Politics

Inspired by the banners and signs at recent marches around the world, Really Cross Stitch takes all of that anger, outrage, and protest and puts it inside a decorative border . . . along with some snarky commentary and general annoyance.Stitching for public protest is not new. First-wave feminists in the US and in Britain used needlework in their demonstrations and public protest lectures during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Needlework and other handcrafts, however, declined throughout the twentieth century. But in the 21st century, there has been a steep resurgence and many are turning to crafting, especially needlework, as an activist strategy. In Knitting for Good, feminist Betsy Greer makes this point strongly when she proclaims, ΓÇ£I think every act of making is an act of revolution.ΓÇ¥Featuring more than 40 truly original cross stitch designs, the book also contains instructions on techniques for new stitchers. The projects include: - I am very upset- Brace yourself--women are coming- Too many issues to fit in one place- Nobody likes you- No you can''t take my rights, I''m still using them- Just Urgh- I can''t believe I still have to protest this shit- Girls just wanna have FUNdamental rights- Damn right we''re snowflakes; winter is coming!- Gram ''em by the patriarchy- I will not go quietly back to the 1950s- Same shit, different century- I''m so angry I made this- We''re not just nasty women, we''re REVOLTING- My body, my insatiable thirst for revenge- Down with this sort of thing-Nevertheless she persisted- We are sisters

An incisive analysis of the state of the global economy and what the future holds. Surrounded by sluggish growth, high rates of unemployment, rising inequality, growing financial instability and increased social tensions, pessimism about our future abounds.  Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian, one of the world‿s most influential economic thinkers, explains lucidly the realities of the economic choices that we will soon face. The path that the global economy and markets are on is ending. But what comes thereafter is far from predestined. It critically depends on choices that we make as households and companies, and decisions that our political representatives take.  The Only Game in Town details how the world is increasingly being shaken, both from above and from below. It illuminates the growing internal contradictions, the constraints that are undermining growth and prosperity, and the radical overhaul in thinking that is required. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, central banks were handed responsibility for the fate of the global economy. Lifting the veil on the inner workings of these powerful and innovative institutions, El-Erian explains why they cannot save us this time around.   Laying out a road map for growth, The Only Game in Town shows how and why collaboration between central bankers, policymakers and business leaders is essential. Drawing on insights from behavioral science, economics and finance, this book provides the tools needed to understand the uncertainties that lie ahead and return us to a path of prosperity. Thought provoking and insightful, this book is required reading for investors, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future.

What are our human rights? What are their philosophical justifications and historical origins? Focusing on highly topical issues such as torture, arbitrary detention, privacy, and discrimination, this Very Short Introduction discusses the controversies and complexities behind these vitally relevant issues.

International law lies at the heart of our interaction with the global community. It protects rights, imposes duties, and establishes a framework for the conduct of almost every social, political, and economic activity. Vaughan Lowe explains the basic structural principles of international law, and looks at its potential and its limitations.

This beginners guide to Capital illustrates the key concepts, humour, and immense vitality to be enjoyed in Marx's great work.

The untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East

A call to arms by a group of French intellectuals that rejects leftist reform and aligns itself with younger, wilder forms of resistance.Thirty years of "crisis,” mass unemployment, and flagging growth, and they still want us to believe in the economy... We have to see that the economy is itself the crisis. It's not that there's not enough work, it's that there is too much of it. The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as "the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.” The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine capable of "spreading anarchy and live communism.” Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the "war on terror.” Hot-wired to the movement of '77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized life forms. It is a philosophical statement that addresses the growing number of those—in France, in the United States, and elsewhere—who refuse the idea that theory, politics, and life are separate realms.

Machiavelli's highly influential treatise on political power 'It is far safer to be feared than loved...' The Prince shocked Europe on publication with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality.

Barack Obama's political vision for the future of America, written two years before he became president; the New York Times bestseller

The Condition of the Working Class in England is the best known work of Engels, and still in many ways the best study of the working class in Victorian England. It was the first book written by Engels during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature ofhis insights, and his talent for mordant satire combine to make this account of the lives of the victims of early industrial change into a classic - a historical study that parallels and complements the fictional works of the time by such writers as Gaskell and Dickens. What Cobbett had done for agriculturalpoverty in his Rural Rides, Engels did - and more - in this work on the plight of industrial workers in England in the 1840s. This edition includes the prefaces to the English and American editions, and a map of Manchester c.1845.

First published in 1971, Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky''s impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

A collection of articles dealing with the point of view of symbolic interactionism and with the topic of methodology in the discipline of sociology. It presents what might be regarded as an authoritative statement of its point of view, outlining its fundamental premises and sketching their implications for sociological study.

Although Plato's celebrated work of philosophy describes a society which to some seems the ideal human community and to others like a totalitarian nightmare, it also raises enduring questions about politics, art, education and the general conduct of life.

The globe faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. Waste Land is an incisive study of how we got here and where we are going.

As European empires crumbled in the 20th century, the power structures that had dominated the world for centuries were up for renegotiation. Yet instead of a rebirth for democracy, what emerged was a silent coup - namely, the unstoppable rise of global corporate power. Exposing the origins of this epic power grab as well as its present-day consequences, Silent Coup is the result of two investigative journalist's reports from 30 countries around the world. It provides an explosive guide to the rise of a corporate empire that now dictates how resources are allocated, how territories are governed, and how justice is defined.

"What would you do if you grew up repeatedly seeing your home raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, if just for a moment, to imagine this was your life. How would you want the world to react?" Ahed Tamimi's father was born in 1967, the year that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began, and every aspect of their family's life has been touched by it. One of Ahed's earliest memories is visiting her father in prison, poking her three-year-old fingers through the fence to touch his hand. The ubiquitous security checkpoints and armed guards even found their way into her childhood fairytales and playdates. Her grandmother regaled her not with nursery rhymes, but with the sage of her family and its tragedies. Instead of cops and robbers, there was Jaysh o 'Arab, or "Army and Arabs," where children roleplayed as Israeli soldiers opposing a community of Palestinians. She recounts all of this and more in her vivid and riveting memoir, one of the first to deal directly with what life in occupation actually means for the people in it, beyond geography or policy. It brings readers into the daily life of the young woman seen as a freedom-fighting hero by some and a naèive agitator by others. Beyond recounting her well-publicized interactions with Israeli soldiers, there is her unwavering commitment to family and her fearless command of her own voice, despite threats, intimidation, and even incarceration"--

"In this updated and expanded edition of climate scientist Steven Koonin's groundbreaking book, go behind the headlines to discover the latest eye-opening data about climate change-with unbiased facts and realistic steps for the future. With a new introduction, this edition now features reflections on an additional three years of eye-opening data, alternatives to unrealistic "net zero" solutions, global energy inequalities, and the energy crisis arising from the war in Ukraine"--

"Perhaps it is not surprising that Nicolas Werth, the French historian who cowrote The Black Book of Communism, has decided in Cannibal Island to return to an incident he merely mentioned in that vast book. He was right to do so: in its way, this small, brilliant work, the description of a single incident, is every bit as powerful a condemnation of Communist ideology as the Black Book itself."--Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History"In this gripping new work, Nicolas Werth documents the horrifying story of the forced deportation of 'socially-dangerous elements' from Moscow and Leningrad to the forbidding island of Nazino. With the use of dramatic new documents from previously classified Soviet archives, he chronicles for the first time in English the atrocities that unfolded on 'cannibal island.' This is an absorbing, indeed chilling tale of savagery, highlighting in microcosm the brutal realities of Stalinist socialism in action."--Lynne Viola, author of The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements"Werth has as solid a command of the Soviet-era archival documentation as anyone. But while he lays out a synthetic, institutional panorama of a segment of Soviet bureaucracy, he can write at the same time a story full of suspense, in a crisp and lucid style. He certainly does both with shattering effect in his Cannibal Island."--Jan T. Gross, author of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland

A major new translation of the explosive book that transformed our world Karl Marx (1818-1883) was living in exile in England when he embarked on an ambitious, multivolume critique of the capitalist system of production. Though only the first volume saw publication in Marx's lifetime, it would become one of the most consequential books in history. This magnificent new edition of Capital is a translation of Marx for the twenty-first century. It is the first translation into English to be based on the last German edition revised by Marx himself, the only version that can be called authoritative, and it features extensive commentary and annotations by Paul North and Paul Reitter that draw on the latest scholarship and provide invaluable perspective on the book and its complicated legacy. At once precise and boldly readable, this translation captures the momentous scale and sweep of Marx's thought while recovering the elegance and humor of the original source. For Marx, our global economic system is relentlessly driven by "value"--to produce it, capture it, trade it, and most of all, to increase it. Lifespans are shortened under the demand for ever-greater value. Days are lengthened, work is intensified, and the division of labor deepens until it leaves two classes, owners and workers, in constant struggle for life and livelihood. In Capital, Marx reveals how value came to tyrannize our world, and how the history of capital is a chronicle of bloodshed, colonization, and enslavement. With a foreword by Wendy Brown and an afterword by William Clare Roberts, this is a critical edition of Capital for our time, one that faithfully preserves the vitality and directness of Marx's German prose and renders his ideas newly relevant to modern readers.

Tracing the history of capitalism in England and beyond, Karl Polanyi's landmark 1944 classic brilliantly exposed the myth of laissez-faire economics. From the great transformation that occurred during the industrial revolution onwards, he showed, there has been nothing 'natural' about the market state. Instead, the economy must always be embedded in society, and human needs and relations. Witnessing the 'avalanche of social dislocation' of his time - from the Great Depression, to the rise of fascism and communism and the First and Second World Wars - Polanyi ends with a rallying cry for freedom, and a passionate vision to protect our common humanity.

A major reappraisal, by the Nobel-prizewinning economist, of the relationship between capitalism and freedomDespite its manifest failures, the narrative of neoliberalism retains its grip on the public mind and the policies of governments all over the world. By this narrative, less regulation and more 'animal spirits' capitalism produces not only greater prosperity, but more freedom for individuals in society - and is therefore morally better.But, in The Road to Freedom Stiglitz asks, whose freedom are we - should we be - thinking about? What happens when one person's freedom comes at the expense of another's? Should the freedoms of corporations be allowed to impinge upon those of individuals in the ways they now do?Taking on giants of neoliberalism such as Hayek and Friedman and examining how public opinion is formed, Stiglitz reclaims the language of freedom from the right to show that far from 'free' - unregulated - markets promoting growth and enterprise, they in fact reduce it, lessening economic opportunities for majorities and siphoning wealth from the many to the few - both individuals and countries. He shows how neoliberal economics and its implied moral system have impacted our legal and social freedoms in surprising ways, from property and intellectual rights, to education and social media.Stiglitz's eye, as always, is on how we might create the true human flourishing which should be the great aim of our economic and social system, and offers an alternative to that prevailing today. The Road to Freedom offers a powerful re-evaluation of democracy, economics and what constitutes a good society-and provides a roadmap of how we might achieve it.

"An accessible, straightforward guide that demystifies Artificial Intelligence for a general audience without the use of complex math or technical jargon. Covers the fundamentals, from classical models and neural networks to the large language models leading today's AI revolution"--