Last year the New Internationalist magazine used a famous art image of a big fish and little fishes on its cover. In a later issue the editor apologized for not crediting the artist. So he phoned Ken Sprague and talked to him, the artist said it was the first time anyone had asked permission to use the image. Sprague died weeks later. Fortunately the magazine noted a book about Sprague and after many months I tracked it down. (The fish image was Franco and the Canary Island banana pickers.)
Sprague was indeed a people's artist, for over 50 Read more [...] Author Archives: Theresa Wolfwood. Director, The Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation
Green, John. Ken Sprague: People’s Artist. Hawthorn Press. UK.
Last year the New Internationalist magazine used a famous art image of a big fish and little fishes on its cover. In a later issue the editor apologized for not crediting the artist. So he phoned Ken Sprague and talked to him, the artist said it was the first time anyone had asked permission to use the image. Sprague died weeks later. Fortunately the magazine noted a book about Sprague and after many months I tracked it down. (The fish image was Franco and the Canary Island banana pickers.)
Sprague was indeed a people's artist, for over 50 Read more [...] Comments Off on Green, John. Ken Sprague: People’s Artist. Hawthorn Press. UK.
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Govier, Katherine. THREE VIEWS OF CRYSTAL WATER. 2006. HarperCollins. Toronto.
´The pearls of the oyster are divine. And they are found in the dimmest, deepest place in the world, under the scabbiest, tightest lid. That is their magic.´
Katherine Govier is one of Canada´s best novelists, but her work is not well—known, even here. Three Views of Crystal Water is her finest work to date and her portrayal of Japanese society and the nuances of personal and cultural interaction are wonderful. As is often the case in good fiction, history, geography, human behaviour are woven together in a tapestry of narrative, experience, Read more [...]
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Gott, Richard. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. 2005. Verso Books, UK & USA.
I read this dense and compact biography of one of the most remarkable leaders of the 21st Century after I returned from El Salvador where I learned of the innovative aid that Venezuela extends across Latin America. In El Salvador agreements about eye surgery and oil imports are made directly with the FMLN because El Salvador is governed by a right-wing pro-American party which won’t deal with Venezuela. Elsewhere Chavez and his government have initiated new international media networks and trade agreements.
When I read recently that Venezuela Read more [...]
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Golinger, Eva. THE CHÁVEZ CODE: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela. 2006. Olive Branch Press, MA, USA.
“In the case of Venezuela, as this book makes clear, the US government added yet another stain to its national honor. Golinger shows the incontrovertible facts of Washington´s attempt to overthrow the government of Hugo ChÁvez...
...Golinger´s prose radiates a fierce sense of the law´s moral importance. This young Venezuelan–American attorney uses her fact–filled pages almost like a legal brief...” from the foreword by Saul Landau.
When Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela spoke last year at the UN General Assembly he held up Read more [...] Comments Off on Golinger, Eva. THE CHÁVEZ CODE: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela. 2006. Olive Branch Press, MA, USA.
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Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla. A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts The Legacy of Apartheid. 2004. Mariner Books/ Houghton Mifflin, USA.
The legacy of apartheid horror and violence is a heavy burden for many South Africans. Those who still mourn the loss of children, parents, siblings, beloved friends found some relief in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), an important and unique process that allowed perpetrators of violence and cruelty to atone to their victims and victims' families. It allowed those victims, still alive, and their families to confront their torturers and to stand fearlessly before them and to choose to forgive or not to forgive those who expressed Read more [...] Comments Off on Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla. A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts The Legacy of Apartheid. 2004. Mariner Books/ Houghton Mifflin, USA.
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Ginzburg, Oren. There You Go! 2006. Hungry Man Books. UK. Distributed by Survival International, UK.
Cartoon books on serious subjects are great – they are an easy way to introduce issues to kids and adults alike. There You Go! is no exception. Whimsical drawings enhanced by simple text explain with little effort from the reader the illogical absurdity of ‘development’ as it is called and foisted on to those of other cultures by the minority world ‘experts’.
Here the urban professional developers arrive in a tribal village full of happy people who seem to be as developed as they have chosen to be. But force in the form of corporate Read more [...] Comments Off on Ginzburg, Oren. There You Go! 2006. Hungry Man Books. UK. Distributed by Survival International, UK.
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Ginzburg, Oren. THE HUNGRY MAN. 2005. Geneva Switzerland.
The first of Ginzburg´s satires is wrapped in whimsical drawings and brief statements. In this book he mocks the foreign development ´business´ where white experts travel abroad to help the poor and starving. After the assessment reports, the charts, the meetings, the social exchange and patronization the hungry man is still hungry. A good guide for sensitive aid workers to help them avoid the pitfalls of our culture´s assumed superiority and to really think about our attitudes and strategies for change.
(Website: www.hungrymanbooks.com) Read more [...] Comments Off on Ginzburg, Oren. THE HUNGRY MAN. 2005. Geneva Switzerland.
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Galeano, Eduardo. Walking Words (With woodcuts by Jose Francisco Borges). W.W. Norton & Co. London, UK and New York, USA.
Any book by Galeano is a treat with his vivid imagery and brilliant insights into Latin American history and colonization; the Borges’ illustrations are particularly delightful. Galeano’s most famous book is OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA.
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Galeano, Eduardo. OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA: five centuries of the pillage of a continent. 1973, 1997. Monthly Review Press. New York, USA.
“In the years since the first edition of Open Veins, history has not ceased to be a cruel mistress to us…The system has multiplied hunger and fear; wealth has become more and more concentrated, poverty, more and more widespread. That is recognized by the documents of specialized international agencies in whose aseptic vocabulary our oppressed territories are countries in the process of development” and the pitiless impoverishment of the working class is “regressive income distribution.”
“Our fate as Latin American writers is linked Read more [...] Comments Off on Galeano, Eduardo. OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA: five centuries of the pillage of a continent. 1973, 1997. Monthly Review Press. New York, USA.
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Frederici, Silvia. CALIBAN AND THE WITCH: Women, the body and primitive accumulation. 2004. Automedia. USA.
This is only a brief review, more of a recommendation to read the book, than an in–depth analysis of a very fine scholarly work. It is a formidable, but highly readable, history and enquiry into the roots of the oppression of woman and workers. There are hundreds of references cited and throughout the book Frederici refers to many events whose origins and results have been obscured and denied.
Frederici says that she wants in this volume to rethink not only women’s history from a feminist viewpoint, but a whole human history. Caliban, the Read more [...] Comments Off on Frederici, Silvia. CALIBAN AND THE WITCH: Women, the body and primitive accumulation. 2004. Automedia. USA.
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Fox, Nicols. AGAINST THE MACHINE: THE HIDDEN LUDDITE TRADITION IN LITERATURE, ART AND INDIVIDUAL LIVES. 2002. A Shearwater Book, Island Press. USA.
An interesting and original work about “taking control of one’s life”, this is about making conscious choices about the mindless acceptance of the technology which floods our lives. This is mainly a book for people who live in the minority world or live minority world lives in the majority world. Most of those living on this planet don’t have many choices to make.
The author believes we don’t need to live in mud huts in order to lead a considered life. She says... “we must find ways of incorporating subjectivity; we must find a place Read more [...]
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Francis, Diana. RETHINKING WAR AND PEACE……..ETC. 2004. Pluto Press. UK and USA.
A Greek philosopher once said “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?”
That is the problem of thinking and writing about peace and probably why people write about war and anti-war, not peace. But this writer, Diana Francis is admirably qualified to write about peace. Her sole credential is that she is a lifelong peace activist. She does not seek credibility thorough professional status or titles. Now a grandmother, Francis dates her activism back to her teens. Then she was the child of Read more [...]
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