Politics

Digital platforms are more than devices, algorithms and websites. They organise societies through the leadership of platform capitalists and their allies in political institutions. We know that this leadership, or hegemony, fosters exploitation and inequalities. We also know that a politics of resistance is emerging among platform workers and communities around the digital commons. Less known is how the left has been changing to have a say in digital politics. And what do left-wing parties think and do about platform societies? The Left and Digital Politics answers these questions by developing an updated Gramscian critical theory of (counter-)hegemony in platform societies and a comparative analysis of the ideologies and practices of key European left-wing parties. The book provides a map of left-wing ideas and practices on digital politics, a compass to point out how some left-wing parties perform as barriers or allies of radical change, and an analytical toolkit to open new routes towards platform socialism. "Transforming Gramsci's project of the Modern Prince into a Digital Princess*+ may not happen overnight, but Guglielmo's book provides great inspiration. It advances concepts in networked revolution and informs strategies for wars of position and movement for a socialist future. The author holds the left to account in its search for a better digital politics, by challenging us to unearth patterns of agency of the digital platform 'subaltern'. I recommend The Left and Digital Politics whole-heartedly to all those fighting for digital justice, and beyond." - Professor Phoebe Moore, University of Essex "This book sets a new standard for understanding the thorny relationship between the left and digital politics today. Combining innovative theory with detailed empirical studies, Guglielmo sets out to understand how left-wing political projects have made use of digital technologies, both practically and ideologically. In so doing, he sets out new pathways towards platform socialism in an era of neoliberal rule, exhaustively mapping out the contemporary terrain and lines of potential alliance and conflict." - Dr Alex Williams, University of East Anglia

Assassination has been a political and military tool for thousands of years. In the view of many generals and emperors, it was cheaper and more effective than assembling an army and pitching soldiers into combat with the enemy - when the result was never clear cut or easy to achieve. The twentieth century was, perhaps more than any other period, an era of military, political and social assassinations. Their effect was invariably huge, world-changing in some instances. From the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914 to the murder of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, from the death of John Lennon to the assassination of men like President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the assassin's bombs, bullets, and knives cut a swathe across modern society. 'Assassinations that Shaped the Twentieth Century' logs and describes many of the more notable killings. It places the assassinations in context, charting their effect and significance. The book also looks at 'failed' assassination attempts and at killings that were planned but never carried out. Written in Phil Carradice's easy and elegant style, the book is thoroughly researched and presented in a logical manner. It is an essential addition to the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in twentieth-century history.

A collection of essays from the Stop Cop City movement on the fight for police abolition and for a liveable planet for all, with gripping reporting from activists on the ground and rousing articles from renowned radical academicsThe Stop Cop City movement is a decentralized effort to stop the construction of a $120 million police training facility and the destruction of 170 acres of the Weelaunee Forest outside of Atlanta, Georgia. This is the first collection of essays bringing together organizers and activists who have been involved in the years-long struggle to Stop Cop City. Connecting movements for environmental justice, police abolition, and Indigenous sovereignty, this expansive collection highlights the strategy, tactics, and ideologies that transformed a local collective action into a powerful international movement.Featuring the voices of forest defenders, environmental justice advocates, political prisoners, Indigenous activists, abolitionists, educators, legal scholars, and academics, these wide-ranging essays explore the history of the intersectional movement, the diverse tactics embraced by activists, tributes to Tortuguita, the 26-year-old queer Indigenous forest defender murdered by Georgia State Patrol troopers, and the intense police and legal repression faced by organizers. Making critical connections between oppression and resistance at home and abroad, the movement to Stop Cop City has expanded to a fight against a Cop World.

For readers of Work Won't Love You Back and A History of America in Ten Strikes, the leader of the Starbucks and Tesla union movements shares stories from the front lines to help workers organize their own workplace.

This unprecedented history of intelligence cooperation during the Cold War reveals the key role of European agencies in facilitating Mossad's Operation Wrath of God. Through unique access to unredacted sources, Aviva Guttmann uncovers a secret security order which operated independently of foreign policy constraints or public scrutiny.

From the creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why, a fun and fascinating deep dive into what the hell is going on in our strange, unprecedented modern times.Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world's most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articles about everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff?This massive topic sent Tim tumbling down his deepest rabbit hole yet, through mountains of history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience, and modern-day political movements, as he tried to figure out the answer to a simple question: What's our problem?Six years later, he emerged from the hole holding this book. What's Our Problem? is a deep and expansive analysis of our modern times, in the classic style of Wait But Why, packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and 300 drawings. The book provides an entirely new framework and language for thinking and talking about today's complex world. Instead of focusing on the usual left-center-right horizontal political axis, which is all about what we think, the book introduces a vertical axis that explores how we think, as individuals and as groups. Readers will find themselves on a delightful and fascinating journey that will ultimately change the way they see the world around them.Anyway he wanted to say a lot more about all of this but there was a word limit on this book description so just go read the book.

This is a study for the layman as well as the professional.

Covers documents from the life and career of James Madison from 1 April 1807 to 30 September 1807.

The idea of progress, one of the animating ideas of Western civilization, has now gone global. From Marxism and neoliberalism to today's mutant identity politics, it offers a framework of knowledge and confidence: an assurance that things will get better and that history is on our side. However, in doing this it creates a form of authority that is simultaneously imaginary and dishonest, resting on confidence in a future that is really contingent and unknowable. In The Progress Trap, Ben Cobley looks at this progressive mindset as a form of power, conferring a right to act and control others. 'Change', 'transformation' and the 'new' are the superior values, meaning destruction of the old: people, cultures and nature. It is a trap into which nearly all of us fall at times, so attractive are its stories and familiar its techniques. Hard-hitting but thoughtful, the book is a meditation on the sinister consequences of the progressive way of being: for ourselves, for our democracy, for our art and for the pursuit of real knowledge.

Navalny. Lenin. Pugachev. The Russian rebel - in his epic battle against the Leviathan of the Russian state - has enthralled readers and writers for decades. The rebel's story is almost always a sad one that ends in exile, imprisonment, or martyrdom, leaving but a seed for the future reform of the Leviathan which he or she had taken on. Why do revolts - from the Decembrist uprising to the Snow Revolution that brought Alexei Navalny to the forefront of contemporary Russian politics - seem to end up failing or producing an even worse form of despotism? In reality, the brave words and deeds of dissidents have shaped the course of Russian history more often than we might think. Through the stories of prominent rebels from the time of Ivan the Terrible to the present day, as well as her own experiences reporting on her country's decent into authoritarianism, Russian-American journalist Anna Arutunyan explores how the rebel and the Tsar defined each other through a centuries-long dance of dissent and repression. These characters and their lives not only reveal the true nature of the Russian state, they also offer hope for a future Russian democracy.