New Books from Bookmarks Publications

Books

NEW BOOKS FROM BOOKMARKS PUBLICATIONS

**Coming soon from Bookmarks Publications***

Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer

Peter Alexander, Thapelo Lekowa, Botsang Mmope, Luke Sinwell and Bongani Xezwi

978 1 909026 25 4

£7.99, out in January 2013

On 16 August 2012 near Marikana, South Africa, striking miners from the Lonmin company were fired on by police, resulting in 34 deaths. The heart of this book is a series of interviews with strikers, most of them recorded on “the mountain” close to where their comrades were killed. Also includes a narrative and analysis by Peter Alexander of the University of Johannesburg.

“The book provides a bottom-up account of the Marikana story, to correct an imbalance in many official and media accounts that privilege the viewpoints of governments and business, at the expense of workers.” Professor Jane Duncan, chair of Media and Information Studies at Rhodes University

“Well written, extremely scrupulous in its research and forceful in its argument.” Professor John Saul, Canadian political scientist, one of the world’s top experts on liberation struggle in Southern Africa

 

***Out now from Redwords***

 

Poems of Protest by William Morris

with an introduction by Michael Rosen

978 1 909026 05 6

£6.99 SPECIAL OFFER £5

Though most know him for his design work, William Morris was also an accomplished writer whose poetry was used as songs and chants for the socialist movement. This volume includes work that has not been published since first appearing as propaganda in The Commonweal, the paper of Morris’s Socialist League. Michael Rosen argues that his socialist poetry was part of a long tradition of protest writing and a signpost for future struggles.

Also included are “How I Became a Socialist” by William Morris and an afterword, “The Communist Poet-Laureate” by the Morris scholar Nicholas Salmon.

 

Crossing the ‘river of fire’: the socialism of William Morris

by Hassan Mahamdallie

978 1 909026 04 9

£9.99 SPECIAL OFFER £8

The ravages of industrial capitalism, imperialism and war, the destruction of the environment and above all, the enslavement of human labour to the machine, appalled William Morris. Hassan Mahamdallie shows that the socialism of Morris grew out of his view of the past and his hatred for a system of “shoddy” production and that during the last decades of his life he threw all his energy into the struggle to change the world.

 

Shostakovich: Socialism, Stalin & Symphonies

by Simon Behrman

9781905192663

£9.99 SPECIAL OFFER £8

His struggle to maintain artistic integrity as the Russian Revolution was replaced by a cruel dictatorship made Shostakovich a  tragic figure, but also a hero to his contemporaries, fellow musicians and audience. This book describes the importance of Shostakovich in transcending the artificial divide between popular and classical music. 

 

***All available from Bookmarks the socialist bookshop, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE. Tel: 020 7637 1848  

Bookmarks Publications: http://www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk

First published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/new-from-bookmarks-publications

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

 

Hisham Matar: Men Who Tiptoe Into Their Marital Bedroom

Marital Bedroom

HISHAM MATAR: MEN WHO TIPTOE INTO THEIR MARITAL BEDROOM

HISHAM MATAR was born in New York City to Libyan parents and spent his childhood first in Tripoliand then in Cairo.  His first novel, In the Country of Men, was published in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the U.S.It won six international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book award for Europe and South Asia, the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the inaugural Arab American Book Award. It has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Hisham Matar lives in London.

‘THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES’
Winter 2012
Organised by the Department of Development Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of London
Convenor: Professor Gilbert Achcar

MEN WHO TIPTOE INTO THEIR MARITAL BEDROOMS: THE NOVELIST AND DICTATORSHIP

HISHAM MATAR
Libyan novelist, author of In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance

Monday 5 March, 6:30pm
SOAS, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
Free entrance, registration requested (link on the SOAS front page), first come first seated

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

‘Exile’ – by Van Pace

'Exile' - by Van Pace

‘EXILE’ – By VAN PACE

Exile is the second exiting short novel in the Theomachy series, which began with Heretic and the series continues with Enforcer.

Fourteen years ago, Brother Stefan made a terrible mistake. A single vengeful act, fuelled by grief and hatred and fear, in a lifetime of hard work and good intentions … He has spent every waking moment since then serving the Beneficent Numina, and trying to make up for his error of judgement in the worst possible way – by eradicating himself and leaving an empty husk in place of his heart.

Stefan took shelter with the gods because they could forgive worse sinners than him. Seven centuries earlier, the Numina had forgiven the worst of the lot: Rory Kempe, first-and-only prophet to grace Xerxes – a planet forgotten by all others, and ruled over by a theocracy which had gladly turned its back on the Universe.

Then, through the machinations of Hathor – the Numina’s Primary Servant, and Xerxes’ ruling artificial intelligence – Stefan was sent off-world to retrieve Kempe’s own account of his conversion, known simply as the Book. Life beyond Xerxes proved to be more confusing and dangerous than he could have imagined.

Now Brother Stefan returns to Rock Point Abbey with two responsibilities: Kempe’s journal, stolen from his homeworld centuries before, and a four-year-old orphan called Yuki. He delivers the Book to his superiors at Rock Point Abbey with relief, hoping to be allowed to take up his old life of walking and preaching.

But life has other plans for him.

Stefan used to be a clever and compassionate man. A strong man who would fight for his friends; would shelter the unfortunate and protect the innocent. He was a deep and passionate lover – he was loyal and caring and brave. And if it were not for that one terrible mistake, made so long ago, he could be all those things again …

Stefan has spent fourteen years denying his past. When he gets the chance to change his future, it will take courage to make the right choice.

How does a man regain his honour, once he loses it?
How does he reclaim the woman for whom his love has never wavered?
How does he make amends for the death of a true friend?

This time, Stefan is going to have to fight.

Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exile-Theomachy-Series-ebook/dp/B0070PNJN8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327624416&sr=1-1

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Exile-Theomachy-Series-ebook/dp/B0070PNJN8/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327624897&sr=1-4  

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology

Machu Picchu

JOSE CARLOS MARIÁTEGUI: AN ANTHOLOGY

http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb2457/

New from MR Press!
José Carlos Mariátegui
An Anthology

Edited and translated by Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker

José Carlos Mariátegui is one of Latin America’s most profound but overlooked thinkers. A self-taught journalist, social scientist, and activist from Peru, he was the first to emphasize that those fighting for the revolutionary transformation of society must adapt classical Marxist theory to the particular conditions of Latin America. He also stressed that indigenous peoples must take an active, if not leading, role in any revolutionary struggle.

Today Latin America is the scene of great social upheaval. More progressive governments are in power than ever before, and grassroots movements of indigenous peoples, workers, and peasants are increasingly shaping the political landscape. The time is perfect for a rediscovery of Mariátegui, who is considered an intellectual precursor of today’s struggles in Latin America but virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. This volume collects his essential writings, including many that have never been translated and some that have never been published. The scope of this collection, masterful translation, and thoughtful commentary make it an essential book for scholars of Latin America and all of those fighting for a new world, waiting to be born.

“A fully representative anthology of José Carlos Mariátegui is finally accessible to the English-speaking public…. Discover a thinker who not only was the pioneer of Marxist analysis of Peruand Latin Americabut one of the great universal Marxist authors of the twentieth century.”—Michael Löwy, editor of José Carlos Mariategui’s Por un socialismo indoamericano

“An intelligent and welcomed selection from Mariátegui’s complete works…. His disciplined prose illuminates the ‘real’ with unique and powerful insights of particular relevance for thinking our own current  crisis.”—Sara Castro-Klaren, Professor of Latin American Culture and Literature, The Johns Hopkins University

“Marvelous…. This much-needed volume is a gift, facilitating the international renewal and enrichment of revolutionary Marxism in the twenty-first century.”—Paul LeBlanc, Professor of History, La Roche College; author, From Marx to Gramsci and Marx, Lenin and the Revolutionary Experience

“By far the most comprehensive collection of writings by one of the most creative Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century….Vanden and Becker’s in-depth introductory essay correctly points to the persistent relevance of Mariátegui to a full understanding of current developments in Latin American politics, economies, and societies.”— Carlos M. Vilas, author, Between Earthquakes and Volcanoes and The Sandinista Revolution

“The recent emergence of the governments of the so-called marea rosada or Pink Tide inLatin America makes the publication of this comprehensive anthology of Mariategui’s work especially timely. The book will be an event for English-language readers interested in radical thought comparable to the appearance of the selections from Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks in the early 1970s.”—John Beverley, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies,University ofPittsburgh

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Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Critical Enthusiasm: Capital Accumulation and the Transformation of Religious Passion

John Locke

CRITICAL ENTHUSIASM: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF RELIGIOUS PASSION

 Jordana Rosenberg
Critical Enthusiasm: Capital Accumulation and the Transformation of Religious Passion
Oxford University Press, April 2011

The Atlantic world of the long eighteenth century was characterized by two major, interrelated phenomena: the onset of capital accumulation and the infusion of traditions of radical religious rapture into Enlightenment discourses. In exploring these cross-pollinations, Critical Enthusiasm shows that debates around religious radicalism are bound to the advent of capitalism at its very root: as legal precedent, as financial rhetoric, and as aesthetic form. To understand the period thus requires that we not only contextualize histories of religion in terms of the economic landscape of early modernity, but also recast the question of secularization in terms of the contradictions of capitalism.

Critical Enthusiasm contributes to new directions of scholarship in literary and legal history, secularization studies, and economic criticism. It is unique in producing a model for literary and cultural study that is simultaneously attuned to economic and religious forces. By approaching the history of capitalism through religious debates, Critical Enthusiasm discloses significant intersections of aesthetic form and of financial flows that have been hitherto ignored.

Through chapters that highlight moral philosophy, religious prophesy, early modern statute law, poetry, and political theory, Rosenbergshows that the contested nature of enthusiastic rapture is crucial to understanding the major institutional transformations of early modernity. These transformations–colonial plunder, the rise of finance, the administration of racialized labor, and the legal reform that justified such practices–shaped the period; they also laid the foundation for our contemporary world.

See: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/HistoryofChristianity/ReformationCounterReformation/?view=usa&ci=9780199764266

Jordana Rosenberg is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Domenico Losurdo Comes to London to Discuss his New Book – ‘Liberalism: A Counter History’

Domenico Losurdo

DOMENICO LOSURDO COMES TO LONDON TO DISCUSS HIS NEW BOOK – ‘LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY’

Thursday, May 05, 2011, 7.30pm

King’s College London, Edmund J. Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS

‘Liberalism: Slavery, imperialism and exploitation’

A panel discussion and book launch for LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORYwith Domenico Losurdo, Robin Blackburn, Richard Seymour, and chair Stathis Kouvelakis.

Hosted by the KCL European Studies Department in association with Verso Books

http://www.versobooks.com/events/141-liberalism-slavery-imperialism-and-exploitation

RSVP: marketing@verso.co.uk

———————————–

DOMENICO LOSURDO is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Urbino, Italy. He is the author of many books in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin. In English he has published HEGEL AND THE FREEDOM OF MODERNS and HEIDEGGER AND THE IDEOLOGY OF WAR.

ROBIN BLACKBURN is the author of THE AMERICAN CRUCIBLE: SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS. He teaches at the University of Essex in the UK and at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is a contributor to NEW LEFT REVIEW and a member of its editorial committee.

RICHARD SEYMOUR is the author of THE LIBERAL DEFENCE OF MURDER. He lives, works and writes in London. He runs the Lenin’s Tomb website, which comments on the War on Terror, Islamophobia and neoliberalism.

STATHIS KOUVELAKIS is the author of PHILSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM KANT TO MARX. He is a Reader in Political Theory at King’s College London.

———————————–

PRAISE FOR LIBERALISM: A COUNTER-HISTORY BY DOMENICO LOSURDO

‘Devastatingly exact in his dismantling of a Whiggish optimism, Losurdo thankfully avoids the historical dead-endism of postmodern critiques.’ Greg Grandin, author of FORDLANDIA

‘Anyone who thinks they know the history of liberalism will be surprised – and riveted – by this book. Every page is an experience.’ Corey Robin, author of FEAR: THE HISTORY OF A POLITICAL IDEA

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In this definitive historical investigation of the formation of liberalism from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Domenico Losurdo overturns complacent and self-congratulatory accounts by showing that, from its very origins, liberalism and its main thinkers—Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, Sieyès and others—have been bound up with the defense of thethoroughly illiberal policies of slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and elitism. Losurdo probes the inner contradictions of liberalism, also focusing on minority currents that moved to more radical positions, and provides an authoritative account of the relationship between the domestic and colonial spheres in the constitution of a liberal order.

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ISBN: 978 1 84467 639 4 / $34.95 / £22.00 / Hardcover / 384 pages

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For more information or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/960-liberalism  

———————————– 

Academics based outside North America may request an inspection copy – please contact tamar@verso.co.uk

Academics based within North America may request an examination copy – please contact clara@versobooks.com  

Please check the guidelines at http://www.versobooks.com/pg/desk-copies and include all necessary information.

———————————–

Become a fan of Verso on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Verso-Books-UK/122064538789

And get updates on Twitter too! http://twitter.com/VersoBooks

***END***

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Uneven Development

Taweret

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

NEW EDITION FROM VERSO:

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space

By NEIL SMITH

New and updated edition with a new foreword by DAVID HARVEY
—————————–
“Smith provides a brilliant formulation of how the production of a particular kind of nature and space under historical capitalism is essential to the unequal development of a landscape that integrates poverty with wealth.” –– EDWARD SAID
—————————–
In UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, a classic in its field, NEIL SMITH offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalism.

Featuring groundbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith’s work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization.

DAVID HARVEY’S new foreword highlights the increasingly uneven nature of the globalized economy, and notes that this inequality, along with accelerating levels of urbanisation and environmental degradation, have only accelerated since the book was first published. Smith’s analysis is thus more urgent and relevant than ever.

While globalisation has not led to a weakening of state power in the political sphere, it is increasingly difficult to conceive of distinct state economies – for example by the 1980s the majority of trade across national borders took place within corporations. National and international organisations rival states in economic power – in 2007 Harvard University had more money in its bank account than the GDP of some 39 countries. Thus, Smith argues, the global system can increasingly be defined more in terms of geoeconomics than traditional geopolitics.

In recognition of the dramatic changes in capitalism and its geography over the quarter century since this volume was written, Neil Smith has updated the text with a discussion of the current crisis of neoliberalism and the rise of geoeconomics.

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT is a radical attempt to reconstruct the politicalbasis of society, in order to produce a genuinely social geography by encouraging a revolutionary imaginary.
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Praise for UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

“A foundational text of great historical significance, constantly worthy of reappraisal…You will not be disappointed.” David Harvey

“Smith attempts no less than the integration of nature and space in the Marxian theory of capitalist development … he improves the clarity even of the arguments made in disagreement with him. His book should be widely read, used, and discussed.’ –ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING

“UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT provides a theoretical discussion of immense range – from nature through space and the economy – whereby Neil Smith extends David Harvey’s Marxist conception of the geography of capitalism” – GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

“One of the most important books of specifically geographical social theory to be written in the English language in the last thirty years.” – Scott Prudham, author of KNOCK ON WOOD: NATURE AS COMMODITY IN DOUGLAS-FIR COUNTY
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NEIL SMITH is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the City University of New York and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. He is author or editor of nine books that explore the broad intersection between space, nature, social theory, and history and is co-organizer of the International Critical Geography Group. His website is http://neil-smith.net/
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ISBN: 978 1 84467 643 9 / £16.99 / Paperback / 344 pages
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For more information and to buy the book visit:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/704-704-uneven-development
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ACADEMICS BASED OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA MAY REQUEST AN INSPECTION COPY – PLEASE CONTACT tamar@verso.co.uk

ACADEMICS BASED WITHIN NORTH AMERICA MAY REQUEST AN EXAMINATION COPY – PLEASE CONTACT clara@versobooks.com
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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Dialectical Passions: Negation in Postwar Art Theory

Dialectics

DIALECTICAL PASSIONS: NEGATION IN POSTWAR ART THEORY

NEW BOOK:
Gail Day, Dialectical Passions: Negation in Postwar Art Theory (Columbia University Press, 2010)
Cloth, 320 pages, 15 halftones
ISBN: 978-0-231-14938-9
$50.00 / £34.50 – Promo Code for 30% discount: ‘DAYDI’ on orders via:
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14938-9/dialectical-passions

Representing a new generation of theorists reaffirming the radical dimensions of art, Gail Day launches a bold critique of late twentieth-century art theory and its often reductive analysis of cultural objects. Exploring core debates in discourses on art, from the New Left to theories of “critical postmodernism” and beyond, Day counters the belief that recent tendencies in art fail to be adequately critical. She also challenges the political inertia that results from these conclusions.

Day organizes her defense around critics who have engaged substantively with emancipatory thought and social process: T. J. Clark, Manfredo Tafuri, Fredric Jameson, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, and Hal Foster, among others. She maps the tension between radical dialectics and left nihilism and assesses the interpretation and internalization of negation in art theory.

Chapters confront the claim that exchange and equivalence have subsumed the use value of cultural objects—and with it critical distance— and interrogate the proposition of completed nihilism and the metropolis put forward in the politics of Italian operaismo. Day covers the debates on symbol and allegory waged within the context of 1980s art and their relation to the writings of Walter Benjamin and Paul de Man. She also examines common conceptions of mediation, totality, negation, and the politics of anticipation. A necessary unsettling of received wisdoms, Dialectical Passions recasts emancipatory reflection in aesthetics, art, and architecture.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Workers of the World

Work No More

WORKERS OF THE WORLD

Workers of the World: Essays toward a Global Labor History

Marcel van der Linden

· November 2010
· ISBN 978 90 04 18479 4
· Paperback (viii, 469 pp.)
· List price EUR 45.- / US$ 60.-
· Studies in Global Social History; 1

http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=44450

The studies offered in this volume contribute to a Global Labor History freed from Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism. Using literature from diverse regions, epochs and disciplines, the book provides arguments and conceptual tools for a different interpretation of history – a labor history which integrates the history of slavery and indentured labor, and which pays serious attention to diverging yet interconnected developments in different parts of the world. The following questions are central: What is the nature of the world working class, on which Global Labor History focuses? How can we define and demarcate that class, and which factors determine its composition? Which forms of collective action did this working class develop in the course of time, and what is the logic in that development? What can we learn from adjacent disciplines? Which insights from anthropologists, sociologists and other social scientists are useful in the development of Global Labor History?

Readership: Social historians, labor historians, historians of slavery, historians of colonialism, historical sociologists

Marcel van der Linden (1952) is Research Director of the International Institute of Social History and Professor of social movement history at the University of Amsterdam. He has published extensively on labor and working-class history and on the history of ideas.

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But were afraid to ask Hitchcock)

 

 

Zizek

EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LACAN (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK HITCHCOCK)

NEW EDITION

Edited by SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

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Radical philosopher, polymath, film star, cult icon, and author of over 30 books: Slavoj Žižek is one of the most controversial and leading contemporary public intellectuals, simultaneously acclaimed as the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’ and denounced as ‘the most dangerous philosopher in the West’. He regularly features on lists of the top public intellectuals and remains a thorn in the side of both the right and the liberal left.

Hitchcock gets onto the analyst’s couch in this extraordinary volume of cinematographic case studies. The wide range of contributors bring to bear an unrivalled enthusiasm and theoretical sweep to the entire Hitchcock oeuvre, analyzing movies such as REAR WINDOW and PSYCHO.

An extraordinary landmark in Hitchcock studies, this new edition features a brand-new essay by Slavoj Žižek, psychoanalyst, philosopher and presenter of THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO CINEMA. The contributors include Fredric Jameson, the leading American literary critic and Marxist political theorist.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION

INTRODUCTION

Alfred Hitchcock, or, The Form and its Historical Mediation – Slavoj Žižek

PART ONE – The Universal: Themes

Hitchcockian Suspense – Pascal Bonitzer

Hitchcock’s Objects – Mladen Dolar

Spatial Systems in NORTH BY NORTHWEST – Fredric Jameson

A Perfect Place to Die: Theatre in Hitchcock’s Films – Alenka Zupaničič

PUNCTUM CAECUM, or, Of Insight and Blindness – Stojan Pelko

PART TWO – The Particular: Films

Hitchcockian SINTHOMS – Slavoj Žižek

The Spectator Who Knew Too Much – Mladen Dolar

The Cipher of Destiny – Michel Chion

A Father Who Is Not Quite Dead – Mladen Dolar

NOTORIOUS – Pascal Bonitzer

The Fourth Side – Michel Chion

The Man Behind His Own Retina – Miran Božovič

The Skin and the Straw – Pascal Bonitzer

The Right Man and the Wrong Woman – Renata Salecl

The Impossible Embodiment – Michel Chion

PART THREE – The Individual – Hitchcock’s Universe

‘In His Bold Gaze My Ruin Is Writ Large’ – Slavoj Žižek

What’s wrong with THE WRONG MAN? – The Hitchcockian Allegory – From I to A – PSYCHO’S Moebius band – Aristophanes reversed – ‘A triumph of the gaze over the  eye’ – The narrative closure and its vortex – The gaze of the Thing – ‘Subjective destitution – The collapse of intersubjectivity

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Praise for SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

“The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in many decades.” Terry Eagleton

“The most dangerous philosopher in the West.” Adam Kirsch, NEW REPUBLIC

“Slavoj Žižek has put the Soul back into philosophy.” TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

“He is the closest thing philosophy currently has to a superstar.” Hermione Eyre, INDEPENDENT

“Žižek is the undisputed spritz master of international cinema studies.” VILLAGE VOICE

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SLAVOJ ZIZEK is a professor at the European Graduate School , Intern ational Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College , University of London , and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana , Slovenia . His other books from Verso include LIVING IN THE END TIMES, FIRST AS TRAGEDY, THEN AS FARCE, IN DEFENSE OF LOST CAUSES, THE SUBLIME OBJECT OF IDEOLOGY, WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL, THE PLAGUE OF FANTASIES and DID SOMEBODY SAY TOTALITARIANISM? He has also appeared in the films ZIZEK! and THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO CINEMA.

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ISBN: 978 1 84467 621 7 / $26.95 / £16.99 / CAN$33.50 / Paperback / 304 pages

ISBN: 978-1-84467-622-4 / $100.00 / £55.00 / $125.00 / Hardback / 304 pages

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For more information and to buy the book visit:

http://www.versobooks.com/books/466-466-everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-lacan-%28but-were-afraid-to-ask-hitchcock%29

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ACADEMICS BASED OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA MAY REQUEST AN INSPECTION COPY – PLEASE CONTACT tamar@verso.co.uk

ACADEMICS BASED WITHIN NORTH AMERICA MAY REQUEST AN EXAMINATION COPY – PLEASE CONTACT clara@versobooks.com

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Visit Verso’s new website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com

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The Coming of the Body

The Man in Black

THE COMING OF THE BODY

NEW TITLE FROM VERSO: The Coming of the Body

By HERVE JUVIN

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“After gods, after revolutions, after financial markets, the body is becoming our truth system. It alone endures, it alone remains.” Herve Juvin

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This startling book argues that scientific developments are redefining what it means to be human. Though we live longer than ever before, we are increasingly obsessed with youth and longevity, and increasingly disconnected from suffering, need and time. In the process, are we losing our morality?

The human lifespan has tripled in the last two centuries, ushering in a new kind of humanity which places the body at its centre. In the West, money, technology and medicine combine to deliver the body from war, suffering, death and religion. Even as state and global institutions crumble, this emergent body no longer struggles or resists.

The new body is rendered immune and newly resistant to the ravages of time, nature and capital. An emergent ‘industry of life’—from diets and plastic surgery to sex-free reproduction and virtual reality—further seeks to liberate the body from its biological functions.

Newly translated into English, THE COMING OF THE BODY weaves together a rich variety of sources to paint a cogent, if chilling, picture of this new paradigm. Technological advancement couples with demographic shifts to bring about a sweeping change in social relations. Adult adolescence becomes increasingly protracted and a new ethics of desire begins to emerge. Unabashedly hedonistic, the body becomes a machine of desire that eschews family, state and nation in favour of individual health, security and pleasure. In a society governed by contracts rather than ethical ties, money replaces traditional morals, fidelity and family in an insatiable quest for eternal youth.

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Praise for THE COMING OF THE BODY:

“Mr. Juvin’s book is being read attentively by philosophers and politicians, because it warns that pretty much all the values we consider human or humanist are collapsing…If we accept Mr. Juvin’s argument, the trinity of western ideals (‘liberty, equality, fraternity’) is in the course of being replaced by another one (‘health, security, pleasure’).” Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times

“Juvin’s central message is a sinister paradox: what communism set out to do, and disastrously failed to achieve, capitalism is in the process of realizing—the discredited messianic goal of reinventing humanity.” Perry Anderson, New Left Review

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HERVE JUVIN is President and founder of the Eurogroup Institute and is the author of a number of books on economics, finance, and management. He was a columnist for LE MONDE and now regularly contributes to L’EXPANSION and ENJEUX LES ECHOS.

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ISBN: 978 1 84467 310 0 / $27.95 / £14.99 / CAN$31.00 / Hardback / 188 Pages

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For more information visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/ij-titles/juvin_h_coming_of_the_body.shtml

To buy the book in the UK : http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781844673100/The-Coming-of-the-Body

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Body-Herve-Juvin/dp/1844673103/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283790998&sr=8-3

To buy the book in the US : http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Body-Herv%C3%A9-Juvin/dp/1844673103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283791027&sr=8-1

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ACADEMICS BASED OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA MAY REQUEST AN INSPECTION COPY – PLEASE CONTACT tamar@verso.co.uk

ACADEMICS BASED WITHIN NORTH AMERICA MAY REQUEST AN EXAMINATION COPY – PLEASE CONTACT clara@versobooks.com

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Not What It Seems

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New Publications from Bookmarks – Summer 2010

Books

NEW PUBLICATIONS FROM BOOKMARKS – SUMMER 2010

The Red in the Rainbow: Sexuality, Socialism and LGBT Liberation, by Hannah Dee. £7.99 SPECIAL OFFER £7 www.tinyurl.com/getrainbow 
This inspiring story of the fight for LGBT liberation travels across continents and centuries uncovering the radical struggle for sexual freedom. It should be read by every activist who aspires to live in a world where we can all be free to love and live as we choose, free from oppression and persecution.

Chris Harman – Selected Writings. £16.99 SPECIAL OFFER £15 www.tinyurl.com/selectedwritings 
As well as writing a whole number of important books and pamphlets, including A People’s History of the World (Verso 2008) and Zombie Capitalism (Bookmarks 2009), Chris Harman produced a steady flow of commentary, journalism and major articles on a very wide range of topics – from economics to philosophy, from the contemporary state of the class struggle to cultural theory, from the history of world development to the history of the workers’ movement in many parts of the world, from women’s liberation and Islam to the defence and development of revolutionary strategy. Here we reproduce just a selection of his articles. Read, and learn.

Breaking their Chains: Mary Macarthur and the Chainmakers’ Strike of 1910 by Tony Barnsley. £6.99 SPECIAL OFFER £5 www.tinyurl.com/chainmakers
For two months in the autumn of 1910 hundreds of women chainmakers in the Black Country struck for a minimum wage that would double their incomes – and won. Tony Barnsley tells the largely forgotten story of the strike, a prelude to the Great Unrest which would sweep the country in 1911.

Redwords Revolutionary Portraits Shostakovich: Socialism, Stalin and Symphonies by Simon Behrman. £9.99 SPECIAL OFFER £8 www.tinyurl.com/portraitshostakovich
The life and career of Dmitri Shostakovich, more than any other classical composer of the 20th century, has provided the most hotly debated meeting point between politics and art. Simon Behrman recounts his struggle to maintain artistic integrity as the Revolution was replaced by a cruel dictatorship, making Shostakovich a tragic figure, but also a hero to his contemporaries, fellow musicians and audience alike.

Back in print:

The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx by Alex Callinicos. £9.99 SPECIAL OFFER £8 www.tinyurl.com/revideas
The classic introduction to Marx’s life and politics – a crucial reference for any student of revolutionary Marxism.

Lenin: Building the Party, 1893-1914 by Tony Cliff. £16.99 SPECIAL OFFER £15 www.tinyurl.com/leninvol1
Lenin’s fight to build a revolutionary organisation capable of leading the struggles to come is analysed by Cliff, who shows both the historical specifics of Russia in the death throws of Tsarism and the lessons we can learn as revolutionaries today.

TO ORDER ANY OF THESE TITLES go to http://www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk or call Bookmarks Bookshop on 020 7637 1848 or visit us at 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE

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