Reading List: Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri - Empire (PDF)

Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but empire is alive and well. It is, as the authors demonstrate in this work the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognise the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today's empire draws on elements of US constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. This book identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in post-modern society - to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communications and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of post-industrial forms of labour and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, "Empire" is also an utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterise today's world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm - the basis for a truly democratic global society.

MICHAEL HARDT & ANTONIO NEGRI - EMPIRE - PDF

Reading List: Wilhelm Reich - The Mass Psychology of Fascism (PDF)

In this classic study, Reich provides insight into the phenomenon of fascism, which continues to ravage the international community in ways great and small.

Drawing on his medical expereinces with men and women of various classes, races, nations, and religious beliefs, Reich refutes the still generally held notion that fascism is a specific characteristic of certain nationalities or a political party ideology that is imposed on innocent people by means of force or political manneuvers. "Fascism on only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man's character. It is the basic emotional civilization and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life."—Wilhelm Reich

Responsibility for the elimination of fascism thus results with the masses of average people who might otherwise support and champion it.


WILHELM REICH - THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM - PDF

Reading List: William Blum - Killing Hope (PDF)

Killing Hope is an exhaustive yet comprehensible look at U.S and CIA interventions since the Second World War. Offering not only a thorough and complete guide, Bloom's work also succeeds at proving that not a single intervention has resulted in greater autonomy or peace.

Both emotional and extremely well grounded in hard evidence, Killing Hope is an excellent resource for the already well read, and the newly interested alike. Bloom offers background information, as well as deeper insight, and never fails to point out the flaws that have been strategically kept secret within the CIA's own files.

WILLIAM BLUM - KILLING HOPE - PDF

Reading List: Corliss Lamont - The Philosophy of Humanism

Since the earliest days of philosophic reflection in ancient times in both East and West thinkers of depth and acumen have advanced the simple proposition that the chief end of human life is to work for the happiness of humans upon this earth and within the confines of the Nature that is our home. This philosophy of enjoying, developing, and making available
to everyone the abundant material, cultural, and spiritual goods of this natural world is profound in its implications, yet easy to understand and congenial to common sense. This human-centered theory of life has remained relatively unheeded during long periods of history. While it has gone under a variety of names, it is a philosophy that I believe is most accurately designated as Humanism.

CORLISS LAMONT - THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMANISM - PDF

Reading List: Peter Marshall - Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism

"The goal of an egalitarian, communal society has always united Marxists and leftist socialists, some of the latter (often if not always described as anarchists) refusing any truck with centralized power At various times, such ideas have found relatively wide appeal, and this era is one—expressed for instance in the antiglobalization movement's emphases on local control and direct democracy—making Marshall's comprehensive treatment a timely read. Newly revised and updated, this indispensable history of social libertarian thought now reaches into the 21st century—touching upon themes echoed in other recent titles, including Raj Patel's The Value of Nothing. Marshall casts a wide net, gathering all traces of antiauthoritarian socialist thought in works from Lao Tzu through Noam Chomsky, social ecology, and the Zapatistas. Readers will be repeatedly rewarded by Marshall's judiciousness and close readings of both the great names in anarchist history—Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Tolstoy—and less expected contributors—Rousseau, Swift, and Burke. Blowing away cobwebs of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, this is a stimulating portrait of a highly varied but distinctive political ideal, tradition, and practice arising from the enduring human impulse to be free." - Publishers Weekly

@bookdepository.com

Reading List: Daniel Guerin - Anarchism (PDF)

DANIEL GUERIN - ANARCHISM - PDF

Reading List: Karl Marx & Frederick Engels - The Communist Manifesto (PDF + Audiobook)

KARL MARX & FREDERICK ENGELS - THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO - PDF

Reading List: Gene Sharp - From Dictatorship to Democracy (PDF)

Guidebook used in numerous pro-western revolutions around the world


Some of Sharp’s key points are:

-Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want
-Overcome fear by small acts of resistance
-Use colours and symbols to demonstrate unity of resistance
-Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements
-Use non-violent “weapons”
-Identify the dictatorship’s pillars of support and develop a strategy for undermining each
-Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement
-Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence


GENE SHARP - FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY - PDF

Reading List: Smedley D. Butler - War Is a Racket (PDF)

Waris a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

SMEDLEY D. BUTLER - WAR IS A RACKET - PDF