In early 2011 Cairo's Tahrir Square briefly commanded the attention of the world. Half a decade later, the international media has largely moved on from Egypt's explosive cycles of revolution and counter-revolution - but the Arab world's most populous nation remains as volatile as ever, its turmoil intimately bound up with forms of authoritarian power and grassroots resistance that stretch right across the globe.
In The Egyptians: A Radical Story, Jack Shenker uncovers the roots of the uprising that succeeded in toppling Hosni Mubarak, one of the Middle East's most entrenched dictators, and explores a country now divided between two irreconcilable political orders.
Challenging conventional analyses that depict contemporary Egypt as a battle between Islamists and secular forces, The Egyptians illuminates other far more important fault lines: the far-flung communities waging war against transnational corporations, the men and women fighting to subvert long-established gender norms, the workers dramatically seizing control of their own factories, and the cultural producers (novelists, graffiti artists and illicit bedroom DJs) appropriating public space in defiance of their repressive and increasingly violent Western-backed regime.
Situating the Egyptian revolution in its proper context - not as an isolated event but as an ongoing popular struggle against a certain model of state authority and economic exclusion that is replicated in different forms around the world - The Egyptians explains why the events of the past five years have proved so threatening to elites both inside Egypt and abroad.
As Egypt's rulers seek to eliminate all forms of dissent, seeded within the rebellious politics of Egypt's young generation are big ideas about democracy, sovereignty, social justice and resistance that could yet change the world.
Jack Shenker is a journalist based in London and Cairo whose reporting has spanned the globe. Formerly Egypt correspondent for The Guardian, his coverage of the Egyptian revolution received multiple prizes. In 2012 his investigation into the deaths of African migrants in the Mediterranean was named news story of the year at the prestigious One World media awards.
Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called 'ethnic cleansing'. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.
Against the centre ground
Since 1989, politics has been a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market. In this urgent and wideranging case for the prosecution, Tariq Ali looks at the people and events that have informed this development across the world. It is an investigation that reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump, the success of En Marche! in France, and the dominance of Merkel’s Germany throughout Europe.
In this fully updated edition of The Extreme Centre, Ali considers recent events that suggest, despite everything, that there is room for hope. He finds promise in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties in Scotland, Greece, and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new promise for democracy. Even in the UK, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, there are indications that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.
This polemic approaches the subject of anarchism in relation to class struggle. It presents an argument against class-based society and hierarchy and advocates for a free and equal society based on individual dignity and merit.
Drawing from the authors’ experiences as activists and documenting the activities of other 20th-century anarchists—including clandestine activities and social change by any means—this fundamental text asserts that government is the true enemy of the people and that only through the dissolution of government can the people put an end to exploitation and war, leading to a fully free society.
Based on Labour Party files, including some never before publicly seen, this explosive investigation lays bare the intrigues, stratagems, and deceits that helped deliver Sir Keir Starmer to Downing Street.
Paul Holden shows how Keir Starmer has been the frontman for a ruthless, right-wing political project headed by Morgan McSweeney, now chief of staff in Number 10 and arguably the most powerful man in Britain.
McSweeney’s clique often employed dirty tricks to undermine the left-wing Labour leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, fuelling a moral panic over antisemitism and establishing front groups that hobbled prominent independent media outlets in the name of fighting ‘misinformation’.
McSweeney then guided Starmer to the Labour leadership on a platform that Starmer, once in office, almost instantly betrayed. Having conquered the party on false pretences, McSweeney and his allies set about purging opponents, marginalising the membership, and dragging party policy to the right.
These machinations were made possible by financial donations that McSweeney did not disclose—a violation of the law that arguably subverted Britain’s democratic system. But was McSweeney’s unlawful failure to report donations a mistake—or was it deliberate?
This is a sordid tale that includes hacked emails, anonymous smears, dodgy dossiers, cynical stitch-ups, and staggering hypocrisy. It traces the Labour Party’s transformation into a censorial, authoritarian machine, and sounds the alarm about the possible corruption of British politics by dark money.
Janet Suzman's contemporary take on Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, relocated to that part of South Africa known as the eastern Free State, looks at the lives of whites and blacks shifted irrevocably by the winds of political change. It is 1994 and democracy has replaced apartheid. But with new freedoms come new problems of identity and loyalties. Chekhov's enduring themes of change, time and family fidelity take on new resonances in Suzman's adaptation.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a black comedy by Martin McDonagh, in which the 'mad' leader of an Irish National Liberation Army splinter group discovers that his cat has been killed. It has been produced twice in the West End and on Broadway, where it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. In 2014, The Lieutenant of Inishmore was ranked in The Daily Telegraph as one of the 15 greatest plays ever written.
Overseas Press Club Award Winner 2016
A shocking investigative journey into the way the resource trade wreaks havoc on Africa, ‘The Looting Machine’ explores the dark underbelly of the global economy.
‘The Looting Machine’ is a searing exposé of the global web of traders, bankers, middlemen, despots and corporate raiders that is pillaging Africa’s vast natural wealth. From the killing fields of Congo to the crude-slicked creeks of Nigeria, a great endowment of oil, diamonds, copper, iron, gold and coltan has become a curse that condemns millions to poverty, violence and oppression. That curse is no accident. This gripping investigative journey takes us into the shadows of the world economy, where secretive networks conspire with Africa’s kleptocrats to bleed the continent dry. And like their victims, the beneficiaries of this grand looting have names.