Books by Richard Seymour

A war that has killed over a million Iraqis was a ';humanitarian intervention', the US army is a force for liberation, and the main threat to world peace is posed by Islam.Those are the arguments of a host of liberal commentators, ranging from Christopher Hitchens to Kanan Makiya, Michael Ignatieff, Paul Berman, and Bernard-Henri Levy. In this critical intervention, Richard Seymour unearths the history of liberal justifications for empire, showing how savage policies of conquestincluding genocide and slaveryhave been retailed as charitable missions.From the Cold War to the War on Terror, Seymour argues that the colonial tropes of ';civilization' and ';progress' still shape liberal pro-war discourse, and still conceal the same bloody realities.

How Jeremy Corbyn, the radical left candidate for the Labour leadership, won twiceand won bigIn the 2017 general election, Jeremy Corbyn pulled off an historic upset, attracting the biggest increase in the Labour vote since 1945. It was another reversal of expectations for the mainstream media and his ';soft-left' detractors. Demolishing the Blairite opposition in 2015, Corbyn had already seen off an attempted coup. Now, he had shattered the government's authority, and even Corbyn's most vitriolic critics have been forced into stunned mea culpas. For the first time in decades, socialism is back on the agendaand for the first time in Labour's history, it defines the leadership. Richard Seymour tells the story of how Corbyn's rise was made possible by the long decline of Labour and by a deep crisis in British democracy. He shows how Corbyn began the task of rebuilding Labour as a grassroots party, with a coalition of trade unionists, young and precarious workers, students and ';Old Labour' pugilists, who then became the biggest campaigning army in British politics. Utilizing social media, activists turned the media's Project Fear on its head and broke the ideological monopoly of the tabloids. After the election, with all the artillery still ranged against Corbyn, and with all the weaknesses of the Left's revival, Seymour asks what Corbyn can do with his newfound success.

Five years into capitalism's deepest crisis, which has led to cuts and economic pain across the world, Against Austerity addresses a puzzling aspect of the current conjuncture: why are the rich still getting away with it? Why is protest so ephemeral? Why does the left appear to be marginal to political life? *BR**BR*In an analysis which challenges our understanding of capitalism, class and ideology, Richard Seymour shows how 'austerity' is just one part of a wider elite plan to radically re-engineer society and everyday life in the interests of profit, consumerism and speculative finance. *BR**BR*But Against Austerity is not a gospel of despair. Seymour argues that once we turn to face the headwinds of this new reality, dispensing with reassuring dogmas, we can forge new collective resistance and alternatives to the current system. Following Brecht, Against Austerity argues that the good old things are over, it's time to confront the bad new ones.

Blistering and timely interrogation of the politics and motives of an infamous ex-leftist

From Mark Twain to the movement against the war in Vietnam, this is the story of ordinary Americans challenging empire.

What you won't have got in the televised debates, party manifestos, campaign trail propaganda and media coverage, pertaining to Cameron the cipher and the social forces he represents.