Review

Fly and be Damned is nothing if not ambitious. It outlines what the author, Peter McManners, believes are measures which could usher in 'the third golden age of aviation'. An era where we could enjoy all the advantages flying brings without destroying the climate. He argues that the technology to make this possible could be developed if the aviation industry was incentivised to do so.

The key to facilitating change, McManners argues, is to make the necessary resources available to the…

Noise is one of the most versatile of afflictions. Each of the three components of noise – pitch, volume and duration – might create only marginal discontent but together they form an unavoidable menace.
It might be said too that noise is highly subjective. Aircraft noise is one thing but there are people who are disturbed by church bells and ticking clocks. Often a vague humming noise is enough to drive many to distraction. Finally, there are people who cannot adjust to the silence of…

In recent years, English-language histories of anarchism have been paying more attention to anarchist thinkers and activists outside the West. These two books are part of that trend.

I don't really think many PN readers are going to fork out for Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940; it's a very expensive academic hardback, but it is a valuable contribution.

The authors document influential anarchist movements in Argentina…

On paper this book should have a lot to offer PN readers. It begins in 1911 with the introduction of Connie Calloway, a fledgling suffragette, to Will Maitland, a cricketer, and traces their relationship through her increasing involvement in politics and his eventual path to war. This is a fascinating historical period, and a fictional account of a young woman moving from talk to action, whilst drawn to a man who despises her values, should have engaged and involved me.

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Given the current debates about the legitimacy of the use of drone strikes to eliminate suspected 'terrorists' in Pakistan and 'insurgents' in Afghanistan, this timely book aims to illuminate the story of the land and the people subjected to these Western onslaughts.

However, despite its title, this is not a book about drone strikes or their effects, and its actual contents – a collection of scholarly essays concerning the history, ethnography and anthropology of the Afghanistan-…

Simon Hall, senior lecturer in American History at the University of Leeds, has written an impressively researched, concise history of the anti-Vietnam War movement. With extensive endnotes and a wide-ranging bibliography, this is a superb introduction for students of the period and those interested in anti-war protest more broadly.

Incredibly, the 4,000 college students who demonstrated in Washington DC in 1962 in support of a conciliatory foreign policy made up, at that point, the…

If you get off a train at East Croydon, you may well gaze around and wonder which of the towering office blocks is the infamous Lunar House that ‘processes’ foreigners and refugees; the building that decides who is welcome in this land and who is not. Look around and you will find, overshadowed by the rise of concrete, The Warehouse Theatre. ‘Oh look’, you’ll say, ‘a proper theatre’. It is intimate, adventurous, has no ‘corporate identity’. It is a place of art in the making.

Their…

In November 1950, 52 delegates arrived in Dover, bound for the third congress of the (Communist-inspired) World Peace Council in Sheffield. All but one were denied entry.

Whether the Foreign Office considered modern art too esoteric to have much propaganda value (across the pond the CIA took a different tack, covertly promoting Abstract Expressionism as a Cold War weapon) or it was simply too embarassing to turn back the world’s most famous living artist, Picasso was admitted.

Laurie Penny aka “Penny Red”, first grabbed my attention earlier this year with her heartfelt and well-constructed articles about the student protests. But it was her twitter feed on 27 March that confirmed me as a big fan. This was the day of the anti-cuts march that saw protests all over London. I don’t quite know how she did it, but Penny seemed to be everywhere, giving an honest and unique perspective that we never saw in the mainstream media.

So it’s an absolute pleasure to have…

Malcolm X came to public notice as a black supremacist, the public voice of the right-wing separatist African-American cult, “the Nation of Islam”, known for his brilliant and vitriolic anti-white rhetoric. He was, in the early 1960s, the most prominent African-American critic of nonviolence – though he himself never engaged in violent action against white racism. By the time of his assassination in February 1965, Malcolm X had broken with the Nation of Islam, discarded black separatism,…

Andre Schiffrin, Words and Money (Verso, 2010; 128pp; £12.99).
Dan Hind, The Return of the Public (Verso, 2010; 256pp; £14.99).
Becky Hogge, Barefoot into Cyberspace: Adventures in Search of Techno-Utopia (Bookkake, 2011; 246pp; £8.99, or available for free download from barefootintocyberspace.com/book).

Imagine a world without small publishers or independent bookshops – perhaps without bookshops at all – where the only cinemas are multiplexes showing films like…

With contributions from fourteen campaigners and corporate practitioners, The Fair Trade Revolution is the Fairtrade Foundation’s official, if somewhat dry, history of the movement. It grew out of the grassroots activism of the 1960s, and editor John Bowles contends a “fundamental paradigm shift” has occurred in the last decade, with sales of Fairtrade goods in the UK topping £1 billion last year.

With fair trade guaranteeing producers in the developing world a minimum price for…

Daniel Pennac, who is a well-known writer in France, was a total failure at school up to the age of fourteen. In the first part of this book he describes his despair, both in vivid anecdotes and general comment. “My God,” he says at one point, “the loneliness of the dunce, ashamed of never being able to do what you are supposed to be doing.” He became an insolent class clown, a vandal and a thief.

His insolence was to some extent justified by the mockery of some of his teachers, but…

This was my first encounter with Simone Weil, the French philosopher, teacher and political activist, and I found her mesmerising – a huge intellect and a huge conscience. She dealt with the challenge that knowing and understanding the world creates an obligation to be involved in it, to affect it, by hurling herself into the stream of life to an extent verging on madness.

Although frail and clumsy, Weil sought out gruelling work in factories and farms; she was a union organiser; she…

Speaking at a public meeting in May 2008, Green Party leader and MP to be, Caroline Lucas noted that the language of fear and disaster surrounding climate change is both “deeply scary and deeply unhelpful.” According to Lucas “trying to terrify people into action” simply doesn’t work.

Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at the Australian National University, doesn’t seem to have got the memo because Requiem for a Species is a deeply terrifying read.

According to…