Culture

A Spy in the Archives By Sheila Fitzpatrick Melbourne University Press, 2013 346 pages, $32.99 (pb) When Sydney University Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick was doing some crafty archival sleuthing as a British PhD student in the late 1960s in Moscow, it was not unexpected that any state guardians might suspect a female spy at work. Fitzpatrick could see some justification. “Any suspicious archives director who thought I was trying to find out the secrets of Narkompros was dead right”, she notes in Spy in the Archives.

For years now, off and on ― as huge the financial crisis and spiking unemployment have given way to healthy corporate profits and a "recovery" characterised by a surge in low-wage job creation ― the word has gone around that people are rediscovering Karl Marx's Capital. Whether many have the stamina to finish its opening chapter, on the commodity form, may be doubted. (Over the years, I have been in at least three informal study groups that broke up before getting through the analysis of money in chapter three.)

Boots Riley is lead singer of US-based hip-hop group The Coup and a radical activist, heavily involved in Occupy Oakland and other struggles. He was a featured speaker at the Marxism 2014 conference in Melbourne over April 17-20 where Green Left Weekly's Gemma Weedall spoke to him.

Oil & Honey: The Education Of An Unlikely Activist Bill McKibben Black Inc., 2013 255 pages, $29.95(pb) When the United States environmental writer Bill McKibben became a climate change activist, he discovered the delights of internet abuse and public meeting crazies, as he entertainingly describes in Oil and Honey.

Land & Labour: Marxism, Ecology & Human History Martin Empson Bookmarks Publications London, 2014 With several serious global environmental crises bearing down on us, the question of our age must be “what can we do?” British socialist Martin Empson urges us to look into the past and into the future for answers in his new book Land and Labour. His message is that human destruction of its environment is not inevitable, although it is very likely if we don’t draw upon the best and worst examples from humanity’s diverse experience.

Luke Harding's The Snowden Files is a well-constructed overview of the biggest intelligence leak in history - but it is not without its flaws. The Guardian journalist tells a detailed story of Edward Snowden - from his childhood in a military, Republican family, his short education and brief, failed army career, to his meteoric rise through the intelligence services that eventually enabled him to turn whistleblower.

One of the greatest novelists and writers of the 20th century has died. Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away on April 17 in Mexico at the age of 87. Commemorating the author, US-based progressive TV and radio show Democracy Now! said on April 18: “It has been reported that only the Bible has sold more copies in the Spanish language than the works of Garcia Marquez, who was affectionately known at 'Gabo' throughout Latin America.”

US rapper AWKWORD has teamed up with more than 100 artists worldwide to put out his charity album World View.

The world of mother nature has been overthrown From her, her garments torn Ripped away her ozone The rapist that threatens has sworn Take away her rain forests the dreaded terror ravaged her breast kissed upon the pure air smog and stench a passion of pollution has been blessed what was once an innocent pure birth now a harsh scorched earth and in the ravage and the power the scourge was once a loving flower like any mother she does what she can but she will not be defeated by her son man

Fuck Tony Fuckin’ Abbott After the revolution The solution Abbott made to stand down Send him to Hanover down town Spend a term there Maybe then he’ll care Fuck Tony Fuckin’ Abbott Let the boats in, I say Don’t turn em’ away The politician’s oversight Illegals – no Declaration of Human Rights That’s the UN Say it once again Fuck Tony Fuckin’ Abbott People waiting in dole queues He’s giving me the blues Mental illness is rife Due partly to his strife Fuck Tony Fuckin’ Abbott When it comes to the end

China’s Rise: Strength & Fragility By Au Loong Yu Resistance Books, IIRE Merlin Press, 2012 316 pages The transformation of the Chinese economy a 20-fold rise in the size of the economy between 1979 and 2010 and huge development of private enterprise has been one of the most significant and remarkable phenomena in recent history. However, neither the Western media and academia, nor the Chinese regime itself, provide much credible analysis on what is involved in this transformation.

Veteran Canadian punk band DOA have set sail for Australia for one final tour this month. Formed in 1978, Henry Rollins described the band as “live they were monumental, change your life, blow away time … They came to town and we were like WOW!”