Monthly Archives: October 2012
Septer, Dirk. Lost Nuke: The Last Flight of Bomber 075. 2012. Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd. Canada.
This is an investigative narrative of the events that followed the crash in 1950 of a USA Air Force B-36 intercontinental bomber whose wreckage was found in the rugged mountains of northern British Columbia accidently, four years later. What is amazing is that this plane was carrying a nuclear weapon, a fact concealed from Canadians and from general public knowledge for years. It appears from Geiger counter readings there was no radioactive bomb material at the crash site; the Mark1V bomb contained both plutonium and uranium. So where did the bomb Read more [...]
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Sen, Jai, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar & Peter Waterman eds. Challenging Empires: World Social Forum. 2004. Viveka Foundation, New Delhi, India.
The Viveka Foundation, a centre for alternative perspectives launched this exhaustive study of the World Social Forum
process at the WSF in Mumbai, 2004. There are essays and statements from individuals and groups around the world who have been involved in the process and various years of the WSF.
In the foreword, Hilary Wainwright, editor of UK’s RED PEPPER journal, says that features of the new social movements include their diversity and breadth and their belief that change is created by people working together, not just by politicians Read more [...] Comments Off on Sen, Jai, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar & Peter Waterman eds. Challenging Empires: World Social Forum. 2004. Viveka Foundation, New Delhi, India.
Filed under Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar, Book Reviews, Jai Sen, Peter Waterman
Seabrook, Jeremy. Consuming Cultures: Globalization and Local Lives. Jeremy Seabrook. 2004. New International Publications. UK.
“Globalization threatens to extinguish much that is essential to human survival”.
There is a thriving industry in books about globalization; I have read many and have learned much from good authors
and activists. But if I was looking for just one book to recommend to a newly interested friend, a student or seasoned activist – this would be it.
Seabrook gives us the history, the background, the results of globalization which he defines as: the emergence of a single worldwide economy that has declared war on all other cultures. By Read more [...] Comments Off on Seabrook, Jeremy. Consuming Cultures: Globalization and Local Lives. Jeremy Seabrook. 2004. New International Publications. UK.
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Scanlan, Lawrence. A YEAR of LIVING GENEROUSLY: Dispatches from Front Lines of Philanthropy. 2010. Douglas & McIntyre. Vancouver, BC.
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Quoted from Mahatma Gandhi in introduction to this book.
Every book I read something informs or interests me. This book by Scanlan has done far more; it has had a profound effect on my thinking & ultimately my life as a member of society.
“…the status quo stinks. Volunteers alone, magnanimous philanthropists alone, are not the answer.”
In 12 months the author volunteered at 12 different organizations in Canada and abroad – including St. Vincent Read more [...]
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Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. Pantheon & Random House, Toronto..
This book is part of a new trend to create books that are in comic book form to express cultural and political ideas. See other reviews on www.bbcf.ca including Addicted to war: why the U.S. can´t kick militarism and There You Go!
This is a engaging and rare story of a girl and then a young woman growing up in a loving, liberal family in Iran during the time of massive political and social upheaval. With her willingness to question whatever status quo exists at the time, she has a stormy and difficult coming of age. She cannot express Read more [...] Comments Off on Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. Pantheon & Random House, Toronto..
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San Martin, Pablo. WESTERN SAHARA: the Refugee Nation. 2010. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Wales.
“…If you ever arrive
at a wide white land
coupled with immense black statues
and the passive pace of camels and Bedouins,
remember that there exists a land without master and owner,
mirror and soul of all innocent beings.”
by Ali Salem Iselmu
San Martin was a child when he saw scenes from the Western Sahara on TV in Spain.“…what really captured my attention were the images of guerrilla fighters with yellowish turbans, waving their Kalashnikovs and departing for battlefield, crowded into the back of old open Land Rovers.”
His Read more [...] Comments Off on San Martin, Pablo. WESTERN SAHARA: the Refugee Nation. 2010. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Wales.
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Sakar, Saral. Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism. ZED BOOKS. London, UK and New York, USA. 1999.
Indian writer, now living in Germany, presents cogent reasons why growth-based capitalism will ultimately destroy the environment and how ecology-based socialism is the solution.
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Sacco, Joe. Palestine 7th printing, 2005. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA. USA.
This is another one of these rare formats; a political comic book and like “Addicted to War” it is comic only in form. It is a serious, original, accessible rendering of the complexity of the reality that is Palestine. Introduced by the late Edward Said in a thoughtful and laudatory statement, Sacco’s collection of graphic style memoirs and personal stories makes the Palestinian people human, personal and understandable. Said considered the content important, of course, but he praised the form and expression of the story of Palestine by this Read more [...] Comments Off on Sacco, Joe. Palestine 7th printing, 2005. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA. USA.
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Sacco, Joe. Footnotes in Gaza. 2009. Metropolitan Books. Henry Holt and Company. New York, USA.
“As someone in Gaza told me, “events are continuous ”. Palestinians never seem to have the luxury of digesting one tragedy before the next one is upon them…younger people often viewed my research into the events of 1956 with bemusement…the past and the present cannot be so easily disentangled; they are part of a remorseless continuum, a historical blur.”
Sacco has once again created an amazing documentation in comic strip form. He has brought the blur into sharp focus and shows how as one Palestinian said to him, hatred was ´planted´ Read more [...] Comments Off on Sacco, Joe. Footnotes in Gaza. 2009. Metropolitan Books. Henry Holt and Company. New York, USA.
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Rubin, Jeff. WHY YOUR WORLD IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT SMALLER: Oil and the end of globalization. Random House Canada. 2009.
“There is little we can do to prevent oil prices from recovering to ever new highs in the future…We have to change the basic equation that ties our oil consumption to our economy.”
A Toronto economist for CIBC, Rubin is hardly a flaming radical but he has a clear understanding and an original and optimistic view on how we, the greedy energy consumers of the world, will survive the shortage and rising inevitable price of petroleum. Never mind that we have enormous reserves of oil and natural gas in Canada – we blithely signed away control Read more [...]
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Rozak, Theodore. The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science. Green Books, Totnes, Devon, UK. 2000.
Very original discussion of nuclear physics, scientific research linked to a personal journey to Switzerland following the trail of early sci-fi writer, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
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Roy, Arundhati. The Cost of Living. Modern Library Paperback Editions. New York, USA. 1999.
The brilliant novelist, author of The God of Small Things, turns her talent and commitment to local and global politics. In the Cost of Living she exposes dam-building and nuclear weapons as expression of political domination and betrayal of people and the environment. POWER POLITICS. South End Press, USA is her recent impassioned exposure of global war and oppression.
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