“Today neoliberalism and its Holy Trinity – deregulation, innovation and globalization – are facing a crisis, and we
are finding out that the trendy notion of ´sustainable development´ is… an oxymoron. The time is ripe to rethink our way of doing things and fight the spread of individualism and consumerism… Fair trade proposes an alternative based on the ideas of social justice, product quality and respect for the environment…Its aim is to encourage involvement and solidarity…This book is a sign of hope that another word is Read more [...] Monthly Archives: October 2012
St–Pierre, Éric with Emerson da Silva, Mathieu Lamarre, & Barbara Sandlands. FAIR TRADE: A HUMAN JOURNEY 2009. Les Éditions de l´homme. Montreal, Canada.
“Today neoliberalism and its Holy Trinity – deregulation, innovation and globalization – are facing a crisis, and we
are finding out that the trendy notion of ´sustainable development´ is… an oxymoron. The time is ripe to rethink our way of doing things and fight the spread of individualism and consumerism… Fair trade proposes an alternative based on the ideas of social justice, product quality and respect for the environment…Its aim is to encourage involvement and solidarity…This book is a sign of hope that another word is Read more [...] Comments Off on St–Pierre, Éric with Emerson da Silva, Mathieu Lamarre, & Barbara Sandlands. FAIR TRADE: A HUMAN JOURNEY 2009. Les Éditions de l´homme. Montreal, Canada.
Filed under Barbara Sandlands, Book Reviews, Emerson da Silva, Éric St-Pierre, Mathieu Lamarre
Soueif, Ahdaf. THE MAP OF LOVE. 2000. Bloomsbury Publishing. London. UK.
This is wonderful sweep of fiction across a century of people and their place in society, war, oppression, and cultural differences in the vast and complex history of North Africa. Its colonial past and the seeds of contemporary violence in Egypt and Palestine are woven into the development of two love stories, one hundred years apart, both highly unconventional for their times.
Anna Winterbourne is the widow of a soldier who was emotionally destroyed by his role in the British massacre of Sudan where, “An army of 7000 British and 20000 Egyptian Read more [...] Comments Off on Soueif, Ahdaf. THE MAP OF LOVE. 2000. Bloomsbury Publishing. London. UK.
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Soueif, Ahdaf. MEZZATERRA: Fragments from the Common Ground. 2004. Anchor Books, USA.
The common ground of these essays which span twenty–five years of journalism is the ground where Arabs and non–Arabs co–exist. The author of several novels, including ‘The Map of Love’, which was a Booker Prize finalist, wrote these articles from 1981–2004. She says that they “are the direct product of the interaction between myself and the condition of living in the UK.”.
She is keenly aware that the UK and western media present a twisted and biased view of the Arab and Middle Eastern world. She writes that, “It was impossible Read more [...] Comments Off on Soueif, Ahdaf. MEZZATERRA: Fragments from the Common Ground. 2004. Anchor Books, USA.
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Somerville, Margaret. The Ethical Canary: Science, Society and the Human Spirit. Penguin Books, Toronto, ON.
“Scientific progress alone would be a hollow victory without the moral or ethical progress that must accompany it and ensure the humanization and humanity of our development and use of science.”
The canary used to detect poisonous gas in coal mines is a vivid metaphor for those who detect danger in our society and environment. (See my poem: We Are the Canaries. TW). When this doctor and specialist in medical law and ethics from The Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Montreal, was invited to give a speech in Lubeck, Germany, Read more [...] Comments Off on Somerville, Margaret. The Ethical Canary: Science, Society and the Human Spirit. Penguin Books, Toronto, ON.
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Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Viking Penguin, UK, USA, Canada.
Solnit weaves a wide ranging survey of an activity most of us take for granted from about the age of two on. She writes about walking as a historic activity from Greek philosophers to Romantic poets to urban nature seekers to spiritual pilgrims. Walking is movement which allows for visual pleasure, sensory delight and makes possible and easy, thought, reflection and creativity. She says walking is, “endlessly fertile: it is both means and end, travel and destination”. Solnit writes about walking as a leisure activity that developed into Read more [...]
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Solnit, Rebecca. HOPE IN THE DARK: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities. 2006. Penguin Books. worldwide.
"It´s always too soon to go home. And it´s always too soon to calculate effect."Activists who feel despondent and or just plain tired will read this book and take heart in our work and find purpose in the creative search for a better world. Solnit believes we’ve had many successes; we can and should rejoice – and then carry on.
"I once read an anecdote by someone in Women Strike for Peace, the first great antinuclear movement in the United States, the one that did contribute to a major victory: the 1963 end of aboveground nuclear testing Read more [...]
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Solnit, David. GLOBALIZE LIBERATION. 2004. City Lights Books, USA.
"In the face of what is called globalization-a world with no borders for capital–let us welcome this vindication of the internationalism of human solidarity." Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay on page 447 "Participate, don’t spectate."
"Listen, don’t preach." page 482"If you come only to help me, you can go back home. But if you consider my struggle as part of your struggle for survival, than maybe we can work together.” by an un-named aboriginal women, from People’s Global Action Manifesto, on page 447
In the introduction to this excellent Read more [...]
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Smith, Diane with Jagori. Birthing with Dignity: a guide for training community level midwives and healthworkers. 2004. Jagori, New Delhi, India.
This beautiful conceived and created book is more than a guide for birth attendants; it is a tribute to the act of creation and our creators - mothers. It comes from a land where women and their role in creating life are devalued and ignored. That birth is an act worthy of dignity should be sung from roof tops of mansions and shacks; this book is the libretto of that song, a guide for the restoration of the value of women and motherhood.
It is also a guide to a circular journey that lead a midwife from a forest glade on a small island off the Read more [...] Comments Off on Smith, Diane with Jagori. Birthing with Dignity: a guide for training community level midwives and healthworkers. 2004. Jagori, New Delhi, India.
Filed under Book Reviews, Diane Smith, Jagori
Shiva, Vandana. Soil Not Oil: Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Food Insecurity. 2008. Zed Books UK.
“We can either keep sleepwalking to extinction or wake up to the potential of the planet and ourselves,”
Soil, Not Oil is another of this well known environmentalist´s pithy treatises on topical and important issues. Shiva has a knack of bringing together issues we often see as separate and linking our awareness to these connections. And indeed these three issues are more than connected; they are closely intertwined.
She starts out by writing that this triple crisis is a triple opportunity. This awareness gives us a chance to change our Read more [...]
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Shehadeh, Raja. PALESTINE WALKS: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape. 2008. Profile Books. London, UK.
“…for every story there is an ending.”
“…the biography of these hills is… my own.”
This memoir is a guided journey; the reader goes with the author as he remembers and reflects on his sorhat (spiritual walks to nourish the soul) around his home city of Ramallah, for the last twenty—seven years. He has walked many routes, many times over in this period and is able to vividly express “the language of the hills.”
These are the changes Shehadeh meets, but as Shehadeh, a lawyer and founder of the Human Rights group, Read more [...] Comments Off on Shehadeh, Raja. PALESTINE WALKS: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape. 2008. Profile Books. London, UK.
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Shah, Sonia. CRUDE: The Story of Oil. 2004. Seven Stories Press. USA. Publishers Group, CANADA.
“This book tells the story of oil from its birth hundreds of millions of year ago, when ancient creatures floated with sun-dappled seas sucked carbon out of the air, through to its maturation entombed deep underground.”
In vivid prose and documented detail, Shah does exactly what she sets out to do. Along the way, we learn about the slow process of oil formation and the appalling rapid depletion of this resource, so miraculous it appears to do our work for us, while changing forever our human institutions and physical environment.
“Once Read more [...] Comments Off on Shah, Sonia. CRUDE: The Story of Oil. 2004. Seven Stories Press. USA. Publishers Group, CANADA.
Filed under Book Reviews, Sonia Shah
Shah, Sonia. The Body Hunters : Testing New Drugs On The World´s Poorest Patients. 2006. New Press. New York, USA.
The author of CRUDE has written another excellent, well–researched book – this time about the unscrupulous behaviour of the mega–sized drug corporations of the world.
John le Carre says in his introduction: “….Imagine the uproar if dozens of drug-trial patients in America were to perish from deadly side effects known to the FDA. Consider the commotion if AIDS babies in Europe were to die while being administered placebos rather than potentially life–saving drugs. These scandals did happen–just elsewhere. In The Body Hunters, investigative Read more [...] Comments Off on Shah, Sonia. The Body Hunters : Testing New Drugs On The World´s Poorest Patients. 2006. New Press. New York, USA.
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