books

Anti-apartheid rugby protests showed how sport and politics are inseparable

Pitched Battle: In the Frontline of the 1971 Springbok Tour of Australia By Larry Writer Scribe Melbourne, 2016 336pp, $35.00

“Sport and politics don’t mix” is often heard from politicians and media commentators when people target sporting events in acts of protest or athletes use their chosen sports to make political statement — for example Muhammad Ali and, more recently, US NFL star Colin Kaepernick. However, sport is often politicised in many different ways by the ruling class to reinforce the status quo.

The hidden struggle for women’s footy

Play On! The Hidden History of Women’s Australian Rules Football
Brunette Lenkić and Rob Hess
Echo Publishing 2016,
324 pages

In a landmark development, the first national women’s Australian Football competition — AFL Women’s — will be launched next February. But a century ago, attitudes to women playing the game were very different.

Graduates face poverty and underemployment after finishing their degrees

Tertiary students are doing it tough. Yet the Coalition would have you believe we have it easy. High — and getting higher — course fees, job insecurity and accommodation costs are all adding to students’ anxieties.

Climate change is bad enough without this lot

After Sustainability: Denial, Hope, Retrieval
By John Foster
Routledge, 2015
230pp, $53.95

Just thinking about the global ecological crisis is enough to make you worry. So what is it like when a professional philosopher, theologian and academic starts mulling it over?

Unfortunately, what results is this utterly despondent book by Lancaster University’s John Foster. It is, however, a sophisticated work and activists will no doubt encounter people quoting it in years to come.

The unexpected, inspiring Corbyn phenomenon dissected with a cold eye

Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics
By Richard Seymour
Verso, 2016
paperback, 256 pages

If ever a book was born under a lucky star, it surely was Richard Seymour’s Corbyn.

No sooner had the English socialist blogger and author’s book about the British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn been published in May than the anti-Corbyn coup pushed it into the best sellers list.

New book celebrates four decades of radical radio

Radical Radio: Celebrating 40 years of 3CR 3CR.org.au, $49.50 I love this book. It is a showcase of four decades of Melbourne community radio station 3CR — one of Australia’s oldest and most progressive broadcasters, intertwined with the local and national landscape of political struggle from the mid 1970s until today. Page after page of informative, entertaining stories make for great reading.

Facing the Anthropocene: Ecosocialist author says Earth is in crisis but radical action can save it

Author Ian Angus at the launch of 'Facing the Anthropocene'. Sydney, May 13. Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism & the Crisis of the Earth System By Ian Angus Monthly Review Press New York, 2016 We are living in a time of unparalleled ecological breakdowns and the crisis is much worse than most people realise. There are other books that tell this harrowing story, but Ian Angus's Facing the Anthropocene is different.

Uncovering FIFA's dirty game

FBI raid in Miami gathering evidence on FIFA. May, 2015. The Dirty Game: Uncovering the Scandal at FIFA Andrew Jennings Arrow Books, 2016 305 pages The unravelling of the empire of Sepp Blatter, the multi-millionaire president of world football, began in 2014.

How a US soldier went from warrior to anti-warrior

Tomas Young's War Mark Wilkerson Haymarket Books, 2006 225 pages, US$17.95 Tomas Young never even fired his weapon. He was gravely wounded on his fifth day in Iraq in 2004. What followed was a story of unimaginable grit, courage, love, inspiration — and tragedy.

Comic book takes alternative path to accurate history

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye Presented by Sonny Liew. Pantheon Books, New York. 322 pages, 2015. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is the account of the life of a Singaporean comic book artist who started drawing at the age of 16. From that point, his work depicts his life story in parallel to that of the history of Singapore. In reality, Chan Hock Chye is a fictional creation of Malaysian born comic artist Sonny Liew who has worked on comics such as the New York Times bestseller The Shadow Hero.