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Fredric Jameson
The Project of Dialectical Criticism
Robert T. Tally
Pluto Press, 2014

Fredric Jameson is the most important Marxist critic in the world today. While consistently operating at the cutting edge of literary and cultural studies, Jameson has remained committed to seemingly old-fashioned philosophical discourses, most notably dialectical criticism and utopian thought.

In Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism, Robert Tally surveys Jameson’s entire oeuvre, from his early studies of Sartre and formal criticism through his engagements with postmodernism and globalisation to his recent readings of Hegel, Marx and the valences of the dialectic.

The book is both a comprehensive critical guide to Jameson’s theoretical project and itself a convincing argument for the power of dialectical criticism to understand the world today.

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Bukharin's Theory of Equilibrium
A Defence of Historical Materialism
Kenneth J. Tarbuck
Pluto Press, 1989

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Network Culture
Politics for the Information Age
Tiziana Terranova
Pluto Press, 2004

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When Protest Becomes Crime
Politics and Law in Liberal Democracies
Carolijn Terwindt
Pluto Press, 2019
How does protest become criminalised? Applying an anthropological perspective to political and legal conflicts, Carolijn Terwindt urges us to critically question the underlying interests and logic of prosecuting protesters. The book draws upon ethnographic research in Chile, Spain, and the United States to trace prosecutorial narratives in three protracted contentious episodes in liberal democracies. Terwindt examines the conflict between Chilean landowners and the indigenous Mapuche people, the Spanish state and the Basque independence movement, and the United States' criminalisation of 'eco-terrorists.' Exploring how patterns and mechanisms of prosecutorial narrative emerge through distinct political, social and democratic contexts, Terwindt shines a light on how prosecutorial narratives in each episode changed significantly over time. Challenging the law and justice system and warning against relying on criminal law to deal with socio-political conflicts, Terwindt's observations have implications for a wide range of actors and constituencies, including social movement activists, scholars, and prosecutors.
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The Five Health Frontiers
A New Radical Blueprint
Christopher Thomas
Pluto Press, 2022
'A brilliant exposé' - Danny Dorling

Covid-19 has exposed the limits of a neoliberal public health orthodoxy. But instead of imagining radical change, the left is stuck in a rearguard action focused on defending the NHS from the wrecking ball of privatization.

Public health expert Christopher Thomas argues that we must emerge from Covid-19 on the offensive - with a bold, new vision for our health and care. He maps out five new frontiers for public health and imagines how we can move beyond safeguarding what we have to a radical expansion of the principles put forward by Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS, over 70 years ago.

Beyond recalibrating our approach to healthcare services, his blueprint includes a fundamental redesign of our economy through Public Health Net Zero; a bold new universal public health service fit to address the real causes of ill health; and a major recalibration in the efforts against the epidemiological reality of an era of pandemics.
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William Godwin
A Political Life
Richard Gough Thomas
Pluto Press, 2019
“Government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of original mind”—William Godwin
 
William Godwin was the first major anarchist thinker in the Anglophone world, and his thought rocked the establishment at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Famously married to Mary Wollstonecraft, father to Mary Shelley, and inspiration to Lord Byron, he lived a life and created a body of work that lie at the heart of British radicalism and romanticism.
                        In this biography, Richard Gough Thomas reads Godwin afresh, drawing on newly discovered letters and journals. He situates Godwin’s early life in the counterculture of eighteenth-century religious dissent, before moving on to exploring the ideas of the French Revolution. As Godwin's groundbreaking works propelled him from Whig party hack to celebrity philosopher, his love affair with Mary Wollstonecraft saw him ostracized in both liberal and conservative circles.
                        Godwin's anarchism always remained at the center of his work, Thomas shows, inspiring libertarians, both left- and right-wing. This biography places Godwin alongside the other members of his famous family as a major political, ethical, and educational writer and shows why a reappraisal of his ideas is pertinent today.
 
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The Media and the Rwanda Genocide
Allan Thompson
Pluto Press, 2007
The news media played a crucial role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Local media fueled the killings, while international media either ignored or seriously misunderstood what was happening.



This is the first book to explore both sides of the media equation. Examining how local radio was used as a tool of hate, encouraging neighbors to turn against each other, the book also presents a critique of international media coverage. Bringing together local reporters, high-profile Western journalists, and leading media theorists, this is the only book to identify the extent of the media's accountability. It also examines deliberations by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the role of the media in the genocide. This book is a startling record of the negative influence that the media can have. The authors put forward suggestions for the future, outlining how we can avoid censorship and propaganda and they argue for a new responsibility in media reporting.

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Rubbish Theory
The Creation and Destruction of Value - Second Edition
Michael Thompson
Pluto Press, 2017
How do objects that are worth little to nothing become valuable? Who is behind the creation of value, and which types of people find value and comfort in transient, durable, and rubbish objects?
 
When his highly influential Rubbish Theory, first published in 1979, Michael Thompson launched the discipline of waste studies. It remains the most comprehensive analysis on the culture of waste to date. Thompson argues that there are two mutually exclusive cultural categories that are socially imposed on the world of objects: a transient category and a durable category. However, he identifies a region of flexibility, wherein a transient object that declines in value and life span can linger in a valueless and timeless limbo of rubbish, until it is discovered by a creative individual and transferred into something deemed durable. He links stability and change on one hand, with materiality on the other, providing a rich analysis of social and cultural dynamics. His instrumental theory of rubbish draws on case studies and anthropological fieldwork to highlight the ever-changing subtleties of object value and our complex relationship to waste.
 
Bringing Rubbish Theory back into print, this updated edition includes a new introduction, preface, foreword, and afterword, thoroughly exploring how Thompson’s key theories have affected our world in the four decades since it was first published and placing it in a contemporary context that shines light on the continued relevance of the book today. 
 
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Ideologies in the Age of Extremes
Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism, Fascism 1914-1991
Willie Thompson
Pluto Press, 2010

This is a history of political ideologies during the period famously described by Eric Hobsbawn as ‘The Age of Extremes’ - from the First World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ideologies in the Age of Extremes introduces the key ideologies of the age; liberalism, conservatism, communism and fascism. Willie Thompson identifies the political influence of mass movements as a key feature. He uses a powerful approach that considers the different ideologies in relation to each other. This allows him to shows that they often emerged from a common root or merged into a common future, stealing each other’s clothes and reinventing themselves as the stark opposite of a competing ideology.

This sophisticated yet accessible analysis will be of great interest to students of 20th century history and political theory.

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Work, Sex, and Power
The Forces that Shaped Our History
Willie Thompson
Pluto Press, 2015
This is the history of the world, from the origins of the Cosmos to the present day, seen through three major narratives: work, sex and power - the forces that have done more than any other to shape the world as we see it now.

It expertly explores the foundations of our developing society by showing how these grand themes have recurred throughout the various phases of global history. From communities of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, through feudalism and onto the capitalistic machine-civilisation of recent centuries, Willie Thompson takes us on a journey that is fundamentally opposed to mainstream histories which concentrate on monarchs, politicians and military commanders.

At the centre of this book lies the interaction between humans and their environment. By exploring history in this way, it reveals a simple yet powerful materialist understanding of how we got to where we are today, and opens a door to a different reading of our world.
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Outsourced Empire
How Militias, Mercenaries and Contractors Support US Statecraft
Andrew Thomson
Pluto Press, 2018
The way that imperial power is enacted around the world today has changed, but it has received little attention. Outsourced Empire aims to change that, re-evaluating the history of empire from the Cold War to the present by looking at the influence of para-state actors. A para-state is a region that seeks or claims, but does not officially have, the status of an independent state. From the Guatemalan coup to the Bay of Pigs, from Syrian rebel factions to the Soviet-Afghan War, Andrew Thomson pulls together seemingly disparate events and groups to reveal the ways that para-states have become central to US imperialism, enabling the United States to influence political and economic conditions abroad in secret. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including US training manuals, CIA communiqués, and National Security Agency archives, Thomson reveals the hidden workings of contemporary empire.
 
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Beyond Occupation
Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Virginia Tilley
Pluto Press, 2012

Beyond Occupation looks at three contentious terms that regularly arise in contemporary arguments about Israel's practices towards Palestinians in the occupied territories – occupation, colonialism and apartheid – and considers whether their meanings in international law truly apply to Israel's policies. This analysis is timely and urgent – colonialism and apartheid are serious breaches of human rights law and apartheid is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The contributors present conclusive evidence that Israel’s administration of the Palestinian territories is consistent with colonialism and apartheid, as these regimes are defined in human rights law. Their analysis further shows that these practices are deliberate Israeli state policies, imposed on the Palestinian civilian population under military occupation.

These findings raise serious implications for the legality and legitimacy of Israel's continuing occupation of the Palestinian territories and the responsibility of the entire international community to challenge practices considered contrary to fundamental values of the international legal order.

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Split
Class Divides Uncovered
Ben Tippet
Pluto Press, 2020
In 1990, John Major hailed 'the classless society'; in 1997, New Labour announced that 'we're all middle class now', yet we live in an age where food banks, pay day lenders and zero-hour contracts proliferate: it's clear that class matters. 

Foregrounding the economic nature of class, Split challenges the idea that class can be reduced to the cultural. From precarious labor to rising debt; from the housing crisis to environmental catastrophe; from an inflated prison population to the welfare state; Ben Tippet traces the class divide at the heart of all exploitation. Myth-busting meritocracy, he exposes the role that tax havens, colonialism and inheritance play in the wealth of the elite. 

Split highlights the potential for a diverse and eclectic working-class bloc to fight back in an age of austerity and uncertainty.
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The Low Cost Planet
Energy and Environmental Problems, Solutions and Costs
David Toke
Pluto Press, 1995

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The State of Islam
Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan
Saadia Toor
Pluto Press, 2011

The State of Islam tells the story of Pakistan through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the global rise of militant Islam.

Unlike existing scholarship on nationalism, Islam and the state in Pakistan, which tends to privilege events in a narrowly-defined ‘political’ realm, Saadia Toor highlights the significance of cultural politics in Pakistan from its origins to the contemporary period. This extra dimension allows Toor to explain how the struggle between Marxists and liberal nationalists was influenced and eventually engulfed by the agenda of the religious right.

Timely and unique, this book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the roots of modern Pakistan and the likely outcome of current power struggles in the country.

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The Latino Question
Politics, Laboring Classes and the Next Left
Rodolfo D Torres
Pluto Press, 2018
In the United States, the number of Latinos struggling in pursuit of the American Dream has never been greater. Millions work towards this ideal each year, only to find themselves trapped in a cycle of debt and labor. The need for a vivid, empirically grounded study on Latino politics, culture, and social issues is more essential now than ever before—The Latino Question fulfills this gap, offering a cutting-edge overview and analysis of the transformative nature of Latino politics in the United States.
 
In a radical alternative to the dominant orthodoxy in Latino political studies, Rodolfo D. Torres, Armando Ibarra, and Alfredo Carlos emphasize the importance of political economy for understanding Latino politics, culture, and social issues. Written in an accessible style, the authors draw from extensive original research and several critical traditions—including Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and Michel Foucault—to make crucial links between socio-economic and culture-based approaches for understanding the politics of race and ethnicity in capitalist society. Notably, they present front-line evidence of how some Mexican communities across America are not only resisting, but also reinventing and transforming the predominant economic ideas. The Latino Question will be essential for anyone hoping to understand the changes in Latino communities in America today.
 
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Wages for Housework
A History of an International Feminist Movement, 1972-77
LastName
Pluto Press, 2018

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The World Bank
A Critical Primer
Eric Toussaint
Pluto Press, 2007

The World Bank is a controversial organisation. It is widely viewed with suspicion, as the international economic arm of the US, in thrall to the President who is responsible for appointing the head of the Bank.

Eric Toussaint gives a highly readable account of just why the World Bank has become so powerful. In short, clear chapters he shows how the bank operates, who funds it, and what it sets out to promote.

The Bank's main purpose is to grant loans to all the newly independent states of the developing world, to help them on their journey to recovery after colonial occupation. In reality, the conditions imposed on these states -- including enforced privatisation of all public services, and enforced neo-liberal rules on trade -- mean that the Bank has become the new colonial authority in everything but name.

This is a perfect book for anyone looking for a critical introduction to the history of the Bank and its role in world affairs.

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A History of Modern Lebanon
Fawwaz Traboulsi
Pluto Press, 2012

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The Empire at Home
Internal Colonies and the End of Britain
James Trafford
Pluto Press, 2021
Modern Britain is forged through the redeployment of structures that facilitated and legitimized slavery, exploitation and extermination. This is the 'empire at home' and it is inseparable from the strategies of neo-colonial extraction and oppression of subjects abroad. Here, James Trafford develops the notion of internal colonies, arguing that methods and structures used in colonial rule are re-deployed internally in contemporary Britain in order to recreate and solidify imperial power relations. Using examples including housing segregation, targeted surveillance and counter-insurgency techniques used in the fight against terrorism, Trafford reveals Britain's internal colonialism to be a reactive mechanism to retain British sovereignty. As politics appears limited by nationalism and protectionism, The Empire at Home issues a powerful challenge to contemporary politics, demanding that Britain as an imperial structure must end.
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Do It Yourself
A Handbook For Changing Our World
Trapese Trapese
Pluto Press, 2007
Do you really want to change the world? If the answer is YES, then this book shows you how.



Leading a sustainable and truly radical life encompasses a whole variety of things that challenge the mainstream. This book shows how we can make real changes to the way we live. In simple steps, it describes how you can create sustainable and equitable ways of living that can help transform not just your own life, but the society around you.



The book weaves together analysis, stories, experiences, and practical guides, examining nine different areas where people are transforming their lives and society---right here and now.



Accessible and informative, this DIY handbook brings alive the rich potential of grassroots activism and shows how we can work together to create just, equitable, and sustainable societies.



Covering everything from cultural activism to health, autonomous spaces, food, alternative media, popular education, and direct action, it shows you how to:

set up a housing cooperative do a workshop on climate change build a passive solar heating system start an independent media project set up a social center make interventions in the urban landscape that are funny and inspiring and lots more!
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The End of Jewish Modernity
Enzo Traverso
Pluto Press, 2016
Jewish modernity flourished between the age of Enlightenment and World War II—and in fact was a major driver of intellectual, scientific, social, literary, and artistic progress in that period. But the age of Jewish modernity is over.
            That’s the argument that historian Enzo Traverso mounts in this provocative book. With great sensitivity and nuance, he teases out the fundamentally conservative turn that the mainstream of Jewish thought has taken in the years since World War II, revealing its roots in the Holocaust and the establishment of the United Nations and Israel as the new poles of Jewish communal life. Building his argument on a highly original reading of Hannah Arendt’s writings on Jewishness and politics, Traverso offers both an elegy to a lost tradition and a damning intellectual history of the present.
 
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Leon Trotsky
Writings in Exile
Leon Trotsky
Pluto Press, 2012

Leon Trotsky was a key political figure of the twentieth century – a leader of the Russian Revolution, founder of the Red Army, author of books on literature, history, morality and politics.

Leon Trotsky: Writings in Exile contains some of his most insightful and penetrating works. Exiled and isolated by Stalin, Trotsky used the only weapon he had left – words. In these writings he defends the 1917 revolution, warns prophetically of fascism and analyses anti-colonial movements in the global south.

This collection gives a sense of the real Trotsky – passionate, humanist, Marxist. It will introduce the writings of one of history's great revolutionaries to a new generation.

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Burma
The Curse of Independence
Shelby Tucker
Pluto Press, 2001
Burma offers the first up-to-date overview and understanding of Burma’s tragic armed conflict in the twentieth century. Examining the ‘causes’ of the war, Shelby Tucker traces the political development of the country from the occupations by the British and Japanese and eventual independence in 1942, through the army coup of 1962 led by Ne Win, which established an authoritarian state, to the pro-democracy movement of the late 1980s. Tucker examines Burma’s drug trade; scrutinises Burma’s civil rights record; examines the role of the Nationalist leader Aung Seng, who attempted to unite the various sections of the population; the impact of Seng’s assassination and subsequent power struggles; and considers the future for a government faced with armed opposition from separatist movements among the ethnic minorities of Burma’s regions.
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The Credit Crunch
Housing Bubbles, Globalisation and the Worldwide Economic Crisis
Graham Turner
Pluto Press, 2008

This book argues that the current financial turmoil signals a crisis in globalisation that will directly challenge the free market economic model.

Graham Turner shows that the housing bubbles in the West were deliberately created to mask the damage inflicted by companies shifting production abroad in an attempt to boost profits. As these bubbles burst, economic growth in many developed countries will inevitably tumble. The Japanese crisis of the 1990s shows that banks and governments may struggle to contain the fallout. The problem has not been limited to the US, UK and Europe: housing bubbles have become endemic across wide swathes of emerging market economies. As the West slides, these countries will see an implosion of their credit bubbles too, shaking their faith in the free market.

Turner is an experienced and successful economic forecaster, whose opinions are sought by large international banks and top financial journalists. Drawing from his first hand experience of the Japanese property crash of the 1990s, he presents his analysis in a clear and persuasive style, showing that the end of housing market growth spells disaster for neoliberal globalisation.

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No Way to Run an Economy
Why the System Failed and How to Put It Right
Graham Turner
Pluto Press, 2009

In The Credit Crunch, Graham Turner predicted that banks would be nationalised and interest rates would be reduced too slowly to halt the crisis. His predictions were correct. His new book, No Way to Run an Economy, is the essential guide to the turbulent times ahead.

Turner recommended radical measures, such as quantitative easing, in early 2008 but argues that action has been taken too late and been too timid to make a real difference. He dissects the policy mistakes of the last 12 months including Obama's doomed market-led response to the crisis and the obsession of central banks with the red herring of inflation.

There is no doubt the economy is still in serious trouble, but Turner shows that learning from the mistakes made so far can prevent a situation worse than that of the 1930s crisis.

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The Politics of Islamophobia
Race, Power and Fantasy
David Tyrer
Pluto Press, 2013

Despite its emblematic place within contemporary racism and its increasingly important position in defining relations between states and ethnicised minorities, Islamophobia remains a contested, frequently unrecognised and largely under-theorised form of racism.

The Politics of Islamophobia provides a definitive contribution to these debates, offering a theoretically sophisticated account which draws upon a series of substantive case studies to position Islamophobia as an expression of racialised governmentality.

By taking into account connections across different national contexts, and by moving beyond the limiting framing of the war on terror which has dominated recent debates, this book offers a new perspective on the study of Islamophobia.

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