Pluto Press – förlag

We live in the twilight of neoliberalism: the ruling classes can no longer rule as before, and ordinary people are no longer willing to be ruled in the old way. Pursued by global elites since the 1970s, neoliberalism is defined by dispossession and ever-increasing inequality. The refusal to continue to be ruled like this - 'ya basta!' - appears in an arc of resistance stretching from rural India to the cities of the global North. From this network of movements, new visions are emerging of a future beyond neoliberalism. We Make Our Own History responds to these visions by reclaiming Marxism as a theory born from activist experience and practice. This book marks a break both with established social movement theory, and with those forms of Marxism which treat the practice of social movement organising as an unproblematic process. It shows how movements can develop from local conflicts to global struggles; how neoliberalism operates as a social movement from above, and how popular struggles can create new worlds from below.

'Compelling … a very interesting, challenging read' - Alastair Campbell, co-host of The Rest Is Politics'Brilliant … this is such a crucial book, and it's a book that had to be written. Everyone go and get it' - Owen Jones'I cannot recommend it enough. A stunning work of data analysis proving the genocide incitement perpetrated by legacy liberal media' - Matthew Remski, co-author of ConspiritualityAs bombs rained down on Gaza in October 2023, images of mass death and destruction gripped the world, and openly genocidal statements from Israeli leaders foretold the magnitude of horrors to come. But the US media was quick to downplay, obscure, and repackage an emerging campaign of extermination into a slick “war on terror” framework. How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitized Israel's war crimes, hid the US’s central role, and dehumanized the Palestinian people.Drawing from deep, original data-driven analysis, Johnson dissects the mechanics of propaganda, from the selective empathy, strategic omissions, overt racism and repetition of state-sanctioned falsehoods, to the demonization of humanitarian workers and dishonest coverage of campus protests. With clarity and moral force, Johnson argues that the genocide could not have been sustained without the active, sustained complicity of the US media.All royalties from the book will be donated to the Middle East Children's Alliance.

'An urgent, vital contribution to the feminist conversation – one that tears through the comfortable myth of universal sisterhood' – Alya Mooro, author of The Greater FreedomGrowing up, journalist Shahed Ezaydi was often asked how she could call herself a feminist and still practise her faith. It’s a question that reveals a deeper issue that Muslim women often face: being ignored in feminist spaces entirely, or cast as passive victims in need of being saved. This mindset fuels gendered Islamophobia and a narrow white feminism. But Muslim women don’t need rescuing.The Othered Woman is the book Ezaydi wishes her younger self could have turned to. It challenges the myths of how Muslim women are oppressed and who by, and shows that these myths translate into very real harm both in Britain and around the world, showcasing the voices of intersectional feminists who are fighting for liberation on their own terms. Accessible and compelling, this is urgent reading for anyone who considers themselves a feminist.

This book traces the essence of the Islamist Revolution from its origins in Egypt, through Najaf, Lebanon, Iran and the Iranian Revolution to today. Alastair Crooke presents a compelling account of the ideas and energy which are mobilising the Islamic world.Crooke argues that the West faces a mass mobilisation against the US-led Western project. The roots of this conflict are described in terms of religious themes that extend back over 500 years. They represent clashing systems of thinking and values. Islamists have a vision for the future of their own societies which would entail radical change from Western norms. Resistance is presented as the means to force Western behaviour to change and to expose the essential differences between the two modes of thinking.This is a rigourous account that traces the threads of revolution of various movements, including the influence of 'political Shi'ism' and the Iranian Revolution and its impact on Hezbollah and Hamas.

Psychoanalysis is having a resurgence in popularity—but it is not helping patients navigate the harm of modern-day capitalism. Instead, it continues to enforce oppressive structures, state power, and reactionary politics.Practising psychoanalytic clinician Lara Sheehi creates a thrilling argument for how seizing the means of psychoanalysis can transform it into one of many tools in service of revolution, showing how psychoanalysis can help unpack how psychological and emotional processes are mobilized by political power, capitalism, the state, oppression, and even genocide.Arguing for a new, liberatory psychoanalysis, she calls for us to harness its radical power from the clinic to the streets.

'Fleming's books are sparklingly sardonic and hilariously angry' - GuardianThere is a strong link between the neoliberalisation of higher education over the last 20 years and the psychological hell now endured by its staff and students. While academia was once thought of as the best job in the world - one that fosters autonomy, craft, intrinsic job satisfaction and vocational zeal - you would be hard-pressed to find a lecturer who believes that now.Peter Fleming delves into this new metrics-obsessed, overly hierarchical world to bring out the hidden underbelly of what he terms the 'zombie university'. He examines commercialisation, mental illness and self-harm, the rise of managerialism, students as consumers and evaluators, and the competitive individualism which casts a dark sheen of alienation over departments.Arguing that time has almost run out to reverse this decline, this book shows how academics and students need to act now if they are to begin to fix this broken system.

'Rigorously argued and radically hopeful' - Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism'Indispensable ... resets the terms of left debate' - Jodi Dean, author of Capital's GraveCapitalism has created a world of bullshit abundance, where we have too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do. Through this system’s pursuit of profits, we have been put on a collision course with social and ecological limits that can no longer be ignored.We need an alternative. We need radical abundance. A world of human and non-human flourishing made possible by democratically planned production. But radical abundance can’t just be voted into existence through parliamentary means, it must be made by taking control of our collective reproduction in the here and now.Packed with fascinating research and real-life examples of communal planning and resistance, this book will convince you that a better future is possible, if we want it.

Geopolitical Economy radically reinterprets the historical evolution of the world order, as a multi-polar world emerges from the dust of the financial and economic crisis.Radhika Desai offers a radical critique of the theories of US hegemony, globalisation and empire which dominate academic international political economy and international relations, revealing their ideological origins in successive failed US attempts at world dominance through the dollar.Desai revitalizes revolutionary intellectual traditions which combine class and national perspectives on 'the relations of producing nations'. At a time of global upheavals and profound shifts in the distribution of world power, Geopolitical Economy forges a vivid and compelling account of the historical processes which are shaping the contemporary international order.

Feminist Theory established bell hooks as one of international feminism’s most challenging and influential voices. This edition includes a preface by the author, reflecting on the book’s impact and the development of her ideas since it was first published. In this beautifully written and carefully argued work, hooks maintains that mainstream feminism’s reliance on white, middle-class, and professional spokeswomen obscures the involvement, leadership, and centrality of women of colour and poor women in the movement for women’s liberation. Hooks argues that feminism’s goal of seeking credibility and acceptance on already existing ground – rather than demanding the lasting and more fundamental transformation of society – has short-changed the movement.A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, Feminist Theory argues that contemporary feminists must acknowledge the full complexity and diversity of women’s experience to create a mass movement to end women’s oppression.

The world is overheated. Too full and too fast; uneven and unequal. It is the age of the Anthropocene, of humanity’s indelible mark upon the planet. In short, it is globalisation - but not as we know it.In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Hylland Eriksen breathes new life into the discussion around global modernity, bringing an anthropologist’s approach to bear on the three interrelated crises of environment, economy and identity. He argues that although these crises are global in scope, they are perceived and responded to locally, and that contradictions abound between the standardising forces of information-age global capitalism and the socially embedded nature of people and local practices.Carefully synthesising the ethnographic and comparative methods of anthropology with macrosocial and historical material, Overheating offers an innovative new perspective on issues including energy use, urbanisation, deprivation, human (im)mobility, and the spread of interconnected, wireless information technology.

'Groundbreaking ... [provides] a deep history of the invention of the 'normal' mind as one of the most oppressive tools of capitalism. To read it is to see the world more clearly' - Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes‘Argues that a radical politics of neurodiversity is necessary, not only for neurodivergent folk, but for our collective liberation’ Professor Hel Spandler, editor, Asylum magazine‘A vital book that kindles the flames of a neurodivergent revolution’ Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-author of Health CommunismNeurodiversity is on the rise. Awareness and diagnoses have exploded in recent years, but we are still missing a wider understanding of how we got here and why. Beyond simplistic narratives of normativity and difference, this groundbreaking book exposes the very myth of the 'normal' brain as a product of intensified capitalism.Exploring the rich histories of the neurodiversity and disability movements, Robert Chapman shows how the rise of capitalism created an 'empire of normality' that transformed our understanding of the body into that of a productivity machine.Neurodivergent liberation is possible - but only by challenging the deepest logics of capitalism. Empire of Normality is an essential guide to understanding the systems that shape our bodies, minds and deepest selves - and how we can undo them.

*** Shortlisted for The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2026 ***'A sweeping tour-de-force of investigative journalism' - Time magazine'Epic ... the definitive text of the war... This story of ordinary Syrians who fought tyranny is a masterpiece' - New York Times'As a many-layered portrait of revolution it is a triumph... never less than compelling' - The SpectatorIn 2011, in a city in northern Syria, a small group of men and women began a movement that overthrew a brutal dictatorship. For the next eighteen months, many of the citizens of Manbij carried out one of the most remarkable experiments in democracy in modern times.Days of Love and Rage details the powerfully intimate narratives of the men and women who led this struggle, and who experienced the highs of camaraderie and the lows of betrayal. Among them: a pair of best friends torn apart by political polarization, a mother who stands up to male dominance, and a worker who risks everything for the dream of equality.Anand Gopal immerses you in the world of a single city in the throes of revolution, and lays bare the danger that inequality poses to democracy. But this book transcends the particulars of one terrible conflict to tell the broader story of rising authoritarianism in our times. Days of Love and Rage has the force, sweep and artistry of a great novel, and is ultimately a story of our enduring human need for dignity and hope.

This is a new edition of a classic and highly controversial book that examines the history and consequences of Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. It is essential reading for anyone who wants a full understanding of the way religious extremism has affected the political development of the modern Israeli state.Acclaimed writer and human rights campaigner Israel Shahak was, up until his death in 2001, one of the most respected of Israel's peace activists – he was, in the words of Gore Vidal, 'the latest - if not the last - of the great prophets.' Written by Shahak together with American scholar Norton Mezvinsky, this books shows how Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, as shown in the activities of religious settlers, is of great political importance.The authors trace the history and development of Jewish fundamentalism. They place the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in the context of what they see as a tradition of punishments and killings of those Jews perceived to be heretics. They conclude that Jewish fundamentalism is essentially hostile to democracy.

'I was blown away' - Angela DavisPlastered over t-shirts and tote bags, the word 'feminist' has entered the mainstream and is fast becoming a popular slogan for our generation. But feminism isn't a commodity up for purchase; it's a weapon for fighting against injustice.This revolutionary book reclaims feminism from consumerism through exploring state violence against women, reproductive justice, transmisogyny, sex work, gendered Islamophobia and much more, showing that the struggle for gendered liberation is a struggle for justice, one that can transform the world for everybody.

'Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.' So begins Feminism is for Everybody, a short, accessible introduction to feminist theory by one of its most influential practitioners. Designed to be read by all genders, this book provides both a primer to the question 'what is feminism?' and an argument for the enduring importance of the feminist movement today.Beginning with a broad survey of feminism's most important themes and concerns, bell hooks demystifies contentious concepts and turns apparent ideology into common sense. Providing a critical evaluation of the successes and failures of contemporary feminism, she looks at a wide variety of topics including reproductive rights, sexual violence, race, class and work. hooks encourages us to demand alternatives to patriarchal, racist and homophobic culture and thereby to seek out a different future.

Suicides, excessive overtime, hostility and violence on the factory floor in China. Drawing on vivid testimonies from rural migrant workers, student interns, managers and trade union staff, Dying for an iPhone is a devastating expose of two of the world's most powerful companies: Foxconn and Apple.As the leading manufacturer of iPhones, iPads and Kindles, and employing one million workers in China alone, Taiwanese-invested Foxconn's drive to dominate global electronics manufacturing has aligned perfectly with China's goal of becoming the world leader in technology. This book reveals the human cost of that ambition and what our demands for the newest and best technology mean for workers.Foxconn workers have repeatedly demonstrated their power to strike at key nodes of transnational production, challenge management and the Chinese state, and confront global tech behemoths. Dying for an iPhone allows us to assess the impact of global capitalism's deepening crisis on workers.

'A highly original thinker' - New York Times David Graeber (1961-2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist who left us with new ways to understand humankind. His writings picked apart political power and social hierarchy to reveal what makes human society tick.As If Already Free collects his most important insights in one book, showing how his writing resonates today for activists looking to shake things up, and explaining how his powerful and accessible ideas can be applied to a wide range of topics, from birth to banking.In today's neoliberal world, we can turn to Graeber's legacy to provide a way for us to understand what went wrong, and how to fix it. This collection is both an introduction to his life and works, a guide to his key ideas, and an inspiring example of how anthropologists are continuing to use his work today.

This is a thoroughly updated and revised edition of a popular classic of modern anthropology. The authors provide summaries of 'Enlightenment', 'Romantic' and 'Victorian' anthropology, from the cultural theories of Morgan and Taylor to the often neglected contributions of German scholars. The ambiguous relationship between anthropology and national cultures is also considered.The book provides an unparalleled account of theoretical developments in anthropology from the 1920s to the present, including functionalism, structuralism, hermeneutics, neo-Marxism and discourse analysis. There are brief biographies of major anthropologists and coverage of key debates including totemism, kinship and globalisation.This essential text on anthropology is highly engaging, authoritative and suitable for students at all levels.

This is the first history of Lebanon from the Ottoman Empire to the modern period. Based on previously inaccessible archives, it is a fascinating account of one of the world's most fabled countries.Starting with the formation of Ottoman Lebanon in the 16th century, Traboulsi covers the growth of Beirut as a capital for trade and culture through the 19th century, it's independence and experiences as a republic, before moving onward to Lebanon's development in the late 20th century and the conflicts that led up to the major wars in the 1970s and 1980s and beyond.This is a stunning history of Lebanon over five centuries, bringing to life its politics, its people and the crucial role that it has always played in world affairs.

*Shortlisted for the BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Award for Ethnography 2015*This book follows the global trail of one of the world's most unremarkable and ubiquitous objects - flip-flops. Through this unique lens, Caroline Knowles takes a ground level view of the lives and places of globalisation's back roads, providing new insights that challenge contemporary accounts of globalisation.Rather than orderly product chains, the book shows that globalisation along the flip-flop trail is a tangle of unstable, shifting, ad hoc and contingent connections. This book displays both the instabilities of the 'chains' and the complexities, personal topographies and skills with which people navigate these global uncertainties.Flip-Flop provides new ways of thinking about globalisation from the vantage point of the shifting landscape crossed by a seemingly ordinary and everyday commodity.

Andre Gorz argues that changes in the role of the work and labour process in the closing decades of the twentieth century have, once and for all, weakened the power of skilled industrial workers. Their place has been taken, says Gorz, by social movements such as the women’s movement and the green movement, and all those who refuse to accept the work ethic so fundamental to early capitalist societies. Provocative and heretical, Farewell to the Working Class is a classic study of labour and unemployment in the post-industrial world.

This book analyses the underlying reasons behind the formation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), its development, where this current in Irish republicanism is at present and its prospects for the future.Tommy McKearney, a former IRA member who was part of the 1980 hunger strike, challenges the misconception that the Provisional IRA was only, or even wholly, about ending partition and uniting Ireland. He argues that while these objectives were always the core and headline demands of the organisation, opposition to the old Northern Ireland state was a major dynamic for the IRA's armed campaign. As he explores the makeup and strategy of the IRA he is not uncritical, examining alternative options available to the movement at different periods, arguing that its inability to develop a clear socialist programme has limited its effectiveness and reach.This authoritative and engaging history provides a fascinating insight into the workings and dynamics of a modern resistance movement.

At just 24 years old, Tanja Nijmeijer left the Netherlands to join the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a decision that stunned the world. Ever since, her story has been written and rewritten by others—journalists, critics, and pundits eager to pass judgment but uninterested in the complexities that shaped her choices.In this powerful and unflinching memoir, Nijmeijer tells her story for the first time in her own words. From a quiet Dutch town to a decade living, teaching, and fighting inside one of the world’s most controversial and enduring guerrilla armies, Into the Jungle offers a rare, unsparing look at the human side of armed conflict. Drawing on her experience on the frontlines and later as a negotiator at the landmark peace talks in Havana, Nijmeijer provides an intimate glimpse into a war that has defined Colombia’s history, the aftershocks of which are still felt today.Into the Jungle is a story of transformation, conviction, and the politics of memory. Nijmeijer challenges the dominant narratives about Colombia’s conflict, asking what it means to fight for justice in a world where legitimacy is always contested and history is too often written by the powerful.

'A fascinating, inspiring journey' - Meredith Tax, author of A Road UnforeseenKurdistan has had a tumultuous history, and the women who lived there have experienced a life like no other. From Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror beginning in the 1960s, to the fight against ISIS today, violence, revolution and questions around identity, agency, survival and resistance have been at the forefront of women’s lives for decades.This book is a collection of these women’s stories written in their own words. Each story reveals a tapestry of experiences, including political activism under Saddam and armed resistance in Rojava’s PKK and YPG and Komala in Rojhalat. This is in addition to experiences of FGM and overcoming victimhood, life under extreme conservatism, as well as a look into the work of artists, poets, novelists and performers whose work represents a complicated relationship with Kurdistan.These rich and nuanced insights come from a group of women from a nation without a state, who are now scattered across the world. Collectively, they take the reader on a journey that will inspire feminist, anti-fascist and anti-racist people across the world.

The climate crisis is the greatest existential threat humanity faces today. The need for a radical societal transformation in the interests of social justice and ecological sustainability has never been greater. But where can we turn to find systemic alternatives?From India, Turkey and Bolivia, to Venezuela, Canada and Lebanon, Just Transformations looks to local environmental struggles for the answers. With each case study grounded in the social movements and specific politics of the region in question, this volume investigates the role that resistance movements play in bringing about sustainable transformations, the strategies and tools they utilise to overcome barriers, and how academics and grassroots activists can collaborate effectively.The book provides a toolkit for scholar-activists who want to build transformative visions with communities. Interrogating each case study for valuable lessons, the contributors develop a conceptualisation of a just transformation that focuses on the changes that communities themselves are trying to produce.

'A fascinating portal into arguments about why we need to get beyond money' - Harry CleaverWhat would a world without money look like? This book is a lively thought experiment that deepens our understanding of how money is the driver of political power, environmental destruction and social inequality today, arguing that it has to be abolished rather than repurposed to achieve a postcapitalist future.Grounded in historical debates about money, Anitra Nelson draws on a spectrum of political and economic thought and activism, including feminism, ecoanarchism, degrowth, permaculture, autonomism, Marxism and ecosocialism. Looking to Indigenous rights activism and the defence of commons, an international network of activists engaged in a fight for a money-free society emerges.Beyond Money shows that, by organising around post-money versions of the future, activists have a hope of creating a world that embodies their radical values and visions.

Palestinians in Israel considers a key issue ignored by the official 'peace process' and most mainstream commentators: that of the growing Palestinian minority within Israel itself.What the Israeli right-wing calls 'the demographic problem' Ben White identifies as 'the democratic problem' which goes to the heart of the conflict. Israel defines itself not as a state of its citizens, but as a Jewish state, despite the substantial and increasing Palestinian population. White demonstrates how the consistent emphasis on privileging one ethno-religious group over another cannot be seen as compatible with democratic values and that, unless addressed, will undermine any attempts to find a lasting peace.Individual case studies are used to complement this deeply informed study into the great, unspoken contradiction of Israeli democracy. It is a pioneering contribution which will spark debate amongst all those concerned with a resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

'Albanese is perhaps the one figure of our times that future historians will recall as the one who did the most to redeem our generation from its guilt over the genocide of the Palestinian people. Her reflections in this book are not just timely – they are for the ages' - Yanis VaroufakisIsrael’s genocide in Palestine and the complicity of powerful Western states is undermining international human rights and the UN system. The United States has imposed sanctions on lawyers, UN experts, and Palestinian officials in an attempt to bully and intimidate them into silence. One prominent example is UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has played an important role in documenting Israel’s atrocities and those who profit from its oppression of Palestinians.This book compiles Albanese’s indispensable and damning reports on Israel’s conduct in Palestine since October 2023. First outlining the case that this period should be understood as a genocide, Albanese goes on to explain how the ongoing violence fits into a longer history of Israel’s settler colonialism, and finally presents a devastating indictment against the international corporations that treat mass killing and destruction as a business opportunity.The volume also features a reflection by Albanese on the current state of affairs; revelations by her predecessors Richard Falk, John Dugard, and Michael Lynk of their experiences as UN special rapporteurs; and a preface by Lex Takkenberg, a 30-year veteran of UNRWA, co-authored with scholar Mandy Turner.The ebook is free to download from www.plutobooks.com indefinitely, with a request for a donation to the Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.All royalties from sales of the book will be donated to UNRWA.

Friendship is full of revolutionary potential in the face of a profoundly anti-social capitalist system. Friends in Common explores friendship as a radical practice, capable of upending hierarchies and producing social change.Friendship can transcend social boundaries and political borders. It is vital in building communities and underpinning solidarity. But its transformative potency ensures that it is heavily policed and restrained by the state. Understanding the radical possibilities of friendship can help us rethink our approach to family, work and politics, and show us new routes to resistance and ways to open up spaces of solidarity and escape.The dissonance created by comparing societal expectations around friendship and a lonely reality, especially in the wake of an isolating global pandemic, is deeply alienating. Friends in Common shows that friendship as a political practice is foundational to strengthening revolutionary ideas and projects, and is the antidote to capitalist despair.