Download or read book Tropic of Chaos written by Christian Parenti and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure. In Tropic of Chaos, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe--the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's midlatitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters. But he also reveals the unsettling presence of Western military forces and explains how they see an opportunity in the crisis to prepare for open-ended global counterinsurgency. Parenti argues that this incipient "climate fascism" -- a political hardening of wealthy states-- is bound to fail. The struggling states of the developing world cannot be allowed to collapse, as they will take other nations down as well. Instead, we must work to meet the challenge of climate-driven violence with a very different set of sustainable economic and development policies.
Download or read book The Soft Cage written by Christian Parenti and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-10-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a typical day, you might make a call on a cell phone, withdraw money at an ATM, visit the mall, and make a purchase with a credit card. Each of these routine transactions leaves a digital trail for government agencies and businesses to access. As cutting-edge historian and journalist Christian Parenti points out, these everyday intrusions on privacy, while harmless in themselves, are part of a relentless (and clandestine) expansion of routine surveillance in American life over the last two centuries-from controlling slaves in the old South to implementing early criminal justice and tracking immigrants. Parenti explores the role computers are playing in creating a whole new world of seemingly benign technologies-such as credit cards, website "cookies," and electronic toll collection-that have expanded this trend in the twenty-first century. The Soft Cage offers a compelling, vitally important history lesson for every American concerned about the expansion of surveillance into our public and private lives.
Download or read book Radical Hamilton written by Christian Parenti and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In retelling the story of the Radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history early America and global economic history writ large. For much of the twentieth century, Hamilton - sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers- was out of fashion. In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all. But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again. He was a contradictory mix: a tough soldier, austere workaholic, exacting bureaucrat, yet also a sexual libertine, and a glory-obsessed romantic with suicidal tendencies. As Parenti argues, we have yet to fully appreciate Hamilton as the primary architect of American capitalism and the developmental state. In exploring his life and work, Parenti rediscovers this gadfly as a path breaking political thinker and institution builder. In this vivid historical portrait, Hamilton emerges as a singularly important historical figure: a thinker and politico who laid the foundation for America's ascent to global supremacy - for better or worse.
Download or read book Tropic of Venice written by Margaret Doody and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2007-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this journey through the work of artists and the writings of travelers who have been both smitten and repelled by the influence of Venice, Margaret Doody explores ways in which this is a city profoundly unlike any other on earth—and one that simultaneously unsettles and reveals many of our most deeply rooted cultural values.
Download or read book American Tropic written by Thomas Sanchez and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A string of murders being committed by a mysterious voodoo assassin on the exotic island city of Key West pits a crusading environmental shock-jock and a homicide detective against a maelstrom of unscrupulous developers, scammers and everyday citizens. 25,000 first printing.
Download or read book Masters of Chaos written by Linda Robinson and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-03-05 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Special Forces soldiers are daring, seasoned troops from America's heartland, selected in a tough competition and trained in an extraordinary range of skills. They know foreign languages and cultures and unconventional warfare better than any U.S. fighters, and while they prefer to stay out of the limelight, veteran war correspondent Linda Robinson gained access to their closed world. She traveled with them on the frontlines, interviewed them at length on their home bases, and studied their doctrine, methods and history. In Masters of Chaos she tells their story through a select group of senior sergeants and field-grade officers, a band of unforgettable characters like Rawhide, Killer, Michael T, and Alan -- led by the unflappable Lt. Col. Chris Conner and Col. Charlie Cleveland, a brilliant but self-effacing West Pointer who led the largest unconventional war campaign since Vietnam in northern Iraq. Robinson follows the Special Forces from their first post-Vietnam combat in Panama, El Salvador, Desert Storm, Somalia, and the Balkans to their recent trials and triumphs in Afghanistan and Iraq. She witnessed their secret sleuthing and unsung successes in southern Iraq, and recounts here for the first time the dramatic firefights of the western desert. Her blow-by-blow story of the attack on Ansar al-Islam's international terrorist training camp has never been told before. The most comprehensive account ever of the modern-day Special Forces in action, Masters of Chaos is filled with riveting, intimate detail in the words of a close-knit band of soldiers who have done it all.
Download or read book Tropic of Cancer Harper Perennial Modern Classics written by Henry Miller and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2012-01-30 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Miller’s groundbreaking first novel, banned in Britain for almost thirty years.
Download or read book Mortal Chaos Speed Freaks written by Matt Dickinson and published by Oxford University Press - Children. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Butterfly effect: The scientific theory that a single occurence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever. A father and son diving off the coast of Hawaii, with the sharks closing in. A scientist in a forest under attack from a savage bear. A young girl who has been kidnapped by drug dealers in Rio. The teenagers surfing on top of a speeding bullet train. For them, and many others, things will never be the same again. Some will live. Many will die. All are connected. The action is non-stop in this tense and compelling adventure.
Download or read book The Climate Swerve written by Robert Jay Lifton and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the PEN America/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing "Well worth the read. . . . [A] prescient handoff to the next generation of scholars." —The Washington Post From "one of the world’s foremost thinkers" (Bill Moyers), a profound, hopeful, and timely call for an emerging new collective consciousness to combat climate change Over his long career as witness to an extreme twentieth century, National Book Award-winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual Robert Jay Lifton has grappled with the profound effects of nuclear war, terrorism, and genocide. Now he shifts to climate change, which, Lifton writes, "presents us with what may be the most demanding and unique psychological task ever required of humankind," what he describes as the task of mobilizing our imaginative resources toward climate sanity. Thanks to the power of corporate-funded climate denialists and the fact that "with its slower, incremental sequence, [climate change] lends itself less to the apocalyptic drama," a large swathe of humanity has numbed themselves to the reality of climate change. Yet Lifton draws a message of hope from the Paris climate meeting of 2015 where representatives of virtually all nations joined in the recognition that we are a single species in deep trouble. Here, Lifton suggests in this lucid and moving book that recalls Rachel Carson and Jonathan Schell, was evidence of how we might call upon the human mind—"our greatest evolutionary asset"—to translate a growing species awareness—or "climate swerve"—into action to sustain our habitat and civilization.
Download or read book Strange Rebels written by Christian Caryl and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few moments in history have seen as many seismic transformations as 1979. That single year marked the emergence of revolutionary Islam as a global political force, the beginning of market revolutions in China and Britain that would radically alter the international economy, and the first stirrings of the resistance movements in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Strange Rebels, veteran journalist Christian Caryl shows how the world we live in today and the problems that plague it began to take shape in this pivotal year. Weaving the story of each of these counterrevolutions into a brisk, gripping narrative, Strange Rebels is a groundbreaking account of how these upheavals marked a startling conservative challenge to communist and socialist systems around the globe, giving birth to our modern age in the process.
Download or read book Lockdown America written by Christian Parenti and published by Verso. This book was released on 2000 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lockdown America documents the horrors and absurdities of militarized policing, prisons, a fortified border, and the war on drugs. Its accessible and vivid prose makes clear the links between crime and politics in a period of gathering economic crisis.
Download or read book Disassembly Required written by Geoff Mann and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2013-08-16 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capitalism is a complex, dynamic, and extraordinarily robust way of organizing human life; it is also a system that achieves prosperity for the few, impoverishes the many, and depletes the commons for all. We know that capitalism is a broken system, in desperate need of change. But, to imagine a different system, we first need to understand how capitalism actually exists today —and be able to explain to others how it works, and why change is needed. Disassembly Required is an attempt to meet these challenges. It offers an anti-capitalist analysis of capitalism, and, even more important, it explains why it is anti-capitalist. It does not stop at claiming that the present way of organizing the “economic” aspects of our lives is politically indefensible and ecologically unsustainable, but digs into the details of capitalist institutions and the economics that justify them. From money and markets to the subprime crisis, it explains the fundamental features of contemporary capitalism and how they contribute, sometimes in surprising ways, to overall capitalist dynamics. “A brilliantly lucid book. Mann illuminates the basic principles of modern capitalism, their expressions in contemporary economies and states, and their devastating socio-ecological consequences for working people everywhere. This is a must-read if we are to envision ways of organizing our common planetary existence that are not based upon the illusory promises of market fundamentalism and the suicidal ideology of endless economic growth.”—Neil Brenner, New State Spaces “Geoff Mann is a new breed of monkey-wrencher. He knows that contemporary capitalism has a perverse habit of dismantling itself and gives us a toolkit to build a new, more socially just edifice.”—Andy Merrifield, Magical Marxism “Insightful and incisive, thoughtful and thorough, filled with new avenues for thinking about resistence. Pass this one by at your own peril.”—Matt Hern, Common Ground in a Liquid City “An essential handbook for understanding ‘actually existing’ capitalism, and thus the world as it really is—rather than as it is theorized and justified by the dissembling high priests of mainstream academia, policy, and politics.”—Christian Parenti, Tropic of Chaos
Download or read book Storming the Wall written by Todd Miller and published by City Lights Books. This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RECIPIENT OF THE 2018 IZZY AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM "Every so often a book comes along that can dramatically change, or elevate, one's thinking about a global problem. Much like Naomi Klein's books, Todd Miller’s Storming the Wall is such a book and deserves far more attention and discussion."—Izzy Award Judges, Ithaca College *** "A galvanizing forecast of global warming's endgame and a powerful indictment of America's current stance."—Kirkus Reviews As global warming accelerates, droughts last longer, floods rise higher, and super-storms become more frequent. With increasing numbers of people on the move as a result, the business of containing them—border fortification—is booming. In Storming the Wall, Todd Miller travels around the world to connect the dots between climate-ravaged communities, the corporations cashing in on border militarization, and emerging movements for environmental justice and sustainability. Reporting from the flashpoints of climate clashes, and from likely sites of futures battles, Miller chronicles a growing system of militarized divisions between the rich and the poor, the environmentally secure and the environmentally exposed. Stories of crisis, greed and violence are juxtaposed with powerful examples of solidarity and hope in this urgent and timely message from the frontlines of the post-Paris Agreement era. Todd Miller's writings about the border have appeared in the New York Times, Tom Dispatch, and many other places. Praise for Storming the Wall "Nothing will test human institutions like climate change in this century—as this book makes crystal clear, people on the move from rising waters, spreading deserts, and endless storms could profoundly destabilize our civilizations unless we seize the chance to re-imagine our relationships to each other. This is no drill, but it is a test, and it will be graded pass-fail"—Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet "As Todd Miller shows in this important and harrowing book, climate-driven migration is set to become one of the defining issues of our time.... This is a must-read book."—Christian Parenti, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, author of Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence "Todd Miller reports from the cracks in the walls of the global climate security state—militarized zones designed to keep powerful elites safe from poor and uprooted peoples.... Miller finds hope—hope that may not survive in Trumpworld."—Molly Molloy, Research librarian for Latin America and the border at New Mexico State University and creator of "Frontera List" "Miller delivers a prescient and sober view of our increasingly dystopian planet as the impacts of human-caused climate disruption continue to intensify."—Dahr Jamail, award-winning independent journalist, author of The End of Ice "Todd Miller's important book chronicles how existing disparities in wealth and power, combined with the dramatic changes we are causing in this planet's ecosystems, mean either we come together around our common humanity or forfeit the right to call ourselves fully human."—Robert Jensen, author of The End of Patriarchy, Plain Radical, and Arguing for Our Lives
Download or read book The Green New Deal and the Future of Work written by Craig Calhoun and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catastrophic climate change overshadows the present and the future. Wrenching economic transformations have devastated workers and hollowed out communities. However, those fighting for jobs and those fighting for the planet have often been at odds. Does the world face two separate crises, environmental and economic? The promise of the Green New Deal is to tackle the threat of climate change through the empowerment of working people and the strengthening of democracy. In this view, the crisis of nature and the crisis of work must be addressed together—or they will not be addressed at all. This book brings together leading experts to explore the possibilities of the Green New Deal, emphasizing the future of work. Together, they examine transformations that are already underway and put forth bold new proposals that can provide jobs while reducing carbon consumption—building a world that is sustainable both economically and ecologically. Contributors also debate urgent questions: What is the value of a federal jobs program, or even a jobs guarantee? How do we alleviate the miseries and precarity of work? In key economic sectors, including energy, transportation, housing, agriculture, and care work, what kind of work is needed today? How does the New Deal provide guidance in addressing these questions, and how can a Green New Deal revive democracy? Above all, this book shows, the Green New Deal offers hope for a better tomorrow—but only if it accounts for work’s past transformations and shapes its future.
Download or read book Tropic of Murder written by Lev Raphael and published by Daniel & Daniel Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edith Wharton scholar and untenured English professor Nick Hoffman escapes academic madness to vacation with his partner, Stefan, at a Caribbean getaway, but ends up face-to-face with murder.
Download or read book Tropic of Kansas written by Christopher Brown and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Timely, dark, and ultimately hopeful: it might not ‘make America great again,’ but then again, it just might.”—Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling and award winning author of Homeland Acclaimed short story writer and editor of the World Fantasy Award-nominee Three Messages and a Warning eerily envisions an American society unraveling and our borders closed off—from the other side—in this haunting and provocative novel that combines Max Barry’s Jennifer Government, Philip K. Dick’s classic Man in the High Castle, and China Mieville’s The City & the City The United States of America is no more. Broken into warring territories, its center has become a wasteland DMZ known as “the Tropic of Kansas.” Though this gaping geographic hole has no clear boundaries, everyone knows it's out there—that once-bountiful part of the heartland, broken by greed and exploitation, where neglect now breeds unrest. Two travelers appear in this arid American wilderness: Sig, the fugitive orphan of political dissidents, and his foster sister Tania, a government investigator whose search for Sig leads her into her own past—and towards an unexpected future. Sig promised those he loves that he would make it to the revolutionary redoubt of occupied New Orleans. But first he must survive the wild edgelands of a barren mid-America policed by citizen militias and autonomous drones, where one wrong move can mean capture . . . or death. One step behind, undercover in the underground, is Tania. Her infiltration of clandestine networks made of old technology and new politics soon transforms her into the hunted one, and gives her a shot at being the agent of real change—if she is willing to give up the explosive government secrets she has sworn to protect. As brother and sister traverse these vast and dangerous badlands, their paths will eventually intersect on the front lines of a revolution whose fuse they are about to light. “Futurist as provocateur! The world is sheer batshit genius . . . a truly hallucinatorily envisioned environment.”—William Gibson, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author
Download or read book The Secure and the Dispossessed written by Nick Buxton and published by Transnational Institute. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration into how the elite exploit the impact of climate change and how communities can resist this process.
