Michael Albert’s latest work, Practical Utopia is a succinct and thoughtful discussion of ambitious goals and practical principles for creating a desirable society. It presents concepts and their connections to current society; visions of what can be in a preferred, participatory future; and an examination of the ends and means required for developing a just society. Neither shying away from the complexity of human issues, nor reeking of dogmatism, Practical Utopia presupposes only concern for humanity. Part one offers conceptual tools for understanding society and history, for discerning the nature of the oppressions people suffer and the potentials they harbor. Part two promotes a vision for a better way of organizing economy, polity, kinship, culture, ecology, and international relations. It is not a blueprint, of course, but does address the key institutions needed if people are to be free to determine their own circumstances. Part three investigates the means of seeking change using a variety of tactics and programs.
An examination of the material culture outlined in Plato's Laws including demographic, economic, military and political structures, analysed using contemporary theories and historical contextualization
Chris Brown is a prominent international political theorist who has contributed to debates on pluralism, justice and human rights. This book draws together seventeen of his most important and influential articles from the last twenty years. These essays include influential statements on the role of normative theory and international ethics, the so-called ‘cosmopolitan-communitarian debate’ and anti-foundationalist thought in international relations, as well as important contributions to Rawlsian and Post-Rawlsian theories of international and global justice. The most recent papers address subjects such as the notion of global civil society, and controversies over the ethics of pre-emptive warfare, and the inevitably selective nature of humanitarian interventions. The book includes a framing introduction written for this volume, in which Brown discusses his own influences, and the evolution of his thinking throughout his career. Although this evolution has involved a progressively less critical viewpoint towards liberal thought and liberal internationalism, and a greater commitment to universal values, some things have remained constant – in particular a focus on the importance of political judgement and scepticism directed towards the idea that there are simple solutions to complex problems. The collection ends fittingly with a critique of the popular cosmopolitanism of figures such as Bono and Bob Geldof. This collection will be essential reading for all scholars and graduates with an interest in international political theory.
The 1987 publication of Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas helped trigger the British renaissance of radical hard science fiction and influenced a generation of New Space Opera masters. The thirteen SF novels that followed inspired an avid fandom and intense intellectual engagement while Banks's mainstream books vaulted him to the top of the Scottish literary scene. Paul Kincaid has written the first study of Iain M. Banks to explore the confluence of his SF and literary techniques and sensibilities. As Kincaid shows, the two powerful aspects of Banks's work flowed into each other, blurring a line that critics too often treat as clear-cut. Banks's gift for black humor and a honed skepticism regarding politics and religion found expression even as he orchestrated the vast, galaxy-spanning vistas in his novels of the Culture. In examining Banks's entire SF oeuvre, Kincaid unlocks the set of ideas Banks drew upon, ideas that spoke to an unusually varied readership that praised him as a visionary and reveled in the distinctive character of his works. Entertaining and broad in scope, Iain M. Banks offers new insights on one of the most admired figures in contemporary science fiction.
First published in 1992. The collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe has led to a widespread view that socialism is a dead, or at least dying, force. Labour’s Utopias argues that this assumption is based on the popular conception that socialism’s various traditions are simply different means to a common end. The author looks at three strands of socialism – Bolshevism, Fabianism and German Social Democracy – in order to assess whether this argument is justified, concluding that in fact each has a distinct vision of an ideal future. This study will appeal to scholars and students of politics, history and socialism, and to all those with an interest in the alternatives to capitalism.
This book joins five key debates in the current theoretical literature that have been largely taking place in isolation and identifies common strands of argument and their shared problems to developed a unified way forward for practice-based political theory.
An interview with Noam Chomsky is a bit like throwing batting practice to Babe Ruth. What you lob in, he will hammer out. This conversational interview by Michael Albert, who has been close to Chomsky for roughly half a century and talked with him many hundreds of times, spans a wide range of topics including journalism, science, religion, the racist foundations of American society, education as indoctrination, issues of class and resistance, colonialism, imperialism, and much more. The thread through it all is that every topic—and the list above takes us just about halfway through this book—reveals how social systems work, what their impact on humanity is, and how they are treated by the elite, mainstream intellectuals, and leftists. It gets personal, theoretical, and observational. The lessons are relevant to all times, so far, and pretty much all places, and Chomsky’s logical scalpel, with moral guidance, is relentless.
Are there feminist, economic utopian visions amongst feminist economists? What are these visions? Is there a common vision for feminist economics or should there be? Can feminist economics be effective without a utopian vision? Comprehensive and original, this book surveys the entire field of utopian literature; from Plato to the present. Answering a range of questions and written by a rising star in feminist economics it provides explanations of: the different kinds of feminism the evolution of feminist thought the development of feminist economics the history and sources of utopias as a theoretical and/or literary tool. This volume is a must for all students studying the intersection of gender and economics.
Routledge Library Editions: Utopias (6 volume set) contains titles, originally published between 1923 and 1982. It includes volumes focusing on Utopian fiction, both as a genre in its own right and also from a feminist perspective. In addition, there are sociological texts that examine the history of Utopian thought, from the writings of Plato and beyond, as well as specific examples of people who have tried to create Utopian communities.
On October 13, 1909, Francisco Ferrer, the notorious Catalan anarchist educator and founder of the Modern School, was executed by firing squad. The Spanish government accused him of masterminding the Tragic Week rebellion, while the transnational movement that emerged in his defense argued that he was simply the founder of the groundbreaking Modern School of Barcelona. Was Ferrer a ferocious revolutionary, an ardently nonviolent pedagogue, or something else entirely? Anarchist Education and the Modern School is the first historical reader to gather together Ferrer’s writings on rationalist education, revolutionary violence, and the general strike (most translated into English for the first time) and put them into conversation with the letters, speeches, and articles of his comrades, collaborators, and critics to show that the truth about the founder of the Modern School was far more complex than most of his friends or enemies realized. Francisco Ferrer navigated a tempestuous world of anarchist assassins, radical republican conspirators, anticlerical rioters, and freethinking educators to establish the legendary Escuela Moderna and the Modern School movement that his martyrdom propelled around the globe.
