Hopkins, Adrian

Putting food on the table could be considered a prerequisite for revolutionary social change. ‘Grub first, then ethics’, as Brecht had it. So let’s get the grub right, at least. Which isn’t perhaps exactly what Brecht meant, but as the authors of this book recognise, ‘food has become the most prominent area in which people try to realise an alternative economy’.

The current global food system is well known for sucking value out of the social world and bottoming-out natural…

On 12 October, Friends Meeting House on Euston Road, London, played host to a conference which aimed to examine the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and explore practical ways to support the emergence of a nonviolent peace movement in the country.

Participants, including more than 80 peace activists and members of the Afghan diaspora, began by hearing from an Afghan woman who had recently won her asylum claim to stay in the UK. She underlined the importance of education for women…

In his latest book on the built environment, Owen Hatherley visits 17 towns and cities across Britain, presenting an architecturally-inflected state of the nation.

Part travelogue, part searing political critique, the book takes the form of a series of ‘urban trawls’, bringing the author to ‘some extremely unlovely places’: the Thames Gateway, Belfast, Birmingham, the City of London (‘the satanic site at the heart of the UK’s malaise’).

On each journey, Hatherley…