Reviews

Published works relating to forgiveness generally fall into one of three categories. First off are the Christians who urge us all to follow God's example and forgive and embrace all those who have done us wrong. Then there are the therapeutic manuals produced by behavioural psychologists and new-age gurus that tell us how to achieve the mental and emotional fulfilment which is the fruit of forgiveness by a simple six or maybe twelve-stage process. Finally there are the philosophical works targeted at the academic market and which seem to me…

When the voices of war and the “war on terrorism” are raised around the world, the voices of women, feminists with different opinions, perspectives and experience are silenced or drowned out.

This volume of essays, personal stories, poetry and statements is a welcome collection of voices from around the world. In the words of the dedication, “... women who have struggled to perfect the difficult and valuable skill of surviving, who refuse to be overwhelmed by the overwhelming, and who continue to hope against hopelessness…

Steve Schofield is one of the foremost experts on demilitarisation and the conversion of military resources to civilian use. He is a kind of practical utopian, someone who has always used his specialist knowledge and rigorous analytical approach to inform his pursuit of a world without war.

In his latest book he takes a clear look at how the search for the twin goals of peace and prosperity - through the three pillars of federalism, international trade and comprehensive disarmament - have been at the heart of progressive…

The value of this book, published through a radical history series, lies in the collection of essays, speeches, photographs and well known quotes of some of the protagonists and victims in Salvador Allende's socialist government which was overthrown by Pinochet's brutal dictatorship (as sponsored by the CIA). It also includes opinions and comments by well-known people who have expressed solidarity with the struggle against impunity.

As a Chilean who feels close to this history, it was a good reminder of what the experience of the…

This is a very special book. Its main strength lies in the fact that Jillian Edelstein - a professional, South African-born and well known photographer - was there when the Commission did its job. Not only in the geographical places in which it took place, but she also took pictures of the principal actors of this incredible and impressive experience, something which showed the world that apartheid was something that could no longer exist.

Jillian combines her powerful images and portraits with the testimonies of those who came…

Gore Vidal knows how to write. The only problem is that you get the feeling he's written it all before. Literally. Nowhere on the cover (front or back) are you warned that three-quarters of the book is a reprint of articles that appeared previously in Vanity Fair (three) or The Nation (one), which were published as long ago as 1997 (although I can't say the material feels dated, far from it).

The drawback of having read it all before won't apply to everyone of course. But besides that, there is another major hitch…

The Good Shopping Guide is the world's first comprehensive ethical reference guide to clearly list the behaviour of the companies behind everyday consumer brands.

Published by the Ethical Marketing Group, the Good Shopping Guide covers a wide range of products from bananas to computers, pet food to insurance companies, and from its opening statement - “Your till receipt is as important as your vote” - promotes intelligent consumer choice as a way of influencing and encouraging responsible corporate attitudes towards human welfare,…

As war is becoming more and more of a reality, surrealism and madness characterise the pro-war lobby just as they continue to characterise the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In the midst of heightened passion, political debates that have turned personal, not to forget the plagiarism by British officials, Milan Rai's Book War Plan Iraq: 10 Reasons Why We Shouldn't Launch Another War Against Iraq comes as a relief.

The book provides well-researched background information, clear arguments against an illegal war and…

The five chapters of this book were originally part of a longer book, And justice for all, published in1963 (the other five chapters can be found at http://www.oceanbooks.com.au ). The author, William Kunstler, who died in 1995, was a radical US defence lawyer whose clients included Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

The reissue is in response to the current attack on civil liberties in the US in the wake of 11 September 2001, and includes a new introduction which examines the “anti…

In 1985, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, all-round American patriot Colonel Oliver North met with Iranian businessmen in a hotel room in Frankfurt: “...one of the things that we would like to do, okay, is we would like to become actively engaged in ending this war in such a way that it becomes very evident to everybody that the real problem in preventing peace in the region is Saddam Hussein, and we'll have to take care of that...“

With this introduction, images of that tall, well-groomed military man in a…

Few writers can take two seemingly different subjects like river dams and the war on terrorism and turn them into a coherent, informed, impassioned indictment of the nation state, elitist greed and militarised globalisation. Arundhati Roy can, and does.

India is a country where 70% of the population has no electricity and where more than the total population of Canada might be displaced and made homeless from their villages and farms by dam building. I say might because as Roy states, nobody really knows, as the supposedly…

The ICISS was set up by the Canadian government in 2000 to investigate and report on the “right of humanitarian intervention”, with its members being selected from a variety of backgrounds and nations.

Before preparing their report they organised a series of international discussions and commissioned a set of briefing papers from recognised experts in the field. The CD-ROM contains the papers and summaries of the discussions along with an extensive bibliography. (This supplementary volume is also available in paperback, ISBN 0 8893…

In this book, Danilo Zolo offers “an interpretation of the `humanitarian war' waged by nineteen NATO countries against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999”. In so doing, he paints a depressing (but perhaps unsurprising) picture of political manoeuvrings, hypocrisy and double-dealings that are enough to get the word “humanitarian” a bad name. The fact that it takes place against the background of the genuine suffering of the people of Kosova serves only to make it all even worse.

At the heart of Zolo's analysis…

I reviewed this book with the help of a group of 11-14-year-old girls and a sense of trepidation: how well would this group of children take to playing games that involved no competition or eventual winner?

The tag games worked very well, the girls enjoying the time to run and chase. The games that involved the girls putting themselves at risk of capture to help out others (Help-me Tag, Clam-Free Tag) helped highlight the girls who were easily willing to take the risk for friends and those who needed to have this encouraged in them…

Ever find yourself losing your edge? Descending into woolly liberalism? Perhaps even thinking (No!) that those corporations might just, possibly, be reformable?

If there is any mental brake to that slippery slope, this book of cartoons is it. Polyp applies his cruelly sharp wit to globalisation, militarism, corporate power and hypocritical greenwash, exposing the intellectual and moral inconsistencies of so many official statements and positions that we have become so used to that they often pass without comment.

Nike, Coca-…