A flawed vision

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Reinventing Social Emancipation: Toward New Manifestoes Volume 1: Democratizing Democracy—Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon (Verso, 2007), £24.99 Volume 2: Another Production is Possible (Verso, 2007), £24.99 Boaventura de Sousa Santos is a radical social theorist active… Continue Reading →

Gramsci goes global

Adam David Morton, Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Economy (Pluto, 2007), £18.99 Antonio Gramsci used the concept of “passive revolution” to explain the process leading to the unification of Italy in 1861. The relative backwardness of the country… Continue Reading →

Slam on the brakes

Matthew Paterson, Automobile Politics: Ecology and Cultural Political Economy (Cambridge University, 2007), £15.99 Matthew Paterson’s important new book provides a Marxist analysis of the car’s dominance, including sections on its economic, cultural and ecological aspects. In 2006 nine of the… Continue Reading →

Exposing racism

Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton University, 2007), £14.95 In 2004 the French government banned “conspicuous signs” of religious affiliation in schools. Although the ban seemed to apply to all religions equally, it was clearly targeted at… Continue Reading →