FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
Finding the cracks in globalisation
GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends an outstanding analysis of global elites that punctures the illusion of their international immutability
PEAS IN A POD: El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, of Palestinian extraction, with, at the time, US national security advisor John Bolton ‘eager to identify new opportunities for foreign investment, improve security, counter Chinese predatory practices and increase support for Interim Venezuelan president Guaido,’ March 2019
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
Rooted Globalism: Arab-Latin American Business Elites and the Politics of Global Imaginaries
Kevin Funk, Indiana University Press, £27
WHY do we care so much about the poor? Why do we obsess about inequality from our privileged, superior positions of scholarship and journalism by wallowing in their misery?
It is of course a form of absolution, penance if you will, from within a liberal caste that has clearly lost its grip on the bedrock of sociology, namely: an analysis based on class struggle.
As author Kevin Funk notes, postmodern and postcolonial approaches with their focus on subaltern agency have largely displaced Marxist-inspired analysis as the standard-bearer for “radical” critique in the social sciences.
More from this author
GAVIN O’TOOLE explores the resistance expressed by central American artists to their own erasure by US imperialist policies
Here’s an antidote to the Venezuela election-induced tantrums of Western elites. GAVIN O’TOOLE reviews it
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds an analysis of culture that explains why political conflicts today are focused more on values and identity than the economy and social questions
GAVIN O’TOOLE observes that the call for a new international framework for conflict mediation is fatally marred by a partisan position on the Isreali-Gazan conflict
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GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a book that examines the ‘invisible’ cultural cross-fertilisation that has bypassed the globalisation peddled by the West
GAVIN O’TOOLE explores the resistance expressed by central American artists to their own erasure by US imperialist policies
Capitalist exploitation and the civilisational crisis are global in nature. The left needs to transcend its frequently localised outlook if its to address the concerns of the exploited sectors worldwide, warns LUIS GARATE
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds an analysis of culture that explains why political conflicts today are focused more on values and identity than the economy and social questions