You Heard It Here First: AK’s Fall/Winter 2011 List!
Here it is folks: a preview of the amazing shit you can expect to see out from AK Press in late 2011 and early 2012. I think this is a fascinating season; there’s some real surprises in there (seriously, I’m surprised at how this list came together, and I was involved in acquiring some of these books!), all of them welcome ones, if I do say so myself, and there are some interesting trends that emerge. It’s a nice blend of more forward-thinking social and political analysis of the present-day, and strong historical titles that make clear our commitment as a publisher to preserving, and expanding our understanding of, our anarchist and radical past.
Plus, covers by some of our favorite designers: John Yates did a phenomenal job on the cover for Haymarket Scrapbook and Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots! And Josh MacPhee‘s cover for Anarchism and Workers’ Self Management has some of the best lettering we’ve seen in a long time … and it’s a collage! How cool is that? Plus, one by a new addition to our stable of designers (but an old friend to many in the collective), the incredibly-talented Tim Simons, who also designed the cover for Ramor Ryan’s new one, Zapatista Spring. We’re definitely experimenting with different styles (and colors, and trim-sizes, and paper), and having a hell of a lot of fun while doing it!
The books won’t be available for preorder on our site for a while (though you can always preorder at Amazon … yeah, I said it.), but click on any cover to download a handy-dandy onesheet with more info on the book, and join the AK mailing list to get updates and announcement when books do become available. And, stores and wholesale customers can contact Suzanne (sales@akpress.org) to place advance orders, or preorder through Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and our trade distributor, Consortium Sales & Distribution. Media and interviewers can contact Jessica (publicity@akpress.org) to request advance reader copies. And, if you’ve got an idea for a book for an upcoming season, well, be sure to send that on to the publishing department (publishing@akpress.org)!
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Eyes to the South: French Anarchists and Algeria, by David PorterOctober 2011 | $25.00 Eyes to the South studies the currents of the Algerian revolution alongside the development of French anarchist thought from the 1950s to the present. Read More … Cover design by Josh MacPhee |
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A Colossal Wreck: American Diaries from the Time of Clinton to Obama, by Alexander Cockburn October 2011 | $24.95 In these stunning new diaries, political journalist Alexander Cockburn paints the vast and tragic-comic canvas of America’s descent to what Percy Shelley in his poem “Ozymandias” invoked as “that colossal wreck” of empire. Read More … Cover design by Counterpunch |
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The Haymarket Scrapbook: The 25th Anniversary Edition, edited by David Roediger and Franklin Rosemont November 2011 | $20.00 Marking the 125th anniversary of the 1886 bombing at Chicago’s Haymarket Square, in a revised and expanded edition co-published with the Charles H. Kerr Company, this profusely illustrated anthology reproduces hundreds of original documents, speeches, posters, and handbills, as well as contributions by many of today’s finest labor and radical historians focusing on Haymarket’s enduring influence around the world—including the eight-hour workday. Read More … Cover design by John Yates |
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Decolonizing Anarchism: An Antiauthoritarian History of India’s Liberation Struggle, by Maia Ramnath December 2011 | $16.00 Decolonizing Anarchism looks at the history of South Asian struggles against colonialism and neocolonialism, highlighting lesser-known dissidents as well as iconic figures. The third in our Anarchist Interventions series co-published by AK & the IAS! Read More … Cover design by Josh MacPhee, cover art by Favianna Rodriguez |
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In the Shadow of State Power: CLR James, Direct Democracy, and National Liberation Struggles, by Matthew Quest January 2012 | $21.00 A new scholarly analysis of the importance of direct democracy and national liberation in the work of autonomous Marxist intellectual C.L.R. James. Read More … Cover design by Tim Simons |
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The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics, edited by Deric Shannon, Anthony Nocella II, and John Asimakoupolos January 2012 | $21.00 The only crisis of capitalism is capitalism itself. Let’s toss credit default swaps, bailouts, environmental externalities and, while we’re at it, private ownership of production in the dustbin of history. The Accumulation of Freedom brings together economists, historians, theorists, and activists for a first-of-its-kind study of anarchist economics. Read More … Cover design by Kate Khatib |
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Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore February 2012 | $17.95 Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? challenges not just the violence of straight homophobia but the hypocrisy of mainstream gay norms that say the only way to stay safe is to act straight: get married, join the military, adopt kids! Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore reinvokes the anger, flamboyance, and subversion once thriving in gay subcultures in order to create something dangerous and lovely: an exploration of the perils of assimilation; a call for accountability; a vision for change. A sassy and splintering emergency intervention! Read More … Cover design by John Yates, Cover photo by Charlie Stephens |
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Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain, by Frank Mintz, with a prologue by Chris Ealham March 2012 | $17.00 This is the first English translation of Frank Mintz’s seminal study of the economic experiments put into place during the Spanish Revolution to both sustain civil society during the war and, more importantly, act as the material basis for a new society. Read More … Cover design by Josh MacPhee |