Z Books
Recent Z Books
Marqusee: Street Music
Nov 02, 2012
A new book of more than 60 poems written between 2009-2012, with a prose introduction by the author.
McElroy: Dissenting Electorate
Oct 14, 2012
"Dissenting Electorate: Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of Their Opposition" BOOK DESCRIPTION: It's the same message every election year: "Get out and vote--It's your civic duty." Those who audit the sound bites of the candidates, read headlines about the debates and finally pull the lever at their local precinct are touted as moral, upstanding citizens; those who find among the candidates no agreeable representative, no platform worthy of espousal, and who then refuse to turn out on election day, on the other hand, are labeled apathetic and the legitimacy of their opposition is denied. This book is an anthology of articles and excerpts from a variety of sources that deal with the topic of nonvoting. In presenting the minority view that important moral and political reasons abound for not voting, the book unfolds four general arguments: voting is implicitly a coercive act because it lends support to a compulsory state; voting reinforces the legitimacy of the state; and existing nonpolitical, voluntarist alternatives better serve society. Many people do not agree with the concept of nonvoting--but the serious and well thought through underpinnings of such a belief are of crucial importance to an understanding of modern American politics. LINK http://www.amazon.com/Dissenting-Electorate-Refuse-Legitimacy-Opposition/dp/078640874X
Morgan: Mass Media and the Mythical "Sixties"
Jan 27, 2012
The book provides systematic documentation of the way mass media covered social movements of the 1960s era, how that coverage influenced the trajectory of the 60s and produced the images, texts, personalities and framing that were heavily used by both the (rightist and corporate) forces of backlash and the forces of commercial exploitation by entertainment and consumption media, thus facilitating the turn to the neo-liberal world we live in today --with its erosive and manipulative political discourse.
Mcchesney: The Political Economy of Media
Nov 08, 2011
More than any other work, The Political Economy of Media demonstrates the incompatibility of the corporate media system with a viable democratic public sphere, and the corrupt policymaking process that brings the system into existence. Among the most acclaimed communication scholars in the world, Robert W. McChesney has brought together all the major themes of his two decades of research. Rich in detail, evidence, and thoughtful arguments, The Political Economy of Media provides a comprehensive critique of the degradation of journalism, the hyper-commercialization of culture, the Internet, and the emergence of the contemporary media reform movement. The Political Economy of Media is mandatory reading for anyone wishing to understand and change media, and the political economy, in the world today. As Chomsky is to linguistics, Ben & Jerry’s to ice cream, and Elvis to shaking one’s hips, McChesney is to media analysis. He is the King: there is no one more definitive. —Danny Schechter, founder of MediaChannel.org McChesney’s work has been of extraordinary importance. It should be read with care and concern by people who care about freedom and basic rights. —Noam Chomsky Robert McChesney follows in the great tradition of Upton Sinclair, George Seldes, I.F. Stone, and Ben Bagdikian in exposing the ruthless hold of corporate power on the nations media. —Howard Zinn As with all his prior works, this new volume demonstrates McChesney’s signal strengths as America’s leading critic and historian of the media: unrivaled erudition across several disciplines; a bracing theoretical lucidity; and – not least – a blunt and lively style, enlivened by a killer sense of humor. This book, in short, is a must-read not just for all admirers of McChesney’s work, but for everyone concerned about the global sway of the commercial media, and keen to put a stop to it at last. —Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at NYU Author of Fooled Again Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Communication Revolution, The Problem of the Media, and Rich Media, Poor Democracy.
Marcuse: ODM
Jun 15, 2011
Despite its pessimism, it influenced many in the New Left as it articulated their growing dissatisfaction with both capitalist societies and Soviet communist societies.
Myers: African Cities
Apr 14, 2011
Cities in Africa are still either ignored or held up as examples of all that can go wrong with urbanism. This book uses the author's own research, and works by other scholars, to help illuminate what is happening in and across the region's cities.
McKibben: Eaarth
Apr 12, 2011
"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara Kingsolver Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth. That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer. Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
Millet: Debt, the IMF and the World Bank
Apr 12, 2011
Mainstream economists tell us that developing countries will replicate the economic achievements of the rich countries if they implement the correct “free-market” policies. But scholars and activists Toussaint and Millet demonstrate that this is patently false. Drawing on a wealth of detailed evidence, they explain how developed economies have systematically and deliberately exploited the less-developed economies by forcing them into unequal trade and political relationships. Integral to this arrangement are the international economic institutions ostensibly created to safeguard the stability of the global economy—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—and the imposition of massive foreign debt on poor countries. The authors explain in simple language, and ample use of graphics, the multiple contours of this exploitative system, its history, and how it continues to function in the present day. Ultimately, Toussaint and Millet advocate cancellation of all foreign debt for developing countries and provide arguments from a number of perspectives—legal, economic, moral. Presented in an accessible and easily—referenced question and answer format, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank is an essential tool for the global justice movement. “As this fine study demonstrates, the debt that is strangling the world is largely an ideological fiction, devised in the service of wealth and power, without legitimacy or moral force. The authors unravel the layers of deceit and distortion that conceal the ugly reality with skill and precision, and provide an important tool for liberating the mass of suffering people who are caught in its shackles.” —Noam Chomsky
Marable: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
Apr 04, 2011
Years in the making-the definitive biography of the legendary black activist. Of the great figure in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man. In death he became a broad symbol of both resistance and reconciliation for millions around the world. Manning Marable's new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement. Filled with new information and shocking revelations that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America, from the rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties. Reaching into Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents' activism through his own engagement with the Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the never-before-told true story of his assassination. Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of the most singular forces for social change, capturing with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.
Milstein: Anarchism and Its Aspirations
Mar 23, 2011
From nineteenth-century newspaper publishers to the participants in the "battle of Seattle" and the recent Greek uprising, anarchists have been inspired by the ideal of a free society of free individuals-a world without hierarchy or domination.
Mackeen: Why You're Being Robbed
Mar 10, 2011
"All a fellow needs to know is he is robbed" - Miner Greely Clack
Muscio: Rose
Mar 01, 2011
With trademark precision and razor-sharp wit, Inga Muscio explores the impacts of passive violence, abuse, war, and cultural trauma on our most intimate lives in order to uncover a path toward healthy and imaginative sex and love.
Marais: South Africa Pushed to the Limit
Jan 13, 2011
South Africa Pushed to the Limit shows that although the legacies of apartheid and colonialism weigh heavy, many of the strategic choices made since the early 1990s have compounded those handicaps
Morgan: Mass Media vs. Democracy
Nov 18, 2010
What Really Happened to the 1960s traces the transformation of the American civic culture from the rise of hopeful grass-roots social movements in the 1950s and 60s to the present day. Focusing on structural characteristics of mass media, the book argues that, aided by distortions and conventional interpretations of 1960s era social movements, the media culture has subverted democracy while facilitating an era of unfettered consumer capitalism.
McQuaig: Behind Closed Doods
Sep 09, 2010
My father worked for Revenue Canada as an Senior Auditor and as children, we were taught all about "equitable taxation". In the last 40 years, the rich have donated millions to get MP's and MPP's elected that gives the rich and corporations access to committe's that have enfluenced a once equitable taxation system in Canada to a taxation system that the rich and corporations now control.
Milne: The Enemy Within
Aug 13, 2010
Margaret Thatcher branded Arthur Scargill and the other leaders of the 1984-5 miners' strike ;'the enemy within'. With the publication of this bestselling book a decade later, the full irony of that accusation became clear. There was an enemy within. But it was not the National Union of Mineworkers that was out to subvert liberty. It was the secret services of the British state - operating inside the NUM itself.
Mokhiber: Corporate Predators
Aug 12, 2010
How are corporations tightening their grip on the global political economy? How does this affect you?
Montgomery: Workers' Control in America
Aug 12, 2010
David Montgomry, a leading American historian and former CP trade unionist, provides classic historical essays from a shop-floor and syndicalist sort of approach.
Marfleet: Egypt
Oct 10, 2009
This book is the first for over 20 years to comprehensively and accesibly examine contemporary issues in Egypt
Mészáros: The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time: Socialism in the ...
Aug 11, 2009
A wonderfully cogent and highly readable account of the structural crisis faced by Capital and the urgent necessity of developing the emerging socialist alternatives to its rule.
