With a new month comes new deals! And what the hell, we’ll give you October’s deals a day early, just for fun. We’ve chosen a new selection of AK Press titles to offer at HALF PRICE this month, and also put together some great new package deals for you all! Time to stock up on reading before winter sets in?
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Without further ado, this month’s sale items are:
In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary
Ngo Van
$9.98 (50% off the regular list price of $19.95!)
Although the Vietnam War is still well known, few people are aware of the decades of struggles against the French colonial regime that preceded it, many of which had no connection with the Stalinists (Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party). The Stalinists were ultimately victorious, but only because they systematically destroyed all the other oppositional currents. This book is the story of those other movements and revolts, caught in the crossfire between the French and the Stalinists, told by one of the few survivors.
Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-lot Gardeners are Inventing the Future Today Chris Carlsson $9.48 (50% off the regular list price of $18.95)
Outlaw bicycling, urban permaculture, biofuels, free software, and even the Burning Man festival are windows into a scarcely visible social transformation that is redefining politics as we know it. In small, under-the-radar ways, they are making life better right now, simultaneously building the foundation—technically and socially—for a genuine movement of liberation from market life. The practices outlined in Nowtopia embody a deep challenge to the basic underpinnings of modern life, as a new ecologically-driven politics emerges from below, reshaping our assumptions about science, technology, and human potential.
Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire
David Graeber
$11.48 (50% off the regular list price of $22.95)
In this collection, David Graeber revisits questions raised in his popular book, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Employing an unpretentious style to convey complex ideas, these twelve essays cover a lot of ground, but they’re linked by a clear purpose: to explore the nature of social power and the forms that resistance to it have taken, or might take in the future. In the process, he shows how scholarly concerns can be of use to radical social movements, and how the perspectives of such movements shed new light on debates within the academy.
Granny Made Me an Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me
Stuart Christie
$9.98 (50% off the regular list price of $19.95)
Stuart Christie is the rarest of revolutionaries—a committed freedom fighter and a gentle warrior who can also spin a cracking good yarn. From the working class streets of Glasgow as a wee lad to the gaols of fascist Spain as an 18-year-old anarchist, Christie draws his readers into the thick of things, on the move and on the run. The result is a compelling portrait of both a man and a time.
For Workers’ Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton
Edited by David Goodway
$10.98 (50% off the regular list price of $21.95)
The most prolific contributor to the British Solidarity Group (1961–1992), Maurice Brinton sought to inspire a mass movement based on libertarian socialist politics. Attempting to blow away the bad air of the “Old” and “New” Left alike, Brinton used the past as a guide—but not an anchor—in his visionary writings. With unrestrained passion, clarity, and consistency, he examines the totality of revolutionary politics and flays the “revolutionaries” who obstruct their realization. Included here are his finest essays, pamphlets, eye-witness reportage, and his most influential works—Irrational in Politics and Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control.
Seizing the Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook
Stephen Dunifer & Ron Sakolsky
$6.48 (50% off the regular list price of $12.95)
The first book to document and emphasize the myriad voices of the free radio movement, from Black Liberation Radio in Springfield, Illinois, to Free Radio Berkeley in Berkeley, California. Includes contributions from Robert McChesney on the political economy of radio in North America and a history and analysis of the burgeoning pirate radio movement; interviews and commentary by some of the key grassroots participants in micropower broadcasting worldwide; and a comprehensive technical guide and how-to manual for going on the air, complete with schematics and “sound” advice.
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And the new package deals this month are:
Radical Parenting Pack
3 books for $40.00 (buying them together saves you $7!)
For all you new and expectant parents (or anyone in need of a holiday or baby shower gift for such people!), here’s a truly winning combination: our own perennially popular radical parenting guide My Mother Wears Combat Boots, the brand-new anthology of writings on the experience of fatherhood from the Rad Dad zine, and for a bit of necessary comic relief, the new bestselling picture book Go the Fuck to Sleep. So good!!!
Indigenous People’s Day Package
3 books for $40.00 (buying them together saves you $17!)
Hopefully we all know by now that Columbus Day is a sham holiday and the “discovery” of America was really the first step toward European colonization of lands inhabited by indigenous peoples. So, while we celebrate Indigenous People’s Day instead, here’s a set of books that will lay out some essential truths about the colonization of the Americas. This set includes Ward Churchill’s Since Predator Came, Hans Koning’s The Conquest of America, and Jack D. Forbes’s Columbus and Other Cannibals.
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Happy fall and happy reading, folks! Stay tuned for more great deals next month!
For a limited time only: Buy a LIFETIME FRIENDS OF AK PRESS Membership!
Times are tough. As a small independent publisher, as folks who work long hours for short wages, just like most of our readers, we know how hard it is to stay afloat in these days of crackdowns and cutbacks. But as anarchist activists and radical propagandists, we also know that our work is more critical than ever. In a world filled with uncertainty, strong voices reminding us where we’ve been and how far we still have to go are the guideposts we need to weather the storms ahead, and AK Press remains dedicated to the task of supporting and amplifying these voices – just as we’ve done for the past twenty-one years.
Our publishing program has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years. Since January 2010, we’ve published over thirty titles, many of them new, and never-before published works of history and political non-fiction. We started a fiction series. We brought you not just one, but two books exploring the history and current situation in Greece. Together we explored questions of race, gender, class, labor, indigenism, urbanism, the past, the future, and beyond. Ten more titles are in the pipeline for the end of this year, and another twenty are lined up already for 2012. This fall, we’ll make AK Press ebooks available on our own website for the first time.
We need your help to keep up this frenetic pace – we’ve got no shortage of ideas and energy, but we need to raise funds to help support our efforts. For the first time in a decade, we’ve decided to reopen the Lifetime Friends of AK Press program, and make available 50 coveted Lifetime Friends memberships. For $2,500, you get a copy of EVERY book AK Press publishes for the rest of your life, or ours. That’s an average of twenty books a year for the rest of your life. Read them, donate them, give them to friends, mail them to prisoners – the possibilities are endless.
Trying to reduce your material possessions? Consider purchasing a Lifetime Friends of AK Press membership and donating it to your local library or infoshop. Institutional memberships are available for the same price, but expire after 25 years. Contact your favorite library to inquire if they will accept a membership as a tax-deductible donation!
We’ll even make it easier on you by making it possible to pay for your Lifetime membership in two installments – one billed to your credit card when you sign up, and the other half billed to your card on January 1, 2012.
Want to support AK Press in a less financially-intensive way? Sign up for a regular Friends membership – $25/month gets you a copy of every book we publish for the duration of your membership, as well as a 20% discount on anything you buy from our website, and memberships are unlimited.
Want to help us get the word out about AK Press? Contact us for posters, stickers, catalogues, and postcards to distribute in your town: publicity@akpress.org.
Starting up a distro? Planning to table at shows, conferences, and other events in your area? Let us know, and we’ll work with you to make books available for your tabling endeavours at a steep discount, and supply you with AK-logo swag to give away for free! Support AK Press and raise funds for your own projects: sales@akpress.org.
Disclaimer: As the publishing industry continues to shift and grow with the advent and increasing accessibility of new technologies, so does AK Press. It’s our goal to continue publishing 100% real, physically-extant, printed books as long as the technology exists. However, should the day come when the preferred mode of book publishing involves downloading files directly to your brain, the format of the Friends of AK Press program is subject to change accordingly!
ABQ ZINE FEST PRESENTS READING BY ACCLAIMED WRITER, ACTIVIST, FILMMAKER, (((((MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE)))))
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2nd @ 5pm CELLAR DOOR GIFTS & GALLERY 147 Harvard SE Suggested donation for this event is $5-$10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Space is limited. This event is sponsored by the generous support of Self-Serve Sexuality Resource Center!
A while back we put out a call for reviews from you, good people. We love to hear what you think about the titles that we love to labor over, and find out how they impact you. In turn, your reviews help spread the word about the things we publish because well, we think they’re great.
As always, check out the Occupied London blog for some of the most up-to-date analysis on the situation in Greece.
Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still to Come (AK Press / Occupied London)
If there is something I can say about this book is that it is a MUST read for anyone willing to comprehend the situation in Greece, be them anarchist or not.
The variey of viewpoints, the deep analyses of its authors is remarkable. It’s an invaluable insight into a revolt that dares not die.
Having been in Athens just lately, and experiencing the protests first-hand and participating in them, the same feeling of hope and resistance that swells the streets is conveyed by this book. You can feel it in the air, as in every page turn.
It also draws an important conclusion —despite the inconclusivess of the current state of affairs—: mainly, that we need and must remain united, that no creed, ideology or stance can save us if we are not in solidarity with each other. After all, aren’t we all affected by this capitalist crisis?
For me, the anarchist principle of solidarity must govern these days as never before. Let’s every action we undertake, be it out there in the streets or deep inside our hearts, be a glimpse into the future. Let us not look into the past with worshipping glory, but with a learning eye, in order to build this present, and its subsequent future, out of the ruins of capitalist empire.
It’s not about convincing anyone, it’s about opening our eyes. This book is essential to learning and understanding both the Greek crisis and the capitalist merciless regime we are living under, and offers hope to anyone willing to move forward —albeit not without a fight.
Despite capitalism’s endless wars and crackdowns, it is right there on the brink of falling into the abyss of History. “After all, the wounded animal will sometimes grind its teeth; a show of force can be sign of desperation.” Let’s give it the final push, shall we?
“Just as the metaphysics of Western civilisation was born in Athens, so it must die there. May something more beautiful emerge in its wake.”
In 2009 Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal were detained while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. Accused of spying and trespassing, they were arrested and held by the Iranian government. Sarah was released last year, but Shane and Josh had been held for two years, only being released on bail yesterday. On this morning’s Democracy Now! Shon Meckfessel, author of Suffled How it Gush: A North American in the Balkans, and the fourth hiker with them in Iraq, comments on their release and on Shane Bauer’s statement.
Read the full story on Democracy Now! or watch the video below:
Ngo Van’s In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary (edited by Ken Knabb) is a vital history of the decades of struggle in Vietnam leading up to the Vietnam War, shedding light on the movements caught at the intersection of opposition to the French colonial rule, and the Stalinist opposition that silenced almost all other voices of protest. An untold history by one of the few survivors.
We’re happy to share these two new reviews of In the Crossfire appearing in the new issues of Fifth Estate and Against the Current.
In the Crossfire seems destined to become a classic, for several reasons. First, simply for the breathtaking account of Van’s journey from peasant schoolboy via worker activist and political prisoner to exile — and for the abundant evidence that he preserved his humanity throughout. His skilful presentation, laced with humor, is brought out by a fine translation and beautiful illustrations, including his own sketches and paintings.
Second, In the Crossfire confounds stereotypes and challenges assumptions prevalent on the left about “national liberation” movements and Stalinist regimes. The account of the Vietnamese CP’s implementation in 1936-40 of the policy ordered from Moscow of support for French imperialism, and of its savage repression of its political enemies in 1945, bears comparison with the writings of the Stalinists’ socialist opponents in Republican Spain.
There is a sub-genre of science fiction called alternative history, which consists of works such as Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, in which Germany wins World War II, and Hitler becomes the ruler of the U.S. Works of this type offer a counterfactual version of past events, allowing readers to think along different lines about how the world has developed.
While it might be thought all such work is fictional, there is another type, such as elite descriptions of the U.S.’s conduct of foreign affairs, presented in the mass media, which might be truly designated nonfiction alternative history. This material, which describes, for example, the war in Afghanistan, has little to do with what actually takes place, substituting air-brushed or blacked-out chronologies for reality.
Similar distorted histories occur in leftist accounts, most pronounced from the 1920s into the 1950s, when many on the left were enamored of the Soviet Union through imaginary reports of how rosy things were under Stalin. Also, with uncritical support of other authoritarian communist states like China, and Cuba to this day.
The ability to make these false histories credible has changed over time, as, for example, disseminators learn to use new media better. A noteworthy learning experience of this type occurred for American power brokers in relation to the Vietnam War, and a perusal of Ngo Van’s In the Crossfire, newly translated from the French, an account of the author’s years in the Vietnamese resistance, gives us a reminder of this.
Compare the famed Vietnam War photos of a little girl, half naked, running from a napalm attack, with the Abu Ghraib prison photos. The little girl‘s photo was taken for the Associated Press and won a Pulitzer Prize. The Iraq images were taken by a female M.P. in the prison, though eventually they were shown on 60 Minutes.
Note the difference. In the 1960s and ’70s, even while the U.S. media largely parroted the official line on the Southeast Asian war, it did occasionally allow reporters and, more frequently, photographers to present what was really going on. Our mandarins saw what a mistake this was, since these glimpses fueled dissidence, so in our country’s current foreign adventures in the Middle East, it has “gone dark,” in the parlance of TV spy shows.
Little or nothing is shown or said in the media about what goes on, and even the return of dead G.I.s is shrouded (as it were) from press coverage. Only when a lowly soldier breaks a story will the media pick it up. (The heralded new freedom of the Internet as a news provider is dependent on the fact that the U.S. mass media has lost the marginal informative function it once had.)
“In 14 short, impressively precise chapters, Ball elegantly analyzes the present status of African America, contextualized not only by the aged historical narratives of political economies but also by the vibrant, living fabric of 21st century Washington, D.C.”—Brian Sims for HipHop DX.
Book Review: I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto by Jared Ball
Taken together, “I Mix What I Like’s” jewels represent a compelling assessment of the status not only of African America, but also of its colonial master.
“Expecting there to be a sanctioned press from among the colonized that poses journalistic challenges to established power is simply irrational.” – Jared Ball
Perhaps the most consistent and conspicuous omission by those who claim expertise or authority on Hip Hop is that of the colonial status of African America. What every single one of the degenerate, traitorous, disingenuous Hip Hop talking heads you’ve ever seen on television, learned from in the classroom or heard on the radio has in common is that they conveniently never mention the fact that Hip Hop has served as a primary means by which Black folks in America are colonized- mind, body and spirit.
Dr. Jared Ball’s new book I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto broadcasts this colonization in 1080p. Further, it offers a compelling argument for the potential of what he refers to as “Mixtape Radio” to function as Emancipatory Journalism (EJ), media work that “challenges conventional notions of journalistic practice” (p.121) and exposes the relationship of the press to society.
In 14 short, impressively precise chapters, Ball elegantly analyzes the present status of African America, contextualized not only by the aged historical narratives of political economies but also by the vibrant, living fabric of 21st century Washington, D.C. A prefatory note to the reader and introduction situate the ensuing information and perspectives in a Pan-African paradigm which weaves African metaphysical astrology, European linguistic assaults, corporate dominance, digital technology, academic scholarship and Arnold Schwarzenegger into an Internal Colonialism Theory (ICT) framework.
Yeah.
Chapter one opens with a brutally honest discussion titled “The Colonized Rhythm Nation,” which defines and clarifies the role of the United States of America as an empire, or a “…state (which) controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society” (p. 19). That other political society, of course, is the “Hip Hop Nation.” Here, Ball diverges from the time-honored talking-head playbook routinely used by (insert your favorite Hip Hop media outlet here) by arguing that whichever version of Hip Hop-as-Black-cultural-movement you subscribe to ultimately misses the point of Hip Hop’s existence as a “colonized extension of a predating and continuing colonialism” (p.20) that steals and victimizes; maims and distorts, domestically and internationally. According to Ball, the racially vague term “Hip Hop Nation” itself simultaneously conjures notions of social classification and contributes to a sort of “Hip Hop Nationalism” in which hip hoppers fight for its survival and perpetuation. This would be all good, except for the fact that during the mid-1990s “the corporate elite subsume[d] this nationalistic tendency within its own imperial designs.” (p.23).
This explains a lot. It explains Russell Simmons. It explains The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It damn sure explains MC Hammer, Diddy, and Rick Ross. It explains why “Hip Hop culture” is euphemism for self-inflicted wound; and why drugs, sexual pathology, and conspicuous material consumption are unchallenged hallmarks of “keeping it real.” It explains why every single piece of mass-produced Hip Hop media in the history of the world has served to substantiate and reinforce the existing power relations between the oppressed and the oppressor. Ball quotes Frantz Fanon, who put it this way: “The very purpose of popular culture and media within a colony is that it “reminds the settler of the reality of colonial power and, by its very existence, dispenses safety, serenity.” In other words, Hip Hop is medicine for the beneficiaries of White Patriarchal Supremacy (WPS); and poison for its victims.
Finally, it explains why Hip Hop, despite having the industrial power to generate tens of billions of dollars per year in revenue, has resulted in more Black and Brown “plantation-like”(p.26) labor and living conditions than ever before in history. Race, then, is identified as the primary determinant of wealth, health care, standard of living, and education throughout the world. Perhaps the boldest statement in I Mix What I Like is Ball’s proclamation that:
“No amount of popular, sanctioned media is anti-colonial. They are all consciously racist products that operate as systemic defense mechanisms. Decolonization can only come with unsanctioned media.”(p.38).
The implications of this Ballsian proclamation are profound, for if true, it indicts every single corporate sponsored website, television show, radio program, ringtone, magazine, album, newspaper, and book you’ve ever seen as racist. (Yes, that includes Facebook.) It also negates any libratory value ascribed to “progressive” “acceptable” forms of resistance (e.g. the Internet, NPR (the focus of chapter 10), Democracy Now). Most important for our purposes here, the proclamation serves as the fundamental assumption on which the argument for engaging in mixtape radio as EJ is based.
Chapter 2 engages media as ideological, and spells out the necessity of ideological control of culture in the colonial enterprise. Ball literally equates media with popularly disseminated ideology. Also referred to en sum as “pop culture,” this ideology basically involves depicting African people as inferior and deserving of their subjugation.
Ball’s description of this in an earlier article titled “Hip-Hop As Mass Media: Cultural Imperialism, Commodity and the Politics of Economy and Image” warrants quoting in its entirety here:
Rulers of the world have long since learned that the best method for a few to control many is not by means of whips, chains or guns but by manipulating the culture of the group to be ruled. That is, have the cultural expression of the conquered be adjusted to create an appearance of inclusion and shared interests with the rulers while assuring that this remains just that, an impression, mirage, myth or lie. This is why the end results in popularized hip-hop music and imagery are focused on conspicuous consumption, misogyny, violence and these become the standard for “the Black American experience.” This results in the perception that what is an intended, systemic occurrence – Black poverty, crime, violence, etc. – is actually the fault of flawed Black people, communities or cultures.” (p.5).
Of course, different versions of this message are literally preached to African America on a continual basis, resulting in what is oft referred to as a destruction of African consciousness. The virtual obliteration of African America’s African consciousness is being witnessed on virtually every level, perhaps no more clearly than in America’s collective inability to identify its ideology as European. It is precisely because America’s mode of operation is not identified as European in nature and origin that Black folks are able to perpetuate its (clear) daily assaults on Black life.
Almost as a case-in-point, Chapter 2 defecates on Marxist analyses of class-rule, which are (unfortunately) often regarded as revolutionary and counter to the aims and operation of capitalist exploitation. Ball notes that such analyses, according to Ayi Kwei Armah are limited by Marx’s “binding Eurocentricity and lack of praxis” (p.44), and highlights Fanon’s assertion that “[t]he cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.” (p.44).
In order to version what was African as “Black” it is necessary to make what is European “White”, or by proxy, “American.” “In other words, people are defined by both who they are (or made to seem to be) and equally by who they are not” (p.50). Both Blackness and Whiteness have been constructed and revised over the years… “the colonizer [thus] being created though the creation of the colonized.” (p.50). Returning to Fanon, Ball stresses the nature of the colonial dynamic as torturous, but not deadly. “the aim sought is rather a continued agony than a total disappearance of the pre-existing culture.” (p.53). For Ball “[t]he culture of the colonized must survive in some form or fashion so as to create an appearance of validity or authenticity.” (p.53).
La Jornada is one of the most widely circulated daily newspapers in Mexico City, so imagine my delight when I came across this fantastic (or so I imagined. My Spanish comprehension is deplorable) review of Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State (La antropología al servicio del Estado militarizado) last week.
American anthropologist David H. Price has distinguished himself among his colleagues by opposing the American government’s use of anthropology in counterinsurgency warfare and neocolonial occupation, for advocating an ethical code that clearly sets out anthropologists’ responsibilities to the populations that they study, and for denouncing the mercenary use of the discipline generally.
Price recently authored Weaponizing anthropology Social Science in Service of the Militarized State (Counter Punch / AK Press, 2011). In his vital book, he confronts counterinsurgency projects advanced by teams of social scientists (such as Human Terrain Systems) that are part of American combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also challenges university programs (Minerva Consortium, Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program, and Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence) designed to facilitate CIA, FBI, and Pentagon incursions into American institutions of higher learning and make the social science an instrument of the American national security state, the hegemonic power in the world imperialist system that has transformed universities into obsequious extensions of its military structure.
In the introduction, titled “Anthropology’s Military Shadow,” Price argues that George Bush’s “war on terror” renewed older military uses of anthropological knowledge and adapted them to the needs of asymmetric warfare, counterinsurgency, and the occupation of regions with large ethnic or tribal groups.
The first section, “Politics, Ethics and the Military Intelligence Complex’s Quiet Triumphal Return to Campus,” provides a historical overview of anthropology’s involvement with colonization, conquest, and genocide, illustrating that the discipline is far from neutral. He points out the links between American, British, French, Dutch, and German anthropological traditions and colonial expansion in Africa, Asia, Indonesia, and indigenous territories of the Americas, showing that they have been present since anthropology’s origins. Price describes the ethical and political problems faced by anthropologists and other social scientists associated with military and intelligence agencies, and documents anthropology’s integration into university programs established to benefit the military-industrial complex.
In the second part, “Manuals: Deconstructing the Texts of Cultural Warfare,” he uses leaked and published military documents to explore new military and intelligence initiatives that seek to harness social science and apply it to current and future wars. The military manuals that he treats frame culture as an identifiable, controllable commodity that military planners and intelligence agencies can utilize to manipulate occupied and resistant populations. Price notes the absence of any appreciation of the complexities of culture in these texts, something that is present in most anthropological writings but sorely lacking here; instead, they present narratives that reinforce simplistic stereotypes about large areas of diversity—indeed, he makes it clear that military conceptions of culture rely upon the most reductionist anthropological premises. He also exposes the lack of intellectual and professional scruples among the anthropologists who compiled the latest counterinsurgency manual (Counterinsurgency Field Manual,No. 3–24), published by the University of Chicago. He reveals how they plagiarized renowned authors and discussed their work out of context. Price characterizes this as a form of academic looting.
Finally, in the last section, “Counterinsurgency Theories, Fantasies, and Harsh Realities,” he looks at contemporary uses of the social sciences to support counterinsurgency operations in the so-called “war on terror,” including in training and developing the policy of anthropological and social science teams currently working in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Price’s view, this culturally informed counter-insurgency raises ethical, political and theoretical problems for anthropology. The ethical dilemma has to do with the manipulation of and the damage done to research populations, who should be able to voluntarily agree to be studied; the political difficulty occurs in the use of anthropological science to support conquest, occupation, and domination; the theoretical problem revolves around the application of simplistic reductionisms about culture that are designed to exploit local particularities and not only reduce conflict but also defeat insurgents.
Two questions arise from Latin America: What is the extent of such practices in our countries? What can we anthropologists and our professional associations do to reverse or at least challenge the American governments’ anthropologically informed counterinsurgency strategies?
OK, this is one of the best things I have seen this week. Internet, why didn’t you show this to me sooner?!
This is a visual representation of some of the major themes of Matt Hern’s Common Ground in a Liquid City, which we published last year, and which is still one of my favorite books AK’s released in the past several years. This giant chart was drawn by Colleen Stevenson, an artist and designer who “create[s] large wall charts using colour and visual metaphors to clarify ideas and simplify concepts during conversations and presentations.” This chart was made during a talk Matt gave in Victoria, BC last year, and it’s kind of amazing!
You can find a high-rez version over at Colleen’s website, plus samples of her other work. I wonder if she’d do one for David Graeber’s new Debt book? Cause that would be equally awesome …
PS: Anybody in the Baltimore area out there? Be sure to check out Matt Hern at the Baltimore Book Festival on September 25, speaking with Floodlines author Jordan Flaherty and Baltimore housing rights activist and historian Marisela Gomez. More info at: http://bookfair.redemmas.org
We’re thrilled to announce that our Baltimore office has received copies of Captive Genders, meaning that our warehouse copies should be arriving at any moment! As soon as we get those, we’ll be shipping out all your preorders, and if you haven’t preordered yet, there’s still time to get your copy at 25% off the list price. Do it now!!! And if you’d like to get discounted copies for your distro or reading group, please let us know and we’ll be happy to hook you up.
And while you’re waiting ever-so-patiently for your copy to arrive, check out Toshio Meronek’s recent SF Weekly interview with the book’s editors: “Book Editors Say Queers ‘Shouldn’t Ask to Sit at the Table — We Should Dismantle the Table'”.Editor Nat Smith says: “We shouldn’t need or want a piece of paper from the state to be able to love and be loved, to be able to get access to health care, or be allowed to stay in this nation. We shouldn’t be asking to sit at the table — we should be dismantling the table. Fighting for marriage, fighting to be in the military, fighting for hate-crime legislation to criminalize and imprison more people — these are not solutions to the day-to-day issues we face of poverty, violence, or lack of respect as community members. These reforms actually work against us, strengthening this system rather than weakening it.”
The book’s editors and contributors also had a great release celebration last week at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco. Check out the Captive Genders facebook page for photos of the event! And here for your viewing pleasure is a video from the event, of a talk by TGIJP organizer Miss Major, with former AK collective member (and continuously awesome person) Jay. Get inspired, and read the book!
In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary
Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-lot Gardeners are Inventing the Future Today
Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire
Granny Made Me an Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me
For Workers’ Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton
Seizing the Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook
Radical Parenting Pack
Indigenous People’s Day Package
Times are tough. As a small independent publisher, as folks who work long hours for short wages, just like most of our readers, we know how hard it is to stay afloat in these days of crackdowns and cutbacks. But as anarchist activists and radical propagandists, we also know that our work is more critical than ever. In a world filled with uncertainty, strong voices reminding us where we’ve been and how far we still have to go are the guideposts we need to weather the storms ahead, and AK Press remains dedicated to the task of supporting and amplifying these voices – just as we’ve done for the past twenty-one years.
Ngo Van’s 
