Patrick Nicholson
The book is not a guide to collectives, or facilitation, or consensus. It presumes a certain prior knowledge and experience of all of these, and is for those who want to understand, and better deal with, the problems and pitfalls of working within collective structures.
The authors’ use their first hand experience to look at the realities of power and personality dynamics in supposedly egalitarian groups. This includes things like manipulative and coercive behaviour (both in…
Wade Allison is an academic physicist who writes about the science and safety of radiation. His main thrust is that radiation safety limits have been set irrationally high due to unrealistic fears and misunderstandings of the dangers of ionising radiation. He claims that recent evidence confirms that the dangers of low level radiation are much less than was thought earlier, and may even be beneficial in some circumstances.
Even if you disagree with where Allison takes his arguments,…
Filmed in 2003, this DVD records a fascinating extended conversation between veteran anarchist Colin Ward and writer/film-maker Roger Deakin. Sadly both the protagonists are no longer with us, making this film especially poignant and valuable.
It’s more of an interview than a true conversation, with Deakin asking the questions and Ward speaking at length, always with energy and lucidity and barely a pause for breath.
Topics covered include Ward’s introduction to anarchism…
I enjoyed David MacKay’s book unpicking energy issues and exploring the realities of the tough choices we face.
It’s had favourable reviews from influential quarters, including those in political power here in the UK. MacKay, a Cambridge physicist, has essentially made a book out of lots of back-of-an-envelope calculations, pulling them together to see, for example, whether potential UK renewable energy sources stack up against our energy consumption.
He’s done almost…
The UN COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen in December was a shambles. The little that was agreed reads like a paltry preamble to a treaty that never was – global average temperature rises should be held below 2oC; carbon emissions must be cut, but in a way that does not hinder economic progress of the developing world; a fund should be established to help poorer countries adapt to the threat of climate change (with an initial annual outlay of only $8bn, or about a third of what Shell…
These two books offer criticisms of capitalism from very different perspectives.
Shutt, a left-leaning economist, argues that the ongoing crisis within capitalism has arisen from the growing redundancy of capital since the 1970s. With too much capital sloshing around, the rich have found it increasingly hard to find investments that can deliver the profits they expect, resorting to taking high risks that make the whole edifice increasingly fragile.
Shutt attacks the laissez-…
Between the summer of 1918 and the following spring about 230,000 people died in Britain from a deadly strain of influenza, popularly called Spanish Flu. The toll worldwide may have been as high as 100 million. This book describes the pandemic in Britain making use of unpublished testimonies of survivors and the memoirs of doctors, soldiers, and civil servants.
The title comes from a rhyme sung by children at the time: “I had a little bird / Its name was Enza / I opened the window /…
In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia and embarked on a four-year reign of terror and genocide. During this period, over 14,000 so-called “traitors” were processed through the secret prison S-21 set in a former school, with confessions extracted under torture. As part of the process, captives were photographed prior to execution.
S-27 is a play inspired by these real events. May’s job is to take the photographs. We follow her as she begins to question what she is doing,…
I liked the Transition books the moment I saw them – they are well-designed and produced, and look and feel great. In a way they mirror the Transition movement itself, rolling together a mass of related ideas into an attractive package that promises a way out of the looming dead end that is peak oil and climate change. So they look good and offer much, but do the books deliver? And can the Transition movement itself deliver on its promises?
The Handbook is split into three sections –…
The clever young things at Plane Stupid recently came up with a great idea for forging closer links between environmental activists and concerned residents threatened by the proposed third runway at Heathrow. The idea was to twin residents up with existing affinity groups, and for each affinity group to support their resident in their fight against the new runway, ultimately helping them defend their homes if necessary.
To get the campaign off the ground, an initial group of activists…
Set at the time of the first atomic bomb test in 1945 and the days leading up to it, this opera looks at these events through the focal characters of J Robert Oppenheimer and his wife, Kitty, fellow physicist Edward Teller, and general Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project. The libretto created by Peter Sellars is based on original source material including interviews, memoirs and declassified documents, as well as other works such as the Bhagavad Gita and the poetry of…
This upbeat documentary begins with the observation that, despite contrary perceptions, there is actually less armed conflict in the world today than ever before. The film contends that there is a wave of co-operative, nonviolent responses emerging throughout the world to the growing challenges posed by climate change, resource depletion, population growth and economic inequality.
The film surveys some of these initiatives, flitting across the globe from Kenya to Colombia, from the…
As a physicist myself (though of an altogether lowlier and grubbier variety), Oppenheimer’s story has always interested me.
How did a left-leaning, New York Jewish intellectual end up leading the Manhattan Project (the Second World War effort to develop the first nuclear weapons at Los Alamos in New Mexico), only to be crushed by the political system that he had served so well, in a much-publicised 1954 hearing which ended up withdrawing his security clearance? This book tells the…
There was always a sense that the third incarnation of the Climate Camp had to push the boundaries of what we, and the authorities, thought possible and avoid “another year, another camp” mentality. People have always walked for change – Gandhi’s salt march, the Jarrow crusade, the Aldermaston marches… and so the idea emerged of a Climate Caravan, a physical movement of people connecting together the history and geography of popular resistance and environmental protest.
It all…
Under the Bombs is a stunning and intensely moving film set amongst the physical and emotional devastation of Lebanon under the Israeli onslaught of 2006.
The storyline is simple yet powerful: Zeina arrives in Beirut on a desperate mission to find her son in the confusion and terror of war-ravaged southern Lebanon.
Taxi driver Tony, a Christian, whilst initially motivated by making a fast buck, is drawn into Zeina's odyssey. Taking strength from each other, they see the quest…
