No Logo - Naomi Klein Extract

In No Logo, Klein patiently demonstrates, step by step, how brands have become ubiquitous, not just in media and on the street but increasingly in the schools as well. The global companies claim to support diversity but their version of "corporate multiculturalism" is merely intended to create more buying options for consumers.

Klein also looks at the workers who keep these companies running, most of whom never share in any of the great rewards. Those clerks should probably just be grateful they're not stuck in an Asian sweatshop, making pennies an hour to produce Nike sneakers or other must-have fashion items. Klein also discusses at some length the tactic of hiring "permatemps" who can do most of the work and receive few, if any, benefits like health care, paid vacations or stock options.

But resistance is growing and the backlash against the brands has set in. Street-level education programmes have taught kids in the inner cities, for example, not only about Nike's abusive labour practices but about the astronomical mark-up in their prices. Boycotts have commenced: as one urban teen put it, "Nike, we made you. We can break you". But there's more to the revolution, as Klein optimistically recounts: "Ethical shareholders, culture jammers, street reclaimers, McUnion organisers, human-rights hacktivists, school-logo fighters and Internet corporate watchdogs are at the early stages of demanding a citizen-centred alternative to the international rule of the brands ... as global, and as capable of co-ordinated action, as the multinational corporations it seeks to subvert".

The book focuses on branding, and often makes connections with the anti-globalization movement. Throughout the four parts (No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, and No Logo), Klein writes about sweatshops (also known as Export processing zone-EPZ) in the Americas and Asia, culture jamming, corporatecensorship, Reclaim the Streets, and much more. She pays special attention to the deeds (and alleged misdeeds) of Nike, McDonalds, Shell, and Microsoft and their lawyers, contractors, and advertising agencies.

Go Further - A Guide to Simple Organic Living

The book explores the idea that the single individual is the key to large-scale transformational change. It follows actor Woody Harrelson as he takes a small group of friends on a bio-fuelled bus-ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. Their goal? To show the people they encounter that there are viable alternatives to our habitual, environmentally-destructive behaviors.

The travellers include a yoga-teacher, a raw food chef, a hemp-activist, a junk-food addict, and a college student who suspends her life to impulsively hop aboard.

We meet an entrepreneur who runs a paper company that does not harm trees; an organic farmer who believes Nature is his partner; a man who teaches environmental activists to use humor as a strategic weapon.

And throughout, we see Harrelson test his belief that the transformation of our planet begins with the small personal transformations that are within the grasp of each and every one of us, after which… we’ll go further. A must read.

Small is Beautiful - E.F. Schumacher

First published in 1973, this controversial study looks at the economic structure of the western world in a revolutionary way. Schumacher maintains that man's current pursuit of profit and progress, which promotes giant organizations and increased specialization, has in fact resulted in gross economic inefficiency, environmental pollution and inhumane working conditions. He challenges the doctrine of economic, technological and scientific specialization, and proposes a system of intermediate technology, based on smaller working units, communal ownership and regional workplaces, utilizing local labour and resources.

Enormously broad in scope, pithily threads from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology.Schumacher makes economics come alive with wit, humor, and practicality. His approach is qualitative, not quantitative. A recurring statement throughout the book epitomizes his philosophy, "Why use the computer if you can make the calculation on the back of an envelope"? He gives the science a personality when identifying the disparities between the rich and poor, the educated and uneducated, and the gap between city people and country-folk.

Small is Beautiful created a humanistic economics movement. It's a wholistic approach containing ethical, ecological, and metaphysical components that are missing from the statistical models that solely measure GNP. Schumacher sounded the alarm regarding globalization when asking "how much further 'growth' will be possible, since infinate growth in a finite environment is an obvious impossibility". He was critical of a society that generates unbounded materialism, and motivated by greed and envy.

Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky   Extract

Contrary to the usual image of the press as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in its search for truth, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky depict how an underlying elite consensus largely structures all facets of the news. They skilfully dissect the way in which the marketplace and the economics of publishing significantly shape the news.

They reveal how issues are framed and topics chosen, and contrast the double standards underlying accounts of free elections, a free press, and governmental repression between Nicaragua and El Salvador; between the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the American invasion of Vietnam; between the genocide in Cambodia under a pro-American government and genocide under Pol Pot. What emerges from this groundbreaking work is an account of just how propagandistic our mass media are, and how we can learn to read them and see their function in a radically new way.

The Age of Consent - George Monbiot

All over our planet, the rich get richer while the poor are overtaken by debt and disaster. The world is run not by its people but by a handful of unelected or underelected executives who make the decisions on which everyone else depends: concerning war, peace, debt, development and the balance of trade. Without democracy at the global level, the rest of us are left with no means of influencing these men but to shout abuse and hurl ourselves at the lines of police defending their gatherings and decisions. Does it have to be this way?

George Monbiot knows not only that things ought to change, but also that they can change. Drawing on decades of thinking about how the world is organized and administered politically, fiscally and commercially, Monbiot has developed an interlocking set of proposals all his own, which attempts nothing less than a revolution in the way the world is run. If these proposals become popular, never again will people be able to ask of the critics of the existing world order, "we know what they don't want, but what do they want?"

Fiercely controversial and yet utterly persuasive, the ingenious solutions Monbiot suggests for some of the planet's most pressing problems mark him as perhaps the most realistic utopian of our time and a man whose passion is infectious and whose ideas, many will surely come to agree, are becoming irresistible.

Globalization and its Discontents - Joseph Stiglitz

Readers of Globalization and Its Discontents will already be familiar with the controversy and organised resistance that globalisation has generated around the world due to massive media coverage, yet explaining what globalisation actually means in practice is a complicated task. For those wanting to learn more, this book is an excellent place to start. An experienced economist, Joseph Stiglitz had a brilliant career in academia before serving for four years on President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors and then three years as chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank. His book clearly explains the functions and powers of the main institutions that govern globalisation--the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization--along with the ramifications, both good and bad, of their policies. He strongly believes that globalisation can be a positive force around the world, particularly for the poor, but only if the IMF, World Bank and WTO dramatically alter the way they operate, beginning with increased transparency and a greater willingness to examine their own actions closely. Of his time at the World Bank, he writes, "Decisions were made on the basis of what seemed a curious blend of ideology and bad economics, dogma that sometimes seemed to be thinly veiling special interests ... Open, frank discussion was discouraged--there was no room for it." The book is not entirely critical, however: "Those who vilify globalization too often overlook its benefits," Stiglitz writes, explaining how globalisation, along with foreign aid, has improved the living standards of millions around the world. With this clear and balanced book, Stiglitz has contributed significantly to the debate on this important topic.

The Corporation - Joel Bakan

Joel Bakan is Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia and an internationally renowned legal authority. The Corporation is a slim handbook telling you everything you need to know about corporate power in six short, easily accessible chapters, accompanying one of the most powerful and engaging documentaries of the year. He starts by describing how the corporation rose from humble beginnings to become the world’s most dominant institution—an institution that determines what we eat, watch, wear, where we work and what we do. To understand how the corporation acquired such monumental power one need only look at how, over time, this institution managed to shake off its legal constraints, and with it, any compelling need to behave as a moral entity. The law has granted the corporation the status of a ‘person’ and as such, Bakan argues, it should be recognized for what it truly is: a psychopath. In fact the central message of the book is to soberly reveal the fact that the corporation has a legally defined mandate to relentlessly pursue—without exception—its own self-interest regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause to others. Lying, stealing, killing are not rare aberrations but the duty of the corporation when it serves the interests of its shareholders to do so.

Bakan also makes a key distinction between the (often decent) people who work for corporations and the unique structure of imperatives that direct the actions of every person within it. He explains the nature and discusses the implications of its pathological character and follows this up with a discussion of its increasing power over society. The book draws much of its authority from original interviews with players from the corporate world, pundits who analyse it and critics who highlight its dangers and propose solutions. The final chapter considers what should and can be done to mitigate its potential to cause harm. Bakan argues that however much power the corporation has acquired—and despite the apparent powerlessness of governments to control the beast—it still remains our own creation that depends upon the law for its continued existence. The law has made it what it is and the law can and must be used to control it. It would be a mistake therefore, he argues, to assume that the power of popular protest alone can help us and an even bigger mistake to believe that corporations can become socially aware moral entities that put the good of the environment, the community, the people before the generation of profit. Above all, we must realize that the corporation and its underlying ideology are animated by a narrow and destructive conception of human nature that contradicts our hard won values of democracy, social justice, equality and compassion. Bakan’s book is clearly written, easily accessible and irresistible in its general analysis. A must read, not merely for those interested in the business world, but—since the pathological values of the corporation are determining the kind of world we have today—for everyone.

50 Facts That Should Change The World

A shocking, eye-opening look at what is really going on in the world today. The cold statistics are so severe they speak for themselves, yet each one is elaborated upon with several pages explaining why the stark reality of the statistic has come to be, and what can be done about it. Figures such as 'black men born in the US today stand a one in three chance of going to jail' and 'children living in poverty are three times more likely to suffer a mental illness than children from wealthy families' don't lie - and the needed efforts to change these figures would transform life as we know it, if only more people would become aware and take action.

Straw Dogs - John Gray

Thgouhts on humans and other animals.

John Gray's Straw Dogs attempts to present a world view in which humans are not central and which argues against the humanist belief in progress. The heart of the book is summed up in the idea that modern humanists have still not come to terms with Darwin, still not come to terms with the idea that humans are like other animals. Christians and modern humanists in the Platonic-Cartesian tradition typically think of humans enjoying a special relationship to God, or a special status in nature in a way that other animals do not. Even the great debunkers--philosophers such as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Heidegger--end up making human beings the centre of things or the end point of some world-historical process. By contrast, in a Taoist, Shinto, Hindu or animist culture Darwin's discovery would have been easily accommodated since these faiths see humans and other animals as kin.

Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser

Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe. Rates of obesity and food poisoning spiral upwards, but it seems we just can’t get enough of those tasty burgers and fries.

This myth-shattering book tells the story of America and the world’s infatuation with fast food, from its origins in 1950s southern California to the global triumph of a handful of burger and fried chicken chains. In a meticulously researched and powerfully argued account, Eric Schlosser visits the labs where scientists re-create the smell and taste of everything - from cooked meat to fresh strawberries; talks to the workers at abattoirs with some of the worst safety records in the world; explains exactly where the meat comes from and just why the fries taste so good; and looks at the way the fast food industry is transforming not only our diet but our landscape, economy, workforce and culture.

Both funny and terrifying, Fast Food Nation will make you think, but more than that, it might make you realize you don’t want a quick bite after all.

Who Owes Who? - Damien Millet et al

The huge foreign debt of developing countries has become a mechanism of domination and means of recolonization that prevents any meaningful and sustainable human development. The policies pursued by the indebted countries' governments have usually been decided by their creditors rather than by the authorities of the countries concerned. As for the initiative to lighten the debt burden, launched with much fanfare by the G7, the IMF and the World Bank under pressure from the largest ever petition in human history, it has made clear its limits.

Using 50 questions and answers, this book explains in a simple but precise manner how and why the debt impasse for developing countries has been arrived at. Illustrated with figures, maps and tables, it details the roles of the various actors involved, the mesh in which indebted countries are caught, the possible scenarios for getting out of the impasse and the various alternatives to future indebtedness. It also sets out the various arguments - moral, political, economic, legal and environmental - on which the case for a wholesale cancellation of developing countries' external debt rests. It replies to the range of possible objections and proposes new ways of financing development at both local and international level.

Not On the Label - Felicity Lawrence

That half the chicken on sale in UK supermarkets is contaminated with campylobacter, which causes food poisoning? That much of the chicken we eat has been illicitly injected with pork and beef proteins? That ready-to-eat bagged salad has been washed in a solution of chlorine twenty times stronger than that of a swimming pool; that the processing destroys the vitamin content; that in one government study 13.5% of bagged salads were found to contain E coli bacteria? That perhaps 30% of the workforce in the food industry is in the UK illegally, controlled by a violent mafia-style network of gangmasters and paid far less than the minimum wage?

That the average Briton has between 300 and 500 chemicals in their body not present 50 years ago, many of which are capable of hormone disruption in the womb? That the incidence of obesity in the UK trebled between 1980 and 1998 to 21% of women and 17% of men. Almost one third of children are obese or overweight? That 30-40% of cancers could be prevented through better diet?

A devastating expose of the state of the food production industry in Britain, Not On The Label will change the way we eat and the way we think about what we eat. Looking at some of our most popular foods, the author sytematically exposes their production and marketing, showing how the food industry causes ill health, environmental damage, urban blight - and starves smallholders in Africa and Asia, and exploits illegal labourers in Britain.

Culture & Imperialism - Edward Said

Edward Said makes one of the strongest cases ever for the aphorism, "the pen is mightier than the sword." This is a brilliant work of literary criticism that essentially becomes political science. Culture and Imperialism demonstrates that Western imperialism's most effective tools for dominating other cultures have been literary in nature as much as political and economic. He traces the themes of 19th- and 20th-century Western fiction and contemporary mass media as weapons of conquest and also brilliantly analyzes the rise of oppositional indigenous voices in the literatures of the "colonies." Said would argue that it's no mere coincidence that it was a Victorian Englishman, Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, who coined the phrase "the pen is mightier . . ." Very highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand how cultures are dominated by words, as well as how cultures can be liberated by resuscitating old voices or creating new voices for new times.

From Jane Austen to Salman Rushdie, and from Yeats to the news coverage of the Gulf War, this is broad account of the roots of imperialism in European culture, and an analysis of the impact of 19th-century British and French imperialism on the culture of the period. The author focuses on the way in which this cultural legacy has embedded itself in the Western view of the East, and affects our relationship with the once-colonized world at all levels, both social and political.

Tell Me No Lies - John Pilger

At a time when journalism is under attack as never before, "Tell Me No Lies" could not be more timely. It is a celebration of the very best investigative journalism, and some of the greatest practitioners of the craft: Seymour Hersh on the My Lai massacre; Paul Foot on the Lockerbie cover-up; Wilfred Burchett, the first Westerner to enter Hiroshima following the atomic bombing; Israeli journalist Amira Hass, reporting from the Gaza Strip in the 1990s; Gunter Wallraff, the great German undercover reporter; Jessica Mitford on 'The American Way of Death'; and, Martha Gelhorn on the liberation of the death camp at Dachau. The book, a selection of articles, broadcasts, and books extracts that revealed important and disturbing truths, ranges from across many of the critical events, scandals and struggles of the past fifty years. Along the way it bears witness to epic injustices committed against the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and Palestine. John Pilger sets each piece of reporting in its context and introduces the collection with a passionate essay arguing that the kind of journalism he celebrates here is being subverted by the very forces that ought to be its enemy. Taken as a whole, the book tells an extraordinary 'secret history' of the modern era. It is also a call to arms to journalists everywhere - before it is too late.

No Nonsense Guides

This series simply makes sense of the most complex global issues. The books include many graphs and charts and provide a quick introduction to key subjects. All are written in plain language, and are ideal for students and libraries. In partnership with the New Internationalist.

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