“When refugees take flight from violence and persecution, their human life is stripped bare, with all political qualifiers (presence, voice, agency) erased from their identity.” P.124
This rarely questioned truism is where Nyers begins his intense and challenging text on the political reality and the real people whom we label as Refugees. The challenge starts with the cover: a seemly traditional photograph of young females from an unidentified African or Asian region. But a second look at the classic pose of the central figure with a baby on Read more [...] Category Archives: Book Reviews
Nyers, Peter. Rethinking Refugees: Beyond States of Emergency. 2006. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. New York, USA, and London UK.
“When refugees take flight from violence and persecution, their human life is stripped bare, with all political qualifiers (presence, voice, agency) erased from their identity.” P.124
This rarely questioned truism is where Nyers begins his intense and challenging text on the political reality and the real people whom we label as Refugees. The challenge starts with the cover: a seemly traditional photograph of young females from an unidentified African or Asian region. But a second look at the classic pose of the central figure with a baby on Read more [...] Comments Off on Nyers, Peter. Rethinking Refugees: Beyond States of Emergency. 2006. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. New York, USA, and London UK.
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O´Neill, Dan. The Firecracker Boys: H-bombs, Inupiat Eskimos and the Roots of the Environmental Movement. 2007. Basic Books, USA.
“I think there was a concern that the American people, given the facts, would not make the right risk—benefit judgements.” Peter Libassi, Chair, Interagency Task Force on the Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation.
“If your mountain is not in the right place, drop us a card.” Edward Teller
“I´m pretty sure you don´t like to see your home blasted by some other people who don´t live in your place like we live in Point Hope.” Kitty Kinneeveauk
Tikigaq, home of the Inupiat people is a finger of land in the Chukchi Sea, north Read more [...]
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Off, Carol. BITTER CHOCOLATE: Investigating the dark side of the world’s most seductive sweet. 2006. Random House. Canada.
“…wafers of warm bliss give
moments of ecstatic oblivion to all who taste
but this pleasure has no history …”from a poem by T. Wolfwood
Carol Off, a Canadian journalist, sets off into the jungle of West Africa in search of the truth about Cote d’Ivoire’s most precious commodity, cocoa. She reached a poor remote village where the tired and weary people have no school, no clinic, no electricity or phones. She says they grow “the food of the gods”, but live a long way from paradise. They grow cocoa, sell it to buyers, but have Read more [...] Comments Off on Off, Carol. BITTER CHOCOLATE: Investigating the dark side of the world’s most seductive sweet. 2006. Random House. Canada.
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Off, Carol. CHOCOLAT AMER: le côtê sinistre de la friandise la plus délicieuse du monde. 2006. Random House, Canada.
Revue littéraire de T. Wolfwood. En francais de Andreé Scott
“Ceux qui se délectent à ces gaufrettes de chaude béatitude
Connaissent un moment d´oubli ravissant
Mais ce plaisir cache son pass´.” … extrait d´un poème de T. Wolfwood
Carol Off, journaliste canadienne, parcourt la jungle africaine à la recherche de la vérité concernant le cacao, denrée précieuse de la Côte d´Ivoire. Elle a fini par atteindre un village pauvre et écarté où les gens las et abattus manquent de clinique, d´électricité et de téléphone. Read more [...] Comments Off on Off, Carol. CHOCOLAT AMER: le côtê sinistre de la friandise la plus délicieuse du monde. 2006. Random House, Canada.
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Oldfield, Sybil and Gwenyth Shaw, editors. The Old Familiar Faces 2007. Lewes, UK. ISBN 978-0-9554-114-1-0 Review and photo of Sybil Oldfield by Theresa Wolfwood
“I have had playmates, I have had companions…
All are gone, the old familiar faces…” Charles Lamb
This collection of mainly English poetry reflecting inevitably on loss, the constant of old age, has many poignant poems, but also humour, a necessity of aging well, is here also.
The editors have collected from many centuries and from the famous to the little known. They go well together; fame is not essential for enjoyment or inspiration, the experience of aging is universal.
As Frances Comford wrote: O passer-by, Read more [...]
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Oldfield, Sybil. ‘Thinking Against the Current’: Literature and Political Resistance. 2013. Sussex Academic Press, Eastbourne, UK. ISBN: 978-1-84519-689-9
Review by Theresa Wolfwood
“Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.” Virginia Woolf
This fascinating and informative study of independent thinkers since the 1700s makes compelling reading in a time when media and other social forces discourage and suppress expression of dissent. But it appears that mainstream society has always suppressed and often, still does, persecute those who dare to resist. Starting with the Read more [...]
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Oldfield, Sybil. Afterwords: Letters on the Death of Virginia Woolf. 2005. Rutgers University Press. USA.
"...your wife has been for me, ever since I was a boy, one of the great interpreters of the world."
Hubert Butler, Ireland. page 149
I know the editor of this book and have read her works; some are reviewed on this site. A whole book of condolence letters seemed such a narrow and peculiar subject that I would not have chosen to read it if it weren’t for my knowing Oldfield. I am so glad I did seek it out and pour over these letters. They gave me the realization that the greater world of friendship and creativity can enclose us all.
Oldfield Read more [...] Comments Off on Oldfield, Sybil. Afterwords: Letters on the Death of Virginia Woolf. 2005. Rutgers University Press. USA.
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Oldfield, Sybil. Women Against the Iron Fist: Alternatives to Militarism 1900- 1989. Basil Blackwell Ltd. Oxford, UK.
"How dare the government presume the right to kill others in our name?"
Women in Newbury Court, UK, 1982.
"...The Pentagon sits on like sone grotesque chicken caged in its nest and fed/ cancerous hormone, exceed and exceed and exceed/ Hiroshima, over and over and over, in weight/ in power/ in horror/ of genocide" Denise Levertov, 1980
(2 quotes from this book)
Sybil Oldfield is half- German and half English, so by her birth and her well articulated convictions is the ideal person to write movingly about many woman of the last century. Some Read more [...] Comments Off on Oldfield, Sybil. Women Against the Iron Fist: Alternatives to Militarism 1900- 1989. Basil Blackwell Ltd. Oxford, UK.
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Osorio, Jesus Tecu. Memoir of the Rio Negro Massacres. 2012. Translated from the Spanish & published with assistance of Rights Action & Breaking the Silence Solidarity Network. www.mayawuj.nawalwuj.com ISBN 978-9929-634-008
Review by Theresa Wolfwood
Images from the book
“May my parents’ tragic story live on in the memories of my children”
“The objective... is to share the bloody history that we have lived and to make this story available in all of the education centres so that our children and grandchildren may know it and never forget it.”
The only country in North America that is populated with a majority of indigenous peoples, resource-rich Guatemala has a long and brutal history that continues today. This straightforward narrative Read more [...] Comments Off on Osorio, Jesus Tecu. Memoir of the Rio Negro Massacres. 2012. Translated from the Spanish & published with assistance of Rights Action & Breaking the Silence Solidarity Network. www.mayawuj.nawalwuj.com ISBN 978-9929-634-008
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Pappe, Ilan. THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE. 2007. Oneworld, Oxford UK.
“Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity, and people who perpetrate it today are considered criminals to be brought before special tribunals.”
Pappe is a distinguished and respected Israeli historian. His research and publications have made him the object of death threats; he left Israel to teach in the UK. In this book he carefully records the often refuted, little—known and suppressed history of one of the major crimes against humanity. Palestinians call it the Nakba, the disaster in which Zionists drove nearly a million people Read more [...] Comments Off on Pappe, Ilan. THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE. 2007. Oneworld, Oxford UK.
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Patel, Raj. Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World´s Food System. 2007. HarperCollins Publishers. Toronto, CA.
“The best way to ensure that food is produced in harmony with one´s local environment is to learn about the local environment, and then grow the food oneself.”
Is it possible that the overeating of the rich in many countries, including nations we consider ´poor´, is related to the starvation and malnutrition of many who live side by side of the overfed? Patel, a scholar from South Africa with a wide experience in academia, international institutions and social movements makes a convincing case that it is globalization and all its corporate—controlled Read more [...] Comments Off on Patel, Raj. Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World´s Food System. 2007. HarperCollins Publishers. Toronto, CA.
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Paul, Helena & Ricarda Steinbrecher with Devlin Kuyek & Lucy Michaels. HUNGRY CORPORATIONS: Transnational Biotech Companies Colonise the Food Chain. Z Books. 2003. London, UK.
"What you are seeing is not just a consolidation of seed companies; it is really a consolidation of the entire food chain. Robert Fraley, Monsanto, 1996." quoted on p.24
This excellent reference book on the corporate control of our food is a great example of good globalization; it is a cooperative work of scientists, activists and organizations from Canada, UK and Malaysia. It names corporate names, processes, and government agencies and institutions that empower “hungry corporations".
The authors have compiled a clear and concise analysis Read more [...]
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Filed under Book Reviews, Devlin Kuyek, Helena Paul, Lucy Michaels, Ricarda Steinbrecher
