Reviews

The ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the unfortunate distinction of being the world's biggest “forgotten emergency” according to a 2005 poll of experts by Reuters. The numbers are staggering, with the International Rescue Committee recently estimating that over 5 million people have died since 1998, the majority due to preventable diseases and starvation aggravated by the fighting.

Extensively referenced, with a useful chronology of events and a map to guide the reader, The Congo Wars is a concise, well-…

A political biography of both Thabo Mbeki and the ANC since taking power, this book explores and evaluates the frustrations of the ANC's transformation from a national liberation movement to a strongly centrist political party committed to market-based economic policies. Packed with detail and context, the book can be read as a thorough introduction to current South African politics or as “what went wrong in post-liberation South Africa”.

Gumede gives an insight into the consequences of differing organisational structures used…

I very much enjoyed reading this book, although its title is something of a misnomer, as it is mostly a history of war resistance and anti-war thought. Another slight irritant is the amount of pages devoted to events within the US, compared to the rest of the world. But that is more than enough criticism, for this is an excellent little book.

Starting with a review of anti-war thought within the main religions - and arguing strongly that each was fundamentally anti-violence and anti-war before being corrupted by becoming powerful -…

Gandhi and Beyond is divided into three parts: the first two chapters look at the work of Gandhi and Martin Luther King; the next three at how their ideas have been used by other activists such as Cesar Chavez and Dorothy Day; and the final two at issues of gender and principles for action. The author says in his introduction that he hopes it will add to academic knowledge about nonviolence, whilst also inspiring people to act. I think he is more successful in the former objective, than the latter, as it is often rather a theoretical read…

Why do we need another book on climate change? According to George Marshall, because climate change is “the greatest moral challenge we have ever faced” but is generally presented in a way which is “baffling, boring, and irrelevant” (oh, and we're all in denial about it anyway).

He aims - by presenting only the bare scientific facts, and concentrating on the essential issue of how to come to terms with the problem we face and reduce our personal emissions - to give us a book which will motivate us not only to act, but to persuade…

This content has been removed from the website on request of the author.

Starting in 2000, a wave of “people power” revolutions - spearheaded by vibrant youth movements - toppled governments in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine.

Each involved an unpopular government with authoritarian tendencies, a rigged election, an explicit commitment on the part of the “revolutionaries” (crucial to their success) to use only nonviolent tactics and, most controversially, financial support from Western governments and “democracy” foundations.

According to the Financial Times, Serbian opposition groups received “around…

“Peace News ... [is] always being accused of anarchism”, observed Nicolas Walter in 1963, and even today the charge retains much of its force.

Indeed, as Walter notes in this posthumously-collected book of his essays, the First World War - and the resistance to it “brought a permanent pacifist element into anarchism”, and whilst “[t]he campaigns for nuclear disarmament, racial integration and workers control do not belong to the territory of classical anarchism ... there is no doubt that [it] belong[s] to them.”

In fact…

Persepolis is an autobiography of Marjane Satrapi's childhood. Marjane Satrapi is telling her story in comic strips. Her childhood story is about growing up in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution.

I think this is a very unique comic-strip book. I have never come across a comic strip about a Muslim girl who is so determined and strong-willed.

I think this book would attract young adults.

Once I picked up the book I couldn't put it down. I thought how the story came about was very interesting. The story is very…

Daisy, aged 15, is sent from New York to England to stay with her Aunt Penn and her cousins Edmund, Isaac, Osbert and Piper. Daisy starts to enjoy her stay although she is soon going to find out that this will last a lot longer than she expected.

A new war starts in Britain, Daisy and her cousins are cut off from Aunt Penn and Daisy's parents. Daisy is forced to grow up quickly and experiences terrible things, as well as new-found love for her cousins. When she is separated from Isaac, Osbert and Edmund she becomes a mother to Piper…

Not long after the discovery of oil in Persia in 1908, Winston Churchill instigated a programme to convert the British navy from coal-to oil- powered vessels. Control over the oilfields of the Middle East - including, of course, those of modern-day Iraq - became a major priority of western foreign policy, and to a large extent has shaped the face of the peace movement today.

Jon Sack's Iraqi Oil for Beginners is a comic history of Iraq which takes us through the fascinating (and for many activists largely unknown) history of Iraq,…

Originally produced as a catalogue to accompany an exhibition of prints which took place on artist Emily Johns' return from an Fellowship of Reconciliation peace delegation to Iran in May 2006, Drawing Paradise on the 'Axis of Evil' is ever more pertinent as the United States ratchets up its aggression and imposes more sanctions on Iran with UK backing.

Her pictures, exuding a calm stillness and beauty, are drawn with particular reference to the historical relationship between Britain, oil and Iran and are accompanied by informative…

This series of academic papers focuses on how gender relations - masculinities and femininities - have been represented in the “war on terror”, exploring how gendered narratives were used in the US to justify both the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, and domestic measures taken to control those perceived as a threat to security.

Perhaps the most accessible example is the assertion - used by the Bush administration following 9/11 to sell “the war on terror” - that the (initial) attack on Afghanistan would free Afghan women from…

On first approach, Hollow Land appears to be very much an academic study, aimed at architecture/political science/anthropology students.

The language is convoluted, and challenging and demands much of the reader's existing understanding of both post-modern academic discourse and the history and context of the Israeli occupation.

But stick with it. Hollow Land deconstructs and reconstructs architecture and archaeology as never neutral - but instead fundamentally political - practices, used as tools of war and identity building…

Living in an area being ravaged by development in the name of the Olympics, in a London changing fast with the influx of foreign capital, I recognised a lot in this study of the experience of seeing much of the heart and soul removed from your community.

Written from within, and at the height of, “the siege”, this book reads as a call to action to those whose lives will be fundamentally affected to take control over the forces of change.

Solnit mixes anecdote, research and a significant amount of personal involvement, with the…