People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy by Robert W. McChesney

$54.99 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

Humanity is on the verge of its darkest hour-or its greatest moment The consequences of the technological revolution are about to hit hard: unemployment will spike as new technologies replace labor in the manufacturing, service, and professional sectors of an economy that is already struggling. The end of work as we know it will hit at the worst moment imaginable: as capitalism fosters permanent stagnation, when the labor market is in decrepit shape, with declining wages, expanding poverty, and scorching inequality. Only the dramatic democratization of our economy can address the existential challenges we now face. Yet, the US political process is so dominated by billionaires and corporate special interests, by corruption and monopoly, that it stymies not just democracy but progress. The great challenge of these times is to ensure that the tremendous benefits of technological progress are employed to serve the whole of humanity, rather than to enrich the wealthy few. Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols argue that the United States needs a new economy in which revolutionary technologies are applied to effectively address environmental and social problems and used to rejuvenate and extend democratic institutions. Based on intense reporting, rich historical analysis, and deep understanding of the technological and social changes that are unfolding, they propose a bold strategy for democratizing our digital destiny--before it's too late-and unleashing the real power of the Internet, and of humanity. ...Show more

Are We Screwed? How a New Generation Is Fighting to Survive Climate Change by Geoff Dembicki

$28.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

A declaration of independence, and a call for systemic change, from the generation that will be most impacted by climate change. If anyone doubted the potential political power of the Millennial generation, Bernie Sanders' campaign put it in the spotlight. Are We Screwed? makes clear that the ardor for change defines this generation, especially when it comes to climate change, and they are willing to consider options that their elders might think naive and impractical, rejecting a capitalism that cares only about profit and a political system riven by false ideology. In telling the stories of his contemporaries around the globe, in describing how they think and the many ways they are already effecting change, Geoff Dembicki documents a historic shift in values and a corresponding re-thinking of how social change can happen.As of this year, the millennial generation (18- to 34-year-olds) will become North America's largest demographic. It is also the generation that has lived with the looming reality of global warming and will be most affected by its impacts. In vividly reported dispatches from Beijing to Paris, from San Francisco to New York, Dembicki examines what millennial responses to climate change look like and how they are shaping our future. He also provides an essential perspective on how climate change is intensifying generational tensions and shifts in society. In the process, a portrait of a generation emerges that goes a long way toward re-branding it in ways that are positive and full of hope for the future. ...Show more

Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford

$25.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

Personal and fearless - a call to arms for feminists new, old and as yet unrealised by one of our most outspoken feminist writers.

People Like Us: How arrogance is dividing Islam and the West by Waleed Aly

$38.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs | Reading Level: very good

No two civilisations have spoken so many words about each other in recent years as those of Islam and the West. And no two seem to have communicated less. People Like Us confronts the themes that define this chasm head-on: women, jihad, secularism, terrorism, reformation and modernity. Its piercing exam ination of these subjects reveals our thoughtless and destructive tendency to assume that the world's problems could be solved if only everyone became more like us. The result is deep mutual ignorance and animosity, reinforced by both Muslim and Western commentators. As a Muslim born and raised in Australia, Waleed Aly stands at the intersection of these two civilisations. In this book, he draws on his knowledge of Western and Islamic intellectual traditions to present an analysis that is surprising and challenging, but always enlightening. ...Show more

Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World by Michael Pollan

$30.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

What shall we have for dinner? Such a simple question has grown to have a very complicated answer. We can eat almost anything nature has to offer, but deciding what we should eat stirs anxiety. Should we choose the organic apple or the conventional? If organic, local or imported? Wild fish or farmed? Lo w-carb or low-cal? As the American culture of fast food and unlimited choice invades the world, Pollan follows his next meal from land to table, tracing the origin of everything consumed and the implications for ourselves and our planet. His astonishing findings will shock all who care about what they put on their plate. ...Show more

Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security

$38.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

The World's Emergency Room by Michael VanRooyen

$44.99 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

Twenty years ago, the most common cause of death for medical humanitarians and other aid workers was traffic accidents; today, it is violent attacks. And the death of each doctor, nurse, paramedic, midwife, and vaccinator is multiplied untold times in the vulnerable populations deprived of their care. I n a 2005 report, the ICRC found that for every soldier killed in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 60 civilians died due to loss of immunisations and other basic health services. The World's Emergency Room: The Growing Threat to Doctors, Nurses, and Humanitarian Workers documents this dangerous trend, demonstrates the urgent need to reverse it, and explores how that can be accomplished. Drawing on VanRooyen's personal experiences and those of his colleagues in international humanitarian medicine, he takes readers into clinics, wards, and field hospitals around the world where medical personnel work with inadequate resources under dangerous conditions to care for civilians imperiled by conflict. VanRooyen undergirds these compelling stories with data and historical context, emphasizing how they imperil the key doctrine of medical neutrality, and what to do about it. ...Show more

Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What it Means for Us by Dambisa Moyo

$28.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

Our planet's resources are running out. The media bombards us with constant warnings of impending shortages of fossil fuels, minerals, arable land, and water and the political Armageddon that will result as insatiable global demand far outstrips supply. But how true is this picture? In "Winner Take All" , Dambisa Moyo cuts through the misconceptions and noise surrounding resource scarcity with a penetrating analysis of what really is at stake. China, Moyo reveals, has embarked on one of the greatest commodity rushes in history. Tracing its breathtaking quest for resources - from Africa to Latin America, North America to Europe - she examines the impact it is having on us all, and its profound implications for our future. ...Show more

As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela by Mark Thomas

$39.99 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

In the style of Stupid White Men, the UK's foremost political comedian has written a corruscatingly funny expose of the arms trade. Mark Thomas is one of the UK's most effective and best-known political activists, as well as being a highly successful stand-up comedian. His show 'The Mark Thomas Com edy Product' ran for six highly acclaimed series on Channel Four. Amazingly, this is his first book. As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela is a deeply funny, deeply disturbing account of Mark's rampage through the arms trade. Under a fairly flimsy disguise and with the use of some worryingly poor accents, Mark managed to set himself up and begin trading as an arms exporter. His account of his encounters, adventures and discoveries provide a shockingly entertaining read. His aim throughout was to change the law. Embedded within the sharpness of his humour is the truth of an industry that causes conflict and poverty in developing countries. He talks to arms dealers, torture victims, manufacturers, interrogators and politicians, and moves through South Africa, Ireland, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia to the Serious Fraud Office. Mark Thomas exposes the laws and loopholes, complacency and greed that are used to make money through persecution, at the expense of the poorest people in the world. A major new book in a bestselling genre, from a highly popular figure. ...Show more

Rocks and Hard Places by Roger Moody

$35.00 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

The world of international mining is changing rapidly. Mineral consumption is outstripping the capabilities of both communities and fragile ecosystems to cope with bigger and bigger mines. As grades of ore decline, and community opposition mounts in the North, so the big mining corporations are taking o ver more and more greenfield sites in Africa, Asia and Latin America to serve the industries of the North and the tiger economies of the East. This book: identifies mining's key players, funders and backers; explains the process of mining key minerals; presents the costs for local communities and environment; reveals the rising tide of opposition; challenges the mining corporations' public relations offensive; and makes practical proposals for alternative mining forms. ...Show more

Peoplequake: Mass Migration, Ageing Nations and the Coming Population Crash by Fred Pearce

$29.99 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

A groundbreaking book that reveals the truth about population levels, and where they will take us in the future. Wherever we look, population is the driver of the most toxic issues on the political agenda. But the population bomb is being defused. Half the world's women are having two children or fewer . Within a generation, the world's population will be falling. And we will all be getting very old. So should we welcome the return to centre stage of the tribal elders? Or is humanity facing a fate worse than environmental apocalypse? Brilliant, heretical and accessible to all, Fred Pearce takes on the matter that is fundamental to who we are and how we live, confronting our demographic demons. ...Show more

Army of Roses: Inside the world of Palestinian women suicide bombers by Barbara Victor

$39.95 NZD

Category: Current Affairs

Tracing the Palestinian women's resistance movement back to a brief period of empowerment in the 1960s before religious leaders clamped down, Victor shows how the current generation of Palestinian women has been courted and cajoled into committing these self-destructive and murderous acts. "This is an angry book, filled with human emotion, and a frightening one, which is as it should be" Christopher Dicket, Newsweek Paris ...Show more