It is a testimonial to the power and potential of the sustainable food systems movement to transform not just the lives of the Whole Foods set, but of a diverse group of people. by Abbe Futterman Part coffee table book, part documentary account, “Growing a Garden City” by journalist Jeremy N. Smith is a celebration [...]
At first, I didn’t love Occupy Wall Street, the protest/encampment in New York City’s financial district, to be honest. When I went by in the afternoon on Sept. 17, the first day, it struck me as too counter-cultural, too white, too homogenous, too small and too unfocused. People demonstrating their support for libertarian presidential candidate Ron [...]
Reviewing historian Michael Kazin’s “American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation” in The New York Times, Yale history professor Beverly Gage declares “the American left is dead.” She cites as evidence the fact that the Tea Party has been a more visible opposition force since the financial crisis than anything from the left, and [...]
There is enough book here – an arm-wearying 934 pages – that it is no great trick to find plenty to respect, admire, and learn from, while also not running short of elements that are disappointing and off-putting. By Scott Neigh The best part of “Earth Into Property: Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism,” the second and [...]
“While corporations and the state have certainly targeted activists as ‘eco-terrorists,’ too many other populations have also been targeted for repression to sufficiently pair the Red Scares and the Green Scare.” By Craig Hughes and Kevin Van Meter “McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled,” said Joe McCarthy to a public audience at the height [...]
The U.S. is in a deep economic crisis, with the job market looking more stagnant than ever. The notion that the U.S. can be at peace has seemingly become utopian. Vast numbers of citizens distrust their government, and the prospect of a collapse is widely discussed. So how are our most distinguished writers and publishing [...]
Filmmaker Michael Moore’s memoir, “Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life” was released on Tuesday, September 13. The Washington Post has a sneak peak for those considering whether to pick it up. Among the highlights: Moore blames baby formula for a lot; a young, lost Moore was saved by California Senator Robert F. Kennedy on [...]
David Graeber, a professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, is best known for his work on anarchism, which blends personal experience with anthropological theory. Even as his fame as a professor has grown, he remains a committed political activist. In, “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”, he adapts a very long term perspective to understand the [...]
In the wake of the shootings at Columbine, “Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse” exposes the climate of paranoia and subsequent measures of control that have been imposed in high schools across the United States. From the product description on Amazon: Investigative reporter Annette Fuentes visits schools across America and finds metal detectors [...]
Labor Notes, an online magazine dedicated to providing a voice for union activists, recently published a discussion of the movie “The Help” by a domestic worker, Meches Rosales, whose perspective on the film is quite different from that of the Association of Black Women Historians’. Far from expressing negative criticism, Rosales sees “The Help” as [...]
From Publisher’s Weekly: “Black [author of "The Sacred Place" and founder of "Nzinga-Ndugu rites of passage society -- a group whose focus is instilling principle and character in the lives of African-American youth"] explores the fateful decision of Emma Jean Peace to raise her seventh son, Perfect, as the daughter she has always wanted. Her [...]
If you have been within fifty feet of a radio tuned to an “urban” radio station in the last three weeks, you have probably heard a song called “Otis,” which samples 60s soul singer Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” while a couple of multi-millionaire rappers named Kanye West and Jay-Z boast about their new watches [...]
Rob Nixon’s “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor” (Harvard University Press 2011) explores the slow, steady, and often ignored violence of socio-environmental degradation around the globe, and the writer-activists trying to bring it to light. By Christine Shearer In “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor” (Harvard University Press 2011), Rachel Carson Professor [...]
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