Sam Ashman

David Harvey, the Marxist geographer based in the US, has done much to defend and develop Marxist theory over the course of a lifetime of writing and activity. He has also contributed much to understanding the present phase of capitalist development in two recent books, A Brief History of Neo-Liberalism and The New Imperialism. The latest instalment, Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Development, is a collection of three separate essays.

I don't suppose there is much left to say about the pictures, and the reality, of the Iraqi prisoners left grovelling on the floor of Abu Ghraib. No matter how much they say Abu Ghraib is an aberration, Bush, Cheney et al cannot claim to be strangers to racialised, brutal incarceration.

Pawil Pawlikowski's previous film, Last Resort, was deservedly praised for its sympathetic treatment of asylum seekers in Britain. His new film is not a disappointment.

He says he thinks that 'modern life is in danger of becoming spiritually bankrupt... Everything is measured economically or in terms of lifestyle, or appearance and the meaninglessness around promoting that.'

George Monbiot's new book is an interesting development from his bestselling Captive State, which attacked the 'corporate takeover' of Britain - the branding of every area of life by corporations and their infiltration of government. Now Monbiot, responding to debates within the movement, has put forward his own programme for political change. It is quite similar to Waldon Bello's ideas in that it advocates radical Keynesian measures to alter the distribution of world power.

This is a collection of articles by an academic based in Canada who has written about both neoliberalism and the anti-capitalist movement's response. Rewriting Samuel Huntingdon, Gill refers to this battle as the 'clash of globalisations', and it is this clash which will shape the future of the 21st century.

Will Hutton's new book is a hymn of praise to Europe. Despite supporting the US war in Afghanistan, Hutton does not like the way the US has become an unchallenged 'global hyperpower' since the end of the Cold War. In particular he does not like the way the new US dominance is politically shaped by US conservatism. 'The most salient political event of our times has been the rise of the American right over the last 25 years and the collapse of American liberalism,' writes Hutton.

The British ruling class quit India in 1947. But as it did so, it divided the subcontinent between two independent states, India (supposedly secular) and Pakistan (a homeland for Muslims). Pakistan was a bizarre entity which had 1,000 miles of India separating its western and its eastern wings--a state of affairs that would last until 1971 when, amidst tumult and war, the east broke away and became the state of Bangladesh.

The cotton industry of the early 19th century was an international affair. A vital part of the labour force was African, transported through the slave trade to the American South where the raw material was cultivated. Cotton goods were produced in the mills of Lancashire by a workforce which had been drawn from the surrounding English countryside. The finished products were then distributed for sale in Europe but also to India and beyond, with devastating consequences for the indigenous Indian textile industry.