In “More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York’s Year of Anarchy,” Thai Jones, author of “A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family’s Century of Conscience,” looks back on 1914, a contentious year in New York City with obvious parallels to the present — a growing anarchist [...]
Marxist geographer David Harvey, whose star has been rising in the last few years, uses the Occupy Wall Street moment to frame an investigation into cities as spaces of accumulation and struggle in “Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution.” Peter Wirzbicki, writing at Ph.D. Octopus, is intrigued by Harvey’s [...]
If you can’t tell the Missouri Compromise from the Kansas-Nebraska Act, I would first recommend that you read Evan Carton’s “Patriotic Treason.”… If you have a basic understanding of the years leading up to the Civil War, however, Horwitz’s new book can at times make you feel as if you are right on the ground [...]
In the midst of the George W. Bush Administration, science writer Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science (Basic Books, 2005) noted an increasing trend: the rejection of science by a growing number of Republican Party members, not just on evolution, but on topics as varied as stem cell research, the hole in the ozone [...]
Hardt and Negri should be lauded for the audacity of their utopian vision. At the same time, their theorization of class is thin, as is their grasp of geopolitics and related cultural questions. By Steven Sherman Almost as predictable as U.S. presidential elections or the Olympics, roughly every four years political theorists Michael Hardt and [...]
In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won a sound victory over Republican contender John McCain, bolstered by a new generation of activists that helped deliver small donations and voters. Obama’s message was simple but effective: hope. Many did hope that Obama would help bring the U.S. out of the endless wars, economic decline, and [...]
“Tangled Roots: Dialogues on ecological justice, healing, and decolonization” by Healing the Earth Press was an easy choice for Left Eye On Books best book crowdsource award nomination. Its blend of activism suited well with Left Eye On Books‘ mission. It’s contributors have a long history in ecological justice issues as both teachers and practitioners. [...]
In the premier of HBO’s new series, Girls, intern Hannah Horvath goes to her boss and asks for a job. She had been working 40 hours a week for a year with no salary. Her boss promptly fires her. Did she learn valuable skills as an intern? Maybe. But, she worked at a book publisher and [...]
“The Seven Secrets of the Prolific: How to Overcome Writer’s Block, Finish Your Projects and Enjoy Your Life” by Hillary Rettig is the self-help book for people who hate self-help books. It is a follow up to “The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way” that addressed activist burnout. Rettig is [...]
Silver Sparrow written by Tayari Jones, and published by Algonquin Books, has a wider appeal than some of the Left Eye On Books other Independent Readers’ Choice Award selections. But, we feel in love with its subtle approach to class in African America. Two sisters, sharing the same bigamist father, give two different takes on [...]
Dismissed as a fad, the May Day protests all over the country showed that Occupy Wall Street is still relevant. “Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America,” compiled by editors from the New York journal, n+1 and published by Verso, includes notable left intellectuals as Angela Davis, Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek and Doug Henwood as well as [...]
“Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action That Changed America” written by “Writers for the 99%” and published by Haymarket Books, might leave you thinking it will have a dreadful written-by-committee tone, but it works quite well. This account of the heady, exciting first two months of Occupy Wall Street is an official [...]
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