book review

Two new books take a hard look at the fight against Adani — and for our future

Since it was first mooted in 2010, the Adani Carmichael Coal and Rail project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has proven controversial. It has faced a series of legal challenges by environment groups and Traditional Owners, as well as campaigns by activists calling on financial institutions to divest from the fossil fuel industry. The starting date has been rescheduled several times as the viability of the project has been called into question and potential finance proves elusive.

It is timely then, at this impasse, that two new books are released documenting the story so far and canvassing possible outcomes.

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12 new books for ecosocialists

Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus takes a look at a series of new books of interest for ecosocialists.

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Novel takes on Adelaide’s student radicals with authenticity

Doug McEachern’s novel follows the progress and regress of the two friends living in the 1960s as “endless acrimonious debates over militancy” pepper their student group house in inner-city North Adelaide.

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Malaya’s People's Constitution, 70 years on

The former British colony of Malaya (now Malaysia) gained its independence on August 31, 1957. However, this was based on a deal by the Malay elites represented by the conservative United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) and Chinese and Indian capitalist classes with British colonialism. This deal preserved the privileges of the Malay elite.

Ten years earlier in 1947, a different vision of independence based on popular democratic participation and multi-ethnic solidarity came together in the “People’s Constitution”.

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When the student press shook established power

Dissent didn’t obey strict decade-demarcation lines on Australian campuses in the radical 1960s, writes Sally Wood in Dissent: The Student Press in 1960s Australia.

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Famine, epidemics and pesticides: Five new books for ecosocialists

Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus looks at five important new books on famines, deadly epidemics and the pesticide poisons in our food.

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A useful insider’s guide to Antifa

In Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11-12 last year, an infamous mobilisation of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other far-right groups was met by anti-fascist and anti-racist protesters. In violent clashes, attacks by the far right resulted in many counter-protesters being injured and one dead — anti-fascist activist Heather Hayes, who was killed when a fascist drove a car into the crowd.

US President Donald Trump, whose election was supported by and emboldened the far right, refused to condemn the far right, stating: “You had many fine people on both sides.”

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Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury’ mostly dire and dirty

The furore surrounding Michael Wolff’s book is unsurprising because he lifts the lid on the foetid cesspit that is US President Donald Trump’s White House. In the tradition of scandal-mongering journalism, he reveals the back-stabbing, in-fighting and squabbling of this ramshackle administration of bigots, ignoramuses and incompetents.

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How an elite group of mates rob us blind

Game of Mates tells the story of two Australian men, the working-class Bruce and the capitalist James — two imaginary but emblematic men with very different lives.

Written by economists Cameron Murray and Paul Fritjers, these two archetypal characters are used to tell the story of economic theft across Australia.

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A glimpse at Nigeria’s little known revolutionary left

Adam Mayer’s book on Marxist currents in Nigeria is what it says on the cover — a rich history of Marxist and revolutionary thought and struggles that are little known outside the West African nation.

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