cultural Studies | |
FROM CAMP DAVID TO THE GULF
Negotiations, Language and Propaganda, & War
Adel Safty
A general introduction to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, that moves on to a detailed examination of Sadat’s foreign policy decision-making, concentrating on what took place at Camp David in 1978. As well, Safty examines the role of language, propaganda, and media interpretation of the Palestinian question and, of the war against Iraq.
Naturally, it is controversial, but that is inherent in the subject matter. Safty makes his position clear, and does a careful and responsible job in backing it up. The most interesting part is based on Arabic sources that are not otherwise accessible.
Noam Chomsky, MIT, Cambridge
Safty provides...a well-documented and coherent presentation.
L. Carl Brown, Princeton University
Fascinating study of language and propaganda. Provocative and hard hitting.
Sylvia L‘Ecuyer, Radio Canada
Excellent work which challenges established beliefs...beautifully written, a must-read.
Rafe Mair, CKNW Radio
About the Author
Adel Safty, holds a doctorate in political science from the Université de Paris and is currently a political scientist with the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education. He specializes in Middle East studies and was repeatedly called upon by the CBC as their expert analyst during the Gulf War.
| 281 pages, index | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-10-7 | $19.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-11-5 | $38.95 |
| International Politics/History | |
on Society and Nature
THE ECOLOGY OF THE AUTOMOBILE
Peter Freund and George Martin
More than seventeen million people have been killed on roads since the automobile first appeared. An incalculable number have been seriously hurt. In the future, half the world is likely to be run over in a terminal squabble for oil. We are possessed by a mindless monster which threatens the planet itself.
Considering the widespread impact of the automobile in many contemporary societies, it is surprising how little attention its social and political dimensions receive—even from ecologically oriented thinkers. In this original book, authors Freund and Martin examine the central role that auto production and consumption have played in the 20th century: the overuse and misuse that has caused the major auto markets to be saturated and the costs of auto-centered transport to become prohibitive.
About the Authors
Peter Freund holds a Ph.D. from the New School of Social Research, New York, and teaches at Montclair State, New Jersey. He is co-author of Health, Illness, and the Social Body and author of The Civilized Body. George Martin holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and also teaches at Montclair State. He is the co-author of The Welfare Industry and Social Welfare in Society, and the author of Social Policy in the Welfare State.
| 213 pages, index | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-82-4 | $19.99 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-83-2 | $38.99 |
| Environment/Sociology/Politics | |
POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Beyond Environmentalism
Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos
As with other social movements for change, the movement for the protection of the environment embraces several schools of thought and action. There is now a strong tendency among ecologists to go beyond engaging in educational efforts, traditional protests, government lobbying, and participating in annual Earth Day activities, and to make a serious commitment to bringing about more fundamental social and political change.
The new direction in thinking which is advanced by Greens (political ecologists) and Green political organizations engaged in electoral action at various levels in liberal democracies can have a far-reaching effect on our lifestyles, our neighbourhoods and cities, and on our politics. Examining various streams of environmentalist and ecological thought, this book presents an overview of the origins and nature of political ecology, as well as a summary of the differences and similarities between political ecology and social ecology.
About the Author
Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos is an editor, writer and economist. He has written widely on international politics, democracy, and social change.
| 138 pages, index | |
| Paperback ISBN: 1-895431-80-8 | $15.99 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-81-6 | $34.99 |
| Politics/Ecology/Sociology | |
REMAKING SOCIETY
Murray Bookchin
Drawing materials from history, anthropology, philosophy, and ecology, Bookchin offers an in-depth historical explanation of how the sociecological crisis emerged and why existing political and economic institutions are unwilling and unable to address it
Remaking Society is a masterpiece, essential to clearing the air of the confusion about the roots of the contemporary social and ecological crises.
Latin American Connection
This straightforward, readable book is a wide-ranging intellectual tour de force. [His] work is motivated by his concerns with ecology, social justice, and anarchism.
Choice
... for those who already have some sympathy for an ecological perspective... [this] is an inspiring primer to Bookchin’s theory...a crucial reading for any critical mind.
Montreal Mirror
About the Author
Murray Bookchinhas been a pioneering thinker, writer, and activist in the environmental movement for more than thirty years.
| 222 pages, index | |
| Paperback ISBN: 0-921689-02-0 | $18.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 0-921689-03-9 | $37.95 |
| Ecology/ Philosophy | |
URBANIZATION WITHOUT CITIES
The Rise and Decline of Citizenship revised edition
Murray Bookchin
In this original work, Murray Bookchin introduces provocative ideas about the nature of community, and what it means to be a fully empowered citizen. He believes that the tension that exists between rural and urban society can be a vital source of human creativity, thereby defining a new, richly imaginative politics which can help us recover the power of the individual, restore the positive values and quality of urban life, and reclaim the ideal of the city as a major creative force in our civilization.
To reverse the city’s dehumanization, social thinker Bookchin here advocates an agenda for participatory democracy...It is significant.
Publisher’s Weekly
Bookchin is the leading ecological thinker of our times. His work ranks alongside Lewis Mumford’s monumental works on the culture and history of cities and goes beyond.
City Magazine
...an historical account of the rise and fall of the city-state as the arena of citizen participation...Bookchin gives us a useful history and a call for action.
The New York Times
| 340 pages | |
| Paperback ISBN:1-895431-00-X | $19.95 |
| Hardcover ISBN: 1-895431-01-8 | $38.95 |
| Ecology/Urban Sociology/History | |
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