front cover of Land of Shame and Glory
Land of Shame and Glory
Britain 2021–22
Peter Hennessy
Haus Publishing, 2023
A compelling account of the transformative changes Britain is facing today, exploring how we can build a post-COVID society.

2021 and 2022 were two of the most turbulent and disruptive years experienced by Britain in peacetime. Land of Shame and Glory: Britain 2021–22 addresses a series of unprecedented challenges that laid bare the fragility of Britain and the Union during this time. Beginning with the chaotic Fall of Kabul, which exposed Britain's military dependence on the United States, through the prolonged, unsatisfying removal of a prime minister—and the economically catastrophic, short-lived tenure of his successor—that further exposed the vulnerabilities of an unwritten constitution; to the country sweltering in record-breaking temperatures amid dire warnings of climate catastrophe; and finally, to the death of a much-loved monarch, who was a point of consistency during decades of tremendous social and technological change. Peter Hennessy considers the continuities and upheavals of the last seventy years, asking whether there can be said to have been a second Elizabethan Age and lamenting that the post-war period came to its close amid such upheaval and loss.
 
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Latin America in the 21st Century
Challenges and Solutions
Edited by Gregory Knapp
University of Texas Press, 2002

This book showcases the achievements of geographers in helping understand and solve major problems facing Latin America. Chapters cover a variety of topics from conservation to transportation to gender. Each chapter is written by an expert in the geography of Latin America. The chapters include case studies of recent problems or issues in Latin America and provide examples of geographic research that has helped illuminate or solve these problems.

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Leonard Cohen
A Novel
Jeffrey Lewis
Haus Publishing, 2024
A man who shares his name with a famous singer must grapple with his identity, purpose, and love.
 

The Leonard Cohen at the center of Leonard Cohen: A Novel is an everyman, a would-be artist, a would-be lover, a would-be tragic figure, yet a man haunted by the greatness of his namesake. He struggles to compete. He struggles to be more than a punchline in his own mind. He struggles, in particular, to write one song as great as the least of the great Leonard Cohen's songs.

At the center of Leonard's life is Daphne. In their meeting on a Greek island, a contemporary fable of Daphne and Apollo plays out. But even with Daphne, Leonard is shadowed by the other Leonard Cohen, whom he fears is the real Apollo. The ancient myth haunts the fated lovers, and the nobody Leonard Cohen’s life becomes at once a mystery, a miracle, and a myth on its own terms. 

Once upon a time, Apollo fell hard for Daphne, who turned herself into a laurel tree. No less a fate awaits the protagonists of this slender yet universal novel, where art, love, and fame all fatefully intertwine.
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London Under Snow
Jordi Llavina, Translated by Douglas Suttle
Fum d'Estampa Press, 2020
London Under Snow is a delicate, compact, mature and profound collection of short stories about winter by Jordi Llavina. Six fragments of different lives in six different moments. In this beautifully written collection, the characters come face to face with their different lives and pasts, all of which are full of ghosts and memories. Sensibility courses through each story, all of them written with a meticulous eye to detail and a careful lyricism that pays tribute to the human condition and the society that we have created.

Bringing winter and Christmas celebrations in a variety of places and cultures to life in a selection of beautifully written short stories, Llavina mixes personal experiences with fictional characters to blur the lines between fiction and reality.
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The Long War on Drugs
Anne L. Foster
Duke University Press, 2023
Since the early twentieth century, the United States has led a global prohibition effort against certain drugs in which production restriction and criminalization are emphasized over prevention and treatment as means to reduce problematic usage. This “war on drugs” is widely seen to have failed, and periodically decriminalization and legalization movements arise. Debates continue over whether the problems of addiction and crime associated with illicit use of drugs stem from their illegal status or the nature of the drugs themselves. In The Long War on Drugs Anne L. Foster explores the origin of the punitive approach to drugs and its continued appeal despite its obvious flaws. She provides a comprehensive overview, focusing not only on a political history of policy developments but also on changes in medical practices and understanding of drugs. Foster also outlines the social and cultural changes prompting different attitudes about drugs; the racial, environmental, and social justice implications of particular drug policies; and the international consequences of US drug policy.
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Losing Control
Global Security in the 21st Century
Paul Rogers
Pluto Press, 2010

When Losing Control was first published a decade ago it was years ahead of its time. Its argument was simple - the real causes of global insecurity were the widening socio-economic divide, global marginalisation and environmental limitations, especially climate change and conflict over energy resources.

Paul Rogers, one of the most original thinkers on international security, pointed to a world in which irregular warfare from the margins would prevent powerful states from maintaining their position. He even predicted accurately how the United States would respond to a catastrophic attack.

The new edition brings the whole analysis right up to date, arguing persuasively that the world’s elite cannot maintain control and that a far more emancipatory and sustainable approach to global security has to be developed.

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Love and Abolition
The Social Life of Black Queer Performance
Alison Rose Reed
The Ohio State University Press, 2022
In Love and Abolition, Alison Rose Reed traces how the social life of Black queer performance from the 1960s to the present animates the unfinished work of abolition. She grounds social justice–oriented reading and activist practices specifically in the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex, with far-reaching implications for how we understand affective response as a mobilizing force for revolutionary change.

Reed identifies abolition literature as an emergent field of inquiry that emphasizes social relationships in the ongoing struggle to dismantle systems of coercion, criminalization, and control. Focusing on love as an affective modality and organizing tool rooted in the Black radical tradition’s insistence on collective sociality amidst unrelenting state violence, Reed provides fresh readings of visionaries such as James Baldwin, Ntozake Shange, Sharon Bridgforth, and vanessa german. Both abolitionist manifesto and examination of how Black queer performance offers affective modulations of tough and tender love, Love and Abolition ultimately calls for a critical reconsideration of the genre of prison literature—and the role of the humanities—during an age of mass incarceration.
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