Reviews

It may not be quite as informative as the tomes normally scrutinised on these pages; it may be almost twelve years old; and yes, it may only bear a tangential, titular connection to the sea, but this recording of Bill Hicks from his home town of Austin, Texas, is still required listening.

Many of the names have changed but, almost exactly a decade after Hicks' death from pancreatic cancer, the pantomimes of popular culture and politics which define our public life are essentially the same as they were when he was tearing into them…

Tired of the tedious and pitifully one-dimensional debates on the Iraq war that dominate the mainstream media? Got a sneaking suspicion that Tony Bliar may not be being entirely honest with us over WMD? Or simply want your convictions backed up with a wide range of well-researched and diverse articles? Buy this book. Despite the admission at the start that it was “produced at some speed”, it really is a quality little number.

It kicks off (after a typically sarky foreword from comedian Mark Thomas and a trenchant intro by David…

High Tide is the result of three years spent travelling the world in search of evidence that climate change is taking place now.

Lynas's travels include the experience of ducking England's increasingly excessive downpours; surveying the damage of melting permafrost whilst gathering local opinion on the oil industry in “baked” Alaska; and sealing all windows as unprecedented dust storms whirl in China.

Alongside excellent photos, Lynas's stories show that climate change is already having a considerable impact…

There was a time when anyone caught talking about “US imperialism” was instantly branded a mad Leninist. No longer. Today, aided and abetted by the ever-more brazen antics of the Bush administration, talk of American “empire” and “imperialism” can be found across the political spectrum.

Sidney Lens's excellent historical overview of US imperialism first appeared in 1971 and its reissue now, with a new introduction by Howard Zinn, is extremely timely. For one thing Lens's survey helps to remind us of the deep roots of our current…

One of the few glimmers of hope in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict in recent years has been the growth of a movement of international solidarity with the Palestinians calling for a just resolution to the conflict and utilising the techniques of nonviolent direct action to oppose the Israeli occupation, the best known example of which is the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

Activists from around the world - many from the US and Britain - have travelled to the occupied territories to harvest olives, dismantle…

This document is described by its author as a, “response to the conviction that protest alone will not make a sufficient impact on the status quo”.

Carey begins by setting out the major threats facing the world today, both in his own words and through extensive quotations from other writers. Much of what appears in the opening section, titled “Prognosis”, will be familiar to PN readers.

This first section is followed by an excellent critique of the environmental, social and cultural impact of the unfettered advance of modern…

Although various human rights groups have documented and examined the practices used by the state of Israel against Palestinian political detainees, including child prisoners, this book is the first to be published which also provides an in-depth critical analysis of the political motivations behind these actions.

Separated into three sections - Framework and Context, Arrest through Incarceration, and Analysis & Conclusions - this book sets out not only to tell the complete story of what happens to Palestinian children when they…

The blurb on the back of this book augurs well. “In the aftermath of 9/11, America has been haunted by one question: Why do they hate us?” Perhaps, one thinks, some intelligent discussion by a leading US commentator (Pintak is a veteran journalist who has reported on the Middle East for many of the big names of the international English-language media) of why the USA has become such a symbol of oppression for so many. Progression to the next few sentences reveals that such hopes may be premature.

This book - a kind of memoir of the…

This is a book which has three separate - but related - parts to it. It starts with an essay by Micah Ian Wright entitled “Moment of Clarity”, in which he writes about his experiences in the US military during the invasion of Panama in 1989 - something which made him question the aims of US foreign policy, and which eventually led him to his remixed poster project.

The most striking part of this work is the remixed (mainly) US military propaganda posters taken from WW1 and WW2 and the early Cold War years. These have been redesigned…

Did 9/11 force us to redefine our understanding of “war zones”, and acknowledge that the continuum of war and violence has no temporal or spatial boundaries?

As the editors of Terror, Counter-Terror argue, feminists have long been involved in identifying and challenging the continuum of violence experienced by women, and are in a unique position to address the issues of militarism and terrorism, gender and nationalism, globalisation and discrimination that were thrown into sharp focus one sunny day in September.

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This book is a collection of interviews with Israeli soldiers who at some stage decided to refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories.

Some of these soldiers are familiar to readers of WRI's co-alert email lists, as their imprisonment was reported to generate support. Others were lucky and didn't spent time behind bars (so far). None of the soldiers interviewed in this book is a pacifist. All of them continue to serve in the IDF. Still, this book gives some insights into their moral reasoning. How to be true to one's values - even…

During the 1948 war that resulted in the establishment of the state of Israel, some 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and became refugees. Following the 1967 war in which Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip many more Palestinians were displaced. There are now somewhere between four and six million - two thirds of the Palestinian people - living outside the borders of historic Palestine.

In many ways I think of my friend Hassan as a typical Palestinian refugee. His family is from what is now northern Israel. He was…

One of the stickiest problems for individuals and organisations trying to engage with the horror that is the conflict between Israel and Palestine is the issue of antiSemitism. It lurks as a spectre of guilt for those coming to the topic without a “legitimate” interest, ie being Jewish or Palestinian. And it is hurled at anyone who dares to criticise the state of Israel by those who support any of that state's actions, however bloody.

This little book - hardly more than a pamphlet - is a collection of articles and essays by writers…

In his introduction to this beautiful memoir, the late Edward Said says: what gives this book an unmistakeable stamp of profound authenticity is its life-affirming poetic texture. This is no surprise as Barghouti is indeed a poet of great sensitivity, he is the author of nine books of poetry; few of his poems are translated into English. For us in the English-speaking minority world, the idea that there is a body of Palestinian literature is probably as remote and unbelievable as the idea that there is a land and history of a…

Had they not become leaders in the field of exposing government spin doctoring and propaganda, you suspect that Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber would make pretty effective PR consultants themselves.

I recently spotted Weapons of Mass Deception riding high in the best-seller lists in a mainstream British bookstore. How many of those buying it were seduced by the snappy title and the Saddam/Bin Laden comic-strip on the cover? Those expecting the Michael Moore approach to US politics might find this a little sober by…