Books published by Pluto Press

Two rabbis, visiting Palestine in 1897, observed that the land was like a bride, 'beautiful, but married to another man'. By which they meant that, if a place was to be found for Israel in Palestine, where would the people of Palestine go? This is a dilemma that Israel has never been able to resolve.*BR**BR*No conflict today is more dangerous than that between Israel and the Palestinians. The implications it has for regional and global security cannot be overstated. The peace process as we know it is dead and no solution is in sight. Nor, as this book argues, will that change until everyone involved in finding a solution accepts the real causes of conflict, and its consequences on the ground. *BR**BR*Leading writer Ghada Karmi explains in fascinating detail the difficulties Israel's existence created for the Arab world and why the search for a solution has been so elusive. Ultimately, she argues that the conflict will end only once the needs of both Arabs and Israelis are accommodated equally. Her startling conclusions overturn conventional thinking - but they are hard to refute.

The recent crisis, created by finance capitalism, has brought us to the economic abyss. The excessive freedom of international markets has rapidly transformed into international panic, with states struggling to rescue and bail out a globalised financial sector. Reform is promised by our leaders, but in governments dominated by financial interests there is little hope of meaningful change.*BR**BR*Decent Capitalism argues for a response that addresses capitalism's systemic tendency towards crisis, a tendency which is completely absent from the mainstream debate. The authors develop a concept of a moderated capitalism that keeps its core strengths intact while reducing its inherent destructive political force in our societies. This book argues that reforming the capitalist system will have to be far more radical than the current political discourse suggests.*BR**BR*Decent Capitalism is a concept and a slogan that will inspire political activists, trade unionists and policy makers to get behind a package of reforms that finally allows the majority to master capitalism.

Building on rigorous research by the world-renowned Glasgow University Media Group, More Bad News From Israel examines media coverage of the current conflict in the Middle East and the impact it has on public opinion. *BR**BR*The book brings together senior journalists and ordinary viewers to examine how audiences understand the news and how their views are shaped by media reporting. In the largest study ever undertaken in this area, the authors focus on television news. They illustrate major differences in the way Israelis and Palestinians are represented, including how casualties are shown and the presentation of the motives and rationales of both sides. They combine this with extensive audience research involving hundreds of participants from the USA, Britain and Germany. It shows extraordinary differences in levels of knowledge and understanding, especially amongst young people from these countries.*BR**BR*Covering recent developments, including the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, this authoritative and up-to-date study will be an invaluable tool for journalists, activists and students and researchers of media studies.

Noam Chomsky analyses US foreign policy in the Middle East in the 10 years since 9/11

The essential reader on Post-Anarchism, a movement blending traditional anarchist ideas with post-structuralist and post-modernist thought.

This book follows the dangerous lives of peace activists in Israel and Palestine. It explores the crises that stirred them to act, the risks they face, and the small victories that sustain them.*BR**BR*Michael Riordon takes us to thousand year-old olive groves, besieged villages, refugee camps, checkpoints and barracks. In the face of deepening conflict, Our Way to Fight offers courageous grassroots action on both sides of the wall, and points the way to a liveable future.

Compares the trajectories of states and societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America under neoliberalism.

Escaping the formalist straitjacket of typical Marxist critique.

This book delves deep into the 'peace process' in Palestine/Israel to find out why so little progress has been made on the key issues.*BR**BR*Zalman Amit and Daphna Levit find overwhelming evidence of Israeli rejectionism as the main cause for the failure of peace. They demonstrate that the Israeli leadership has always been against a fairly negotiated peace and have deliberately stalled negotiations for the last 80 years. The motivations behind this rejectionist position have changed, as have the circumstances of the conflict, but the conclusion has remained consistent - peace has not been in the interest of the state of Israel.*BR**BR*The book draws on a wealth of sources - including Hebrew documents and transcripts - to show that it is the Palestinians who lack a viable 'partner for peace'.

Over the last five years, a cycle of films has emerged addressing the ongoing Iraq conflict. Some became well-known and one of them, The Hurt Locker, won a string of Oscars. But many others disappeared into obscurity. What is it about these films that led Variety to dub them a 'toxic genre'?*BR**BR*Martin Barker analyses the production and reception of these recent Iraq war films. Among the issues he examines are the borrowing of soldiers' YouTube styles of self-representation to generate an 'authentic' Iraq experience, and how they take refuge in 'apolitical' post-traumatic stress disorder. Barker also looks afresh at some classic issues in film theory: the problems of accounting for film 'failures', the shaping role of production systems, the significance of genre-naming and the impact of that 'toxic' label.*BR**BR*A 'Toxic Genre' is fascinating reading for film studies students and anyone interested in cinema's portrayal of modern warfare.

This book interrogates the Dutch involvement in Atlantic slavery and assesses the historical consequences of this for contemporary European society.*BR**BR*Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen show how the slave trade and slavery intertwined economic, social and cultural elements, including nation-state formation in the Netherlands and across Europe. They explore the mobilisation of European populations in the implementation of policies that facilitated Atlantic slavery and examine how European countries created and expanded laws that perpetuated colonisation. *BR**BR*Addressing key themes such as the incorporation of the formerly enslaved into post-slavery states and contemporary collective efforts to forget and/or remember slavery and its legacy in the Netherlands, this is an essential text for students of European history and postcolonial studies.

This book examines the lives, decisions and challenges faced by transnational sport migrants - those professionals working in the sports industry who cross borders as part of their professional lives. *BR**BR*Despite a great deal of romance surrounding international celebrity athletes, the vast majority of transnational sport migrants - players, journalists, coaches, administrators and medical personnel - toil far away from the limelight. Thomas F. Carter traces their lives, routes and experiences, documenting their travels and travails. *BR**BR*He argues that far from the ease of mobility that celebrity sports stars enjoy, the vast majority of transnational sports migrants make huge sacrifices and labour under political restrictions, often enforced by sport's governing bodies.

This book tells the story of Pakistan through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the global rise of militant Islam. *BR**BR*Unlike existing scholarship on nationalism, Islam and the state in Pakistan, which tends to privilege events in a narrowly defined 'political' realm, Saadia Toor highlights the significance of cultural politics in Pakistan from its origins to the contemporary period. This extra dimension allows Toor to explain how the struggle between Marxists and liberal nationalists was influenced and eventually engulfed by the agenda of the religious right.

For billions across the world, the daily challenge is to find enough to eat to survive. Hunger is on the rise globally with more than 1.2 billion people suffering from food insecurity and poverty and rising food prices increasingly jeopardising access to food. But what are the causes for global hunger? And as the global population soars, what are the key food challenges? *BR**BR*In this deeply informative study, Majda Bne Saad identifies the causes for global hunger which are embedded in the current economic system, apportioning blame for global hunger on the West's continuing support for and subsidies to biofuels, which have created persistent and formidable new demands for food commodities. Saad proposes we fight-back, arguing for a 'second green revolution' to grow more food and by analysing the factors constraining low-income nations from achieving food security, she considers policies which could generate income and enhance individuals' entitlement to food. *BR**BR*

Activists and academics explain the dynamic relationship between activism and TV and news media.

*Shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Prize, 2016* *BR**BR**Shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize, 2015**BR**BR** Shortlisted for the Academy of British Cover Design Awards, 2015**BR**BR*Artwash is an intervention into the unsavoury role of the Big Oil company's sponsorship of the arts in Britain. Based on the high profile campaign 'Liberate Tate', Mel Evans targets Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell's collaboration with institutions such as the Tate in an attempt to end the poisonous relationship forever. *BR**BR*Based on years of undercover research, grassroots investigation and activism as well as performance and cultural interventions, Mel Evans draws together the story of the campaign and its journey which has gone from strength to strength. Artwash shows how corporate sponsorship of the arts erases unsightly environmental destruction and obscures the strategies of oil company PR executives who rely on cultural philanthropy.*BR**BR*The conclusion sounds a note of hope: major institutions (such as the Southbank Centre) have already agreed to cut sponsorship, and tribunals are happening which are taking these relationships to task. Artists and employees are developing new methods of work which publicly confront the oil companies. Like the anti-tobacco campaign before it, this will be an important cultural and political turn for years to come.

The second volume of The Political Economy of Human Rights remains one of the most controversial works produced by Chomsky to date. In a much discussed chapter on Cambodia, Chomsky and Herman questioned official Western narratives on the Khmer Rouge and suggested that the evidence available did not match up to the assertions being made at that time. These claims would resurface in a recent controversy with the Continental philosopher Slavoj Zizek and readers will now be able to judge for themselves the veracity of Zizek's claims. The work also contains important analysis of Western interventions across Indochina, including Vietnam and Laos, and provides a searing critique of American imperial aspirations in the region.

Exploring 'the great work of subjugation and conquest' which began with Columbus, in Year 501 Chomsky surveys the history of American imperial power in the ensuing 500 years that followed. *BR**BR*Touching on everything from the British in India to the Americans in Beirut, Year 501 is a searing condemnation of the excesses of Western colonial and neo-colonial politics. For those seeking to understand the nature and structure of the imperial project as it reaches down to us today this work is a vital resource.

In the late 1980s, in the midst of Reagan's interventions in Central America, Chomsky travelled to Nicaragua and gave the lectures that became On Power and Ideology. *BR**BR*The lectures provide a master class in foreign policy analysis from an intellectual at the height of his powers, covering everything from the US domestic basis of its overseas actions, to the pernicious concept of 'National Security' and its destabilising effect, to the broad framework of global imperial order which the United States seeks to maintain. A defining moment in the Cold War meets a defining moment in the career of one of its most important critics.

A lively survey of Fair Trade and the challenges facing it, written by some of the leading lights in the Fair Trade movement.

Provides an in-depth and engaging account of the novel ways in which Chinese society is responding to its environmental crisis.

Climate change and other ecological ills are driving the creation of a grassroots global movement for change. From Latin America to Europe, Australia and China a militant movement merging red and green is taking shape.*BR* *BR*Ecosocialists argue that capitalism threatens the future of humanity and the rest of nature. From indigenous protest in the Peruvian Amazon to the green transition in Cuba to the creation of red-green parties in Europe, ecosocialism is defining the future of left and green politics globally. Latin American leaders such as Morales and Chavez are increasingly calling for an ecosocialist transition.*BR* *BR*Drawing on the work of key thinkers such as Joel Kovel and John Bellamy Foster, Derek Wall provides an unique insider view of how ecosocialism has developed and a practical guide to focused ecosocialist action. A great handbook for activists and engaged students of politics.

During the chaos of the eurozone crisis, few mainstream commentators have stopped to question the purpose of the European Union itself, and whose interests it serves. Corporate Europe goes beyond the divisions between nation-states, focusing instead on the division between the corporate elite and the peoples of Europe. *BR* *BR*David Cronin spent a year investigating the privileged access that big business enjoys in Brussels. In this book, he reveals how the EU's policies on health, climate change, armaments and food safety have been tailored to please an unaccountable elite. Making extensive use of previously unpublished documents, he explores how ideologically blinkered lobbyists have seized on the financial crisis of recent years to entrench the casino capitalism that caused the crisis in the first place.*BR* *BR*What emerges is a powerful expose of how vested interests in the EU have manipulated opportunities to introduce ideologically-driven reforms.

This is a political biography of one of the 20th century's most emblematic left-wing figures - Salvador Allende, who was president of Chile until he was ousted by General Pinochet in a US-supported coup in 1973.*BR**BR*Victor Figueroa Clark guides us through Allende's life and political project, answering some of the most frequently asked questions. Was he a revolutionary or a reformist? A bureaucrat or inspirational democrat? Figueroa Clark argues that Allende and the Popular Unity Party created a unique fusion which was both revolutionary and democratic.*BR**BR*The process led by Allende was a symbol of hope for the left during his short time in power. Forty years on, and with left governments back in power across Latin America, this book looks back at the man and the process in order to draw vital lessons for the left in Latin America and around the world today.

This is the inside story of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), from its beginnings in 1964 to the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993.*BR**BR*For over three decades, the main goal of the PLO was to achieve a just peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and to build a democratic state in Palestine for all its citizens. Shafiq Al-Hout, a high ranking PLO official until his resignation in 1993, provides previously unavailable details on the key events in its history such as its recognition by the UN and the Oslo peace negotiations. Analysing and criticising decisions and individuals, including Yasser Arafat, we are taken right to the heart of the decision making processes; our eyes opened to the personalities and internal politics that shaped the PLO's actions and the Palestinian experience of the twentieth century.*BR**BR*An essential piece of history that sheds new light on the significance of the PLO in the Palestinian struggle for justice.

How have politics and activism been transformed by digital media, including digital television, online social networking and mobile computing?*BR**BR*Since the emergence of new technologies, new modes of cooperation, deliberation and representation have risen to the fore, @ is for Activism maps out how political relationships have been reconfigured and new have emerged through the use of new technologies. A host of critical thinkers populate the study, from Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse criticism of technology's close relation to capitalism, to media networks' actualising the Habermasian ideal of collective communicative action, Hands delineates the potentials and the pitfalls of a technologised politics. *BR**BR*From anti-war activism, to global justice movements, peer production and 'Twitter' activism, we see how politics is being shaped by the new technological environment.

Although they are one of the most powerful military forces in Latin American history, little is known about the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP). This book explains why this political military movement came into existence and assesses whether the methods employed by the insurgency have the potential to free those marginalised in Colombia.*BR**BR*By evaluating the FARC-EP's actions, ideological construction, and their theoretical placement, the book gauges how this guerrilla movement relates to revolutionary theory and practice and through what tangible mechanisms, if any, they are creating a new Colombia.

Brute Reality provides an authoritative analysis of those formal attempts, made by prominent social actors, to present a rationale for the existence and exercise of coercive power. The 'War on Terror' and its associated campaigns are presented as an aggressive attempt to assert the contradictory interests of a trans-national elite.*BR**BR*The period chosen to illustrate the key characteristics of this enterprise, extends from the state of 'war' created after the September 11th attacks, to the strategic adjustments begun during the nadir of the Iraq adventure; it also includes reference to the modifications in policy carried out under the auspices of the Obama Presidency. The book provides a critical insight into a number of influential structures that have helped to shape contemporary attitudes to warfare, and contains a wealth of transcripts and media sources, from Channel Four's coverage of September 11th, to the rhetorical pronouncements of leading politicians. *BR**BR*Brute Reality represents a significant addition to the existing literature on representations of the 'War on Terror' in the mass media, and will have a strong appeal to keen students of media, communication, cultural and American studies.

A history of US imperialism that uncovers the ever present exploitation, violence and media control that have marked the last two decades of empire.

The 2008 Ossetia War underlined the fact that Georgia is caught in a political struggle between East and West. Per Gahrton analyses American and Russian policy towards the country and provides a firsthand account of the Rose Revolution of 2003, its origin and aftermath.*BR**BR*The book traces the increasing US involvement in Georgia and the Russian reaction of anger, sanctions and, eventually, invasion. Gahrton's analysis is based on interviews with key politicians and his experience as the rapporteur of the European Parliament on South Caucasus. At centre stage is the growing opposition against authoritarian aspects of President Mikheil Saakashvili's regime and the mysterious death of Prime Minister Zhvania in 2005. The book also asks if the Rose Revolution was a conspiracy or a genuine popular uprising. *BR**BR*This truly authoritative account of Georgia is a must for students studying international relations in the aftermath of The Cold War.