Reviews

This digest of 114 articles by 67 contributors from the US magazine In These Times (ITT) covers the years since its inception in 1976. David Graeber describes the massive increase in fortified borders that result when so-called free trade agreements simultaneously destroy traditional jobs in the global south and outsourced jobs in the north. Arundhati Roy’s opening paragraphs dismember the brutalities of neoliberalism with razor-sharp precision. In “Failed Prophet” (2009) Bernie Sanders rails against Chicago University’s neoliberal Milton Friedman Institute.

Hillary Clinton never thought her wealth, political elitism, corruption, contempt for working class people, opposition to public health care, Wall Street connections and military backing for jihadists in Libya and Syria — triggering the worst refugee crisis in living memory — would get in the way of her inexorable journey to the White House.

Endorsed by Obama, she assumed she could sweep aside socialist nomination contender Bernie Sanders. She was confident because she thought that the truth about her operations would never get out.

This chunky, 500-page book has a lot to say about the history of racism in the US. Kendi talks about the disputes between early settlers over whether slaves were human at all, and how this shifted from looking to Noah’s story in the Bible for justification to “scientific” theories of racial hierarchy.

This book provides a very detailed history of the Anthropocene — the current geological era in which human activity has become the main driver of climate change — and makes some interesting points about how we should view it.

However, it is let down by its failure to provide any real solutions. This is particularly striking as they start the book by, rightly, reminding us how severe the crisis is.