Book Review

A critical approach to the exploration of Identity & Violence: An attempt by the young researchers of EDRU 

A critical approach to the exploration of Identity & Violence: An attempt by the young researchers of EDRU 

The EDRU Study Group, comprising a team of young researchers, has recently published a unique research journal on the topic of identity and violence. What sets this journal apart is its collaborative nature, involving current students and alumni, under the guidance of professors Abdullah Al-Mamun and Maswod Akhter. The initiative aims to foster the research capabilities of the present students[Read More…]

by 29/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Brotherhood and Friendship in a time of War- Reflections on The Mercenary, by Jeffrey E. Stern

 Brotherhood and Friendship in a time of War- Reflections on The Mercenary, by Jeffrey E. Stern

Salman Rushdie once commented that those who are displaced by war are the shining shards that reflect the truth. With so many people fleeing wars and ecological collapse in our world today, and more to come, we need acute truth-telling to deepen our understanding and recognize the terrible faults of those who have caused so much suffering in our world[Read More…]

by 28/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review – A Reader on Financial Inclusion

Book Review – A Reader on Financial Inclusion

Francis Bacon said some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested. “A reader on Financial Inclusion” by Dr Moin Qazi belongs to the last category. The language is simple and jargon-free, and the terms used and concepts are well explained. But the reader would be required to go rural mentally or climb[Read More…]

by 27/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East

Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East

Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East. Steven Simon. Penguin Press, New York, 2023. It should be obvious that U.S. policy in the Middle East is now losing influence. Steven Simon’s new book “Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East” purports to cover the era from[Read More…]

by 23/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: A Contemporary Feminist, Marxist And Environmentalist

Book Review: A Contemporary Feminist, Marxist And Environmentalist

——————————————————————————————————————————- FROM KERALA TO KESLA By Loriette Benjamin “Lorry” Qurate Books Pvt. Ltd, Panaji Goa. 2023, Pp 74, Rs. 300/- Contact: Lorry: 82807 95523 ——————————————————————————————————————————- Lorry (Loriette Benjamin) was born in Kozhikode (Calicut for old timers), Kerala in 1954. Her father was an Army officer and the family moved to Pune in 1958. This very short autobiography (only 74 pages)[Read More…]

by 22/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Bridging Narratives: Exploring Play

Bridging Narratives: Exploring Play

Review by Mitali Chakravarty of Sanjay Kumar’s Performing, Teaching and Writing Theatre: Exploring Play, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing About a hundred years ago, Tagore had tried to close social gaps with his work in Sriniketan. He had tried to bridge the chasm that separated ‘villagers’ with no access to technology and education and the ‘town dwellers’ with access to[Read More…]

by 10/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Homo Deus: From Being Masters to Marionettes

Homo Deus: From Being Masters to Marionettes

Imagine this. You have to travel from one place to another. You have two options. Human driver driven taxi or an-AI-algorithm-controlled automatic taxi. You know the associated traits of each – the human driver wouldn’t accurately know the roads that will be congested, and may be tired or sleepy. The “machine” driver will exactly know that roads to avoid and[Read More…]

by 08/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: Renaissance and the 1857 Rebellion in the Hindi region

Book Review: Renaissance and the 1857 Rebellion in the Hindi region

——————————————————————————————————————————- BAGAAWAT AUR WAFAADAARI: NAVJAGRAN KE IRD-GIRD (REBELLION AND FAITHFULNESS: IN THE VICINITY OF THE RENAISSANCE) By Vir Bharat Talwar 2023, New Delhi, Vani Prakashan, Pp. 152, Rs. 399/- ——————————————————————————————————————————- Dr. Vir Bharat Talwar is a scholar of renaissance in the Hindi and North West India region. He retired as head of the department, Hindi, JNU. He has written several[Read More…]

by 07/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Imperialism, from its origins to the Great War it caused

Imperialism, from its origins to the Great War it caused

(An excerpt from The Great Class War 1914-1918, by Jacques R. Pauwels, published by James Lorimer, Toronto, 2016) The nineteenth century was the century of the Industrial Revolution, and in each industrializing country, economic productivity increased rapidly. Supply thus overtook demand and that produced the very first crisis of overproduction as early as 1873. (Earlier, economic crises had typically been[Read More…]

by 04/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Flaming Forest, Wounded Valley-Stories from Bastar and Kashmir By Freny Manecksha 

Flaming Forest, Wounded Valley-Stories from Bastar and Kashmir By Freny Manecksha 

‘Flaming Forest, Wounded valley- stories from Bastar and Kashmir’ is a gripping account with lively narratives of first hand experiences in Bastar and Kashmir, where neo-fascist state repression has simmered to a boiling point, since 1947. Manecksha illustrates how the fabric of human rights has been ripped apart, violating the laws of the Constitution. More than the commentary — of[Read More…]

by 23/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Time Mustn’t Be Allowed to Run out on Julian Assange

Time Mustn’t Be Allowed to Run out on Julian Assange

Review of Guilty of Journalism by Kevin Gosztola Despite whatever charges Julian Assange may be accused of, it is well known that the WikiLeaks publisher was targeted for exposing the war crimes of the US government. In an upside-down Bizarro World, the screws are being ever so gradually tightened on Assange by the war criminals and their criminal accomplices. It[Read More…]

by 22/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 18

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen – Inhumane Heritage of An Insanely Dangerous War Investor Control of Planet Earth Issuing from Five Centuries of Racist Colonial Capitalist Conquering and Two Genocidal World Wars           – A Human Decimation Nuclear Armageddon Threatens Even As The No Longer Bearable Colossal Expenditure of Resources on Wars and World War Preparation Prevents Protecting Life[Read More…]

by 19/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 17

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 17

 Chapter Seventeen – A Criminal UN Partition Igniting Civil War    – Partition Stratagem Provoked Civil War in British Occupied Palestine, an Archetypical Colonial Crime Against Humanity, a Programed Murderous Aftermath of the Multi-nation Holocaust of European Jews What uncomfortable realization of the enormity of American and European society’s complicity in the Holocaust there was, formed a backdrop for additional basic[Read More…]

by 18/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 16

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 16

 Recapitulation and synopsis of a mega murderous double dealing racket of war that engendered the post war American genocidal neocolonial world hegemony  The CIA overseen corporate media conglomerates of the Western World Powers [230C] have not only falsified a USA-UK victory over Nazi Germany, but have given the world a false picture of an initially powerless criminally insane Adolph Hitler[Read More…]

by 17/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 15

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 15

 Chapter Fifteen – The Red Army Shatters the Wehrmacht at Great Human Cost – The Falsification of History That the USA Defeated Nazi Germany During the Second World War  On December 5, two days before, the United States entered World War Two, the Red Army had begun it’s successful enormous winter counter-offensive ending the Nazi siege of Moscow.  As early as[Read More…]

by 16/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 13

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen – Hitler Orders a Genocidal Racist Invasion of Russia and Extermination of Jews in the Largest Land Invasion in History –   Hitler Led Nazi Anglo-Saxon Affinity – UK Allies With the Soviet Union, an Alliance To Avoid War Previously Rejected by Britain             On June 22nd 1941, Germany, supported by Italy and Romania, and shortly thereafter[Read More…]

by 14/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 12

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve – Second World War Begins with Germany’s Genocidal Racist Invasion of Western Poland. Soviets Regain Western Ukraine and West Belarus, territory the USSR had been forced to give up in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk             –  British and French ‘Sitz Krieg’ followed by Nazi ‘Blitz Krieg’ of Europe         The day after the German-Soviet[Read More…]

by 13/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Swapna Liddle’s book on the Fall of the Mughal Empire

Swapna Liddle’s book on the Fall of the Mughal Empire

Swapna Liddle is not only a very good scholar of the history of Delhi, she is a very good communicator both in her writing and in speaking, one can understand so much from her whether it is about the changes to the Central vista in Delhi or the 1857 rebellion or the walks through historic areas of the capital. In[Read More…]

by 12/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 11

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 11

The Colonial Powers Munich Award to Hitler Is the Last Straw in Bringing About The ‘Infamous’ Molotov-Ribbinthrop Pact. Stalin’s Last Minute Surprise Switch to Collaboration and Temporary Safety With Sudetenland gone to Germany, Czechoslovakia had lost 70% of its iron/steel industry, 70% of its electrical power and 3.5 million citizens to Germany as a result of the settlement. American historian[Read More…]

by 12/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 10

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 10

Final Collaborations With Hitler at Vienna and Munich Made to Appear as Only Appeasement Austria Forcibly United With Nazi Germany Expressly Forbidden in the Versailles Treaty Notwithstanding   The Allowed Successful Murderous Fascist War For Spain Taken For Granted in Outright Collaboration  Republican Spain’s Last Chance, The Battle of the Ebro   By 1938, Hitler must have felt strong enough to accomplish union  (Anschluss)[Read More…]

by 11/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 9

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 9

Hitler and Mussolini Permitted To Go To War on the Side of a Spanish Fascist Revolt With Merciless Bombing of Republican Spain During the Spanish Civil War July 1936-April 1939 The fascist led military uprising in Spain was set to begin in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco so that control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent to the Iberian Peninsula to[Read More…]

by 10/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Review of White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa by Susan Williams

A Review of White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa by Susan Williams

New York:  Public Affairs Press, 2021. ISBN: 978-1-5417-6829-1 (hardcover) Africa has long been looked at by outsiders as a continent that is hopelessly mired in corruption and incapable of social and economic development.  This especially pertains to sub-Saharan Africa, overwhelmingly populated by black people, thus fitting the trope of white supremists that black people cannot successfully govern themselves. This book[Read More…]

by 10/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 8

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 8

Chapter Eight –     The Colonial Powers at Times Openly at Times Backhandedly Assisted European Fascism and Hitler’s Preparations for War –  Capitalist Speculative Banking Run Colonial Empires Continued to Allow and Assist Hitler To Violate the Prohibitions of the Versailles Treaty Meant to Prevent the War Empowerment of Germany  The Colonial Powers at Times Openly at Times Backhandedly Assisted European Fascism and[Read More…]

by 07/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 7

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 7

Chapter Seven – Peculiarities of Fascism’s and Hitler’s Rise to Power – Hitler’s Mercurial Rise to Absolute Power in Germany and Its Press Coverage in the Colonial Powers  In April of 1921, the victorious European Allies of World War One, notably France and England, presented a bill to Germany demanding payment for damages caused in the war which Germany had[Read More…]

by 06/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 6

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 6

Chapter Six – ‘Priorities of Colonial Imperialism’ Regarding the Economic and Political Priorities of the World’s Major Colonial Powers, the British and French Empires, the other European Empires and the Imperialist United States of America During the Rise of Fascism  At this point in our narrative regarding the very purposeful arming of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany for war, it would[Read More…]

by 05/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 5

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 5

The economic facilitation of a second world war equally came to mean an economic facilitation of a multi-nation Holocaust This author expects that the reaction of a good many readers to the affirmation that the ‘Holocaust could not have happened without corporate USA rearming Germany to destroy the USSR,’ would be one of protest. Skeptical readers might insist that the elite[Read More…]

by 04/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 4

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Profiting Well with Hitler – Hitler’s Rule Was Especially Profitable For American Corporatocracy’s Enterprises and Joint Ventures with Nazi Germany      On March 4th of 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The following reports about Hitler’s draconic economic policies benefiting US corporations are excerpted from Profits “Über Alles!” by Jacques R. Pauls, GlobalResearch, 6/8/2004. [35] Hitler’s first major initiative was to dissolve the[Read More…]

by 03/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Muslim intellectuals must write about caste within and without Islam: Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Muslim intellectuals must write about caste within and without Islam: Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

This is a Foreword by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd to a well known book of Ali Anwar called Masawat Ki Jung (Hindi) on caste among Muslims. The English version is now published by Forward Press Delhi, with the title The Battle For Equality. The English book has just come out. It is the first ever written book on caste by a[Read More…]

by 03/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 3

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 3

Chapter Three ‘Preparing War Profits’ – The ‘Good War’ Coverup Slogan Unmasked By Well Kept Business Records and Tax Documentation  That the Second World War was a ‘good war,’ a clear fight against what a madman had brought about, has been a major and fundamental deception solidified in Wall Street owned media and movies. The famous American historian Studs Terkel[Read More…]

by 02/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 2

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 2

Chapter 2 ‘Weaponizing Nazis’   Contribution made by American capitalism to German war preparations described as phenomenal and crucial to German military capabilities With the world of the plundering Colonial Powers deep in the chaos of the Great Depression, a disastrous failure of rule by the banks of the capitalist countries, the United States internally threatened by local organizations of socialists, communists,[Read More…]

by 01/04/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 1

WWII & Holocaust Could Never Have Happened Without American Corporations Investing & Joint Venturing with Hitler’s Poor Nazi Germany – Chapter 1

  This is the first chapter of a 18 chapter book by J. Jankovsky-Novak alias Jay Janson to be serialised in the next few days in CC Impossibility of a Prostate Disarmed and Captive Nazi Germany Rearming Itself While Under British and French Armed Enforcement of Prohibitions of Versailles Treaty Law The Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War[Read More…]

by 31/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Labor in market, and the mainstream economics

Labor in market, and the mainstream economics

Market and labor in market are crucial questions both to capital and labor. The questions have been discussed and answered by economists, from the mainstream, and also from the camp of labor. “Markets”, writes Michael D. Yates in his Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle (Monthly Review Press, New York, USA, 2022), “act as a veil, hiding the[Read More…]

by 26/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Will the Government Heed This Book That Makes A Strong Case for Justice to Victimized Maruti Workers

Will the Government Heed This Book That Makes A Strong Case for Justice to Victimized Maruti Workers

Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar have just written a book that simply has to be read by anyone interested in the welfare of industrial workers in India. This is also a must reading for all Japanese people involved with human rights to get a glimpse of the havoc their companies cause in the lives of innocent workers and poor people[Read More…]

by 16/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Tale of two workers or workers’ tale

Tale of two workers or workers’ tale

What are workers? Are they human beings? Do they have only a bundle of muscles but, no brains? How do they feel and how do they think? Do they think at all? What do they face in their life – in factories, in foundries and other shops, in assembly lines, in unions? Workers’ answers to the questions above differ from[Read More…]

by 10/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Eduardo Galeano, revolutionary writer, continues to inspire us

Eduardo Galeano, revolutionary writer, continues to inspire us

Eduardo Galeano was best known for his 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America, which rocketed to the top of US bestseller lists after the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez presented a copy to President Barack Obama in 2009 It is one of the most inspiring and monumental works against imperial exploitation. We now have a slender but valuable translation into[Read More…]

by 05/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Bhagat Singh: Life and legend

Bhagat Singh: Life and legend

It was, to quote King James Version, “[a] time to be born, and a time to die; [….] A time to love, and a time […] of war […]” It was a time to dream, a time to struggle – dream for liberation, struggle for liberation. The setting was this colonized subcontinent – undivided India, colonized by the British brutes.[Read More…]

by 04/03/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Rise of the Consultant Governing Class

The Rise of the Consultant Governing Class

They have become the outsourcing mandarins, consultancy companies which have served to degrade expertise in the public sector while diminishing the quality of services.  Along the way, they have charged astronomical fees in giving repeatedly flawed advice.  Consultants, packaged as all wise gurus, have become the great confidence tricksters. Embracing the inner voodoo of consultancy had the effect of discouraging[Read More…]

by 25/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lenin by Rajan Palme Dutt Book review

Lenin by Rajan Palme Dutt Book review

‘Lenin’ by Rajani Palme Dutt ,published by Magpie publications,most classically dissects all aspects of the life and Contribution of Lenin. In a most lucid and congealed form it illustrates how Lenin’s ideology was relevant to the world and how Leninism shaped world history. Its aim was to project the significance and role of Lenin not primarily as a Russian leader,[Read More…]

by 25/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Work – slavery in exploiting economy

Work – slavery in exploiting economy

Work is easy. Work is difficult. Work shows a lot. Work hides a lot. Work creates. Work destroys. Work is painless. Work is dreadful. Work brings victory. Work is slavish. Work is like creating a poem or a picture with joy. Work is hellish. A poet or a philosopher may define work differently than a physicist’s definition. An economist or[Read More…]

by 21/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Once there was a city named Dilli

Once there was a city named Dilli

by Intizar Husain Trans. Ghazala Jamil and Faiz Ullah. Originally published 2003. Yoda Press. INTRODUCTION Dilli tha jis ka Naam is a historical account by Intizar Husain published originally in Urdu in 2003. The book at hand, Once there was a city named Dilli (2016), is its English translation by Ghazala Jamil and Faiz Ullah. In today’s time, when a[Read More…]

by 18/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Book Review: A forgotten feminist

 Book Review: A forgotten feminist

GANDHI AUR SARLA DEVI CHAUDHARANI: BARAHA ADHYAY (GANDHI AND SARLA DEVI CHAUDHARANI: TWELVE CHAPTERS) By Alka Saraogi 2023, New Delhi, Vani Prakashan, Pp. 216, Price Rs. 299/- Alka Saraogi (1960- ) is a well known modern Hindi author. She received the Sahitya Akademi award for her first novel, ‘Kalikatha via Bypass‘ in 2001. Since then it has been translated in[Read More…]

by 18/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts – Feminism Inter/Nationalism & Palestine

Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts – Feminism Inter/Nationalism & Palestine

Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts – Feminism Inter/Nationalism & Palestine. Nada Elia. Pluto Press, 2023. London. Interestingly this work by Nada Elia – Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts – takes off from what the last book I read on Palestine discussed as images of Palestine and the imagination arriving with that. The first image used here[Read More…]

by 11/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Our Knowledge-Based Society

Our Knowledge-Based Society

I would like to announce the publication of a new nook, entitled “Our Knowledge-Based Society”. The book may be downloaded and circulated, free of charge, from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2023/02/Our-Knowledge-Based-Society-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Below is some discussion of the content of the book: Cooperation in groups of animals and human groups The social behavior of groups of animals, flocks of birds and communities[Read More…]

by 10/02/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives In Acting

Lives In Acting

A new, freely downloadable, book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Lives in Acting”. The pdf file of the book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2023/01/Lives-in-Acting-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf It is part of my series of books on cultural history. Human history as cultural history We need to reform our[Read More…]

by 29/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The 1619 Project – A New Origins Story

The 1619 Project – A New Origins Story

“The 1619 Project – A New Origins Story”. Hannah-Jones, Nikole et al, Ed. One World, (Random House), New York, 2021. The American narrative – and other stories Most of the world in which there is a decent educational system knows the foundational myths of the United States. Essentially a bunch of oppressed settlers could no longer tolerate the weight of[Read More…]

by 20/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Imagining Palestine – Cultures of Exile and National Identity

Imagining Palestine – Cultures of Exile and National Identity

Imagining Palestine – Cultures of Exile and National Identity. Tahrir Hamdi. I. B. Taurus, (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc), London, 2023. [1] In her recent work, “Imagining Palestine”, Tahrir Hamdi has made an intriguing, thought provoking, and challenging discussion on the idea and reality of Palestine. Imagining Palestine is the ongoing process of remembering and living the ongoing tragedies of the nakba[Read More…]

by 14/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Malevolent Republic – A Short History of the New India’ review: Why the India founded in 1947 is dead

‘Malevolent Republic – A Short History of the New India’ review: Why the India founded in 1947 is dead

Narendra Modi was prime minister of India for five years from 2014-2019 in his first term and his second term began this May; so, readers may ask why this book? The devil is in the details. Debut writer K.S. Komireddi traces the rise of Modi who he argues has reduced Indian democracy to ‘Mann Ki Baats’, road and stage-shows, instead[Read More…]

by 14/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
“Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” – Expose Ignored Holocausts & Genocides

“Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” – Expose Ignored Holocausts & Genocides

History ignored yields history repeated, and ignoring genocides and holocausts yields repetition of such atrocities. My book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (1998, 2008, and 2023 editions) exposes 2 centuries of British-made and British-ignored famines in India, and argues that ignoring such atrocities and the worsening[Read More…]

by 13/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Still Waiting for Freedom: A Review of P. Sainath’s The Last Heroes

Still Waiting for Freedom: A Review of P. Sainath’s The Last Heroes

Here’s one possible trajectory for ambitious print journalists. After making your name with aggressive reporting at a smaller newspaper, move up the ladder until you are at a top paper with a prestige beat. Go on the television talk shows to pontificate. Maybe snag a regular column. Offer analyses that seem critical but make sure never to challenge the conventional[Read More…]

by 12/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Can (and Should) Secular Writing Tackle Religious Subjects?

Can (and Should) Secular Writing Tackle Religious Subjects?

A Book Review of Lesley Hazleton’s The First Muslim My consideration of this article’s titular question was almost physically confrontational – so much so that I actually boycotted my smartphone for a week so that I could finish reading this book and organize my thoughts on it. To be clear, as a practicing Muslim living in the contemporary day, it[Read More…]

by 06/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Journey of Farmers Rebellion’ does Justice to path breaking movement  

‘Journey of Farmers Rebellion’ does Justice to path breaking movement  

‘The Journey of Farmers Rebellion’ is one of the most positive, productive or informative compilations or any reader wishing to gain an insight into the vagaries or intricacies of the farmers protest in Delhi. It portrays a diagnosis uncovering a wide spectrum of views. The book is a perfect manifestation of the relentless non –sectarian spirit of the movement. It[Read More…]

by 05/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘The World Turned Upside Down‘by Amit Bhattacharya 

‘The World Turned Upside Down‘by Amit Bhattacharya 

‘World Turned Upside Down’ by Amit Bhattacharya is a most lucid, comprehensive work,an integral part of a library of any Marxist or revolutionary democrat. It is dissected into 5 chapters comprising ‘Imperialist development, ‘People’s Resistance’,’ Repression’, ‘People’s Development and ‘Emergence of new human beings’. Most comprehensively Bhattacharya diagnoses the essence of the anti-people nature of the globalisation and liberalization policies[Read More…]

by 01/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 The Psychology of Money

 The Psychology of Money

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (2020) | ISBN 978-93-90166-27-5 No matter how hard you try, you can never stop yourself from making the mistake of understanding the idea of money in a purely emotionless manner. And, that is why, for reasons well know, it is said that “Some people are so poor that all they have is money”![Read More…]

by 01/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Trying To Predict the Future

Trying To Predict the Future

I would like to announce the publication of a new nook, entitled “Trying To Predict the Future”. The book may be downloaded and circulated, free of charge, from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/12/Trying-to-Predict-the-Future-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Below is some discussion of the content of the book: How can we try to predict the future? As the Danish humorist Storm Petersen once said, “It’s hard[Read More…]

by 31/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Caste hypocrisy in the name of Hindu Unity: Review of Bhanwar Meghawanshi’s Book on RSS

Caste hypocrisy in the name of Hindu Unity: Review of Bhanwar Meghawanshi’s Book on RSS

An organisation which claims to work for Hinduism, Hindu unity and consolidation needs to address the discriminatory practices in religion by rising above the caste-based identities. It needs to be more reformative in nature rather than revivalist and work towards annihilating caste rather than reinforcing caste based discriminatory practices. The book by Raghuram Meghawanshi ‘I could not be a Hindu:[Read More…]

by 27/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s  ‘State of the Planet’ Message Revisited

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s  ‘State of the Planet’ Message Revisited

Imagine being confined to a space the size of a car’s interior in the pitch blackness of outer space for three days. Your spacecraft is the Apollo 14 Command Module “Kitty Hawk,” returning from the moon. In order to maintain thermal balance, the module will rotate 360° every two minutes, as the sun, the moon and stars, 10xs brighter and[Read More…]

by 23/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives of Some Great Classical Composers

Lives of Some Great Classical Composers

A new, freely downloadable, book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Lives of Some Great Classical Composers”. The pdf file of the book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/12/Lives-of-Classical-Composers-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf It is part of my series of books on cultural history. Human history as cultural history We need[Read More…]

by 23/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review of Ambedkar: A Life –by Shashi Tharoor

Review of Ambedkar: A Life –by Shashi Tharoor

Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar was a giant of world history, though one barely understood both at home or abroad. While I am no expert on his life or his legacy, suffice it to say the more I read and the more I discover about him, the more I am in awe at his contributions, especially in the light of terrible personal[Read More…]

by 18/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Politics in Command’ by Joshua Moufawad Paul traverses conventional Marxist Leninist Boundaries

‘Politics in Command’ by Joshua Moufawad Paul traverses conventional Marxist Leninist Boundaries

‘Politics in Command ‘by Joshua Moufawad Paul, in it’s own right is a classic, which breaks conventional norms to resurrect Marxism-Leninism. The book continues the flow of his earlier works like ’’Continuity and Rupture’, ‘Critique of Maoist Reason’, and ‘The Communist necessity.’ It poses challenge to dogmatic approach. The book investigates or probes into the very germinating of economism, deeply[Read More…]

by 16/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
We Must Learn before It is Too Late- The Fine-Grained Struggle for Indian Independence

We Must Learn before It is Too Late- The Fine-Grained Struggle for Indian Independence

Review of P. Sainath’s “The Last Heroes, Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom” One of the twentieth century’s signal moments happened in the summer of 1947.  That summer, the population of the world’s second largest country gained Independence from British rule, after 190 years of plunder, murder, famine, and immiseration.  A nation that in 1757 boasted 25% of the world’s economy[Read More…]

by 16/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
My Son’s Inheritance

My Son’s Inheritance

My Son’s Inheritance: A Secret History of Lynching and Blood Justice in India, Aparna Vaidik, Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2020. ISBN-13:978-8194233787, Pages 192, Rs 499. This short book of creative non-fiction by historian Aparna Vaidik collides forcefully and head-on with many of the convictions of the communally-charged political parties in India. Composed in a controlled way, My Son’s Inheritance,[Read More…]

by 13/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Iran, Past and Present

Iran, Past and Present

I would like to announce the publication of a new nook, entitled “Iran, Past and Present”. The book may be downloaded and circulated, free of charge, from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/12/Iran-Past-and-Present-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Below is some discussion of the content of the book: An ancient civilization Iran, or Persia, is one of the most ancient civilizations that we know of. There is[Read More…]

by 13/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
How WikiLeaks revolutionised the world of journalism 

How WikiLeaks revolutionised the world of journalism 

Stefania Maurizi is an investigative journalist working for the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. She has worked on all WikiLeaks releases of secret documents and partnered with Glenn Greenwald to reveal the Snowden Files about Italy. In an interview with Eresh Omar Jamal of The Daily Star, she talks about her latest book, “Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies,” and how WikiLeaks revolutionised[Read More…]

by 12/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Media and Free Voice: Review of Ravish Kumar’s Book     

Media and Free Voice: Review of Ravish Kumar’s Book     

Ravish Kumar in his book ‘The Free Voice: On Democracy Culture and Nation’ critically evaluates the role being played by the media in contemporary times. Journalism in contemporary times had turned out to be uncritical of the Government and become mere mouthpieces of the Government. In a culture of fear, what is required is breaking the silence by raising uncomfortable[Read More…]

by 11/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Khalid Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns: Giving Voice to the Voiceless

 Khalid Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns: Giving Voice to the Voiceless

The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini poignantly writes the story of brave and courageous Afghan women who have lived under the debilitating shadows of patriarchal oppression, endless violence and war. As the extremist Taliban regime in Kabul enforces its full obscurantist and repressive rule on Afghan society, the brave Afghan women are again facing the brunt of[Read More…]

by 01/12/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
“I can’t invent a history for those who have none!” — P. Sainath

“I can’t invent a history for those who have none!” — P. Sainath

Glimpses from the book launch — The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom by noted journalist P. Sainath New Delhi: The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom by noted journalist P. Sainath was launched at the India International Centre, New Delhi,  yesterday. The book documents the country’s last living freedom fighters. It narrates life stories of 15 people[Read More…]

by 29/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The farmers braved the barricade

The farmers braved the barricade

To loot, or to advance economy, farmers are encountered. Role in economy makes farmers an important question in countries. This sub-continent too can’t ignore the question. Amit Bhaduri examines aspects related to recently concluded farmers’ movement in India in his The Emerging Face of Transformative Politics in India Farmers’ Movement (Aakar Books, Delhi, India, 2022, www.aakarbooks.com). The Emerging Face …[Read More…]

by 29/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India

Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India

Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India, Dhirendra K Jha, Vintage Books, 2022.  ISBN-13 :978-0670096473. Pages 344 In the last few years, there have been a few scholarly books published about Gandhi and Nathuram Godse. These books attempt to re-create the context of Gandhi’s assassination. One such scholarly and well-written book is journalist Dhirendra Jha’s[Read More…]

by 28/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Foreboding Hyperthreat Looms Large

The Foreboding Hyperthreat Looms Large

The hyperthreat is a combination of impending ecological carnage influenced in large measure by hidden behind-the-scenes human forces that drain the vigor and lifeblood of reasonable solutions. A major exposé of the hyperthreat is the essence of a recently released book by E.G. Boulton, PhD: Cancelled Woman, Destination Safe Earth Publishing, 2022. Dr. Boulton introduces the concept of hyperththreat by reflecting[Read More…]

by 26/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives of Some Great Philosophers

Lives of Some Great Philosophers

A new, freely downloadable, book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Lives of Some Great Philosophers”. The pdf file of the book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/11/Lives-of-Some-Great-Philosophers-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf It is part of my series of books on cultural history. Human history as cultural history We need to[Read More…]

by 26/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Less than Gay’ – A Citizens’ Report on the status of Homosexuality in India

‘Less than Gay’ – A Citizens’ Report on the status of Homosexuality in India

The AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) is releasing the second edition of ‘Less than Gay’ – A Citizens’ Report on the status of Homosexuality in India. The first edition of the Report – co-authored by seven members – was published in November 1991. This edition has a long essay running into 18,360 words in the form of an introduction written[Read More…]

by 25/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review of Twenty Dollars and Change by Clarence Lusane

Review of Twenty Dollars and Change by Clarence Lusane

Review of Twenty Dollars and Change by Clarence Lusane City Lights Books|2022 In 2016, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew declared that Harriett Tubman’s would be the new face of the $20 bill and that Andrew Jackson’s would be moved to the back. Scholars and activists, then and now, noted the irony- that two figures of such radically different dispositions[Read More…]

by 23/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Documenting History in Exile: Siddhartha Gigoo’s The Garden of Solitude

Documenting History in Exile: Siddhartha Gigoo’s The Garden of Solitude

The Garden of Solitude is Siddhartha Gigoo’s debut work. Gigoo was born in Downtown, Srinagar in 1974 in a Kashmiri Hindu family. Kashmiri Hindus are generally known as Pandits. For the first fifteen years of his life, Siddhartha Gigoo lived in Srinagar. Then, in 1990, he and his family, alongwith thousands of other families migrated from the valley as a[Read More…]

by 22/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A book review of the ‘GRP-NDFP Peace Negotiations’ by Jose Maria Sison

A book review of the ‘GRP-NDFP Peace Negotiations’ by Jose Maria Sison

This book is part 9 of the Sison reader series, ‘GRP-NDFP Peace Negotiations’ encompasses the years 1986 to 2022. It reflects the role Joma Sison played in exploring and realizing the peace negotiations. It carries the essays, statements and interviews related to the tremendous odds, explorations, preparations, the forging of agreements, frustrations and advances. The book also gives deep insight[Read More…]

by 18/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Preview of ‘Under the Banner of Stalin’  

Book Preview of ‘Under the Banner of Stalin’  

‘Under the Banner of Stalin ‘, is a compilation  of articles published by Magpie, edited by Basu Acharya and introduced by Grover Furr ,that vividly illustrates the true contribution of Stalin to Marxism-Leninism and in constructing Socialism in Russia. It attempts to project Stalin in balanced perspective weighing his pros and cons. It places issues like personality cult, suppression of[Read More…]

by 17/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India

The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India

How Do Human Beings Relate to Their History? A Book Review of Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India I am a big believer in the power of books to change the world. In my journey as a reader, I have come across a few of these sorts of books, one of them being[Read More…]

by 16/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Sapiens: Myth, Foraging and Agriculture

Sapiens: Myth, Foraging and Agriculture

“On a hike in East Africa 2 million years ago, you might well have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths chafing against the dictates of society  and weary elders who just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos trying to impress the[Read More…]

by 15/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Night of the Golden Butterfly: An Intense Political Elegy

Night of the Golden Butterfly: An Intense Political Elegy

The novel Night of the Golden Butterfly (2010) by eminent Marxist intellectual and author, Tariq Ali, is a narrative which paints a dystopian vision of what political authoritarianism looks like. The novel primarily explores the rise and nexus between religious fanaticism, dictatorship, majoritarianism and military-mullah-feudal nexus in Tariq Ali’s native country Pakistan, referred nostalgically to as “Fatherland” in the novel.[Read More…]

by 11/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
We Are Demanding Too Much

We Are Demanding Too Much

A book announcement I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/11/We-are-Demanding-Too-Much-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The explosive rise of human population When the global population of humans is plotted as a function of time over a period of twelve thousand years, and the uses of fossil fuels[Read More…]

by 07/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience and Freedom

Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience and Freedom

Gods in Shackles: What Elephants Can Teach Us About Empathy, Resilience and Freedom, Sangita Iyer, Hay House, New Delhi, 2022.  ISBN: 978-1-4019-6884-7. 304 pages This book talks about the ill-treatment meted out to Asian elephants in the state of Kerala, during religious processions. Well, almost. Gods in Shackles is a book that tries to interrogate the notions of loneliness suffered[Read More…]

by 05/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Against Nationalism

Against Nationalism

A book announcement I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/10/Against-Nationalism-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf A dangerous anachronism Today, in an era of all-destroying nuclear weapons, instantaneous global communication and worldwide economic interdependence, nationalism has become a dangerous anachronism. History, as it is taught today, is centered[Read More…]

by 29/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Bhagat Singh Ke Saathi: An interview of Prabal Saran Agarwal

Bhagat Singh Ke Saathi: An interview of Prabal Saran Agarwal

Bhagat Singh – a symbol of aspiration of the chained people in this colonized sub-continent. That aspiration was of freedom, dignity, equity and equality. Bhagat Singh – a symbol of fearless life, undaunted life, a life to sacrifice on the altar of people’s struggle for mooktee, emancipation – emancipation from all forms of bondage. There were bondages of colonial rule,[Read More…]

by 29/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Can the Climate be Restored?

Can the Climate be Restored?

A fresh approach to fixing climate change/global warming is outlined in a new book: Climate Restoration, which focuses on how the climate can be restored. Indeed, the book is full of fascinating details, meriting a closer look and critique (Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis, Climate Restoration, Rivertowns Books, 2022). But first: The words climate change and global warming have become[Read More…]

by 29/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lived Stories – travel through a non-rational choice

Lived Stories – travel through a non-rational choice

Incidents are told in simple, straight style, but significant in meaning; and metaphors are there in the Lived Stories. Madhu Bhaduri tells her days as an Indian diplomat in Vienna, Hanoi, Mexico City, Hamburg, Minsk, Lisbon. These are about geopolitics and war, economy and history, culture, persons and people, and about undaunted spirit of humanity. As First Secretary to the[Read More…]

by 28/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Writing on War – And Living in a World from Hell

Writing on War – And Living in a World from Hell

As this century began, I was writing War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, my reflections on two decades as a war correspondent, 15 of them with the New York Times, in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia, and Kosovo. I worked in a small, sparsely furnished studio apartment on First Avenue in New York City. The room had a desk,[Read More…]

by 26/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Glory to God in the Lowest – Journeys to An Unholy Land

Glory to God in the Lowest – Journeys to An Unholy Land

Glory to God in the Lowest – Journeys to An Unholy Land. Donald E. Wagner. Olive Branch Press (Interlink Publishing group, Inc.). Northampton, Massachusetts. 2022. In “Glory to God in the Lowest” Donald Wagner set out three themes for his memoirs: his transition from political apathy and social conservatism to activism in the civil rights and anti-war movements; a theological[Read More…]

by 25/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives of Some Great Film Directors

Lives of Some Great Film Directors

A new, freely downloadable, book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Lives of Some Great Film Directors”. The pdf file of the book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/10/Lives-of-Some-Great-Film-Directors-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf It is part of my series of books on cultural history. Human history as cultural history We need[Read More…]

by 24/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review of Bhaswati Ghosh’s novel, Victory Colony, 1950

Review of Bhaswati Ghosh’s novel, Victory Colony, 1950

Victory Colony, 1950 by Bhaswati Ghosh is a harrowing tale of partition that brought death and displacement for millions of people. The novel is set in Kolkata. Though the novel is about partition, it’s more about the human lives that bear the brunt of the whimsy of the rulers. The novelist portrayed the wounds that her forefathers or my forefathers[Read More…]

by 17/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: Naxalbari and the Chinese Press

Book Review: Naxalbari and the Chinese Press

This book “Naxalbari and the Chinese Press –A Select anthology”, compiled by Aloke Mukherjee is a classic set of articles published by the Chinese Press ,illuminating the Naxalbari Uprising. A most notable contribution in illustrating the solidarity of the Chinese Communist party with Naxalbari and the inter-relation. It delves on how a spark turned into a Prairie Fire which swept[Read More…]

by 16/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Human Prehistory—Why New Discoveries About Human Origins Open Up Revolutionary Possibilities

Human Prehistory—Why New Discoveries About Human Origins Open Up Revolutionary Possibilities

Discoveries in the fields of human origins, paleoanthropology, cognitive science, and behavioral biology have accelerated in the past few decades. We occasionally bump into news reports that new findings have revolutionary implications for how humanity lives today—but the information for the most part is still packed obscurely in the worlds of science and academia. Some experts have tried to make[Read More…]

by 14/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Healthy Ecosystems Need Birds, but Billions Fatally Strike Our Windows Every Year

Healthy Ecosystems Need Birds, but Billions Fatally Strike Our Windows Every Year

Glass windows have existed since as long ago as 290 CE, if only in a limited supply of small sheets. It seems fair to say that window glass has enriched human aesthetic, cultural, physiological, and psychological well-being for at least 16 centuries. Even one small pane is enough to admit a bit of the sun’s light and warmth into an[Read More…]

by 12/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Tariq Ali’s The Stone Woman: An Allegory of Ottomans with Strong Contemporary Parallels

 Tariq Ali’s The Stone Woman: An Allegory of Ottomans with Strong Contemporary Parallels

Tariq Ali’s novel The Stone Woman critically tells us the story of declining Ottoman in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and has plenty of lessons for the current day Turkey. As is well known, the Ottoman kingdom, based in Turkey, ruled a vast portion of the Middle East and Eastern Europe for over 600 years. Like any other[Read More…]

by 10/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WEIRDest People and Us

WEIRDest People and Us

When I first went abroad to the US for my PhD, I, like most other Indians, was very surprised by many of the customs and ways of life that I encountered there on a daily basis. For example, once when I went to meet our Statistics teacher, right at the beginning of the term, and addressed him ‘Sir’, like we[Read More…]

by 10/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Tania-Undercover for Che Guevara in Bolivia

Tania-Undercover for Che Guevara in Bolivia

Tania-Undercover for Che Guevara in Bolivia, Ulises Estrada, 1st ed. 2005, Ocean Press, Melbourne… pages 331, price Rupees 295/ Ulises Estrada, editor of Tricontinental, joined Cuban revolution from the very beginning as part of 26th July movement in 1953. He was part of Cuban liberation war 1957-59 and later worked with Che Guevara in many assignments including in Congo. He[Read More…]

by 09/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Crucible of revolution: Book review of The Journey of the Farmer’s Rebellion

Crucible of revolution: Book review of The Journey of the Farmer’s Rebellion

This book documents the rebirth of an anarchist consciousness in India’s masses. “The workers have begun to think that if people are given the opportunity and power to manage things on their own, they can do so better than the government. A lot of the workers have begun to ask, do we actually need a government at all?” – Nodeep[Read More…]

by 09/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Being Adivasis: The History of Broken Promises

Being Adivasis: The History of Broken Promises

 Book review : Being Adivasis: Existence, Entitlements, Exclusion edited by Abhay Flavian Xaxa and G. N. Devy, New Delhi, Penguin, 2021, 208 pp., 699 (Hardcover), ISBN 9780670093007                                         Scholars on the study of Adivasi bring out new book under the title ‘Being[Read More…]

by 08/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Capitalism: Why we should scrap it

Capitalism: Why we should scrap it

This is a new book by Ted Trainer. You can download it for free (170 pp.) at: https://thesimplerway.info/CAPITALISMBOOK.pdf This book provides a fairly short but sufficiently detailed critical discussion of the nature of our basically capitalist economic system, its faults, why it is not just unsatisfactory but is leading to global breakdown, the alternative we must work for, and how[Read More…]

by 03/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Familiar Birds of Sanawar

Familiar Birds of Sanawar

A Pioneering Book That Brings Out the Love of School Children for Birds “Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.” This is the illuminating quote from Douglas Coupland with which a remarkable new book ‘Familiar Birds of Sanawar’ has started. This book has been[Read More…]

by 03/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Aerodynamics of Velvet: What Owls Can Teach Humans

The Aerodynamics of Velvet: What Owls Can Teach Humans

Owl physiology can help advance technology to address noise pollution—and maybe even help the deaf hear. To the ancient Greeks, the owl symbolized wisdom, but the Romans saw it as an evil omen. Their myths tell of an owl-like strix that stalked the night and preyed on human flesh. Ovid’s poem Fasti describes how such a demon slipped into the nursery of the sleeping[Read More…]

by 29/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Anirban Biswas – A Man of Unrelenting Dreams

Anirban Biswas – A Man of Unrelenting Dreams

Introductory Review of ‘Aleek Manush Anirban Biswas’, a Frontier anthology Anirban Biswas, assistant editor of Frontier and one of the directors of Germinal Publications Pvt Ltd, passed away on April 4, 2021 at the age of 69, in his home in Birbhum district, West Bengal. He was also a regular contributor in the bilingual monthly Purbasha Ekhon, and editor of[Read More…]

by 28/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Arc of a Covenant

The Arc of a Covenant

The Arc of a Covenant – The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People. Walter Russell Mead. Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2022. In today’s world a clear understanding of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is important – this is not the work to clear it up. Walter Mead’s hypothesis is that Israel does not[Read More…]

by 23/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Steps towards avoiding a climate catastrophe

Steps towards avoiding a climate catastrophe

I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link; https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/09/Steps-Towards-Avoiding-a-Climate-Catastrophe-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The topics discussed in the book are listed below: Threats are becoming more severe There is clear evidence that climate-related threats are becoming more severe. One can think of the record-breaking heat waves in Europe[Read More…]

by 21/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Guilty Women

Guilty Women

Review of Hitler’s Girl by Lauren Young Historians and lay-people alike have for decades posed the counter-factual question, “How could Hitler have been stopped?”  The answer, shocking to those at play in the fields of elision, is that the easiest way to contain him and therefore to halt the growth of Nazism and the save the world from murderous peril[Read More…]

by 15/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Journey of the Farmers’ Rebellion: A compilation of interviews on the farmers’ movement in India (2020-2021)

The Journey of the Farmers’ Rebellion: A compilation of interviews on the farmers’ movement in India (2020-2021)

Temperatures are rising, and so is communal hate. Rainfall is drying up, and so is employment. A war is being waged on the working masses by the corporates and ruling classes on every front. A war in which the people are losing one battle after another. But when the corporates and their henchmen in the seats of power thought that[Read More…]

by 14/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Reforming The United Nations

Reforming The United Nations

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book about how we might strengthen the United Nations and make it more effective in the great tasks that are facing the organization. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link; https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/09/Reforming-the-United-Nations-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Strengthening the United Nations It is becoming[Read More…]

by 10/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Prospect of Earning Freedom — a review of The Well-Earned, edited by Kiriti Sengupta 

The Prospect of Earning Freedom — a review of The Well-Earned, edited by Kiriti Sengupta 

The French theologian Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” On the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, Hawakal Publishers released The Well-Earned, a poetry anthology edited by Kiriti Sengupta. This collection sought the nearly impossible: poems defining liberty. Freedom of expression is the artist’s bedrock. However, there seems to be a lack of poetry anthologies[Read More…]

by 08/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Plastics Paradox Facing Humanity

The Plastics Paradox Facing Humanity

Properly addressing the plastics problem involves not only interrogating corporate tactics but also understanding that some plastics provide societal benefits. Over the past few years, the paradox of plastic as both a miracle for and a menace to society has become a platitude. There are countless stories in the media and popular culture about our fraught relationship with plastic, focusing[Read More…]

by 25/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives in Molecular Biology – A freely downloadable book

Lives in Molecular Biology – A freely downloadable book

A new, freely downloadable, book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, entitled “Lives in Molecular Biology”. The pdf file of the book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/08/Lives-in-Molecular-Biology-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf It is part of my series of books on cultural history. Human history as cultural history We need to reform[Read More…]

by 23/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Western ‘Naturalism’ Disrespects Nonhuman Animals and the Entire Natural World

Western ‘Naturalism’ Disrespects Nonhuman Animals and the Entire Natural World

One species has transformed into a material backdrop for its tribulations the 10 million other species that constitute its extended family, its giving environment, and its daily cohabitants. More specifically, it is one small population of this species that has done so, the bearer of a merely historical and local culture. Making all other living beings invisible is a provincial[Read More…]

by 16/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Famine, Disease And War

Famine, Disease And War

Malthus’ “Essay on The Principle of Population” T.R. Malthus’ “Essay on The Principle of Population”, the first edition of which was published in 1798, was one of the the first systematic studies of the problem of population in relation to resources. Earlier discussions of the problem had been published by Boterro in Italy, Robert Wallace in England, and Benjamin Franklin[Read More…]

by 10/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Of George Monbiot, mathematical modernism and the case for agrarian localism

Of George Monbiot, mathematical modernism and the case for agrarian localism

When you read a book with which you profoundly disagree, I guess it’s usually best just to shrug, put it back on the shelf and get on with your work. The hatchet job review is a popular but ignoble genre. Having been the object of one myself I can attest the outcomes are rarely positive, apart perhaps from a warm[Read More…]

by 10/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review: “Four Seasons in Rome” – US Genocide-Ignoring Exampled

Review: “Four Seasons in Rome” – US Genocide-Ignoring Exampled

“Four Seasons in Rome” by Anthony Doerr is an absorbing account of a year spent in Rome in 2004-2005 by a young American couple and their new-born twins. This book touches on WW2 Normandy, victims of the 2004 Tsunami, the wounding of an Italian journalist in Iraq, and death of the Pope, but it avoids mentioning any of the huge Iraqi[Read More…]

by 06/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review – “Why Do You Fear Me So Much-Poems and Letters From Prison”

Book Review – “Why Do You Fear Me So Much-Poems and Letters From Prison”

“Why Do You Fear Me So Much-Poems and Letters from Prison” by Professor G.N.Saibaba portrays the sheer inhumanity prevailing within prison walls in India, illustrating the barbaric jail practices. It is the best illustration of how genuine activists are falsely fabricated in India today ,with the judiciary virtually a tool or completely subservient to the ruling classes

by 06/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
New Free E-Book: Sacrificing The Earth For The Economy

New Free E-Book: Sacrificing The Earth For The Economy

Climate change is an extreme emergency There is ample evidence that if the international community does not act immediately and effectively to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions and to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, tipping points will be passed, after which feedback loops will take over, making human efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change useless. Some examples of feedback loops[Read More…]

by 02/08/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Hundred Year War on Palestine

The Hundred Year War on Palestine

The Hundred Year War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017.  Rashid Khalidi.  Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2020. With the writing of The Hundred Year War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, Rashid Khalidi has created an interesting well written overview of the Zionist colonial-settler enterprise in[Read More…]

by 26/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: People’s Tales From Narmada Valley

Book Review: People’s Tales From Narmada Valley

————————————————————————————————————————- NARMADA GHATI SE BAHUJAN GATHAYEN Editors: Ojas S. V., Madhuresh Kumar, Vijayan M. J. and, Joe Athiyali Translation: Chinmay Mishra New Delhi, April 2022, Navarun, Pp. 247, Price Rs. 350/- ————————————————————————————————————————– Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA, Save Narmada Movement) is one of the longest drawn (35 years) people’s movement against ‘development’ at the cost of people and nature in India.[Read More…]

by 24/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Future of Food? Genetic Engineering, Value Capture and Dependency 

The Future of Food? Genetic Engineering, Value Capture and Dependency 

The following is an abridged version of the second chapter of the author’s short (free-to-read) e-book Food, Dispossession and Dependency (2022)  GM crops are required to feed the world is a well-worn industry slogan trotted out at every available opportunity. Just like the claim of GM crops being a tremendous success, this too is based on a myth. There is no[Read More…]

by 20/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: It Begins at Home and Other Short Stories

Book Review: It Begins at Home and Other Short Stories

Sanjukta Dasgupta, Virasat Art Publication, Kolkata, 2021 Sanjukta Dasgupta has been a scholar and an academic over her entire working life. Having taught English literature in its varied manifestations has seen its reflection in her very scholarly books revolving around literature, both English and Bengali, but she later shifted to poetry in the original and in translation and is now[Read More…]

by 20/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 With These Wings, by A. Shea

 With These Wings, by A. Shea

The idea of writing short poetry that conveys intense feelings isn’t new but has flourished through the internet especially as a method of sharing emotions with multitudes, often using a beautiful layout to evoke a feeling many of us can relate to. Surely this move towards making poetry accessible to everyone is a good thing, but it can also be[Read More…]

by 19/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Advocating for Palestine in Canada

Advocating for Palestine in Canada

Advocating for Palestine in Canada – Histories, Movements, Actions. Ed.: Emily Wills, Jeremy Wildeman, Michael Beuckert, Nadia Abu-Zahra. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax/Winnipeg, 2022. Different groups advocate for Palestine from a variety of perspectives while developing several common themes. Advocating for Palestine contains nine presentations looking at Palestine from the viewpoint of students, Jewish activism, indigenous issues, being Palestinian-Arab in Canada, and[Read More…]

by 16/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Selling Weapons, Selling War

Selling Weapons, Selling War

Why does war persist? War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge. It has always been a crime for soldiers to kill people, just as it is a crime for murderers in civil society to kill[Read More…]

by 06/07/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Memoirs which recall several inspiring aspects of social and ecological movements

Memoirs which recall several inspiring aspects of social and ecological movements

A recent book released on the first death anniversary  of Sunderlal Bahuguna has recalled several inspiring episodes of social and ecological movements in the Himalayan state of  Uttarakhand. Edited by  Madhu Pathak and published by Samay Sakshya, this book titled Sankalp ke Himalaya , for the most part in Hindi, will be remembered most for the chapters contributed by social[Read More…]

by 21/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” projects synthesis of Marxism with Christianity  

 “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” projects synthesis of Marxism with Christianity  

“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” ,written by Christians for National Liberation and  published by Foreign Languages Press earlier this year illustratively portrays the synthesis of Marxism with Christianity as practiced in context of the Philippines Revolution. Fitting that this year we commemorate 50th founding anniversary of CLN. It most symmetrically dissects every aspect of how the gap[Read More…]

by 19/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives of Some Great Dramatists

Lives of Some Great Dramatists

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the lives and[Read More…]

by 18/06/2022 1 comment Book Review
Our Bodies, Societies and Planet Are Inflamed for the Same Reasons

Our Bodies, Societies and Planet Are Inflamed for the Same Reasons

Activist, filmmaker and bestselling author Raj Patel was dressed as a genetically modified tomato when he met Rupa Marya, MD, more than a decade ago. They were at a protest organized against pesticide use, and Marya—who is a musician as well as a physician—was playing a show at the event with her world-touring band Rupa and the April Fishes. Patel says the two quickly[Read More…]

by 18/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Canada – the not so peaceable kingdom

Canada – the not so peaceable kingdom

For a short while, at least as announced by the mainstream media, Canada found itself described as a “peacemaker” among the countries of the world. This was an image promoted abroad and valued domestically as Canadian troops, war materials, and military equipment worked around the world to maintain peace. This necessity for peace, when reviewed critically, came from the reality[Read More…]

by 14/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. By: Marcello Musto

Book Review: Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. By: Marcello Musto

Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2021). 164 pages Marcello Musto’s anthology of Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation[1] is both comprehensive and concise, containing within the span of 100 pages the three decades long development of the concept through more than a dozen published works and posthumously published manuscripts. Additionally, Musto’s introduction to the anthology[Read More…]

by 10/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Revolution and Counter Revolution ‘ by Pao Yu Ching-Book Review 

‘Revolution and Counter Revolution ‘ by Pao Yu Ching-Book Review 

‘Revolution and Counter Revolution ‘printed by Foreign Languages Press  in November 2021  and written by Pao Yu Ching  is a most analytical work  .It stands amongst the major achievements in modern times summarising the positive strides made by China under Mao from 1949-78 and how those objectives were inverted 180 degrees after 1978 after Deng Xiaoping. With intrinsic details she[Read More…]

by 09/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Sociology of Bharat Dogra’s Literary Creations

The Sociology of Bharat Dogra’s Literary Creations

Through his stories and novellas, Bharat Dogra makes it possible—the confluence of political sociology and literary imagination. Bharat Dogra, A Day in 2071: A Collection of Stories and Novellas, Saptarishi, New Delhi, 2022, pp. xiii+246, price: Rs. 399/ I have been reading Bharat Dogra’s essays and columns in a spectrum of newspapers and magazines for quite some time. What fascinates me[Read More…]

by 09/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review: “Aemilia Lanyer As Shakespeare’s Co-Author”:  Radical Feminist Literary Revision

Review: “Aemilia Lanyer As Shakespeare’s Co-Author”:  Radical Feminist Literary Revision

“Aemilia Lanyer As Shakespeare’s Co-Author” by Mark Bradbeer presents a detailed case that a woman of colour and feminist poet, Aemilia Lanyer, was an important co-author  of William Shakespeare, and hence made a big contribution to a body of works that are foundational to English literature and the English language that is spoken by over 1 billion people in India,[Read More…]

by 03/06/2022 1 comment Book Review
The Disimpassioned Logic of Capitalism in Bitan Chakraborty’s Redundant—a review

The Disimpassioned Logic of Capitalism in Bitan Chakraborty’s Redundant—a review

Redundant Author: Bitan Chakraborty Translated from the original Bengali by Malati Mukherjee Published by Readomania, New Delhi May 2022, Paperback, Page 102, ISBN: 978-93-91800-38-3 “Redundant” as a word addresses excess. For something to be “redundant,” it must be superfluous. In the context of Bitan Chakraborty’s novella Redundant, we absorb excess through the exploits of one of the central characters, Shubho,[Read More…]

by 01/06/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Bollywood, Tollywood And Beyond

Bollywood, Tollywood And Beyond

BOLLYWOOD, TOLLYWOOD AND BEYOND – LITERARY ESSAYS ON INDIAN FILMS – By Somdatta Mandal, Pencraft International, New Delhi, 2021. Pages 344, Price: Rs.1200 Somdatta Mandal recently retired from her position as Professor of English and Chairperson of the Department of English, Viswa Bharati, Santi Niketan where she was very active in organizing seminars, panel discussions and conferences on subjects linking[Read More…]

by 30/05/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Review: “Time For Socialism” By Thomas Piketty – Climate Action & Sharing Limited Resources

 Review: “Time For Socialism” By Thomas Piketty – Climate Action & Sharing Limited Resources

French economist Thomas Piketty’s latest West-oriented book “Time for Socialism” is about worsening wealth inequality in an ever worsening global climate crisis. His solutions for Western economies include a just and progressive income tax, wealth taxes, carbon taxes, and economic justice for the poor and the young. Because capital begets more capital he argues for a  big grant to 25[Read More…]

by 13/05/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Homo Sapiens?

Homo Sapiens?

A book announcement Humans, in their arrogance, call themselves not just “Homo sapiens”, but “Homo sapiens sapiens”, the “wisest of the wise”! Admittedly, our species has enormous technical and scientific progress to its credit, as well as great cultural achievements. But wisdom? Wisdom is another matter entirely. Our suicidal wars against nature and against each other can hardly be called[Read More…]

by 12/05/2022 2 comments Book Review
Review of Professor Joma Sison’s books  ‘Peoples War’ and ‘Imperialism in Turmoil, Socialism in prospect’

Review of Professor Joma Sison’s books  ‘Peoples War’ and ‘Imperialism in Turmoil, Socialism in prospect’

Professor Joma Sison in recent times has come out with some most analytical Marxist-Leninist works which are an invaluable collection in the treasure house of all Marxist or Progressive readers. In March in Netherlands there were book launches of his recent works on Critique of Philippines economy and politics and “On a Peoples War’. I recommend reference to the reviews[Read More…]

by 11/05/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Unvanquished – The fight beyond justice by Dr Jonaki Mukherjee

Unvanquished – The fight beyond justice by Dr Jonaki Mukherjee

Dr. Jonaki Mukherjee is a Kolkata-based, dedicated teacher of small and growing children and is a distinguished counsellor. She is also a part of the West Bengal Women’s Commission. The book is a powerful reflection of emotional nostalgia that are narrations of her personal journey with women she has interacted with, mostly as counsellor. Books authored by counselling experts are[Read More…]

by 05/05/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Chidananda Dasgupta Best Book Award to Vidyarthy Chatterjee’s book on Calcutta and the Joshy Joseph Trilogy

The Chidananda Dasgupta Best Book Award to Vidyarthy Chatterjee’s book on Calcutta and the Joshy Joseph Trilogy

The Chidananda Dasgupta Best Book Award to Vidyarthy Chatterjee’s book on Calcutta and the Joshy Joseph Trilogy- A critical review Published by Cerebrum Books, India, 2022 Stuart Hall identifies three ways of reading media messages.[1]  According to Stuart Hall, Dominant Reading takes what the film says for granted. The Negotiated Reading questions the minor premises but accepts the major ones.[Read More…]

by 04/05/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Christian Schools And Brahmin Women

The Christian Schools And Brahmin Women

In 1971 , when I left school, I was sure that I was opting out of the traditional Brahmin world–it was too burdensome for a woman to carry that cross. Gita Ramaswamy in her just released Memoirs Land, Guns, Caste, Woman (2022) Gita Ramaswamy was born in a Brahmin family, never remained one in her later life. She is an[Read More…]

by 01/05/2022 1 comment Book Review
Pitfalls of Positivist Scholarship

Pitfalls of Positivist Scholarship

There is near-consensus in the academia that facts and facts alone are sovereign in research,and theories are suspect.This does not prevent reputed scholars to author huge times on ‘the end of ideology’,’the clash of civilizations’,’the mind of Islam’, ‘the fading of the American dream’,and so on.Nevertheless the insistence is reiterated ad nauseam. It is especially when someone writes something that[Read More…]

by 30/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives in Prehistory

Lives in Prehistory

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which describes the early history  of the earth, and the evolution of humans. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/04/Lives-in-Prehistory-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis[Read More…]

by 29/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review : A guide to freedom through Marxist education

Book Review : A guide to freedom through Marxist education

by Dr. Dilnaz Boga  and Rohit Ranjan We are living in times when societies across the world are struggling with socio-economic, political, ecological and spiritual crises. Simultaneously, disparities between social classes in terms of resource appropriation and allocation are growing starker with time. Despite the severity of crises in all walks of human life in the twenty-first century, the question[Read More…]

by 21/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Light in Gaza

Light in Gaza

Light in Gaza – Writings Born of Fire. Ed. Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing,, Michael Merryman Lotze. Haymarket Books, Chicago, IL, 2022. The actual history of Gaza can be readily researched – the dates, the actions, the numbers. What is not readily available is information beyond the Israeli narrative of Gaza being populated by terrorists. This current book, a collection of[Read More…]

by 14/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Eliminating The Causes Of War

Eliminating The Causes Of War

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the causes of war, and how they may be eliminated. The book may be downloaded free of charge and circulated from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/04/Eliminating-the-causes-of-war-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The danger of nuclear war War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering,[Read More…]

by 05/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Very Important Book on Ensuring Fair Elections in India

A Very Important Book on Ensuring Fair Elections in India

In recent years, and particularly after the 2019 General Elections, there have been growing concerns regarding the fairness of the election process in India. These have ranged from highly technical issues concerning the EVMs to the systemic corruption and lack of transparency in election bonds, the amassing of huge funds by the ruling party and its misuse. A new book[Read More…]

by 05/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Class Struggle Unionism

Class Struggle Unionism

Joe Burns’ new book says only workers can save the labor movement (Part One) I have only started reading Joe Burns’ new book, Class Struggle Unionism, but I feel a need to report on some important ideas that he introduces in Chapter Three, titled “Beyond Labor Liberalism.” There is a trend in the labor movement that is often called, somewhat[Read More…]

by 28/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Cuba Prepares for Disaster

 Cuba Prepares for Disaster

The September 2021 Scientific American included a description by the editors of the deplorable state of disaster relief in the US. They traced the root cause of problems with relief programs as their “focus on restoring private property,” which results in little attention to those “with the least capacity to deal with disasters.” The book Disaster Preparedness and Climate Change[Read More…]

by 25/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Kashmir Files’ is a Manifestation of  Hindutva Fascism

‘Kashmir Files’ is a Manifestation of  Hindutva Fascism

We should expose how ‘Kashmir Files’ movie is an advertisement of the Hindutva propaganda machine to tarnish the image of Muslims of Kashmir, give a crushing blow to all credibility to the right of self-determination of Kashmiri people and sow the seeds of a Hindu Rashtra for the saffron brigade to sharpen it’s fangs. It jeopardises Hindu-Muslim fraternity. Its projection[Read More…]

by 19/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives in the Middle Ages

Lives in the Middle Ages

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of culture in the Middke Ages. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Lives-in-the-Middle-Ages-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf How the Middle Ages are defined The Western Roman Empire fell to the attacks of Germanic tribes  in 476. The[Read More…]

by 19/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review: “Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis” – Urgent Action Now

Review: “Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis” – Urgent Action Now

“Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good” by Professor Richard Hil, Professor Kristen Lyons, and Fern Thompsett calls for a radical transformation of our universities  in the face of worsening global crises. From a scientific perspective this book has great merit because it demands such radical change at time when neoliberal and Trumpist[Read More…]

by 18/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Book on COVID-19 that Gives Voice To the Marginalized

A Book on COVID-19 that Gives Voice To the Marginalized

While the pandemic has brought distress to all sections of people, the poor and vulnerable sections have suffered the most in this phase, not just from the disease directly but including  the impact of policy measures like prolonged lockouts which caused huge unemployment and loss of income. The urgency of discussing this issue particularly from the perspective of weaker sections[Read More…]

by 11/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review: “Lies And Falsehoods” By Bernard Keane: Australian Coalition Government Lies

Review: “Lies And Falsehoods” By Bernard Keane: Australian Coalition Government Lies

We expect authoritarian governments to lie, and anti-racist Jewish American writer I .F. Stone famously opined that “Governments lie”.  However the Australian Coalition Government under PM Scott Morrison has adopted blatant, in-your-face lying and falsehood to an extraordinary, Orwellian and Trumpist degree as revealed by Bernard Keane in his scathing book “Lies and Falsehoods. The Morrison Government and the new[Read More…]

by 10/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography

The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography

The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography. By: Marcello Musto Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography provides an illuminating glance at the work and life of Karl Marx during the most unexamined period of his life. Musto’s oscillation between Marx’s work and life provides readers with both an intellectual allurement towards research in[Read More…]

by 08/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Myanmar: Ethnic Conflict and Resolution

Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Myanmar: Ethnic Conflict and Resolution

Book Review: ROHINGYA REFUGEE CRISIS IN MYANMAR: ‎ETHNIC CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION (Palgrave Macmillan) Edited by: Kudret Bülbül, Md. Nazmul Islam & Md. Sajid Khan Considering the current situation of crisis, the publication of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Myanmar: ‎Ethnic Conflict and Resolution is very timely and something that was required. The editors of the book, Kudret Bülbül, Md. Nazmul[Read More…]

by 07/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Corporations Versus Democracy

Corporations Versus Democracy

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the ways in which giant corporations control both governments and media, thus undermining democracy. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2022/02/Corporations-Versus-Democracy-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Corporate oligarchy versus democracy As Professor Noam Chomsky has pointed out, greed and[Read More…]

by 01/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Global Seafood Supply Is Being Contaminated by Microplastics, but Major News Outlets Are Silent

The Global Seafood Supply Is Being Contaminated by Microplastics, but Major News Outlets Are Silent

by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff Our addiction to plastic is having negative effects all along the food chain. Editor’s note: Every year Project Censored publishes the “State of the Free Press,” which highlights important news stories that the corporate media insufficiently covered and takes the temperature of press freedom and integrity. The project’s student researchers work with faculty advisers at college[Read More…]

by 01/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Ramrao:  The Story of India’s Farm Crisis

Ramrao:  The Story of India’s Farm Crisis

On a trip to India 8 years ago, I picked up “A Village Awaits Doomsday” at an airport bookshop.  It appeared to be an interesting read and I was glad to find it in a shop that otherwise was littered with business titles and pulp fiction.  On the flight, I read it cover to cover and was at once impressed[Read More…]

by 28/02/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Where is India Headed? And where lies the Inspiration for Change?

Where is India Headed? And where lies the Inspiration for Change?

Book Review: Where is India Headed? An Historical Critique by  Dr Vinod Mubayi, Media Society and Sahithya Pravarthaka, 2021. It was April 2017, UP elections had just concluded, writing about the loss of composite culture, the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, Vinod Mubayi, in his essay UP Elections and Consequence said, ‘the early signs are not reassuring’. The essay foretold that the country[Read More…]

by 21/02/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives in the Renaissance

Lives in the Renaissance

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of[Read More…]

by 18/02/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
We Cannot Truly Die

We Cannot Truly Die

The extraordinary statement “we cannot truly die” is found on page 133 of Joseph Selbie’s book, The Physics of God (New Page Books, 2021). Indeed, it’s a book for people who want to understand and believe that there is more to life’s course than earthly corporeal existence. Based upon reams of fascinating scientific and metaphysical research, Selbie connects the dots[Read More…]

by 16/02/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Public Intellectual – The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim

Public Intellectual – The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim

Public Intellectual – The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim. Richard Falk. Clarity Press, Atlanta, GA. 2021. Writing an autobiography after experiencing the greater part of a century as a public intellectual has resulted in Richard Falk’s superbly written story covering many of the major events of the Twentieth and nascent Twenty-first Centuries. Public Intellectual is densely written with ideas and[Read More…]

by 13/02/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature By Kaan Kangal

Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature By Kaan Kangal

Friedrich Engels’ Dialectics of Nature has been arguably the most polemic ‘book’ within the corpus of classical Marxist literature.  It is fair to say that since its initial 1925[1] publication in German and Russian, one can infer a ‘Marxists’ political orientation based on their assessment of Engels’ text. However, the centrality of the ‘text’ in the debate between the artificial bifurcation of ‘soviet’[Read More…]

by 09/02/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Giants – The Global Power Elite

Giants – The Global Power Elite

Giants – The Global Power Elite. Peter Phillips. Seven Stories Press, New York, 2018. Abby Martin’s interview with Peter Phillips was the instigator for reading Peter Phillips’ now slightly outdated but highly valuable work, “Giants – The Global Power Elite.” The interview is valuable unto itself and like all Abby Martin’s work is concise and pointed; it is a good[Read More…]

by 30/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
In The Trail Of Conspiracy

In The Trail Of Conspiracy

Poring over Appu Suresh and Priyanka Kotamraju’s THE MURDERER.THE MONARCH AND THE FAKIR(Harper Collins) at a stretch I have just finished reading it.The story has its own interest and the authors have brought to light things that can never be evaded now.Savarkar and his associates can no longer be simply absolved of guilt as has so far been done.The Prince[Read More…]

by 29/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Warnings From The Poles

Warnings From The Poles

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses worrying recent developments in the Antarctic and the Arctic, which warn us of catastrophic consequences if we neglect urgent climate action. The book may be downloaded free of charge from the following link: http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/Warnings.pdf Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier Diagonal cracks have been observed[Read More…]

by 28/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Imperialists’ and Proxies’ War against Syria

The Imperialists’ and Proxies’ War against Syria

Review of World War in Syria by A.B. Abrams On 30 August 2021, the United States’ 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan came to an end when the removal of American forces was completed. Although the withdrawal was botched, it was the correct move. The withdrawal is ignominious because it turns out that the much ballyhooed US fighting forces were, in[Read More…]

by 28/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Faces of Inequality: Stories of the poor and underprivileged from India’s grassroots

Faces of Inequality: Stories of the poor and underprivileged from India’s grassroots

Amid the talks of a five trillion dollar Indian economy, there is still an India where people struggle to arrange two square meals a day. Many strive hard for basic needs of food, health and education. Often unheard and ignored, these voiceless people mostly don’t matter to the mainstream media. This book, through various ground reports over a decade and[Read More…]

by 27/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Economics With A Human Face—Young Writer Makes A Mark With His First Book

Economics With A Human Face—Young Writer Makes A Mark With His First Book

This is the first book by Wangba Senjam, a 35 year writer from Manipur, who has written this in exceptionally difficult circumstances. Despite the difficulties he faced, he makes a strong impression with the originality, freshness and deep sincerity of his ideas. His inclination and ability for out-of-box thinking is evident also in the subjects he has selected for his[Read More…]

by 21/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The American Trap

The American Trap

The American Trap – My Battle to Expose America’s Secret Economic War Against the Rest of the World. Frédéric Pierucci (with Mathieu Aron). HOdder & Stoughton, London, 2020. It becomes more clear with more and more readings that the “American trap” is the U.S. dollar, and that for some it is no secret. Frédéric Pierucci’s well written personal story tells[Read More…]

by 18/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Remembering V.P. Singh , the Man Known for the OBC Cause

Remembering V.P. Singh , the Man Known for the OBC Cause

Debashish Mukerji’s new book The Disruptor How Vishwanath Pratap Singh shook India has come at a rather topical time as the OBC reservation issue is back in the news. I have another reason to relate to the subject as I covered the OBC agitation in the 1980s in Maharashtra for the Times of India. And I had occasion to preside[Read More…]

by 15/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives in the 20th Century

Lives in the 20th Century

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of[Read More…]

by 07/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Bright Green Lies Torpedoes Greens

Bright Green Lies Torpedoes Greens

Bright Green Lies (Monkfish Book Publishing, 2021) grumbles and growls like a rambunctious thunderstorm on an early spring day opening up darkened clouds of acid rain across the world of environmentalism, including celebrated personalities. According to Bright Green Lies authors Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert: “We are writing this book because we want our environmental movement back.” As[Read More…]

by 02/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
History of the World 2025-2200

History of the World 2025-2200

If you’re reading this, you’re probably no longer skeptical about the need for Humanity to change its ways hard and fast. I would dare to say that you are one from a rising tide of consciousness, for whom the depth and breadth of our impact on this Earth is starting to sink in. You feel that equally massive changes are[Read More…]

by 28/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Humanity’s Massive Footprint On The Face Of Nature

Humanity’s Massive Footprint On The Face Of Nature

I would like to announce the punlication of a new book which discusses the reasons for our human encroachment on the earth’s ecological systems, and the possible consequences if we do not take steps to correct the problem. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2021/12/Humanitys-Massive-Footprint-On-The-Face-Of-Nature-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Here are some of the problems that[Read More…]

by 28/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Critiquing Transgender Theology: A review of Janice Raymond’s Doublethink

Critiquing Transgender Theology: A review of Janice Raymond’s Doublethink

There’s a sad irony at the heart of Janice Raymond’s new book on transgenderism and feminism. After decades of research and activism, she is uniquely qualified to contribute to the polarized debate over these issues. But because she has long been demonized by the transgender movement, her insights on sex and gender will be overlooked by many. Doublethink: A Feminist[Read More…]

by 28/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives In The 17th Century

Lives In The 17th Century

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of[Read More…]

by 16/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
From Nazneen to Naina reveals how Indian cinema has been debased under a right wing regime  

From Nazneen to Naina reveals how Indian cinema has been debased under a right wing regime  

A while back, a friend said to me, “What’s wrong with your friend, Gurpreet? Has he gone crazy? He keeps posting about Bollywood actress, Kareena Kapoor on Facebook.” I did not know about the posts, so I did not respond. I later heard that Gurpreet penned a book about Kareena Kapoor Khan, I thought to myself, “What does Gurpreet have[Read More…]

by 15/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Sadat Hasan Manto: a craftsman of Short Story

Sadat Hasan Manto: a craftsman of Short Story

I was getting anxious as the time of my departure from Mumbai was approaching. I vividly remember it was the last week of September 2016 and I wanted to spend my last week; eating, drinking, and visiting my favorite spots. I still remember every last day I spent in Mumbai except the day of my departure. Sadly, the thought of[Read More…]

by 08/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
International Brigade Against Apartheid

International Brigade Against Apartheid

International Brigade Against Apartheid. Ed. Ronnie Kasrils. (With Muff Andersson and Oscar Marleyn). Jacana Media, Auckland Park, South Africa. 2021. When reviewing a book already given high testament by the likes of Richard Falk, Ilan Pappé, Omar Barghouti, and John Pilger, among many others, the easy recommendation is simply read this book: it is an important addition to the history[Read More…]

by 07/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Toxic political environment in Modi’s India makes book on Kareena Kapoor Khan relevant

Toxic political environment in Modi’s India makes book on Kareena Kapoor Khan relevant

An event for the launch of “From Nazneen to Naina”, based on the work of the Bollywood diva, held in Surrey on Sunday, November 28 was an eye opener for many who are unaware of the spill over effect of right wing politics of New Delhi on the Indian cinema. Authored by Canada-based author Gurpreet Singh, the book tries to[Read More…]

by 30/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Witness: Poetry of Dissent

Witness: Poetry of Dissent

WITNESS: THE RED RIVER BOOK OF POETRY OF DISSENT, 2021, Edited by NABINA DAS RED RIVER, an independent poetry press run by the intrepid Dibyajyoti Sarma has spearheaded recent poetry publications in India – of diverse tenor and fine aesthetic value. Red River has very recently published this staggering anthology of ‘dissent’ poetry to counter the tyranny of our system,[Read More…]

by 23/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review, Arts/Literature
Chronicling the historic events of Bhil revolts in India

Chronicling the historic events of Bhil revolts in India

One of the major accusations against the historians in India is that of neglecting and ignoring the role of the marginalised in the freedom struggle. Most of the time, we were ‘informed’ that there were some ‘heroes’ and ‘villain’ of the freedom movement and then there were historians fighting the ‘political battle’ of ‘history’ and interestingly all of them belonged[Read More…]

by 22/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Tigers are our Brothers’ from the Land of Rising Sun

‘Tigers are our Brothers’ from the Land of Rising Sun

There are several aspects of nature protection to consider. Science is one among them which has been playing a major role to protect nature from all the threats. But a scientific understanding of nature is not only enough to protect nature and its components. There are also a few things that are beyond scientific understanding. Similarly, a close relationship between[Read More…]

by 18/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Tasks For The Future

Tasks For The Future

A new freely downloadable book Today the world is facing several threats, and to avoid them we need to act. The greatest threats are catastrophic climate change and thermonuclear war, but a large-scale global famine also has to be considered. I would like to announce the publication of a new book, in which these problems are discussed The book may[Read More…]

by 18/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Planning for a New, Better Future – A Review of No Bosses

 Planning for a New, Better Future – A Review of No Bosses

As the world prepares to depart 2021 and head into 2022, it is clear that the United States is a declining economic power and that China continues its rapid upward trajectory. While homelessness and poverty sully the debt-laden US, China has eliminated extreme poverty. What is the American response to economic disparities domestically? Institute a guaranteed minimum income? Andrew Wang[Read More…]

by 15/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives In The Ancient World

Lives In The Ancient World

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of[Read More…]

by 14/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Punjabi novel on Dalit resistance movement gets international attention

Punjabi novel on Dalit resistance movement gets international attention

Thanks to a Vancouver-based body of literary awards, the Dhahan Prize for Punjabi Literature, Balbir Madhopuri’s Mitti Bol Peye has received this year’s award in the “novel” category. Based on the Dalit resistance movement in Punjab, the novel is a powerful commentary on the oppression of the so-called untouchables in a caste-based Indian society. The story of Gora, a Dalit[Read More…]

by 14/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Desert’ Imagined/Reimagined: Reading Camels In The Sky

‘Desert’ Imagined/Reimagined: Reading Camels In The Sky

Desert travel writing tends to evoke feelings of excitement, enthusiasm and surprises. In an article in The Times Literary Supplement, Caroline Eden wrote that deserts “offer a cultural and geographical otherness that suits travel writing.” Calling Ethiopian-born British military officer Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands “a classic of travel literature,” Eden quotes his words on desert adventuring: “Your morale improves…the hypocritical[Read More…]

by 11/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Spring longing for an Honourable Burial in Valley

Spring longing for an Honourable Burial in Valley

The author is growing in disasters. Her journey is sad and strange. Years later, she portrays it in her book Rumours of Spring. The reading of the book is delightful. It comes from the tragedies that are naturally expected in the writings of a woman, if she chooses Kashmir as her subject. Farah Bashir does justice even to those expectations.[Read More…]

by 09/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring Purpose on the Path of Life by David Lorimer

A Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring Purpose on the Path of Life by David Lorimer

This is a fascinating and beautiful book, one of those gems you serendipitously discover and shake your head at your good fortune.  Although it is new and I received it as a gift, it reminds me of a few books I have discovered over the years while rummaging through used bookstores that have startled me into a new perspective on[Read More…]

by 09/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Money And Politics

Money And Politics

If politicians continue to use money as a guide in making decisions, we will lose the battle to save human society and the biosphere from the catastrophic long term effects of climate change.  A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the reasons why we urgently need to reduce the role[Read More…]

by 07/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Hindi Literature’s Saga of Villagers Who Face Displacement

Hindi Literature’s Saga of Villagers Who Face Displacement

As the development model implemented in India in recent decades has involved the displacement of a large number of people, millions have faced eviction and displacement.  As the suffering people and those who have come close to them know only too well, the overwhelming majority of displaced people have been denied justice and their rehabilitation effort has been extremely unsatisfactory.[Read More…]

by 07/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Going Postal- Attacks on the USPS and the Failings of the Elite Consensus

Going Postal- Attacks on the USPS and the Failings of the Elite Consensus

Review of “First Class:  The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat” by Christopher W. Shaw.  Foreword by Ralph Nader.  Open Media Series.  City Lights Books. Herodotus said this of the Darius’s Mail Couriers, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”  Over a century[Read More…]

by 05/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Path to Extinction or Path to a Livable Future?

Path to Extinction or Path to a Livable Future?

As climate change leads humanity’s march to Armageddon, data surfacing during late 2021 suggests that the march could be much briefer than previously thought. “Nature is starting to emit greenhouse gases in competition with cars, planes, trains, and factories,” asserts Robert Hunziker. The Amazon has switched from soaking up CO2 to emitting it. Likewise, the Arctic has flipped from being[Read More…]

by 02/11/2021 2 comments Book Review
Lives in the 18th Century

Lives in the 18th Century

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of[Read More…]

by 30/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Fascist’ Doesn’t Mean What It Used To

‘Fascist’ Doesn’t Mean What It Used To

The question of whether or not Russia is fascist rarely if ever gets asked nowadays because it seems so obvious: Why waste the time it takes to even ask the question? International relations scholars; major media organizations; non-scholarly yet high-profile shapers of the prevailing wisdom; and politicians on both sides of the aisle seem almost unanimous in their response to[Read More…]

by 30/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Sinha’s Writing:  An Alternative Vision of Socialism

Sinha’s Writing:  An Alternative Vision of Socialism

The aim of consumerism, which the rulers of these [socialist] economies had promoted, when they aspired to surpass the United States in the standard of life, conceived in terms of capitalist West, forced them to abandon their socialist objective. The consumerist standards of the Western world could be achieved only by providing very high incomes to a few in highly[Read More…]

by 25/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
We Need Immediate And Drastic Climate Action

We Need Immediate And Drastic Climate Action

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the reasons why we urgently need immediate and drastic climate action The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/action.pdf Use of fossil fuels must stop! The IPCC Report The 4,000-page report by the International Panel on Climate Change[Read More…]

by 16/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘New India’ : How the ‘other’ lives ?

‘New India’ : How the ‘other’ lives ?

A note on ‘Indian Muslims’ by Ms Humra Quraishi Farid, the earth questioned the sky, Where are the mighty captains gone ? In their grave they rot, was the reply And rebuked for tasks Not done Baba Farid Shakarganj ( 1173- 1265) A video of a photographer jumping on the dead body of a hapless ‘encroacher’  from Assam has gone[Read More…]

by 10/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Crisis, Reason And Concord: Review Of Amartya Sen’s Memoir “Home in the World”

Crisis, Reason And Concord: Review Of Amartya Sen’s Memoir “Home in the World”

Review of Amartya Sen’s Memoir “HOME IN THE WORLD”,Penguin Random House,2021 Amartya Sen is rightly regarded as the iconic liberal democrat of our time,combining as he does a deep-seated commitment to fundamental civil rights with an unwavering passion for social justice,advocated with serene rationality unfailingly courteous to people holding different views.The only condition he lays down is that such views[Read More…]

by 09/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Is soil sterile? Dead? On Building Soils for Better Crops

Is soil sterile? Dead? On Building Soils for Better Crops

Finding soil’s soul and shadow is difficult, but not impossible. Science and farmer experience make it possible. The finding, found through science and labor, helps soil smile, and sustain life and economy. Building Soils for Better Crops discusses soil, solves that “riddle” that kills soil’s life, and finds that “magic” that brings on earth blooming crops in a sustainable manner.[Read More…]

by 06/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives In The 19th Century

Lives In The 19th Century

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents many aspects of[Read More…]

by 01/10/2021 1 comment Book Review
A Look At The ‘Other Kareena’!

A Look At The ‘Other Kareena’!

Review of ‘ From ‘Nazneen to Naina’   “To get a name is one of the few things that cannot be bought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted.” – British writer Samuel Johnson ( 1709-1784) – poet, playwright, essayist, biographer, critic, editor The idea to be fascinated by individuals –[Read More…]

by 29/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Dying for an iPhone

Dying for an iPhone

Dying for an iPhone:  Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers By Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai Chicago:  Haymarket Books, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-64259-124-8 Paperback Like many of you, I use an iPhone.  It is a technological wonder and allows me to do things unimaginable even a few years ago; it has more computer power than NASA had[Read More…]

by 27/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Real Estate State?

The Real Estate State?

Review of “Capital City:  Gentrification and the Real Estate State” by Samuel Stein.  Verso, 2019. Real Estate is the world’s largest asset class. The numbers are staggering- globally, real estate in aggregate is worth approximately $230 trillion.  Of this, residential real estate is the majority player, worth approximately $180 trillion.  This far exceeds the value of all stocks and is[Read More…]

by 26/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces

Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces

Respected journalist Mark Willacy’s Rogue Forces is imperative reading for its detonating exposé of Australian SAS war crimes in Afghanistan and the systematic cover-ups at varying levels of the Australian Defence Force operations. Willacy’s window on war crimes is narrow, focusing on three SAS members of Squadron 3;  Soldier A, Soldier B and Soldier C who murdered in chilling bloodlust innocent Afghan farmers in 2012. It[Read More…]

by 22/09/2021 1 comment Book Review
Book on Bebo released on her birthday in Chandigarh

Book on Bebo released on her birthday in Chandigarh

From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world was officially launched on Tuesday, September 21 at the Press Club of the Union Territory. Authored by Canadian journalist Gurpreet Singh, the book is based on her film career so far, and what she has faced[Read More…]

by 21/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Suket Riyasat Ke Vidroh by Gagan Deep Singh

Suket Riyasat Ke Vidroh by Gagan Deep Singh

Marx had famously said that the history of all existing societies is the history of class struggle. In this context, if one looks into the history of Himachal Pradesh then one can hardly disregard the fact that classes of several sorts had their struggles in the spatial dimensions of what is now known as Himachal. The homogeneity of society which[Read More…]

by 20/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book on Bebo to be launched on her birthday

Book on Bebo to be launched on her birthday

From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world, will be officially released at Chandigarh Press Club on Tuesday, September 21. Authored by Canadian journalist Gurpreet Singh, the book is based on the film career of the famous Bollywood diva, and what she has faced[Read More…]

by 16/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Revisiting the Propaganda Model in the age of Social Media

Revisiting the Propaganda Model in the age of Social Media

A Review of Andrey Mir’s “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers.”   While there are several books analyzing the impact of social media on society, Andrey Mir’s book “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization” distinguishes itself by focusing on the impact of social media on traditional media. The defining analysis of traditional[Read More…]

by 14/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Who Is My Neighbor?

Who Is My Neighbor?

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses religious ethics and cosmology. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/content/uploads/2021/09/Who-is-my-Neighbor-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf One often hears the question: “Is there a conflict between science and religion?” In my opinion, there are two aspects to religion – ethics[Read More…]

by 12/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives in Biology

Lives in Biology

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the historical development[Read More…]

by 07/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Fearless Mind’ for freedom from Oppression

‘Fearless Mind’ for freedom from Oppression

In a society built on inequities based on class, caste, gender, race – existence of constitutional legislations for benefit of oppressed does not by itself ensure their welfare. It requires a conscious collective action by the oppressed against exploitation. It requires a change in mindset from ‘fearful’ to ‘fearless minds’. The book by Vivek Pandit titled ‘Fearless Minds’ tries to[Read More…]

by 03/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Except for Palestine – The Limits of Progressive Politics

Except for Palestine – The Limits of Progressive Politics

Except for Palestine – The Limits of Progressive Politics. Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick. The New Press, New York. 2021. “Except for Palestine” is a remarkable little book. Within it, the authors Hill and Plitnick present the larger picture that the self proclaimed progressive “universal” values of the United States are argued for in many troubled spots of the[Read More…]

by 24/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Canadian journalist publishes book on Bollywood Diva being hounded by the right wing forces

Canadian journalist publishes book on Bollywood Diva being hounded by the right wing forces

Vancouver-based broadcaster Gurpreet Singh has tried to expose the growing polarization of Indian society and cinema through the story of one of the most popular movie stars. From Nazneen to Naina: 20 years of Kareena Kapoor Khan in Bollywood and what that means for India and the rest of the world is based on her film career so far, and[Read More…]

by 24/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Of free tigers, imprisoned Adivasis. An eye-witness account of life in cage-like cells

Of free tigers, imprisoned Adivasis. An eye-witness account of life in cage-like cells

  India was ready for change with liberalisation and globalization. As the then Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had said in his historic budget speech, the country needed a comprehensive fiscal adjustment, but the poor would also have to be saved from it. On July 25, 1991, an editorial article in ‘The Hindu’ had called it ‘sparing the poor’. At[Read More…]

by 22/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
In the Shadows of the American Century – The Rise and Decline of US Global Power

In the Shadows of the American Century – The Rise and Decline of US Global Power

In the Shadows of the American Century – The Rise and Decline of US Global Power. ALfred W. McCoy. Haymarket Books, Chicago. 2017 Reading “In the Shadows of the American Century” is a bit of an up and down ride. The best part of the book for personal interest concerning the author is the Introduction. The author, Alfred McCoy, discusses[Read More…]

by 17/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
“Enduring Trauma of Partition: Critical Insights Into Neighbourly Relations”

“Enduring Trauma of Partition: Critical Insights Into Neighbourly Relations”

K.M. Seethi, Enduring Dilemma: Flashpoints in Kashmir and India-Pakistan Relations (KW Publishers Pvt Ltd New Delhi 2021) As India and Pakistan are set to celebrate the 75th Year of independence, the trauma of partition and the unsettled issues of the past continue to haunt the people of the subcontinent in diverse ways. The region of South Asia is not only[Read More…]

by 15/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Obstacles to Emancipatory Transformations: The Imperial Mode of Living

Obstacles to Emancipatory Transformations: The Imperial Mode of Living

by Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen Many necessary everyday items that are produced as commodities are tied to a range of activities that are invisible during their purchase, consumption and use: the origin of raw materials used in household appliances, medical devices or transport; water and energy infrastructures; the working conditions under which materials are extracted or textiles and food[Read More…]

by 14/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Collected Essays, Volume VI by John Scales Avery

Collected Essays, Volume VI by John Scales Avery

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a collection of the articles and book announcements which I have written during the last two years. Almost all of these have been published in Countercurrents or in TMS Weekly Digest or both. I am extremely grateful to Editor Binu Mathew and to Editor Antonio C.S. Rosa[Read More…]

by 13/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Republic of Hindutva – How the Sangh is Reshaping Indian Democracy’

‘Republic of Hindutva – How the Sangh is Reshaping Indian Democracy’

  Author – Badri Narayan Publisher – Penguin Random House India, March 2021 ‘There is no exaggeration in saying that the entire destiny of a country depends upon its intellectual class’ – Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar In this recent book Professor Badri Narayan (Social Historian and Cultural Anthropologist) maps out the political grammar of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and its parent[Read More…]

by 13/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Systems Thinking and Climate Change:  Review of “The Path to a Livable Future” by Stan Cox

Systems Thinking and Climate Change:  Review of “The Path to a Livable Future” by Stan Cox

Reviewer’s Note:  I had the pleasure to review a proof of Stan Cox’s forthcoming book.  I recommend it strongly and offer high praise, though caviled by a few nits.  Please read on. Recent events have awakened even some typically passive people to the enormity of the synthetic disaster that is anthropogenic climate change.  Though who “agreed with the Science” and[Read More…]

by 11/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Drought Flood Fire

Drought Flood Fire

The world is on fire like never before: “Wildfires Have Erupted Across the Globe Scorching Places That Rarely Burned Before” (CNN headlines July 22, 2021) but not only is fire raging, Biblical floods are destroying entire communities, e.g. 9,000 homes swept away in central China (BBC News) as towns were nearly decimated in Germany, “Europe’s Deadly Floods Leave Scientists Stunned”[Read More…]

by 06/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives of Some Great Novelists

Lives of Some Great Novelists

Human history as cultural history At present, history is taught as though power struggles were its most important aspect. Furthermore, the present teaching of history is an indoctrination in nationalism. We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations[Read More…]

by 03/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lawrence in Arabia – War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Lawrence in Arabia – War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Lawrence in Arabia – War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Scott Anderson. Anchor Books, Random House LLC, New York, 2013. Every very seldom often a book comes along that greatly exceeds expectations. Lawrence in Arabia is one of those books. Scott Anderson’s writing is highly entertaining and highly informative at the same time. It[Read More…]

by 03/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review: “Cruelty Or Humanity” By Stuart Rees – For Humanity, Banish Cruelty

Review: “Cruelty Or Humanity” By Stuart Rees – For Humanity, Banish Cruelty

“Cruelty Or Humanity” by Stuart Rees is an important book that should be in every institutional and public library. Despite the  Mainstream   hiding or softening horrific crimes, we are all aware of global cruelties, from  deadly Developing World poverty to equally deadly war atrocities. We utterly abhor cruel people of personal acquaintance, and my reading of this powerful book  instructs[Read More…]

by 31/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
“The Clash of Two Americas, the Unfinished Symphony”, a book by Matthew Ehret

“The Clash of Two Americas, the Unfinished Symphony”, a book by Matthew Ehret

Matthew Ehret, with contributions from Cynthia Chung, has written a much-needed book about the early history of the United States of America.  The title of the book is The Clash of Two Americas, the Unfinished Symphony.  It is volume 1 of a planned series.  This essay is based on the book. The “Clash of Two America” is a compendium of[Read More…]

by 30/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
On Degrowth

On Degrowth

What is degrowth? Degrowth is an ambiguous  label used by different currents that have emerged or have been reconsidered as such since the 1960s when the contemporary environmentalist movement got underway.  The bulk of these movements identify as Greens although it includes eco-anarchists (e.g. Trainer 2010; Australian Simplicity Institute) and others.  The ambiguity of what degrowth stands for is a problem both for its[Read More…]

by 30/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
After the Apocalypse – America’s Role in a World Transformed

After the Apocalypse – America’s Role in a World Transformed

After the Apocalypse – America’s Role in a World Transformed. Andrew Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company. New York. 2021. The contemporary apocalypse as seen by Andrew Bacevich in his latest book, “After the Apocalypse”, consists of four different horsemen: first mentioned are the severe climate effects of global warming; Trump “toxic and divisive” presidency is mentioned next; followed[Read More…]

by 26/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Goliath – The 100-year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy

Goliath – The 100-year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy

Economic history is not a truly scintillating read. However, to understand how our society is arranged economically as it is today, “Goliath” provides an interesting background into the people, policies, and the political rhetoric (propaganda) that shaped the power struggle between monopoly power and democracy. Without forcefully stating it, that is the theme of the book: monopoly power as it[Read More…]

by 19/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
On The Philosophy Of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

On The Philosophy Of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

Arguably No Marxist thinker or leader today in the World or in the last few decades has had such a profound grasp of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as Professor Joma Sison. Formally he was the Chairman of the Communist party of Phillipines who laid the base for the re-organisation of the party and the launching of the 2 line struggle[Read More…]

by 16/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: Vijay Prashad – Washington Bullets

Book Review: Vijay Prashad – Washington Bullets

A common line of argument from the contemporary American left is that “socialism has never been tried.” It’s understandable that Western socialists would make this argument to members of the US proletariat, who have been deeply affected by years of red scare propaganda. This argument however, ignores the millions who have struggled and died in an effort to move beyond[Read More…]

by 10/07/2021 1 comment Book Review
A Journey into the Unfamiliar Future

A Journey into the Unfamiliar Future

‘Runaway climate change (1) is not just a technical term in climatology, but a profound reflection of the catastrophic crisis we have reached. In recent years, India is experiencing a series of extreme weather events and finally the Ministry of Earth Sciences has released its first Climate Assessment report. Although hundreds of books and scientific articles published daily on the[Read More…]

by 09/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘My Life – The journey of a Dalit Sociologist’

‘My Life – The journey of a Dalit Sociologist’

       Recent incidence in IIT Kharagpur of the verbal assault mounted by the professor on the marginalised students with proclamation of impunity from penal Action of State directs us to innumerable paradoxes in 21st Century India.It also implies that not all is well in the country who seeks to achieve the goal of Superpower in International Arena but still lacks[Read More…]

by 08/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Who Was Edward Said? Biographically Interpreted and Existentially Recollected

Who Was Edward Said? Biographically Interpreted and Existentially Recollected

[Prefatory Note: This  is an edited text of Remarks on 30 June 2021 at the opening on the Book Launch of Timothy Brennan’s PLACES OF MIND: A LIFE OF EDWARD SAID (2021), an event under the auspices of the Cambridge Centre of Palestinian Studies, moderated by its director, Dr. Makram Khoury-Machool. Also participating in the discussion of Professor Brennan’s book[Read More…]

by 03/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Prelude to a Riot

Prelude to a Riot

Set in an unnamed southern town amid lush plantations of pepper, bananas, coffee, rice, and narrated in soliloquy Annie Zaidi’s 184- page novel, Prelude to a Riot is a brilliant, bold, honest, critical commentary on contemporary India. “Abu doesn’t want to work the land. He says it’s pointless because we cannot take the land with us when we leave”. Abu,[Read More…]

by 01/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Society of Muslim Brothers

The Society of Muslim Brothers

Richard P. Mitchell’s book “The Society of Muslim Brothers” is one of first and most authentic book on the formation, Ideology and objectives of Muslim Brotherhood.  Being a study conducted during most crucial period of Egypt, the time of Egypt revolution of 1952 and based on observance of true incidences and interviews of prominent personalities of Egypt (Brothers and non[Read More…]

by 01/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Economic Man’ at the Crossroads

‘Economic Man’ at the Crossroads

“Anyone with a sense of history would have realized that the hubristic attempt to make the world into  a frontier- and culture- free single market would end in tears”;  this is how Robert Skidelsky, one of the leading economists of today, observes the present economic turmoil. The predictability of mathematical modeling of neoclassical economics began to be widely questioned with[Read More…]

by 27/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
War: How Conflict Shaped Us

War: How Conflict Shaped Us

War: How Conflict Shaped Us. Margaret MacMillan. Random House, New York. 2020. I almost did not finish reading “War: How Conflict Shaped Us”. It is not worth reading, but I worked through it anyway. Which is unfortunate as Margaret MacMillan can be an excellent writer of history. The two volumes of hers that I have read – “Paris 1919” and[Read More…]

by 27/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Why War?

Why War?

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the reasons why the institution of war continues to threaten human civilization and the biosphere, and the steps that might be taken to rid the world of war. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Why-War-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf[Read More…]

by 23/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Age, Consent, and Power: A Reading of My Dark Vanessa

Age, Consent, and Power: A Reading of My Dark Vanessa

Kate Elizabeth Russell dedicates her exemplary work, My Dark Vanessa to “the real life Dolores Hazes and Vanessa Wyes whose stories have not yet been heard, believed, or understood”. As I begin to read this, I already get a whiff of what I am in for. The existing scholarship around the realm of English Literature has already turned the predatory[Read More…]

by 17/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Critical Decade

A Critical Decade

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the urgent changes that are needed to save our planet and our collective future. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/A-Critical-Decade-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Humanity has reached a critical decade A new report, published on 14 March, 2021[Read More…]

by 13/06/2021 1 comment Book Review
Toxic Chemicals Engulf the Planet

Toxic Chemicals Engulf the Planet

Worldwide chemical emissions are six times global warming emissions. This hidden dilemma is fully exposed in a superbly researched new book by science writer Julian Cribb: Earth Detox, How and Why We Must Clean Up Our Planet, Cambridge University Press, scheduled for release August 2021. The planet has become a toxic soup of tested, untested, and inadequately tested chemicals that[Read More…]

by 11/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Ghosts in the Hills: The Story of Maoism in Nepal and a Rebellious Womanhood

The Ghosts in the Hills: The Story of Maoism in Nepal and a Rebellious Womanhood

Dr. Krishna Upadhyaya, a fellow traveller in the struggles for emancipation of bonded labourers in Nepal, in his latest Novel ‘The Ghosts in the Hills’ ventures to deep dive into the important but less narrated phase of Nepal’s recent history, the Maoist uprising. It falls within the genre of historical novels. It is not a factual narrative of the Maoist[Read More…]

by 11/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Mission of Poetry

The Mission of Poetry

The poetry of earth is never dead -John Keats This is Sanjiv Bhatla’s maiden collection of poems. He has several authoritative and scholarly works on religious and spiritual subjects also to his credit. His poems are equally brilliant and bear out the finer sensibilities in him. His anthology was originally published by Orient Longman (now Orient Black Swan).It has now[Read More…]

by 02/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Marxism and Intersectionality

Marxism and Intersectionality

​ In her 2020 text Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism, Ashley J. Bohrer sets out to demystify the erroneous conception that the traditions of Marxism and Intersectionality are incompatible. In finding that in academia the interactions between these two traditions have been “grounded more in caricature than in close reading,” Bohrer sets out to expose and[Read More…]

by 28/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Sentiment in my stone; a review

The Sentiment in my stone; a review

An  acclaimed columnist wrote recently  in one of his social media posts , “ I love to buy books written by our children . It gives me unique inner satisfaction .May Allah protect our children.” One such young boy is Aazib Manzoor who has come out with around three hundred page debut novel titled “The Sentiment in my Stone”.  One[Read More…]

by 27/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Social Responsibility Of Scientists

The Social Responsibility Of Scientists

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses the duty of scientists and engineers to try to prevent the catastrophes that currently threaten human society and the biosphere. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/The-Social-Responsibility-Of-Scientists-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Three major threats to human society Science and technology have[Read More…]

by 26/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
How Fascism Works

How Fascism Works

Jason Stanley in the book titled ‘How fascism works: The politics of us and them’ describes fascist politics as characterized by ten aspects. The different headings under which it is discussed include: The mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectual, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, sodom and gomorrah and arbeit macht frei. The mythic past: Fascist politics seeks to build[Read More…]

by 24/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Shudras: Vision for a New Path

The Shudras: Vision for a New Path

In the time of aggressive neo-liberal Hindutva led by the RSS-BJP in the leadership of the Hindutva poster boy Modi poses serious political threats to the regional identity and caste based political parties and constitutional democracy. In current time, the Shudra and Ati-Shudras political parties like SP, BSP, RJD and others have failed to make any socio-cultural and political agenda[Read More…]

by 22/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Musings of the Dark : A Saga of Our Violent Time

The Musings of the Dark : A Saga of Our Violent Time

Moumita Alam’s debut poetry collection The Musings of the Dark  is a powerful poetic assertion of dissent.  Dissent against what?  Against state sponsored violence against Kashmiris, violence against anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protesters at Shaheen Bagh,  violence against migrant labourers, daily labourers during Covid 19 pandemic. She also voices her dissent against structural violence of casteism, fascism, violence against women[Read More…]

by 22/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Limitations and Distortions of Profit-Based Health Systems

Limitations and Distortions of Profit-Based Health Systems

            In the course of facing the ongoing challenge of the pandemic, a sad reality that has  manifested itself time and again is that profit-driven health systems are unable to respond effectively to such crisis situations. There are several disturbing anecdotes  of how the profit driven systems and the individuals running them behaved in a selfish and callous way towards[Read More…]

by 12/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 ‘Fractured freedom’ of  Kobad Ghandy is a classic in it’s own right but with aberrations

 ‘Fractured freedom’ of  Kobad Ghandy is a classic in it’s own right but with aberrations

Without doubt Comrade Kobad Ghandy  in book  ‘Fractured Freedom” has taught us a lot about the weaknesses inherent in the Communist Movement ,giving all of us a great insight into it. Most pertinently it taps on issue of the individual subconscious. Kobad Ghandy proves the spiritual essence of a revolutionary. In it’s own right the work is a classic and[Read More…]

by 06/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
67 Years In The Peace Movement

67 Years In The Peace Movement

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses the things that I have experienced during my 67 years of work in the peace movement. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/67-years-in-the-peace-movement-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Holger Terp’s invitation Seven years ago, Holger Terp, the founder and web editor of[Read More…]

by 04/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Crash of Flight 3804

The Crash of Flight 3804

The Crash of Flight 3804 – A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil. Charlotte Dennett. Chelsea Green Publishing. London/White River Junction, VT. 2020. Titles can be deceptive – “The Crash of Flight 3804” meant nothing for all my readings of history and geopolitics. It was not about the crash that killed[Read More…]

by 01/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Water

Water

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the relationships between water and life. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Water-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The United Nations’ World Water Day On its home-page for World Water Day the United Nations points out the following facts: “Today, 1 in[Read More…]

by 29/04/2021 2 comments Book Review
Fifty years After Naxalbari by Bernard De Mello

Fifty years After Naxalbari by Bernard De Mello

Unfinished History-A truly great Masterpiece highlighting how even after fifty years of Naxalbari and Seven decades after Independence Neo-fascism has penetrated India at an unprecedented magnitude I recommend everyone to read this classic book titled “India-50 after Naxalbari” by Bernard D’Mellow that most analytically assesses metamorphosis in India in post-naxalbari era of Naxalbari, Maoist movement and emergence of fascism in[Read More…]

by 22/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Charlie Chaplin – Book Review – ‘Hasre Dukh’ (Beaming Sorrow)- By Bha. D. Kher-

Charlie Chaplin – Book Review – ‘Hasre Dukh’ (Beaming Sorrow)- By Bha. D. Kher-

  “Revolutionary Dreaming Tramp” (On the occasion of Charlie’s Birthday- 16th April 1889)  “I consider myself a citizen of the world, an internationalist… I just happen to have been born in London, England. It could have been Burma or China or Timbuktu, I’d still be the way I am. I’d keep my first citizenship because, being an accident of birth,[Read More…]

by 21/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review, Life/Philosophy
 Why I am not a Hindu woman: A personal story

 Why I am not a Hindu woman: A personal story

  Why I am not a Hindu woman: a personal story by Wandana Sonalkar, New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2021, pp 169. Wandana Sonalkar is a self-proclaimed atheist and in this autobiographical account titled ‘Why I am not a Hindu Woman’, Sonalkar critically reflects on her position on why she has chosen to renounce her religion. This work adds to the[Read More…]

by 13/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1976). John Toland

Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1976). John Toland

“My book has no thesis, and any conclusions to be found in it were reached only during the writing, perhaps the most meaningful being that Hitler was far more complex and contradictory than I had imagined. ‘The greatest saints,’ observes one of Graham Greene’s characters, ‘Have been men with a more than normal capacity for evil, and the most vicious[Read More…]

by 11/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Mein Kampf (1925; 1926)

Mein Kampf (1925; 1926)

Mein Kampf (1925; 1926) is a rambling political manifesto, disguised as autobiography. This book offers an insight into the long roots and broad appeal of extreme ideas – and, given the persistence of nationalism, racism, religious extremism, and conspiracy theories – should be required reading for every citizen of a contemporary democracy. *** Mein Kampf is a political manifesto disguised as[Read More…]

by 11/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Why Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath Remains the Most Memorable Saga of  Displaced Farmers and  Migrating Workers

Why Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath Remains the Most Memorable Saga of  Displaced Farmers and  Migrating Workers

Impacts of unjust systems manifest in many ways, but few are as poignant as independent , proud farmers being displaced from their farmland and forced to migrate to a distant and unknown place to seek work in uncertain conditions. We in India are all too familiar with this on-going , overwhelming reality of our times, our country and this is[Read More…]

by 08/04/2021 1 comment Book Review
Aruna In Vienna

Aruna In Vienna

Every time I had visited hill stations such as Ooty and Kodaikanal, I have greatly admired the breathtaking beauty of nature, though my admiration has found equal attention to the men’s world, who come in their cars and bikes, with cigarettes and beer tins in their hands, chatter and laugh heartily with their friends.The Indian society has no qualms with[Read More…]

by 08/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Engaging the World: The making of Hamas’s foreign policy

Engaging the World: The making of Hamas’s foreign policy

Engaging the World: The making of Hamas’s foreign policy. Daud Abdullah. Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC), 2020. Hamas has been a strongly maligned actor within the western mainstream media. The concise and well written “Engaging the World” by Daud Abdullah presents a clear picture of Hamas’ attempts to act as an international state actor while at the same time continuing its[Read More…]

by 06/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Covid pandemic, Lockdown and India’s moral center

Covid pandemic, Lockdown and India’s moral center

Covid pandemic will remain an important chapter in India’s history. This is not only for the public health challenge it caused but it also brought out the deeply hidden flaws, biases, prejudices of the state and society. It was a mirror reflection of the state and society we are living in. The book by Harsh Mander titled “Locking down the[Read More…]

by 31/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The World As It Is And The World As It Could Be

The World As It Is And The World As It Could Be

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, in which I have tried to contrast the world that we experience today,  filled with terrifying existential threats, such as catastrophic climate change, pandemics, all-destroying nuclear war, and the threat of large-scale famine, with the world that we would wish it to be. The[Read More…]

by 29/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions, Book Review
The Lion and the Eagle – The Interaction of the British and American Empires 1783-1972

The Lion and the Eagle – The Interaction of the British and American Empires 1783-1972

The Lion and the Eagle – The Interaction of the British and American Empires 1783-1972. Kathleen Burk. Bloomsbury, London/New York, 2018. The 200 year historical span of Kathleen Burk’s “The Lion and the Eagle” shows the changes in the interactions between the newly formed United States and its imperial drive and the ongoing imperial drive of the British. In general,[Read More…]

by 24/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Socio-political Thought of Rabindranath Tagore

Socio-political Thought of Rabindranath Tagore

Eighty years after his death, Rabindranath Tagore continues to be written about. Any biographical or critical account of Tagore’s life and works — whether it is in Bengali, English or any other language — is noticeable and is received with reverence and respect. Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’, demonstrates the continuing universal appeal of the poet’s signature composition.[Read More…]

by 23/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Presidential Years

The Presidential Years

‘The Office of the President is an emergency light. It comes on automatically when there is a crisis and goes off automatically when the crisis passes,’ observed former President Ramaswamy Venkataraman in his book ‘My Presidential Years’. Whether present-day Presidents are any longer backup lights is difficult to say. Yet, diaries of past presidents sometimes give explicit account of the[Read More…]

by 15/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Core Values

Core Values

A discussion by Candice Louisa Daquin based on reading Candace Owens’ book Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation According to the author, Candace Owens: Hilaría Baldwin is NOT Spanish. Rachel Dolezal will NEVER be black. A biological man is NOT a woman. A biological female will never be a man. These people are just ‘playing pretend’ and as[Read More…]

by 09/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Book of the Farmers by the Farmers and for the Farmers

A Book of the Farmers by the Farmers and for the Farmers

A Review article on the recently launched book edited by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and Karthik Raja Karuppusamy “The Shudras–Vision For New Path” number one bestseller on Amazon India’s farmers have sustained the largest protests in modern Indian history since Mahatma Gandhi and the independence movement. While Gandhi’s Khadi dhoti appeared in media worldwide, the farmers received relatively scant attention until[Read More…]

by 08/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial

Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial

Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial. Somdeep Sen. Cornell University Press, New York. 2020. A book that has a very narrowly defined title often fails to look at the larger context, either regional or global. In “Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial” Somdeep Sen succeeds surprisingly well in placing the struggles of[Read More…]

by 06/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Reading The Riot Act

 Reading The Riot Act

It is now 19 years when Gujarat 2002 riots happened.  The public memory of the nation has forgotten the event. Until has come a book Under Cover My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva by Ashish Khetan to bring back the memories of the calamity which had overtaken the Muslims of Gujarat. In fact to be exact it was like reading the riot[Read More…]

by 04/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Beyond Dharma

Beyond Dharma

Title: Beyond Dharma – Dissent in the Ancient Sciences of Sex and Politics Author: Wendy Doniger Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020 When one of the world’s most acclaimed and charming scholars of Hinduism presents a trailblazing interpretation of ancient Indian texts and their historic influence on subversive resistance, the book ought to be of more than ordinary interest. Eminent Indologist Wendy[Read More…]

by 25/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Wisdom of Bharat Dogra in Three Books

Wisdom of Bharat Dogra in Three Books

I have been teaching in MA Development  program of Azim Premji University since 2010.  I am also involved with conducting short trainings for people working in the development sector from the village to the state level for last 20 years. It is mainly in that context that I am commenting  on Bharat Dogra’s three books published in 2019 : Book[Read More…]

by 25/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Importance of Shudra Politics in India

The Importance of Shudra Politics in India

Written by Sharad Yadav and Omprakash Mahato During the Emergency (1975–77), all socialist leaders came together on one platform and formed the Janata Party government in 1977. In its manifesto, the Janata Party promised to undertake measures for social and educational upliftment of people belonging to backward castes and communities. The social upliftment of backward castes once again became the[Read More…]

by 22/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
American Empire – A Global History

American Empire – A Global History

Most recent works on the United States accept that it is an empire, perhaps not in the traditional landholding sense, but in the extent of its power and control of others. In “American Empire – Global History,” A. G. Hopkins accepts the idea of empire with several qualifications and with a precise focus on certain aspects of that empire. His[Read More…]

by 17/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives In Mathematics

Lives In Mathematics

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents the lives and[Read More…]

by 09/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Sharp Knife of Memory – A Review

The Sharp Knife of Memory – A Review

Originally written and published in 2012 in the Telugu language, Nirjana Vaaradhi, is a memoir by Kondapalli Koteswaramma. Sowmya V.B. translated this book in English, and ‘The Sharp Knife of Memory’ was published and released in 2015 by Zubaan books, to reach a much wider circle of readers, beyond the boundaries of the two Telugu speaking states of India. Koteswaramma[Read More…]

by 07/02/2021 1 comment Book Review
JFK, Allen Dulles, and Indonesia

JFK, Allen Dulles, and Indonesia

A Review: JFK vs. Allen Dulles by Greg Poulgrain Before I digress slightly, let me state from the outset that the book by Greg Poulgrain that I am about to review is extraordinary by any measure. The story he tells is one you will read nowhere else, especially in the way he links the assassination of President Kennedy to former CIA Director[Read More…]

by 06/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 ‘In Pursuit Of Justice’

 ‘In Pursuit Of Justice’

A socialist, a believer in equal opportunities, a defender of civil liberties, a deeply involved citizen of India and a humanist, the late Justice Rajindar Sachar (1923–2018) was a celebrated jurist. One who believed in standing for the last man in the line and was armed with a moral remit that never wavered, his life was momentous. Few jurists in[Read More…]

by 02/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Is This Revolution Truly Rinky-Dink?

Is This Revolution Truly Rinky-Dink?

During the late 60s, when the US war on Viet Nam was going strong and people were questioning capitalism, I drove from Eugene to Berkeley where my sister was living.  I ran into folks who invited me to a discussion about starting a commune. There, everyone talked about dropping out of consumer society and buying land to get away from[Read More…]

by 27/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
India’s Tribes: Unfolding Realities 

India’s Tribes: Unfolding Realities 

India has witnessed a sea change in its social structure and political culture since Independence. Despite the progressive developmental model that the country has followed, we are witness to fissiparous tendencies that is on the path of dividing the Indian masses based on religion, ethnicity and caste ladder. Unquestionably, there is a need to develop a fresh approach to dismantling[Read More…]

by 27/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
How Aakar Patel Under-Read The Character Of Hindu Rashtra? A Review Article

How Aakar Patel Under-Read The Character Of Hindu Rashtra? A Review Article

  Aakar Patel starts his timely and well-researched book Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here with a sentence “Majoritarianism is primitive and easy to do”. He surmises that establishment of Hindu Rashtra, which has only one meaning, that a Kshatriya king should rule the Hindu Rashtra under the supervision of a Brahmin head priest. Such a Hindu[Read More…]

by 22/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Government that Honors Dr. Martin Luther King with a National Holiday Killed Him

The Government that Honors Dr. Martin Luther King with a National Holiday Killed Him

A Review of The Plot to Kill King by William Pepper Very few Americans are aware of the truth behind the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Few books have been written about it, unlike other significant assassinations, especially JFK’s. For almost fifty years there has been a media blackout supported by government deception to hide the truth.  And[Read More…]

by 18/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Two Streams of Freedom Movement Often Supported and Complemented Each Other

Two Streams of Freedom Movement Often Supported and Complemented Each Other

An aspect of freedom movement of India which deserves to be better known in India, particularly among youth, is that various streams of freedom movement in  India often supported and complemented each other. This is particularly true of the two most important streams, one identified mainly with Mahatma Gandhi and the other predominantly with  Shahid Bhagat Singh. In a very[Read More…]

by 14/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Mistress of Melodies

Mistress of Melodies

Rakhi Dalal reviews translated short stories of Nabendu Ghosh, which not only bring to life history as cited in his Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Lifetime Achievement award but also highlights his ‘love for humanity‘ Title: Mistress of Melodies: Stories of Courtesans and Prostituted Women Author: Nabendu Ghosh Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020 Mistress of Melodies: Stories of Courtesans and Prostituted Women is acollection of six[Read More…]

by 13/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Recalling Gandhi: Resisting without violence

 Recalling Gandhi: Resisting without violence

Man over Machine: A Path towards Peace is the kind of book you might want to preserve and return to, every once in a while. Author Bharat Dogra has worked for long years as a freelance journalist – never taking on a full-time journalism job in order to be completely free, and writing a prodigious number of articles, many of[Read More…]

by 11/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Cultural Aspects Of The Jharkhand Movement

Cultural Aspects Of The Jharkhand Movement

Jharkhand Me Mere Samkaaleen by Vir Bhrat Talwar, 2019, 2020, Delhi, Anugya Books, pp 213, Rs. 250/- On the surface, this book is in the form of a memoir about five persons who played an important role in the cultural, literary and political trends in the Jharkhand movement in the period 1970-2010. But they do not remain mere personal memoirs;[Read More…]

by 11/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Crossing Borders Into Parallel Worlds

Crossing Borders Into Parallel Worlds

     A Review of by Gaither Stewart’s Short Story Collection, “Signs of the Times”    Gaither Stewart is an expatriate American writer who lives in Rome and knows Europe well. Mr. Stewart’s agile intellect and life-tuned, refined aesthetic sensibilities will most interest those who refuse to be confined in a single identity, preferring rather to cross at will between the[Read More…]

by 07/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Portraits of Power

Portraits of Power

Autobiographies by bureaucrats every so often raise curiosity for the reason that they hide more than they reveal, even as the sequestered information and the behind the scene camaraderie in day to day governmental functioning is a lot sensational. In recent years, India’s top civil servants have been writing their memoirs. But they have only been penned only after being[Read More…]

by 06/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Brass Notebook

The Brass Notebook

A recently penned autobiography by eminent economist Devaki Jain, written based on a suggestion made by Doris Lessings in 1958, with a forward by Amartya Sen and reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha. This is an unusual memoir. Unusual because it isn’t archetypal, not old-fashioned nor even written in a sequential order. The autobiography is set apart into personal and professional years,[Read More…]

by 05/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review: “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published: Deadly Deception Exposed!”

Review: “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published: Deadly Deception Exposed!”

Famed anti-racist Jewish American journalist I.F. Stone opined “Governments lie” and those 2 words summarize the message of “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published: Deadly Deception Exposed!” This iconoclastic 766-page book contains a total of 78 essays contributed by 7 prominent Alternative writers  who variously take a sledgehammer to the monolithic lies of Big Government that are uncritically forced on[Read More…]

by 27/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Gaither Stewart

Without Ever Knowing How We Got There

This collection of short stories by Gaither Stewart takes readers on a journey of the human drama; those questions that take us into and out of ourselves; those reflections that question time, history, our interactions with them and energetic influences that run between us and them and our actions within the resulting context. This collection is being released in the[Read More…]

by 20/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Targeting of Sikhs in 1980s Led to Majoritarian Rule in India

Targeting of Sikhs in 1980s Led to Majoritarian Rule in India

Tragic happenings of the 1980s continue to perturb the Sikhs. Most of them want to know what actually took place behind the smokescreen erected by the power of the day. In this context, the new arrival ‘The Khalistan Conspiracy’-A Former R&AW Officer Unravels the Path to 1984” (2020) authored by GBS Sidhu, who retired as Special Secretary of India’s Intelligence[Read More…]

by 19/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
What is the idea of India?

What is the idea of India?

On the first anniversary of a movement that seems to be a reaffirmation of democratic processes in a nation torn with angst, Meenakshi Malhotra reviews Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India Title: Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India: Writings on a Movement for Justice, Liberty and Equality Editor: Seema Mustafa Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2020 Shaheen Bagh is a compendium[Read More…]

by 19/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Cuban Health Care:  The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz

Cuban Health Care:  The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz

Cuban Health Care:  The Ongoing Revolution by Don Fitz Monthly Review Press, 2020 ISBN:  978-158367-860-2 (paper) –Reviewed by Kim Scipes   Don Fitz has written a fascinating account of the development of the Cuban health care system.  Placing developments in their historical context—and emphasizing Cuban internationalism throughout—Fitz has illuminated how the Cubans have developed a health care system that is[Read More…]

by 18/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Exploring the Coronavirus Crisis -E Book

Exploring the Coronavirus Crisis -E Book

The International Movement for a JUST World (JUST) has published an ebook. “Exploring the Coronavirus Crisis”, a collection of articles contributed by the President, the Vice President,  some members or the Executive Committee, some individuals within the general membership and certain staff of JUST. They run through the pandemic looking at the socio-economic consequences of the lockdowns and the persistence[Read More…]

by 18/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Maharaja of Jodhpur’s Guns

The Maharaja of Jodhpur’s Guns

When an international arms historian discovers the famous Indian firearms in a book with a focus on the legendary Jodhpur collection, it ought to be stimulating. Jodhpur was one of the most important military states in Rajasthan, playing a major role in the subcontinent’s history. During the reign of Maharaja Ajit Singh (1678-1724), large of numbers of guns were purchased[Read More…]

by 14/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Ethics For The Future

Ethics For The Future

Cultural evolution In all terrestrial organisms, information is transmitted between generations by means of the genetic code; and genetic evolution takes place through natural selection acting on modifications of this code. In human cultural evolution, information is also transmitted between generations by means of language and writing. This second mode of evolution gave our species enormous adaptive advantages. While genetic[Read More…]

by 11/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Plate of White Marble: A Woman’s Journey

A Plate of White Marble: A Woman’s Journey

“The house at Number 45 Shyambazar Street had its date of construction engraved right at the top of its façade. From this, it could be learnt that the house was not built in this century. If not a hundred, it was close to eighty-five years old. Thanks to the moist winds from the holy Ganges in its close proximity and[Read More…]

by 01/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
2 Types of Hinduism highlights why political ideology of Hindutva must not be confused with Hinduism

2 Types of Hinduism highlights why political ideology of Hindutva must not be confused with Hinduism

Political religion has become a dominant feature of our democracy particularly in the last few years. Different proponents of Hindutva groups freely distort religion to further political ideologies. They disregard some of the fundamental teachings of Hinduism to achieve their objective of gaining political power by winning elections. They generate hate and demonization of other faiths. They routinely invent history[Read More…]

by 29/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Human Society And The Biosphere

Human Society And The Biosphere

Mass extinctions due to human activities According to a recent United Nations report, more than a million species of plants and animals are currently threatened with extinction because of human activities. Rates of extinction today are as much as 1,000 times greater than the normal background rate. As the greenhouse gas emissions of human society push the earth towards catastrophic[Read More…]

by 29/11/2020 1 comment Book Review
Tribal Development in India

Tribal Development in India

The term tribe or tribal is not defined anywhere in the Indian Constitution. According to Article 342, Scheduled Tribes (ST) are ethnic communities that are notified by the President of India. India’s tribes are not part of the traditional Hindu caste structure. They are more similar to the “indigenous” or “native people” in other parts of the world. Tribal communities[Read More…]

by 28/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Fighting Fascism with Poetry

Fighting Fascism with Poetry

Lastbench is an anthology written in the time of Trump and Covid-19, acting as a voice for those who are frustrated with the news cycle, wishing for something more visceral. It is unapologetically against Trump and considers his Presidency to be the terror that began the downfall. Whether true or not, this is the slant of this publication and it will[Read More…]

by 25/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
An Invitation to Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

An Invitation to Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

  In lieu of writing reviews of their own books – with the exception of Walt Whitman, who did that with Leaves of Grass – writers often write introductions or prefaces. The purpose of such introductions is to give the prospective readers a sense of what to expect in the pages that follow, as if the author knew exactly what[Read More…]

by 19/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Objective and Panoramic View of Contemporary Odisha

Objective and Panoramic View of Contemporary Odisha

  The cover of the book says it all. The multi-colored umbrella in traditional applique on the cover of Bhaskar Parichha’s book ‘No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha’, in a way, beautifully portrays what is there inside. The book is a panoramic view of Odisha as it has evolved in the last two decades. It is a compendium of commentaries[Read More…]

by 18/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A History Of The Earth

A History Of The Earth

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, in which I have tried to sketch human history, from earliest times until the present, against a cosmic backdrop. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/A-History-of-the-Earth-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The place of humans in nature According to modern cosmology,[Read More…]

by 12/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Resisting Dispossession: The Odisha Story’ by Ranjana Padhi and Nigamananda Sadangi – Report from a panel discussion

‘Resisting Dispossession: The Odisha Story’ by Ranjana Padhi and Nigamananda Sadangi – Report from a panel discussion

“Gaan Chhadiba nahin, jami chaddiba nahin”[i] a prominent war cry, echoed in the sacred mountains, rivers, and streams of various districts at different space and times, captures the essence of people’s resistance to land dispossession in Odisha. Ranjana Padhi and Nigamananda Sadangi’s latest book ‘Resisting Dispossession: The Odisha Story’ stands as a distinct repository of diverse lived experience, everyday struggles[Read More…]

by 09/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Middle Class, Media and Modi

Middle Class, Media and Modi

  ‘The spectacular victory of Narendra Modi and the BJP in 2014 and again in 2019 demands a nuanced exploration of the factors that led to it. Though the role of the middle class and the media in the making of what is called the ‘Modi Wave’ is often talked about, a clear-eyed and unbiased look at how they transformed[Read More…]

by 08/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Reimagining The World

Reimagining The World

‘What lies ahead? Reimagining the world. Only that.’ With these above lines, Arundhati Roy ended her introduction and they reflect what Roy set out to do in the book ‘Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction’. In the nine essays in this book, most of which are previously published or given as lectures between 2018 and 2020, Roy explores the important events of[Read More…]

by 04/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book. It discusses the role of what might be called decision trees in science, in linguistics, in philosophy and literature, and in our daily lives. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-Road-Not-Taken-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Decision trees During each human[Read More…]

by 31/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Gandhi & Aesthetics

Gandhi & Aesthetics

…the nine essays are a fitting tribute to the inventive beauty of Gandhiji and its wide-ranging applicability in present-day society… As India celebrated the sesquicentennial of MK Gandhi last year, Marg had come out with a special issue on the lesser-known aspects of Gandhi’s engagement with aesthetics. Gandhiji’s aesthetics was two-fold: one, it was a quest for exquisiteness and two; it was a[Read More…]

by 29/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Debunking the Myths

Debunking the Myths

Book Review – Economyths: 11 Ways Economics Gets it Wrong By David Orrel At the beginning of the year, Bloomberg.com predicted that 2008 would be a year of prosperity, based on forecasts by financial pundits. The growth rate for the year was forecast at 11 percent. No one had even a hint of the impending massive economic collapse. By the[Read More…]

by 28/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Night March – Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas’

‘Night March – Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas’

INTRODUCTION My warmest salutes to Alpa Shah for writing her book ‘Night March’ of the Guerrillas. I hardly have an adjective to express my admiration for such a scholastic and creative work which is a vivid firsthand experience of her most penetrative travels in Jharkhand. Above all she was a very witness to the crusaders of liberation, living like one[Read More…]

by 27/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Political Economy of Caste in India

Political Economy of Caste in India

Caste plays a role at every stage of an Indian’s economic life: in school, university, the labor market, and into old age. The influence of caste extends beyond private economic activity into the public sphere, where caste politics determines access to public resources. Sure, there has been a convergence in education, occupations, income, and access to public resources across caste[Read More…]

by 26/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Dissent of Man –Asserting Humanity by Raising Voices

The Dissent of Man –Asserting Humanity by Raising Voices

Title: India Dissents — 3,000 Years of Difference, Doubt and Argument Editor: Ashok Vajpeyi Publisher: Speaking Tiger, 2020 Every man loves liberty and freedom. Do not interfere with another’s freedom. – Gautam Buddha They say inside the heart of a black hole there is a point of singularity. A point of singularity is where no laws of nature exist, like[Read More…]

by 26/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative

  Political scientists Alan Chong and Quang Min Pham bring with their edited volume, Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020), originality as well as dimensions and perspectives to the discussion about the Belt and Road that are highly relevant but often either unrecognized or underemphasized. The book is about much more than the material aspects of China’s Belt[Read More…]

by 17/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Ye Are Many, They Are Few!

Ye Are Many, They Are Few!

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the question of how oligarchs maintain their grasp on an excessive share of wealth and power when, as Shelley pointed out, the have-nots are many, while the power-holders are few. http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ye-are-Many-They-are-Few-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The Peterloo Massacre Rise, like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number![Read More…]

by 14/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Empowering the Differently Abled’

‘Empowering the Differently Abled’

India has roughly five crore incapacitated people. Persons with Disabilities (PwD) could in fact be as high as 5 – 6% of the total population. Almost half of them are uneducated and a significant number of that populace lives in rural areas. Differently-abled people deserve to progress in all facets of life- whether it is physical, economic, or social. They[Read More…]

by 14/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Swift goes Democracy

Swift goes Democracy

Review of “PolyTicks, DeMocKrazy & Mumbo Jumbo: Babus, Mantras, & Netas (Un) Making Our Nation” By Avay Shukla|Forward by Shashi Tharoor. Pippa Rann books & media The public sphere in India- and India’s entire body politic- is virused. Though in the short-term, it suffers from a particularly virulent and persistent strain of neo-liberal Hindutva, the longer-term effects on the surviving[Read More…]

by 12/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Eyes of Their Whites

The Eyes of Their Whites

Review of “Dispatches from the Race War” by Tim Wise. City Lights Publishers, forthcoming December 2020 In a few short weeks- achingly painful weeks- the US will hold what is likely the most important Presidential election in its short and violent history. The choices before the populace are telling; the choice we are to make- and its clear which one[Read More…]

by 11/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Women are Born Free, But Everywhere they are in Chains’

‘Women are Born Free, But Everywhere they are in Chains’

Title: Beyond the Fields Author: Aysha Baqir Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International, 2019 Recently, an instagram handle questioned women: “No Men for One day — What if there were no men for 24 hours?” Majority of the women replied that they would go for a walk alone. And this is the year 2020. We are living in a so called modern[Read More…]

by 08/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Plucked, Zucked, and *ucked

 Plucked, Zucked, and *ucked

Review of Bit Tyrants by Rob Larson.  Haymarket Books. Big Tech is in the news daily.  In fact, Big Tech makes the news, is the news, and owns the news.  To live in the 3rd decade of the 21st century is to be subsumed by the all-encompassing reality that is Tech, whether as a consumer, customer, employee, beneficiary, victim, or[Read More…]

by 04/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Unpacking Religious Nationalism

Unpacking Religious Nationalism

Review of  ‘Religious Nationalism – Social Perceptions and Violence : Sectarianism on Political Chessboard‘ by Ram Puniyani, Media House 2020 “Blatant dictatorship – in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule – has disappeared across much of the world. Military coups and other violent seizures of power are rare. Most countries hold regular elections. Democracies still die, but by[Read More…]

by 02/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Hatemonger – Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda

Hatemonger – Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda

Hatemonger – Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. Jean Guerrero. William Morrow/HarperCollins, New York, 2020. While browsing the History/Politics section of a local bookstore the number of works devoted to the many aspects of Donald Trump was quite amazing, but considering his impact on current events domestically and globally probably not truly surprising. Unable to decide which[Read More…]

by 01/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
“The Future We Choose”: A Call for Action

“The Future We Choose”: A Call for Action

Book Review The Future We Choose: Surviving the climate crisis Authors: Christiania Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac Published: February 2020   Never before have I come across a book that literally screams out to the reader to be the change that you wish to see. And that also with practical imperatives. This is an essential read for all those who wish to[Read More…]

by 30/09/2020 1 comment Book Review
 China’s Belt and Road pinpoints fundamental issues of our times

 China’s Belt and Road pinpoints fundamental issues of our times

Based on remarks at the RSIS book launch of Alan Chong and Quang Minh Pham (eds), Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Palgrave MacMillan, 2020 Political scientists Alan Chong and Quang Min Pham bring with their edited volume originality as well as dimensions and perspectives to the discussion about the Belt and Road that are highly relevant but[Read More…]

by 29/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Covidtopia – COVID-19 as Utopia

Covidtopia – COVID-19 as Utopia

By the end of September 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic registered 34 million infection cases with one million deaths globally. Notwithstanding Donald Trump’s ultra-nationalistic “America Frist” policy, the USA had, for weeks on end, taken the lead when it came to total deaths with 210,000 deaths and by the end of September it had a total of seven million Coronavirus cases.[Read More…]

by 29/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Reclaiming Freedom from the Edge

Reclaiming Freedom from the Edge

Review of “Azadi” by Arundhati Roy In approximately 5 weeks the United States will hold the most important Presidential election in its short and violent history. Bookmakers and Psephologists alike think of it as a 50-50 proposition. The incumbent Donald Trump has been hinting that the election, whatever the result, will be tainted, rigged and that, as such, he would[Read More…]

by 29/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Myriad Hues of Love

The Myriad Hues of Love

Title: Love is not a word: The Culture and Politics of Desire Editor:  Debotri Dhar Publisher: Speaking Tiger, 2020 Love is not a word: The Culture and Politics of Desire edited by Debotri Dhar is a timely and illuminating book. It asks the right questions, sets up the debate on issues which need to be debated in order to bring the many[Read More…]

by 28/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 India’s Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and The Promise of Bhagat Singh

 India’s Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and The Promise of Bhagat Singh

Chris Moffat, India’s Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and The Promise of Bhagat Singh, 2019, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Pages 282    Chris Moffat has been a British researcher doing research on Bhagat Singh since years and spent quite a lot of time in Delhi and Punjab on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. This book is result of his rigorously academic,[Read More…]

by 28/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and criticism of Religion in India – A Neglected Ethnography

 Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and criticism of Religion in India – A Neglected Ethnography

Despite its publication and release in 2012, both the book entitled, Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and criticism of Religion in India, and the theme it attempts to capture stand understated today. Johannes Quack, ethnologist of Religion Studies from Frankfurt, began work on the book as his Master’s thesis project in 2009, which was released in the market as a published[Read More…]

by 27/09/2020 1 comment Book Review
 ‘Public Sector Enterprises in India’

 ‘Public Sector Enterprises in India’

A state-owned initiative in India is called a public sector undertaking or a public sector enterprise. These establishments are owned by the union government or one of the many state governments or both. The company stock needs to be majority-owned by the government to be a PSU. Public sector enterprises in India have now and always been the whipping boys[Read More…]

by 27/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Hegemony or Survival

Hegemony or Survival

Noam Chomsky. 2004. Hegemony or Survival. Australia. Penguin Books. 301 pages, ISBN: 978-0I4I-03734-9. A$9.95rrp “Either you are with us or against us” Noam Chomsky has written one of the boldest pieces in the form of Hegemony or Survival.  It aims to dissect the grand strategy of Imperialism of United States since the beginning of 20th Century. The very word hegemony[Read More…]

by 26/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
How old is the Kashmir Dispute?

How old is the Kashmir Dispute?

There can be, and have been, countless books on Kashmir and Kashmiris. Given its geopolitical importance in the Indian subcontinent and the constant needling by Pakistan, Kashmir has been a boiling point in the relationship between the two disagreeing neighbors. It has now been a year since the Indian government changed the status of Kashmir by making amendments to Articles[Read More…]

by 24/09/2020 1 comment Book Review
Black Wave – Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry

Black Wave – Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry

Black Wave – Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unravelled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East. Kim Ghattas. Henry Holt & Company, NewYork, 2020. Among the many books analyzing the Middle East, Kim Ghattas’ Black Wave is outstanding – that not necessarily being a good thing. It is very good as it presents what the[Read More…]

by 22/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A gypsy’s account of the times gone by

A gypsy’s account of the times gone by

Shimla Diary is a literary-cultural chronicle and a documentation of its times and society, with a keen focus on the world of Hindi journalism. Well-known poet and journalist Pramod Kaunswal, who has seen Hindi journalism in Shimla, Chandigarh and Punjab at close quarters, pens his impressions of the book. This is not just a book review but a brief and[Read More…]

by 21/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review of ‘Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution’ by Don Fitz

Review of ‘Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution’ by Don Fitz

Don Fitz’s new book Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution was going to press at Monthly Review in early spring, as the pandemic was ramping up, so he had just barely enough time to slip in a postscript teasingly titled, “How Che Guevara Taught Cuba to Confront COVID-19.” The postscript puts an exclamation mark on the medical history of Cuba[Read More…]

by 18/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Shades and shadows; A book review

Shades and shadows; A book review

Few years back, at a book release function, Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat remarked , “I have not read the book but the author.” I have been reading the author Mushtaque Barq , the author , columnist, short story writer, poet , translator  and what not. He has now joined the group of novelists and come up with a novel titled[Read More…]

by 17/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Unearthed: An Environmental History of Independent India

Unearthed: An Environmental History of Independent India

There couldn’t be a better audience than the youngsters for a book on the environment. If the youth are the harbingers of change, it is they who will have to care more about the earth and the environment. This new book on India’s environmental history is a commendable work simply for the reason that it is written for children.  ‘Unearthed:[Read More…]

by 16/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
An Untold Story Of The Freedom Movement

An Untold Story Of The Freedom Movement

Book Review Oral History of Indian Freedom Movement By Dr Licy Bharucha; Pp240; Rs 300; Published by National Museum of Indian Freedom Movement The Congress has won political freedom, but it has yet to win economic freedom, social and moral freedom. These freedoms are harder than the political, if only because they are constructive, less exciting and not spectacular. -Mahatma[Read More…]

by 15/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies – Critical and Lyrical Essays. Edward Curtin. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2020. In the introduction to “Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies – Critical and Lyrical Essays” Edward Curtin writes, “…We live in the era of massive fraud where the transnational wealthy elites, led by the American war and propaganda machine, continue[Read More…]

by 14/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Something’s Happening Here

Something’s Happening Here

A review of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies: Critical and Lyrical Essays, by Edward Curtin.  (Atlanta, GA, Clarity Press, Inc.  349 pp.  2020.) “There’s something happening here           What it is ain’t exactly clear.”                    –Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth.” Happily receiving my review copy of Edward Curtin’s new book, the first thing I noticed, naturally enough,[Read More…]

by 14/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Neverending Holocausts of the Neoliberal Order

The Neverending Holocausts of the Neoliberal Order

Biochemist, writer, humanitarian activist, and artist, Gideon Polya has had a selection of his essays gathered into a compendium titled US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide (Korsgaard Publishing, 2020). The compendium is important because it brings to the forefront, for anyone who cares an iota for peace and social justice, the horrible crimes of the “mendacious and politically dominant[Read More…]

by 12/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Betrayal of America and the Hijacking of the American Mind

The Betrayal of America and the Hijacking of the American Mind

  America commemorates the 19th anniversary of 9/11. The BBC broadcasted live from Somerset County, Pennsylvania, that President Donald Trump and the First Lady Melania attended. The mainstream U. S. media just showed clips of the bells, which ring after every name of the victims from the plane cash in Shanksville was read. Didn’t they report because Trump attended the[Read More…]

by 12/09/2020 1 comment Book Review
Remembering The 1960’s

Remembering The 1960’s

  Lessons for today from the 1960’s Everyone agrees that the 1960’s were very special. Those of us who lived through that era remember it as a time when the danger of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union was very real indeed. The world came extremely close to disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In[Read More…]

by 09/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Some Aspects Of Quantum Theory

Some Aspects Of Quantum Theory

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book entitled “Some Aspects of Quantum Theory”. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Some-Aspects-of-Quantum-Theory-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf What readers may expect to find in the book I hope that this book will be of interest to students and researchers in mathematics,[Read More…]

by 07/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
On the Trail of Buddha

On the Trail of Buddha

  On the Trail of Buddha—A Journey to the East is ‘a unique sojourn in the search of the spiritual, philosophical, and cultural linkages that bind India to the East Asian civilizations. From the wandering monks of Asia to the temples and monasteries they visited; from the statues and frescoes in grottoes to those in the museums; from the diverse ethnicities[Read More…]

by 07/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A rib-cracking satire on painful transitions in contemporary India

A rib-cracking satire on painful transitions in contemporary India

Self-deprecating humour is a survival strategy of human beings, and coping mechanism of the society during the dark times.  That is true to the letter as well as to the spirit when it comes to Avay Shukla’s book ‘PolyTicks, DeMocKrazy & MumboJumbo’. It is an insider masterpiece of political satire on Indian society and politics from 2014 to 2020. The[Read More…]

by 01/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Chasing the Light by Oliver Stone

Chasing the Light by Oliver Stone

Like the wandering and rascally Odysseus upon whom he models his life, Oliver Stone is “double-minded” in the most profound and illuminating ways.  The title of his fantastic new memoir is a case in point.  “One of the first basic lessons in filming,” he writes, “is chasing the light.  Without it, you have nothing – no exposure that can be[Read More…]

by 26/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Revisiting Hiroshima: The Last Cherry Blossom

Revisiting Hiroshima: The Last Cherry Blossom

On August 6, 1945, at 8.15 am, an atom bomb was dropped at Hiroshima to end World War II. Archana Mohan takes us on a journey through a novel which gives the story of before and after the bombing & currently lauded and promoted by the United Nations for peacekeeping. Title: The Last Cherry Blossom Author: Kathleen Burkinshaw When a book opens with[Read More…]

by 26/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Understanding the War Industry

Understanding the War Industry

Understanding the War Industry. Christian Sorensen. Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia. 2020. For reader’s wondering about the state of the U.S. economy this work by Christian Sorensen provides a small encyclopedic compendium of information relating the war industry to the overall U.S. economy and U.S. foreign and domestic policies in many spheres. He states his main ideas clearly and plainly and[Read More…]

by 26/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Dara Shukoh: Where would we be if he were King

Dara Shukoh: Where would we be if he were King

Title: Dara Shukoh: The Man who would be King Author: Avik Chanda Publisher: Harper Collins, 2019 Scanning the list of books already written on Dara Shukoh, I wondered why the author had chosen to write yet another book about Dara Shukoh, but that was before I came across Avik Chanda’s impressive work. A magnificent tome, it is richly palimpsestic and[Read More…]

by 24/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘The Museum of Broken Tea Cups’

‘The Museum of Broken Tea Cups’

  What do we expect from an author who is a story teller, an international development strategist and a gender policy specialist? A lot to be sure. A Master’s degree holder in Public Administration from Harvard University, an equal   grade in International Relations from the University of Warwick, a policymaker Health, Nutrition and Gender portfolios with the Government of India[Read More…]

by 24/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Review Cruelty or Humanity by Stuart Rees

 Review Cruelty or Humanity by Stuart Rees

Cruelty or Humanity  by Em.Prof. Stuart Rees, is essential reading in our present tumult and bedlam of human cruelty. Rees is a stalwart man of peace; he is the founder of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and of the prestigious Sydney Peace Foundation and Cruelty or Humanity is his unflinching Summa Pax propelled[Read More…]

by 18/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Human Cost of Silence

Human Cost of Silence

In a haunting memoir, Piera Sonnino has narrated her devastating experience as a twenty-two-year Italian Jewish woman. She lost her parents and three brothers in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. She is the only holocaust survivor in her family. Her memoir, ‘This has happened: An Italian Family in Auschwitz’ provides a moving account of unspeakable evils of Nazism. The[Read More…]

by 12/08/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs

 How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs

  How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs.  Elizabeth F. Thomson.  Atlantic Monthly Press, NewYork, 2020. Having just read The War That Ended Peace [https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-war-that-ended-peace-book-review/] the title How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs appeared as an intriguing and fortuitous follow up.  Its subtitle describes its more narrow focus: The Syrian-Arab Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of[Read More…]

by 30/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Road: Uprising in West Papua by John Martinkus

The Road: Uprising in West Papua by John Martinkus

There are two good reasons to read John Martinkus’ most recent book, The Road: Uprising in West Papua. First reason; as an act of defiant resistance to the censorship on the truth of the 50 years of Indonesia’s brutal occupation of West Papua endorsed by western governments mainly Australia, USA, the UN. Through his own experiences and those of his colleagues such[Read More…]

by 23/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
In Quest for Peace: The Other Side of the Divide

In Quest for Peace: The Other Side of the Divide

Title: The Other Side of the Divide – A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan Author: Sameer Arshad Khatlani Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2020 Journalist Sameer Arshad Khatlani’s maiden book, The Other Side of the Divide – A Journey into the Heart of Pakistan, published end February 2020, seemed to, at the outset, suffer the fate that the India- Pakistan relationship[Read More…]

by 21/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Bomb

The Bomb

When a defense researcher and an aggressive reporter takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the gigantic chambers of Strategic Command to bring the myriad stories of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just about avoided nuclear war, it is bound to be an exceptional[Read More…]

by 19/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Racist Mainstream Ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”

Racist Mainstream Ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”

I am a long-time Countercurrents correspondent and on 4 June 2020  published in Germany a large book entitled “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” that is substantially based on articles I have published in Countercurrents as well as in other progressive media over the last 2 decades.  Despite thousands of Mainstream journalists around the world being informed over the[Read More…]

by 17/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Human Nature

Human Nature

Human nature as a central theme of philosophy What is human nature? Are we humans good or evil? To what extent is the character of a person produced by heredity, and to what extent by environment? Is competition more central to our existence than cooperation, or is it the other way around? How can a happy, peaceful and stable society[Read More…]

by 16/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The War That Ended Peace

The War That Ended Peace

On a recent hiking trip I took along Margaret MacMillan’s pre World War I history, “The War That Ended Peace – The Road to 1914” (Penguin Canada, 2013). It is a well written history that I have read before – and may have formally reviewed although that is not of consequence now. It is a book I highly recommend as[Read More…]

by 12/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Intersectional identities- Book review “My father’s garden” by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Intersectional identities- Book review “My father’s garden” by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

“My father was working in his garden, like he always did, though he appeared calmer. But every time I saw him, I would feel a quiet panic. I lacked the vocabulary, the courage and the cruelty I needed to tell him that I was not the son he expected me to be. And if I did, would he understand?” The[Read More…]

by 07/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Differently Twice Born

Differently Twice Born

Kancha Ilaiaha Shepherd’s first book, Why I am not Hindu, published in 1996′ made waves both in India and abroad. Having read that book and his subsequent books,  Post Hindu India and Turning the Pot and Tilling  the Land, I quickly started reading his just released Autobiography, From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual–My Memoirs. Unlike other autobiographies, which normally tend to[Read More…]

by 30/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
‘Suralakshmi Villa’ – A rich tapestry of narratives

‘Suralakshmi Villa’ – A rich tapestry of narratives

Title: Suralakshmi Villa Author: Aruna Chakravarti Publisher: Pan Macmillan, 2020 Suralakshmi Villa (2020) is a novel based on a short story in a previous collection of short stories by Aruna Chakravarti. In the afterword to the novel, the author explains how the novel came about: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, on whose fiction Chakravarti had done her Ph.D thesis many years ago, commented[Read More…]

by 26/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Early India, Goats And Brahmins

Early India, Goats And Brahmins

I met Tony Joseph, the author of Early Indians – the History of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From[1], first in Jaipur Literature Festival in 2019 and next at Mathrubhoomi Literature Festival in January, 2020 at Thivanthapuram.  I had a lengthy discussion about his understanding of goats, buffalos, cows and so on,  caste and race relations in ancient India[Read More…]

by 26/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Passage to India Argues Powerfully Against Orientalism and Imperialism

A Passage to India Argues Powerfully Against Orientalism and Imperialism

A Passage to India demolishes the racism that sustains imperialism; the novel exemplifies the power of literature to catalyse social progress Exploitation has a long history. Nations subjugate other nations and enslave peoples. Exploitation imposes psychological costs. Not just on the exploited. On the exploiters, too. How do exploiters handle these psychological costs, in order to keep exploiting? From Romans[Read More…]

by 25/06/2020 1 comment Book Review
Unbecoming: A Woman’s Journey to the Future

Unbecoming: A Woman’s Journey to the Future

Title: Unbecoming: A Memoir of Disobedience Author: Anuradha Bhagwati Publisher: Atria Books/ Simon & Schuster Inc. “After a lifetime of buckling to the demands of her strict Indian parents, Anuradha Bhagwati abandons grad school in the Ivy League to join the Marines—the fiercest, most violent, most masculine branch of the military—determined to prove herself there in ways, she couldn’t before.[Read More…]

by 05/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 “You Can’t Fix Stupid”: A Review of Robert Reich’s The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It

 “You Can’t Fix Stupid”: A Review of Robert Reich’s The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It

   Robert Reich’s new work, The System, offers a wide-ranging critique of our nation’s contemporary political and economic ills. Reich does a brilliant job succinctly reminding us of the scale and scope of corporate corruption, economic inequality, and political spinelessness in America. Reich’s diagnosis is on point and there is not much to quibble with. Reich focuses the first half[Read More…]

by 03/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Benefits of Equality

Benefits of Equality

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents evidence supporting the thesis that elimination of excessive economic inequality makes societies happier and better. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Benefits-of-Equality-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Ideals of the Enlightenment The Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment was an intellectual and[Read More…]

by 03/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Review of the Book “Secrets of Kashmir Valley”

Review of the Book “Secrets of Kashmir Valley”

Co-Written by Firdous Hameed Parey & Ishfaq Abdullah                           “Secrets of Kashmir Valley”  is written by a well known and reputed Author Farhana Qazi. The Author is an American scholar with good reputation of writing on conflicts in the Islamic world. The book has 308 pages and its publication[Read More…]

by 01/06/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
The Half Mother as a Narrative of Pain and Trauma of Kashmiri Women

The Half Mother as a Narrative of Pain and Trauma of Kashmiri Women

A daughter still waits for her father to wed her off. A wife searches for her husband. And a mother still pines for her son and waits for him to be a pallbearer when she dies. Shahnaz Bashir The continuous conflictive conditions in Kashmir and its illegal occupation by the Indian military have caused a massive and unimaginable devastation mainly[Read More…]

by 22/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Decoding Foreign Dreams

Decoding Foreign Dreams

Book Review of A Dictionary Of Foreign Dreams by Slovakian Poet Pavol Janik by Sarita Jenamani Fall of Berlin Wall thirty years ago had marked the end of an era in the European history: the division between capitalist West and the satellite states of Russia, that is, the East Europe. The cold war and the iron curtain had pushed the entire East Europe into[Read More…]

by 19/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Why Dalit and OBC Communities Should Not Join RSS

Why Dalit and OBC Communities Should Not Join RSS

Book Name- I Could Not be a Hindu – A Story of Dalit in RSS Author- Bhanwar Meghawanshi Publication & Year- Navayana 2020 Bhanwar Meghwanshi, a renowned Ambedkarite activist, writer, and journalist from Rajasthan does not need much introduction. His work in the field of Dalit activism and the Ambedkarite movement in Rajasthan is admired nationally by many scholars and[Read More…]

by 13/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Kisanin Jaggi Devi: A Forgotten Heroine of India’s Freedom Struggle

Kisanin Jaggi Devi: A Forgotten Heroine of India’s Freedom Struggle

Passion for Freedom: The Story of Kisanin Jaggi Devi by Deepti Priya Mehrotra Published by Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts, New Delhi, pp. 72 The story of the militant Awadh Kisan movement of 1920’s & 30’s, led by the Awadh Kisan Sabha,under the leadership of the legendary Baba Ram Chandra, remains incomplete without the story of its Women’s[Read More…]

by 09/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review : Towards Water Wisdom Limits, Justice, Harmony

Book Review : Towards Water Wisdom Limits, Justice, Harmony

                                                      This book “Towards Water Wisdom Limits, Justice, Harmony” has been written by Ramaswamy R. Iyer is really a path-breaking exercise. There are several books in his account which has been written on water[Read More…]

by 06/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Sita Under the Crescent Moon: A Travelogue in Syncretism

Sita Under the Crescent Moon: A Travelogue in Syncretism

Title: Sita Under the Crescent Moon Author: Annie Ali Khan Publisher: Simon & Schuster India, 2019 There is a poignant tale to this book. Before the manuscript could see the light of the day, its author Annie Ali Khan died in an accident in Karachi. Annie was merely thirty years at the time of death. A brilliant journalist with a master’s[Read More…]

by 01/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution

One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution

by Mahboob A. Khawaja, Lambert Academic Publishing Germany: 12/2019:  537 Pages Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD in interdisciplinary Social Science (Syracuse University, New York, USA), an academia and international scholar believes in One Global Humanity living peacefully on One Earth and shares new ideas and vision for change and critical thinking action to transform the obsolete global systems of thinking and[Read More…]

by 13/04/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Memoirs of a Dalit Communist

Memoirs of a Dalit Communist

शिळेखाली हात होता, तरी नाही फोडला हंबरडा किती जन्मांची कैद, कुणी निर्मिला हा कोंडवाडा……’ -दया पवार The above lines taken from Daya Pawar’s poem ‘ kondwada’ essays the inner nuances of the struggle of Dalits to achieve their dream of the egalitarian society which shall be based on the edifice of Genderless, Casteless and Classless Society.It also potrays the hope[Read More…]

by 06/04/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Colonial Construction Of Indian Past And Communalism In India

Colonial Construction Of Indian Past And Communalism In India

Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, Gyanendra Pandey, Delhi, oxford university Press, 1992, pp297, Price: Rs 100.10 The present epoch of Indian history is marked by its ‘decolonization’ through World Bank-IMF sponsored ‘developmental’ economic policies of ‘liberalization- privatization-globalization’ on the one hand and rising tides of communalism on the other. The communal historiography , claiming ‘hinduttva’ to be synonymous[Read More…]

by 31/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
 Apocalypse, Now and Forever: Review of Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back

 Apocalypse, Now and Forever: Review of Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back

Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back is a thoughtful, engaging book that ends in failure. But Mark O’Connell shouldn’t take that assessment too personally. His book fails in the way that his culture—the modern, cosmopolitan, left/liberal, individualist culture—routinely fails in the face of multiple, cascading ecological crises. That said, I’m still[Read More…]

by 30/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Lives In Poetry

Lives In Poetry

Human history as cultural history We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed. A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents an historical anthology[Read More…]

by 26/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
House of Mirrors – Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy

House of Mirrors – Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy

House of Mirrors – Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy. Yves Engler. RED Publishing, Saskatoon/BlackRose Books, Montreal. 2020. Some book covers are better than others, and that of Yves Engler’s House of Mirrors is beautifully expressive of the contents of his latest work. It shows a very friendly faced and happy smiling Justin Trudeau in an iconic pose that says it all:[Read More…]

by 25/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Understanding the Rise of the BJP

Understanding the Rise of the BJP

MODINAMA: ISSUES THAT DID NOT MATTER By Subhash Gatade Leftword Books, 2019, pp. 128 , Rs.195.00 HINDUTVA: EXPLORING THE IDEA OF HINDU NATIONALISM By Jyotirmaya Sharma Context, 2019, pp. 190, Rs.313.95 M.S. GOLWALKAR, THE RSS AND INDIA By Jyotirmaya Sharma Context, 2019, pp. 94, Rs.299.00 DECODING THE RSS: ITS TRADITIONS AND POLITICS By Raosaheb Kasbe Leftword Books, 2019, pp.174, Rs.250.00[Read More…]

by 21/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Silence between the Notes – Anthology of Partition Poetry

Silence between the Notes – Anthology of Partition Poetry

Title: Silence between the Notes – Anthology of Partition Poetry Selected, edited and introduced by Aftab Husain and Sarita Jenamani Despite being more than seven decades old, Partition continues to be raw and unflinching. Endless books and movies have tried to capture its pain and enigma and yet there seems to be so much more that needs to be told[Read More…]

by 18/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Circle in the Darkness – Memoir of a World Watcher

Circle in the Darkness – Memoir of a World Watcher

Circle in the Darkness – Memoir of a World Watcher. Diana Johnstone. Clarity Press, Atlanta Georgia. 2020. Diana Johnstone has done a masterful job of writing her autobiography, Circle in the Darkness, that provides many details of her life, her early influences, and the various stages of her career throughout the second half of the Twentieth Century and the first[Read More…]

by 17/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book review: The Tragedy of American Science-From Truman to Trump

Book review: The Tragedy of American Science-From Truman to Trump

In the Time of Covid-19 and runaway Global Warming, interest in science is no longer considered either passé or purely the realm of so-called nerds. Enhanced by the existence of high production-value television programs on science and a newfound love of celebrity scientists, interest in science is certainly on the rise. Of course, the counter-forces are powerful. An administration and[Read More…]

by 15/03/2020 1 comment Book Review
Linked Dangers To Civilization

Linked Dangers To Civilization

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the most serious dangers which the world faces today. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Linked-Dangers-to-Civilization-John-Scales-Avery.pdf Contrasting rates of change Cultural evolution depends on the non-genetic storage, transmission, diffusion and utilization of information. The development of human[Read More…]

by 12/03/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review, Editor's Picks
Book Review: Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora

Book Review: Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora

The book comprising of seven chapters gives a comprehensive but shuddery description of how during the intervening night of 23rd and 24th Feb. 1991 the district Kupwara’s twin villages, Kunan and Poshpora witnessed a midnight army operation which resulted the brutal torture of men and mass rape of women. It goes on to trace the roots and background of the[Read More…]

by 07/03/2020 1 comment Book Review
David Ray Griffin’s The Christian Gospel for Americans: A Systematic Theology

David Ray Griffin’s The Christian Gospel for Americans: A Systematic Theology

A Review   There are very few writers who have done more to try to open the public’s mind to the evil nature of the American empire than David Ray Griffin.  His series of books on the false flag attacks of September 11, 2001 will endure for a long time, and they will one day, when it is safe to do[Read More…]

by 28/02/2020 1 comment Book Review
John Avery

Collected Essays, Volume V

A new freely-downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, with the title, “Collected Essays, Volume V”. The book contains articles on the serious problems that are facing the world today. It may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Collected-Essays-by-John-Scales-Avery-Part-Five.pdf Other books and articles on global problems can be found on these[Read More…]

by 22/02/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Book Review: The Age of Illusions – How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

Book Review: The Age of Illusions – How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

The Age of Illusions – How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. Andrew J. Bacevich. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, NewYork, 2020. Another in his series of remarkable books, Andrew J.Bacevich has written an interesting, coherent, and timely work, The Age of Illusion. In a clear fashion it describes how Donald J. Trump is not the cause of current U.S.[Read More…]

by 13/02/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
A Radical Call To Action

A Radical Call To Action

A radical call to action has never been more vital than today, as the abomination of capitalism known as neoliberalism tears apart society from stem to stern, continuing the grand experiment that originated under the watchful eyes and vision of aristocratic plantation-owners like Washington and Jefferson as wealthy patriots. In honor of their hard fought war to avoid taxation as[Read More…]

by 05/02/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
These Chains Will be Broken