Detail of “Man at the Crossroads” (1933), a fresco by Mexican painter Diego Rivera, showing Leon Trotsky, Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Socialism: A Very Short Introduction Michael Newman Oxford University Press, 2020 Have you got a friend who’s always complaining about “socialism” and doesn’t know
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In This Corner: Your must not see films of 2023
As a lifelong fan and even, dare I say, a student of movies, at this time of year I like to peruse the ‘best of’ lists from movie critics, looking for something I’ve missed that I’d like to check out in the next year. There is, I know, a gap
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ed Broadbent: Canada’s most iconic social democrat?
Ed Broadbent, now 87, was the first NDP leader widely regarded by the Canadian public as a possible prime minister. Photo by Jeff Goode/Toronto Star Archives. Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality Ed Broadbent with Frances Abele, Jonathan Sas and Luke Savage ECW Press, 2023 As
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How ‘Cannibal Capitalism’ is devouring the planet
Smoke from wildfires in Canada engulfs New York City, June 2023. Photo by Anthony Quintano/Wikimedia Commons. Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It Nancy Fraser Verso, 2022 The world is a mess. In her latest book, Cannibal Capitalism, feminist
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Poverty in Britain: From feudalism to neoliberal capitalism
“The Payment of the Tithes (The tax-collector),” by Pieter Breughel the Younger, between 1617 and 1622. Image courtesy Bonhams/Wikimedia Commons. Scoundrels and Shirkers: Capitalism and Poverty in Britain Jim Silver Fernwood, 2023 The sixteenth century saw the beginnings of capitalism in England. The capitalist relation—employers buying labour and workers selling
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Winnipeg, 1919: How understanding the past is a product of the present
Demonstrators protest the trials of the Winnipeg General Strike leaders. Photo courtesy National Archives of Canada. For a Better World: The Winnipeg General Strike and the Workers’ Revolt Edited by James Naylor, Rhonda L. Hinther, and Jim Mochoruk University of Manitoba Press, 2022 General strikes are not necessarily revolutionary acts.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Sabotage in the time of the Anthropocene
How to Blow Up a Pipeline Directed by Daniel Goldhaber Chrono, 2023 “Strategic pacifism is sanitized history… it is a guide of scant use for a movement with mighty obstacles.” —Andreas Malm The film adaptation of Andreas Malm’s influential book starts with the deflation of tires on luxury vehicles and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Making sense of the senseless war in Ukraine
Soviet-era monument in Riga, Latvia, which was splashed with the colours of the Ukraine flag the day after Russia invaded in February 2022. Photo by Kārlis Dambrāns/ Flickr. War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies OR Books, 2022 General Nathan Bedford Forrest
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Indigenous fight to stop uranium mining in Canada’s North
The cover image for I Will Live for Both of Us, featuring Joan Scottie. Photo courtesy University of Manitoba Press. I Will Live for Both of Us: A History of Colonialism, Uranium Mining, and Inuit Resistance Joan Scottie, Warren Bernauer, and Jack Hicks University of Manitoba Press, 2023 I Will
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Compassion in an age of anxiety and disillusionment
The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté Knopf Canada, 2022 Published in September 2022, Canadian physician and author Gabor Maté’s new book, The Myth of Normal, is a rich examination of the conditions that lead not only to individual illness,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: New book shows why Indigenous leadership must be at the heart of Canada’s just transition
The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada Angele Alook, Emily Eaton, David Gray-Donald, Joël Laforest, Crystal Lameman and Bronwen Tucker Between the Lines, 2023 When new oil and gas projects are approved in Canada, whether it’s an individual drill pad, a sour gas line, or a massive
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Dismantling the cult of Churchill
Winston Churchill. Illustration by Lyn Ott (1942). Image from Wikimedia Commons. Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes Tariq Ali Verso, 2022 When I was about 10 years old, my first historical hero was Winston Churchill. I had a poster on my bedroom wall of his family genealogy. For many years
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: “If there is to be a livable future, it will be a future offline”
Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World Jonathan Crary Verso, 2022 At this point, it is a commonplace that the techno-optimist promises of the Internet’s early proponents were either naïve or lies. Claims of the system’s power to connect far-flung individuals and enrich one’s social life are
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: ‘Triangle of Sadness’ is a flawed rebuke of the billionaire class
Sunnyi Melles aboard Triangle of Sadness. Still image courtesy of Cannes Film Festival. Triangle of Sadness Ruben Östlund Imperative Entertainment, 2022 “I am more interested in when we are failing. I’m interested in sins, where we don’t live up to the idea of what it is to be a good
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Planning our way out of poverty: Racism and Toronto’s housing crisis
Kensington Market, Toronto, Canada. Photo by Dan D./Unsplash. Fearing the Immigrant: Racialization and Urban Policy in Toronto Parastou Saberi University of Minnesota Press, 2022 The cities of Europe are in peril once again, and soon the threat will come for us. The North American settler narrative persists: if we don’t
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Building a labour movement to take on the billionaire class
In October 2021, 10,000 John Deere workers struck plants and warehouses in Iowa and Illinois, as well as smaller facilities in Kansas, Georgia and Colorado. Photo by Jordan Chariton/Twitter. Class Struggle Unionism Joe Burns Haymarket, 2022 Joe Burns’ new book, Class Struggle Unionism, reads like pamphlet, with a clear call
Continue readingScripturient: Bread Machine Cookbooks
Among my shelves of books on baking bread by hand, is a smaller selection of books about using a bread machine to craft loaves and other items. I admit I’ve been somewhat lax in my creative uses of the bread machine, using it only to bake somewhat plain, whole loaves
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The power of peasant farmers
A large farm growing a variety of foods in Vietnam. Photo by Dennis Jarvis/Wikimedia Commons. Tiny Engines of Abundance: A History of Peasant Productivity and Repression Jim Handy Fernwood, 2022 When we imagine alternative, sustainable, economically and socially equitable futures, agriculture must be front and centre of the program. It
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Paul Palango’s ‘22 Murders’ paints a bleak picture of RCMP inaction
The Portapique sign on Highway 2, which runs from Halifax to Fort Lawrence, was adorned with a Nova Scotia tartan sash following the mass shooting that began there on April 18, 2020. Photo by Joan Baxter/Halifax Examiner. 22 Murders: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Still hopeful after all these years
Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism Maude Barlow ECW Press, 2022 Hope is a multi-faceted phenomenon. In some situations, it can be vital in coping with, and improving on, an unhealthy status quo. On the other hand, it can lead us to be passive in times when decisive
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