Reviews

A veteran of the anti-roads movement, Jo Wilding first travelled to Iraq in August 2001 as part of the UK anti-sanctions movement, returning in February 2003 to witness the (re)invasion and then again in November 2003 to tour the country with the circus of the title. In April 2004 she was one of a tiny handful of internationals to witness the US siege of Fallujah first-hand, riding an ambulance in the city (over 300 women and children were killed during the siege as fighter bombers attacked residential areas and US snipers fired on unarmed…

In January, Hamas - the Palestinian “Islamic Resistance Movement” that became notorious during the 1990s for its suicide attacks on Israeli civilians - won the legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Since then the US and Israel - aided and abetted by the EU - have waged an unremitting campaign to punish Palestinians for their choice at the ballot box and to destroy the new government. But who are Hamas and what do they want? Is a two-state solution still possible following their election or is Hamas little more than…

It's rare that I cry over any book, except possibly the closing chapters of my favourite novel, Ahdaf Soueif's the Map of Love. I get angry, depressed or inspired, but only very occasionally cry. But that's what I found myself doing on reading the children's tale that is The Boy and the Wall, not because of its powerful telling of the effects of occupation on a child's life, but for the moving simplicity of this beautiful tale of a boy and his mother.

Written by Amahl Bishara and lavishly illustrated by the children of the…

Formed in 1991, Fun Da Mental have been producing urgent - sometimes frenetic - music, constantly crossing styles and boundaries.

All is War is the band's fifth studio album and continues in a similar musical vein as previous endeavours, mixing up intense and driving electronic beats with traditional tabla, strings and vocal styles, socially conscious rap and an emphasis on race and religion. It was recorded in London, Pakistan and South Africa. I have two earlier albums (Seize the Time and Erotic Terrorism…

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Ever felt so righteously outraged at the state of the world, the greed of the corporations, humanity's insane militarism, the fact that we are killing the planet (etc) that you considered blowing shit up? Well, that's what Ann Hansen found herself doing across Canada in the early 1980s.

Damaging nuclear weapons components manufacturers, porn chains and electricity substations, carrying out burglaries and car thefts (they needed explosives, guns and getaway vehicles for their actions), Hansen and a handful of “urban guerrillas” went…

September 11, 2001, is a date that is sure to remain as firmly fixed on the mind of the current generation as certainly as 23 November, 1963 or 6 June, 1944 were for earlier ones. Likewise, the events of 9/11 are just as easy to summarise as those earlier, landmark dates. Four planes were hijacked in US airspace: two were flown into the two towers of New York's World Trade Centre, one was flown into the Pentagon; the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a struggle between a number of the passengers and the hijackers.

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When this documentary premiered in Caracas last year, the Venezuelan Ministry of Culture cancelled its second screening at the National Cinema unless the producers removed the ministry's name as funder of the film. Why were they so upset?

The film exposes the contradiction of building socialism through oil wealth. The state oil company PdVSA is revealed as a corrupt, bureaucratic monster destroying communities and the environment in its relentless search for hydrocarbons.

Sure, the company pays for new roads and houses, but…

Another unmissable book. If you're not keeping current with Chomsky, you're not keeping current with reality. In Failed States, Chomsky once again delivers an exhilarating/ depressing panorama view of the contemporary scene, inside and outside the United States, at dizzying speed.

He begins with the theme of his last book, Hegemony or Survival - the increasing threat to human survival posed by US military and energy policies - and ends with the contradiction between (generally liberal) public opinion in the US and…

Amidst the horrors visited on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, the fate of the “Palestinian citizens of Israel” is often forgotten, by those who see Israel solely as the Jewish state it aspires to be, and by those working to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians. Even organisations such as Sindyanna, a fair trade co-operative of Palestinian and Jewish Israeli women in the Galilee, have appeared on the boycott lists of less enlightened solidarity organisations.

Hopefully this book will help to change that. Edited…

Peace Journalism should give a fair and balanced report on conflict without forgetting to set the context in which the fighting takes place.

This is what News from the Holy Land, an educational video for media students, civil society groups and NGOs, tells us. Using the example of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick seek to show that in focusing on bloodshed and violence, standard news reports give British audiences the impression that the two sides are trapped in an inescapable cycle of…

Alien penguins, thought-powered spacecraft and some doddery members of Green Peas race through this children's book to stop an evil fast food empire. Marcellus Guzzle, despot of the toadburger chain, and his henchmen will murder anyone who gets in his way.

While his dreams of ecological disasters and unlimited financial profits seem to be coming true, an unlikely adversary appears on the scene. Eddy Tumble is just a fat 14-year-old who loves fast food until he dies at the dinner-table and is then brought back to life. He is joined…

Subtitled “A big event in a small town in the big country”, this chirpy little pamphlet is the work of a Stirling local, outlining his experience of the “spectacle” that was last July's G8 protests.

In the introduction Declan says “Its about a time when the world was very briefly focused on ... where I happen to live and work. It was a strange but exciting time for me and that's why I have been drive to write about it.” It's divided into two distinct sections - the first dealing with “before” the G8 and the second a day-by-day…

For a number of reasons, and this book explores some of them, “just war” theory has come under various kinds of strain in recent years.

As a result, some would seek to jettison it altogether, arguing that it is no longer relevant because the world has changed in too many ways since the theory was developed and formulated. Some try to patch it up on the basis that having something is better than having nothing, but without any real commitment to it. Some, however, continue to insist that, honestly and creatively used, just war theory…

Shut Them Down is a collection of reflections on the anti G8 mobilisation which took place in July 2005. It was created by activists whose stated aim was to “harness the energy created in Scotland to move in productive directions”. In the introduction the editors humbly deny speaking for the movement as a whole, and aim only to provide reflection on this particular instance of mobilisation within the wider “movement of movements”.

The book is extremely varied in content, ranging from personal diary-style accounts of road…