Michael Watts - Böcker

Wracked by poverty, famine, and drought, Africa is typically represented as agriculturally stagnant, backward, and crisis-prone. This text, however, highlights the changing character of sub-Saharan agrarian systems by focusing on contract farming. A relatively new and increasingly widespread way of organising peasant agriculture, contract farming promotes production of a wide variety of crops - from flowers to cocoa, from fresh vegetables to rice - under contract to agribusinesses, exporters, and processers. The proliferation of African growers producing under contract is in fact part of broader changes in the global agro-food system. In this examination of agricultural restructuring and its effect upon various African societies. The editors bring together anthropologists, economists, geographers, political scientists, and sociologists to explore the origins, forms, and consequences of contract production in several African countries, particularly Kenya, the Gambia, Zimbabwe, and the Ivory Coast. Documenting how contract production links farmers, agribusiness, and the state, the contributors examine problematic aspects of this method of agrarian reform. Their case studies, based on long-term field work and analysis at the village and household level, chart the complex effects of contract production on the organisation of work and the labour process, rural inequality, gender relations, labour markets, local accumulation strategies, and regional development. ""Living under Contract"" reveals that contract farming represents a distinctive form in which African growers are incorporated into national and world markets. Contract production, which has been a central feature of the agricultural landscape in the advanced capitalist states, is an emerging strategy for ""capturing peasants"" and for confronting the agrarian question in the late 20th century.

This comprehensive volume advances heterodox reconstructions of agrarian Marxism on the occasion of Marx’s 200th birth anniversary. While Marxists have long criticized ‘populists’ for ignoring capitalism and class, populists have charged Marxists with historical determinism. This ongoing debate has now reached something of an impasse, in part because new empirical work addressing the complex contemporary patterns and conjunctures of global agrarian capitalism offers exciting new horizons, along with new and generative theoretical reconstructions of Marxism itself. This book helps to point the way beyond this impasse, and illustrates that agrarian Marxism remains a dynamic theoretical program that offers powerful insights into agrarian change and politics in the twenty-first century.This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Grassroots movements can pose serious challenges to both governments and corporations. However, grassroots actors possess a variety of motivations, and their visions of development may evolve in complex ways. Meanwhile, their relative powerlessness obliges them to forge an array of shifting alliances and to devise a range of adaptive strategies.Grassroots Environmental Governance presents a compilation of in-depth ethnographic case studies, based on original research. Each of the chapters focuses specifically on grassroots engagements with the agents of various forms of industrial development. The book is geographically diverse, including analyses of groups based in both the global North and South, and represents a range of disciplinary perspectives. This allows the collection to explore themes that cross-cut specific localities and disciplinary boundaries, and thus to generate important theoretical insights into the complexities of grassroots engagements with industry. This volume will be of great interest to scholars of environmental activism, environmental governance, and environmental studies in general.

This comprehensive volume advances heterodox reconstructions of agrarian Marxism on the occasion of Marx’s 200th birth anniversary. While Marxists have long criticized ‘populists’ for ignoring capitalism and class, populists have charged Marxists with historical determinism. This ongoing debate has now reached something of an impasse, in part because new empirical work addressing the complex contemporary patterns and conjunctures of global agrarian capitalism offers exciting new horizons, along with new and generative theoretical reconstructions of Marxism itself. This book helps to point the way beyond this impasse, and illustrates that agrarian Marxism remains a dynamic theoretical program that offers powerful insights into agrarian change and politics in the twenty-first century.This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

In an increasingly global world, societies are being provisioned from a bewildering array of sources as new countries and new food commodities are drawn into international markets. Globalising Food provides an innovative contribution to the area of political economy of agriculture, food and consumption through a revealing investigation of the globalisation and restructuring of localised agricultural sectors and food systems.The book draws on new theoretical perspectives and wide-ranging case studies from Britain, the USA, India, South Africa, New Zealand and Latin America. The key themes addresses range from giant multinational food corporations, rural industrialisation and World Bank policies, to the regulation of pollution, labour relations, urban food politics and environmental sustainability. Globalising Food offers important insights into the problems, consequences and limits of the industrialisation of agriculture and the provisioning of food in a global world as we approach the new millenium.

In an increasingly global world, societies are being provisioned from a bewildering array of sources as new countries and new food commodities are drawn into international markets. Globalising Food provides an innovative contribution to the area of political economy of agriculture, food and consumption through a revealing investigation of the globalisation and restructuring of localised agricultural sectors and food systems.The book draws on new theoretical perspectives and wide-ranging case studies from Britain, the USA, India, South Africa, New Zealand and Latin America. The key themes addresses range from giant multinational food corporations, rural industrialisation and World Bank policies, to the regulation of pollution, labour relations, urban food politics and environmental sustainability. Globalising Food offers important insights into the problems, consequences and limits of the industrialisation of agriculture and the provisioning of food in a global world as we approach the new millenium.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the environment and the future of development continue to be issues of crucial importance. Most explanations of environmental crisis emphasize the role of population growth, thus focusing their attention on the poor. By comparison, Peet and Watts' innovative book elaborates a political-economic explanation drawing from the most recent advances in social theory. This new edition has been extensively revised to reflect recent changes in debates over the real definitions of 'development' and 'environment', and contains nine completely new chapters.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the environment and the future of development continue to be issues of crucial importance. Most explanations of environmental crisis emphasize the role of population growth, thus focusing their attention on the poor. By comparison, Liberation Ecologies elaborates a political-economic explanation drawing from the most recent advances in social theory. The new edition has been extensively revised to reflect recent changes in debates over the real definitions of 'development' and 'environment', and contains nine completely new chapters.

The world is caught in the mesh of a series of environmental crises. So far attempts at resolving the deep basis of these have been superficial and disorganized. Global Political Ecology links the political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of a series of environmental disasters and failed attempts at environmental policies.This critical volume draws together contributions from twenty-five leading intellectuals in the field. It begins with an introductory chapter that introduces the readers to political ecology and summarizes the books main findings. The following seven sections cover topics on the political ecology of war and the disaster state; fuelling capitalism: energy scarcity and abundance; global governance of health, bodies, and genomics; the contradictions of global food; capital’s marginal product: effluents, waste, and garbage; water as a commodity, a human right, and power; the functions and dysfunctions of the global green economy; political ecology of the global climate, and carbon emissions. This book contains accounts of the main currents of thought in each area that bring the topics completely up-to-date. The individual chapters contain a theoretical introduction linking in with the main themes of political ecology, as well as empirical information and case material. Global Political Ecology serves as a valuable reference for students interested in political ecology, environmental justice, and geography.

The world is caught in the mesh of a series of environmental crises. So far attempts at resolving the deep basis of these have been superficial and disorganized. Global Political Ecology links the political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of a series of environmental disasters and failed attempts at environmental policies.This critical volume draws together contributions from twenty-five leading intellectuals in the field. It begins with an introductory chapter that introduces the readers to political ecology and summarizes the books main findings. The following seven sections cover topics on the political ecology of war and the disaster state; fuelling capitalism: energy scarcity and abundance; global governance of health, bodies, and genomics; the contradictions of global food; capital’s marginal product: effluents, waste, and garbage; water as a commodity, a human right, and power; the functions and dysfunctions of the global green economy; political ecology of the global climate, and carbon emissions. This book contains accounts of the main currents of thought in each area that bring the topics completely up-to-date. The individual chapters contain a theoretical introduction linking in with the main themes of political ecology, as well as empirical information and case material. Global Political Ecology serves as a valuable reference for students interested in political ecology, environmental justice, and geography.

This volume provides students with a series of critical insights into the economic, political, social, cultural and ecological dimensions of change at every geographical scale from the global to the local.

Do environmental problems and processes produce violence? Current U.S. policy about environmental conflict and scholarly work on environmental security assume direct causal links between population growth, resource scarcity, and violence. This belief, a staple of governmental decision-making during both Clinton administrations and widely held in the environmental security field, depends on particular assumptions about the nature of the state, the role of population growth, and the causes of environmental degradation.The conventional understanding of environmental security, and its assumptions about the relation between violence and the environment, are challenged and refuted in Violent Environments. Chapters by geographers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists include accounts of ethnic war in Indonesia, petro-violence in Nigeria and Ecuador, wildlife conservation in Tanzania, and "friendly fire" at Russia's nuclear weapons sites. Violent Environments portrays violence as a site-specific phenomenon rooted in local histories and societies, yet connected to larger processes of material transformation and power relations. The authors argue that specific resource environments, including tropical forests and oil reserves, and environmental processes (such as deforestation, conservation, or resource abundance) are constituted by and in part constitute the political economy of access to and control over resources. Violent Environments demands new approaches to an international set of complex problems, powerfully arguing for deeper, more ethnographically informed analyses of the circumstances and processes that cause violence.

"Oil is a fairy tale, and, like every fairy tale, is a bit of a lie."—Ryzard Kapuscinski, Shah of ShahsThe scale and reach of the global oil and gas industry, valued at several trillions of dollars, is almost impossible to grasp. Despite its vast technical expertise and scientific sophistication, the industry betrays a startling degree of inexactitude and empirical disagreement about foundational questions of quantity, output, and price. As an industry typified by concentrated economic and political power, its operations are obscured by secrecy and security. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the social sciences typically approach oil as a metonym—of modernity, money, geopolitics, violence, corruption, curse, ur-commodity—rather than considering the daily life of the industry itself and of the hydrocarbons around which it is built.Subterranean Estates gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts to instead provide a critical topography of the hydrocarbon industry, understood not solely as an assemblage of corporate forms but rather as an expansive and porous network of laborers and technologies, representation and expertise, and the ways of life oil and gas produce at points of extraction, production, marketing, consumption, and combustion. By accounting for oil as empirical and experiential, the contributors begin to demystify a commodity too often given almost demiurgic power. Subterranean Estates shifts critical attention away from an exclusive focus on global oil firms toward often overlooked aspects of the industry, including insurance, finance, law, and the role of consultants and community organizations. Based on ethnographic research from around the world (Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Oman, the United States, Ecuador, Chad, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, and Russia), and featuring a photoessay on the lived experiences of those who inhabit a universe populated by oil rigs, pipelines, and gas flares, this innovative volume provides a new perspective on the material, symbolic, cultural, and social meanings of this multidimensional world.

"Oil is a fairy tale, and, like every fairy tale, is a bit of a lie."—Ryzard Kapuscinski, Shah of ShahsThe scale and reach of the global oil and gas industry, valued at several trillions of dollars, is almost impossible to grasp. Despite its vast technical expertise and scientific sophistication, the industry betrays a startling degree of inexactitude and empirical disagreement about foundational questions of quantity, output, and price. As an industry typified by concentrated economic and political power, its operations are obscured by secrecy and security. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the social sciences typically approach oil as a metonym—of modernity, money, geopolitics, violence, corruption, curse, ur-commodity—rather than considering the daily life of the industry itself and of the hydrocarbons around which it is built.Subterranean Estates gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts to instead provide a critical topography of the hydrocarbon industry, understood not solely as an assemblage of corporate forms but rather as an expansive and porous network of laborers and technologies, representation and expertise, and the ways of life oil and gas produce at points of extraction, production, marketing, consumption, and combustion. By accounting for oil as empirical and experiential, the contributors begin to demystify a commodity too often given almost demiurgic power. Subterranean Estates shifts critical attention away from an exclusive focus on global oil firms toward often overlooked aspects of the industry, including insurance, finance, law, and the role of consultants and community organizations. Based on ethnographic research from around the world (Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Oman, the United States, Ecuador, Chad, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, and Russia), and featuring a photoessay on the lived experiences of those who inhabit a universe populated by oil rigs, pipelines, and gas flares, this innovative volume provides a new perspective on the material, symbolic, cultural, and social meanings of this multidimensional world.

Do environmental problems and processes produce violence? Current U.S. policy about environmental conflict and scholarly work on environmental security assume direct causal links between population growth, resource scarcity, and violence. This belief, a staple of governmental decision-making during both Clinton administrations and widely held in the environmental security field, depends on particular assumptions about the nature of the state, the role of population growth, and the causes of environmental degradation.The conventional understanding of environmental security, and its assumptions about the relation between violence and the environment, are challenged and refuted in Violent Environments. Chapters by geographers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists include accounts of ethnic war in Indonesia, petro-violence in Nigeria and Ecuador, wildlife conservation in Tanzania, and "friendly fire" at Russia's nuclear weapons sites. Violent Environments portrays violence as a site-specific phenomenon rooted in local histories and societies, yet connected to larger processes of material transformation and power relations. The authors argue that specific resource environments, including tropical forests and oil reserves, and environmental processes (such as deforestation, conservation, or resource abundance) are constituted by and in part constitute the political economy of access to and control over resources. Violent Environments demands new approaches to an international set of complex problems, powerfully arguing for deeper, more ethnographically informed analyses of the circumstances and processes that cause violence.

Using both grand conceptualizations and grounded case studies, Allan Pred and Michael Watts look at how people cope with and give meaning to capitalism and modernity in different times and places. As capital accumulation has grown and taken new forms, it has affected technology and labor relations which in turn have affected people's daily lives. These changes have not always been either welcome or easy. Pred and Watts focus on the symbolic discontent and cultural confrontations that accompany capitalism. They depict people struggling over the meaning of change in their lives and over new relations of power.Modernity is experienced differently in different times and places. To illustrate this point, Pred and Watts offer four case studies that range across time and space. These studies remind us that there are multiple capitalisms and mutiple reactions to capitalisms. Watts begins with a study of a Muslim millenarian movement that arose alongside the Nigerian oil boom of the 1970s. When a Muslim prophet and disenfranchised followers tried to create a distinctive community and identity, they came into brutal conflict with state authorities. Thousands died in the resulting oppression. Watts's next case is less bloody, at least in the short run. He tell us what happened when technological change was introduced in rice production in West African peasant society. Peasants were drawn into the world economy as contract farmers. This changed work relations and affected everyday life in peasant households. Families began to fight over who would work and under what conditions. They struggled over gender indentity and property rights. We move back in time and across space for ther third case study. Pred discusses changes in the daily life of the Stockholm working class at the end of the nineteenth century. He writes of the various forms their discontent took as they struggled with economic restructuring. Even conflict over street names took on special meaning. For the last case Pred takes us to a steel mill in California. When a South Korean company became half owner of the mill, there was money for modernization and the threat of layoffs was reduced.  But the workers remained unhappy. They protested low wages, unsafe conditions, and unfair recruitment practices. Their labor issues turned into issues of nationalism, morality and identity. All four case studies demonstrate the shock of modernity and how the resulting struggles affect daily life.

Clarence Glacken wrote one of the most important books on environmental issues published in the twentieth century. His magnum opus, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, first published in 1976, details the ways in which perceptions of the natural environment have profoundly influenced human enterprise over the centuries while, conversely, permitting humans to radically alter the Earth. Although Glacken did not publish a comparable book before his death in 1989, he did write a follow-up collection of essays—lost works now compiled at last in Genealogies of Environmental Thought.This new volume comprises all of Glacken's unpublished writings to follow Traces and covers a broad temporal and geographic canvas, spanning the globe from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Each essay offers a brief intellectual biography of an important environmental thinker and addresses questions such as how many people the Earth can hold, what resources can sustain such populations, and where land for growth is located. This collection—carefully edited and annotated, and organized chronologically—will prove both a classic text and a springboard for further discussions on the history of environmental thought.

Clarence Glacken wrote one of the most important books on environmental issues published in the twentieth century. His magnum opus, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, first published in 1976, details the ways in which perceptions of the natural environment have profoundly influenced human enterprise over the centuries while, conversely, permitting humans to radically alter the Earth. Although Glacken did not publish a comparable book before his death in 1989, he did write a follow-up collection of essays—lost works now compiled at last in Genealogies of Environmental Thought.This new volume comprises all of Glacken's unpublished writings to follow Traces and covers a broad temporal and geographic canvas, spanning the globe from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Each essay offers a brief intellectual biography of an important environmental thinker and addresses questions such as how many people the Earth can hold, what resources can sustain such populations, and where land for growth is located. This collection—carefully edited and annotated, and organized chronologically—will prove both a classic text and a springboard for further discussions on the history of environmental thought.

Grassroots movements can pose serious challenges to both governments and corporations. However, grassroots actors possess a variety of motivations, and their visions of development may evolve in complex ways. Meanwhile, their relative powerlessness obliges them to forge an array of shifting alliances and to devise a range of adaptive strategies.Grassroots Environmental Governance presents a compilation of in-depth ethnographic case studies, based on original research. Each of the chapters focuses specifically on grassroots engagements with the agents of various forms of industrial development. The book is geographically diverse, including analyses of groups based in both the global North and South, and represents a range of disciplinary perspectives. This allows the collection to explore themes that cross-cut specific localities and disciplinary boundaries, and thus to generate important theoretical insights into the complexities of grassroots engagements with industry. This volume will be of great interest to scholars of environmental activism, environmental governance, and environmental studies in general.

THE DICTIONARY OF HUMAN GEOGRAPHY ‘Even better than before, the Dictionary is an essential tool for all human geographers and over the years has provided an invaluable guide to the changing boundaries and content of the discipline. No-one can afford to be without this fifth edition.’ Linda McDowell, University of Oxford ‘From explanations of core concepts and central debates to lucid discussions of the theories driving contemporary research, this is the best conceptual map to the creative and critical thinking that characterises contemporary human geography. The fifth edition belongs on the bookshelf of all serious students.’ Gerard Toal, Virginia Tech ‘With an exceptional balance between breadth and depth, this is undoubtedly a timely and ground-breaking revision of the Dictionary. An outstanding accomplishment of the editors and contributors, and a comprehensive and essential reference for any student or scholar interested in human geography.’ Mei-Po Kwan, Ohio State University ‘I can’t imagine life without it. Definitive, detailed yet accessible: there’s still no single-volume reference work in the field to rival it.’ Noel Castree, University of Manchester The Dictionary of Human Geography represents the definitive guide to issues and ideas, methods and theories in human geography. Now in its fifth edition, this ground-breaking text has been comprehensively revised to reflect the changing nature and practice of human geography and its rapidly developing connections with other fields. The major entries not only describe the development of concepts, contributions and debates in human geography, but also advance them. Shorter, definitional entries allow quick reference and coverage of the wider subject area. Changes to the fifth edition include entries from many new contributors at the forefront of developments in the field, and over 300 key terms appearing for the first time. It features a new consolidated bibliography along with a detailed index and systematic cross-referencing of headwords. The Dictionary of Human Geography continues to be the one guidebook no student, instructor or researcher in the field can afford to be without.

THE DICTIONARY OF HUMAN GEOGRAPHY ‘Even better than before, the Dictionary is an essential tool for all human geographers and over the years has provided an invaluable guide to the changing boundaries and content of the discipline. No-one can afford to be without this fifth edition.’ Linda McDowell, University of Oxford ‘From explanations of core concepts and central debates to lucid discussions of the theories driving contemporary research, this is the best conceptual map to the creative and critical thinking that characterises contemporary human geography. The fifth edition belongs on the bookshelf of all serious students.’ Gerard Toal, Virginia Tech ‘With an exceptional balance between breadth and depth, this is undoubtedly a timely and ground-breaking revision of the Dictionary. An outstanding accomplishment of the editors and contributors, and a comprehensive and essential reference for any student or scholar interested in human geography.’ Mei-Po Kwan, Ohio State University ‘I can’t imagine life without it. Definitive, detailed yet accessible: there’s still no single-volume reference work in the field to rival it.’ Noel Castree, University of Manchester The Dictionary of Human Geography represents the definitive guide to issues and ideas, methods and theories in human geography. Now in its fifth edition, this ground-breaking text has been comprehensively revised to reflect the changing nature and practice of human geography and its rapidly developing connections with other fields. The major entries not only describe the development of concepts, contributions and debates in human geography, but also advance them. Shorter, definitional entries allow quick reference and coverage of the wider subject area. Changes to the fifth edition include entries from many new contributors at the forefront of developments in the field, and over 300 key terms appearing for the first time. It features a new consolidated bibliography along with a detailed index and systematic cross-referencing of headwords. The Dictionary of Human Geography continues to be the one guidebook no student, instructor or researcher in the field can afford to be without.

This book demonstrates alternatives to the lecture and chalkboard approach that dominates the teaching of economics, providing a range of innovative teaching techniques and examples aimed at engaging undergraduates in the learning of economics.The editors provide a brief history of the teaching of economics in higher education, as well as a review of current undergraduate teaching practices. Some of the field's leading educators then demonstrate alternative practices in three main sections: 'Active and Cooperative Learning', 'Writing, the Internet, and Discovery Through Sampling', and 'Examples from the World Around Us'. The topics in the twelve chapters of the book have been carefully selected based on their high potential for adoption by other instructors. Detailed, 'hands-on' examples are included within each chapter, illustrating how suggested approaches can be used in different courses and classroom situations at the undergraduate level. Also included are lists of 'Dos' and 'Dont's' to guide instructors through the successful implementation of activities.This book will be of great practical value to teachers of economics as well as administrators responsible for undergraduate instruction.

This comprehensive and impressive volume presents the first book-length, multi-country investigation of reform of economic education in transition economies. Authors from the West and from transition economies describe the major changes in economics content and instruction that occurred in schools and universities throughout nations in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union from 1989 to 2000. Nine of the chapters discuss specific countries - Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. Other chapters describe reforms in the undergraduate economics curriculum at Moscow State University, Kiev State University, and Belarus State University. One chapter reports the findings from a five-nation study of the effect of economics programs to retrain teachers on the economic understanding of secondary students. Another chapter explains the important role of economic education in creating support for public policy reforms in a nation. The results from multi-national surveys of public attitudes toward economic reforms and the market economy are analyzed in one chapter. The book concludes with an insightful explanation of the major 'change agents' responsible for the reform of academic economics and the teaching of economics in the transition economies.Anyone interested in economic education, transition economies, or educational reform in schools and universities will find this book a unique and fascinating reading.

This fascinating sequel to the 1998 Teaching Economics to Undergraduates provides more alternatives to the lecture and chalkboard approach that dominates university economics teaching. Distinguished contributing authors provide a wide range of innovative teaching techniques and examples aimed at more effectively engaging undergraduates in the learning of economics.New topics covered in this volume include game theory, using active learning techniques in large classes, a streamlined content agenda for macroeconomic principles, distance learning, and assessment of student learning. Other chapters revisit topics from the first volume, though often from different perspectives or with new approaches provided by different authors. Topics covered in these chapters include cooperative learning techniques, using technology in the classroom (including dozens of websites), bringing the work of the Nobel Laureates into undergraduate classes, and teaching with experimental economics, case studies, or team writing assignments and presentations. Teaching Economics is an invaluable and practical tool for teachers of economics, administrators responsible for undergraduate instruction and graduate students who are just beginning to teach. Each chapter includes specific teaching tips for classroom implementation and summary lists of dos and don'ts for instructors who are thinking of moving beyond the lecture method of traditional chalk and talk.

"The Philosophy of Heidegger" is a readable and reliable overview of Heidegger's thought, suitable both for beginners and advanced students. A striking and refreshing feature of the work is how free it is from the jargon and standard idioms of academic philosophical writing. Written in straightforward English, with many illustrations and concrete examples, this book provides a very accessible introduction to such key Heideggerian notions as in/authenticity, falling, throwness, moods, temporality, earth, world, enframing, etc. Organized under clear, no-nonsense headings, Watt's exposition avoids complicated involvement with the secondary literature, or with wider philosophical debates, which gives his writing a fresh, immediate character. Ranging widely across Heidegger's numerous writings, this book displays an impressively thorough knowledge of his corpus, navigating the difficult relationship between earlier and later Heidegger texts, and giving the reader a strong sense of the basic motives and overall continuity of Heidegger's thought.

"The Philosophy of Heidegger" is a readable and reliable overview of Heidegger's thought, suitable both for beginners and advanced students. A striking and refreshing feature of the work is how free it is from the jargon and standard idioms of academic philosophical writing. Written in straightforward English, with many illustrations and concrete examples, this book provides a very accessible introduction to such key Heideggerian notions as in/authenticity, falling, throwness, moods, temporality, earth, world, enframing, etc. Organized under clear, no-nonsense headings, Watt's exposition avoids complicated involvement with the secondary literature, or with wider philosophical debates, which gives his writing a fresh, immediate character. Ranging widely across Heidegger's numerous writings, this book displays an impressively thorough knowledge of his corpus, navigating the difficult relationship between earlier and later Heidegger texts, and giving the reader a strong sense of the basic motives and overall continuity of Heidegger's thought.

Afflicted Powers is an account of world politics since September 11, 2001. It aims to confront the perplexing doubleness of the presentits lethal mixture of atavism and new-fangledness. The world careers backward into forms of ideological and geo-political combat that call to mind the Scramble for Africa, and the Wars of Religion. But this brute return of the past is accompanied by an equally monstrous political deployment of (and entrapment in) the apparatus of a hyper-modern production of appearances. Capital is on the move again. In the Middle East and elsewhere it is attempting, nakedly, a new round of primitive accumulation and enclosure.Now, however, it is obliged to do so in unprecedented circumstances. Never before has imperialist victory or defeat depended so much on a struggle for hegemony in the world of images; never before has the dominant world power been subject to real catastrophe in the realm of the spectacle. The present turn to empire and enclosure, what Retort terms military neo-liberalism, is confronted not only by various forms of radical Islam but by a new kind of vanguard armed with the toolkit of spectacular politics. This book attempts to rethink certain key aspects of the current global struggle within this overall perspective, and to provide some critical support for present and future oppositions. Its main themes are the spectacle and September 11, blood for oil, permanent war and illusory peace, the US-Israel relationship, revolutionary Islam, and modernity and terror.