RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics
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For the few not the many
BOB NEWLAND recommends a book that challenges many erroneously held views on conservationism
INVASIVE: Awash National Park, Ethiopia
[Nina R/CC]
STEVE ANDREW appreciates a passionate account of the Scottish Club during the ‘lost decade’
By telling the story of a lawless frontier town from the point of view of the Lakota, Chinese labourers, prostitutes and displaced prospectors, makes for a potted history of capital, suggests ALEX HALL
TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO
MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway, Becoming Victoria Wood, Hamnet, and Song Sung Blue
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
The Invention of Green Colonialism
by Guillaume Blanc
Polity £15.99
MANY Morning Star readers will be familiar with the oft repeated justification that colonialists simply took over and developed land that was unoccupied. To make this a reality required the wholesale expulsion of indigenous peoples from their land in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Africa.
Like many other progressives I have always considered the National Parks and their conservation agenda to be a good thing. This book challenges that idea.
Blanc’s study concentrates primarily on Africa especially Ethiopia. He argues that National Parks are based on the colonial era idea of “Eden” — an Africa consisting of vast forests and green spaces occupied by flora and fauna.
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