Category Archives: Book Reviews
Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Berrett-Kohler Publishers. San Francisco, USA.
An Economic Hit Man, an EHM, is apparently a precise job description, a profession practised around the world by people (primarily white, male and USA citizens) who are usually known as advisors, consultants or experts.
It took John Perkins a long time to get around to publishing his confessions, complete with a fair amount of hair pulling and wearing of hair shirts. But somewhere around retirement age, Perkins decided to tell all and keep the respect of his adult daughter. His hand wringing lasted for 40 years and it gets a bit tiresome, but Read more [...]
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Pierce, Rhoda Kaplan & Carolyn Pogue. FADE TO BLACK. Kehillah Press, 25 Maguire Rd. Wayland, MA, 01778, USA.
This play script is the result of 2 writers in two countries collaborating to produce a drama about the international movement to which they both belong. A group of Women in Black (set in the USA) are arrested for holding a silent vigil to witness for peace and non-violence. They are sent to a mental hospital where they are considered crazy for being publicly unpatriotic.
The play explains the context and effect of laws that try to repress peaceful dissent and to instil fear in those who work for peace. It also shows the diversity of reasons Read more [...]
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Pilger, John. Freedom Next Time. 2007. A Black Swan Book. Transworld Publishers, UK.
“Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew.
Which in sleep has fallen on you.
Ye are many — they are few.” Percy Bysshe Shelly in The Mask of Anarchy.
With that quote Pilger begins another of his impassioned and important books about “empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom.”
Pilger reinforces and documents all our doubts the mainstream, official government or corporate media and how they have historically served and continue to serve their imperial Read more [...] Comments Off on Pilger, John. Freedom Next Time. 2007. A Black Swan Book. Transworld Publishers, UK.
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Pilger, John. The Conscience of Contemporary Journalism.
Chances are, if we stray from the fantasy world of smoke and mirrors called the mainstream media and try to find out what is really happening in the world, we will find the work of John Pilger, the Australian born, now London–based writer and filmmaker. For thirty–five years he has written many books, hundreds of articles and made dozens of films. He has made a living, found a wide readership and audience, gained international respect and won many awards, including an Emmy, the UK Richard Dimbleby Award and has been named the International Reporter Read more [...] Comments Off on Pilger, John. The Conscience of Contemporary Journalism.
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Pitarch, Pedro, Shannon Speed & Xochitl Leyva Solano, Editors. HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MAYAN REGION: Global Politics, Cultural Contentions, and Moral Engagements. 2008. Duke University Press, USA.
“The essays in this book direct our attention to the different empirical instances in which Maya culture encounters rights politics.”
I expected a collection of essays by mainly academics in Europe, USA and Latin America to be stuffy and esoteric and not very relevant to an activist who once lived in a Maya village as a human rights observer. I thought I knew what rights or abuses of rights that I should be observing.
But this interesting book with articles by activists and Mayas as well as academics challenges our assumptions about what Read more [...] Comments Off on Pitarch, Pedro, Shannon Speed & Xochitl Leyva Solano, Editors. HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MAYAN REGION: Global Politics, Cultural Contentions, and Moral Engagements. 2008. Duke University Press, USA.
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Pogue, Carolyn. A New Day: Peacemaking Stories and Activities Program Ideas for Leaders of Children. 2005. Danka Gocova, illustrator. United Church Publishing House, Toronto.
Carolyn Pogue has combined her original stories, based on children’s experiences in many parts of the world, with practical and clear guidelines for hand-on creativity for peace; making paper, peace flags, solar cookers and water games. Adults will find the activity instruction clear and useful; children I know will enjoy the projects. Pogue provides study and question guides for the stories and ideas. Based in Christianity, the book has much universal wisdom and knowledge of other faiths. And I liked the biographies of real people who have Read more [...] Comments Off on Pogue, Carolyn. A New Day: Peacemaking Stories and Activities Program Ideas for Leaders of Children. 2005. Danka Gocova, illustrator. United Church Publishing House, Toronto.
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Pogue, Carolyn. SEASONS OF PEACE from The Living Peace Series. 2007. Building Connections Publishing Inc. Courtenay, BC, Canada.
“For peace and non-violence to prevail, we need to foster a Culture of Peace through Education.”
from the introduction.
Carolyn Pogue is a multitalented peace activist — poet, writer, visual artist and organizer (of Calgary women in Black, among other things) but in recent years she has deliberately chosen to concentrate on children; she sees our young people as the real hope for changing the world.
Seasons of Peace is one of several books she has written directed at peace education for children. This is peace education in its fullest Read more [...] Comments Off on Pogue, Carolyn. SEASONS OF PEACE from The Living Peace Series. 2007. Building Connections Publishing Inc. Courtenay, BC, Canada.
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Qumsiyeh, Mazin B. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment. 2010. Pluto Press. UK & USA.
“…the reality is that popular resistance in Palestine developed indigenously, organically, naturally and beautifully. And it has accelerated in the past two decades.”
Qumsiyeh is a committed activist and academic in Palestine; this is his third book. I know of the many activities he organizes and participates in; his energy is amazing. Grounded in the present situation of struggle against the occupation, he also has the scholarly skills to present an excellent history of the role of non–violent struggle in Palestine´s continuing Read more [...] Comments Off on Qumsiyeh, Mazin B. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment. 2010. Pluto Press. UK & USA.
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Ra´ad, Basem L. Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean. 2010. Pluto Press. UK& USA.
This very readable account of regional history from ancient times to the present gives a clear picture of how western ideas and Zionist culture have ignored and distorted the complex real history of the people of Palestine. Ra´ad also brings his scholarship to bear on the connection between falsifies history and present day injustice to the indigenous Palestinians. Although he writes about the specific situation that centuries of colonization have created in Palestine, he also points out that, “metaphorically speaking half the world is still Read more [...]
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Ransom, David. The No-Nonsense Guide to FAIR TRADE. New Internationalist Publication, UK Between the Lines, Canada.
“He points out that no—one is just a consumer or a producer — we are all both at the same time. He argues that the time has now come to put body and soul, justice and the environment together. There´s no time to lose." Stan and Marci Marcel Thekaekara in the introduction.
This is another book from a long list of excellent short pithy guides to issues ranging from Climate Change to Animal Rights that The New Internationalist produces. Always readable & reliable.
Fair trade, an idea whose time has come and is working well on many levels, Read more [...]
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Reed, Grace E et al. NEEDS. 2010. Negotiating Shadows Publishing. Portland, Ore. USA.
“We are losing youth at an alarming rate to drugs. We need a new way of dealing with this loss”.
Subtitled The Journey of How Interpersonal Conflict Produced Chances for Better Choices; Poetry and Short Stories by the author & The At—Risk Boys of RAD [the youth in residential alcohol & drug treatment], Eagle provides intimate and moving insights into the lives of the marginalized and rejected of society.
For those who live outside the USA, it seems hard to believe that thousands of young people are poor, abused and ultimately Read more [...]
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Reist, Melinda Tankard. Defiant Birth, Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics Spinifex Press: Australia, 2006.
Books about Others: review by Beth Burrows.
Beth Burrows is the president/director of the Edmonds Institute, a public interest, non-profit group headquartered in the Pacific Northwest of the USA" See: www.edmonds-institute.org . Reprinted with permission.
Surprisingly little has changed in “fitness” circles since the Washington Post first asked, “Who are the unfit?” and then pointed out that the “unfit” tended to be anyone not belonging to the particular group having the discussion.
In the ninety-one years since the Post posed Read more [...]
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