mlx-community/zer0-books huggingface dataset:
Bio-Politicizing Cary Grant
by Joshua David Gonsalves

Bio-Politicizing Cary Grant explicates the ethnic, racial and sexual ambiguity of Cary Grant’s star persona as both an inculcation of (and resistance to) biopolitical imperatives in fifties-era “America”.

Who will Cary Grant have been when the future runs out?

In the atrocity-rich wake of Hiroshima, Cold War America is enriched beyond belief. Hollywood radiates, in turn, images of a consumer utopia criss-crossed by segregation, social mobility, racial passing, anxieties about ethnicity and “white panic”. Cary Grant’s class-less classiness seems to denote this (sub)urban leisure class without an effort, yet he signifies more than this: ambivalent, bi-sex’d, inter-sected by the biopolitics of racialization, the policing of sexual agency and stereotypical ethnic identifications (including the invisible Anglo instanced by the high-angle shot).

If biopolitics signifies the individuated control of populations, Bio-Politicizing Cary Grant: Pressing Race, Class and Ethnicity into Service in Amerika locates this anxious racialization of service persons, interracial sexuality and social mobility (passing) in an Americanized simulacrum of the Mediterranean world in To Catch a Thief (1955) and in a New York/Northeast-centered USA in North by Northwest (1959).

Bio-Politicizing Cary Grant queries the criticism of Alfred J. Hitchcock’s films so as to historically situate one of the first free agents in Hollywood. Yet this semblance of freedom pays a price in meat, murder, massification and the organized homicide of Cold War geopolitics. The book explicates, in sum, the ethnic, racial and sexual ambiguity of Cary Grant’s star persona as both an inculcation of (and resistance to) biopolitical imperatives in fifties-era “America”.

Reviews:
I have been enjoying your essay on a too-quick-first read and will re-read it with more leisure when I have a chance. I think it opens some new angles, while having a variety of dossiers juggling, ethnicity, Grant’s imago, “Hitchcock,” race of course. A pleasure to read. ~ Tom Cohen, author of Hitchcock's Cryptonomies: 2 vols.
Biopolitical Imperialism
by Mark G. E. Kelly

The First World is a parasite, subsisting on life imported from the Third World, and exporting death in return.

Biopolitical Imperialism is a book about international politics today. The core, eponymous thesis is that our world is marked by a pattern of biopolitical parasitism, that is, the enhancement of the life of wealthy populations of First World countries on the basis of an active denigration of the lives of the poor mass of humanity. The book details how this dynamic plays out both inside wealthy countries and internationally.

Reviews:
A very strong book, exceptionally clear, incisive, and terrifying. ~ Justin Clemens
BioShock
by Robert Jackson

A historical, critical look at the famous videogame franchise BioShock.

A historical, critical look at the famous videogame franchise BioShock, understanding it through philosophical, ideological and computational interpretations of systems, decisions and 'propaganda'.

Reviews:
One interesting aspect of the New Materialism is the use of digital cultural artifacts such as video games as things to think with philosophically. A good example of this is Bioshock: Decision, Forced Choice and Propaganda by Robert Jackson. In this short book Jackson takes the game franchise Bioshock as a means with which to think about questions of choice, causality and decision both within and outwith the playing of such a game. ~ Charlie Gere, Oxford University Press Journals: Years Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, vol 23, no 1, 2015
Robert Jackson avoids the dilettantism that normally accompanies studies of the aesthetic and cultural accomplishment of videogames, and instead offers a thoroughgoing critique of the ideology of decision in contemporary society: it is not a capacity of the individual, but of systems and collectives. ~ Ian Bogost: Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology., Author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames and How To Do Things with Videogames
Don't be mistaken to think this is a book about a computer game franchise. It is about the world of forces and forced choice, of decision over choice and the complex nested structurations that define our contemporary political moment. It shows how any question of the so-called self is by necessity already decided outside it. Decisions are automated, algorithmic and systemic. A constant cascade of decisions. Robert Jackson's extremely smart book elaborates this moment through BioShock in a provocative way. ~ Jussi Parikka: Reader in Media & Design, at University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art., Author of Digital Contagions: A Media Archaeology of Computer Viruses, Insect Media and What is Media Archaeology?
Blood-Stained Poppy, The
by Kevin Rooney, James Heartfield

The Poppy is a symbol of British militarism, not a badge of peace.

For a century the war dead have been honoured with Red Poppies on Remembrance Day. The Poppy is part of a cult of death that celebrates the slaughter of the 'Great War' of 1914-18. The Poppy and the Remembrance Day ceremony turn grief to sanctify war.

Here we expose the truth about the First World War, and about the century of militarism that followed. The war was not fought to make the world safe, but out of hatred and imperial greed. In the hundred years since the end of the First World War, Britain's military ventures have continued to wreak havoc across the world.

The Poppy is a symbol of British militarism, not a badge of peace.

Reviews:
Praise for Rooney and Heartfield's previous work from Zero Books, Who's Afraid of the Easter Rising? 1916-2016: 'A penetrating reflection on the controversies surrounding the Dublin revolt of 1916.' ~ Michael Fitzpatrick, Spiked Online
Blowing the Lid
by Stuart Feather

The queer fight for Gay Liberation; authentic identities and modern roles for lesbians and gays that enhanced British society.

The Gay Liberation Front founded in 1970 urged gay men and gay women to unite around a simple set of demands among which were calls for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment, in sex education, in the age of consent and in being treated as sick by the medical establishment.

GLF saw itself as a people’s movement for gays, socialist by virtue of its demand for social change, and revolutionary in recognizing the rights of other oppressed minorities to determine the fight for their own demands.

All history is personal. The author of this political memoir is the first participant of the Front to write a history of the lesbians and gay men who joined Gay Liberation and through a process of Coming Out and radicalization initiated an anarchic campaign that permanently changed the face of this country.

Reviews:
'This is a wonderfully rich and evocative account of an important moment in gay history. Stuart Feather has "brought it all back" in a marvellous narrative that is a great gift to posterity.' Ken Plummer, University of Essex. ~
Hegel is a Drag: Thesis: scores of Wests, Garlands, and boas (and I don't mean Franz). Antithesis: gay, feminist - leftist boos to anything that hobbles in heals. Synthesis? With a vengeance, in a viciously modern attack on sex roles, liberation prudery, and boredom in the orchestra. It's proof that rhinestones and politics can live together, but that they must. ~ Weinstein, Village Voice
Invaluable as well as entertaining first hand radical testimony from the period, essential for anyone who wants to understand how this country has changed and who wants to think about how it could be changed more. ~ Neil Bartlett, author and playwright
I think Feather provides an interesting lens to understand the movement’s internal debates, divisions and problems. This is a very rich understanding of how a social movement emerges and works through internal differences. So I have no doubt that this work will contribute to a lot of discussions on civil society and social movements. ~ Dr. Hakan Seckinelgin, Gender Institute, London School of Economics
Blue in the Air, The
by Marcello Carlin

A retrieved man tells how music, from Patrick Cargill to Jay-Z, retained the power to change the world in 2008.

A former widower whose life was saved by writing about music spends a year waiting for his new wife to fly over from Toronto and join him in London. While he waits he observes that the world is subtly changing and that music has played a key part in these changes. A galaxy of characters, ranging from Marty Wilde to Jay-Z via Glenn Gould, Dorothy Squires, Britney Spears, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Patrick Cargill, Orson Welles and many forgotten others, conspire to alter his perspective, leading to a climax where he is finally united with his wife and the world chooses a new and better leader.

The Blue in the Air is a gesture of defiance from a tiny but meaningful tugboat of resistance. At a time when we are repeatedly encouraged for reasons of demographic convenience to believe that music can change nothing and mean nothing, this writer demonstrates comprehensively that for those who stay awake, alert and alive, music still retains the power to change the fabric of the air we choose to breathe.

Reviews:
Why not just let the song speak for itself? Here are some answers.â€ ~ Mark Sinker
Marcello Carlin lures or impels us through an astonishing maze of music, much of it very likely unfamiliar with, from radical free improv to one off novelty pop, via every imaginable sheeptrack or rat run or scenic bus ride.

~ Mark Sinker
Borderlines
by Daniel Melo

Through different facets of the U.S. immigration system, Borderlines explores how power and profit are perpetuated by the divisions between migrant and citizen and the resulting dehumanization of both.

The current U.S. immigration nightmare is a product of capitalism. The familiar, heartbreaking stories of dangerous treks, migrant exploitation, asylum, family separation and detention all have their roots in the material conditions of the dominant economic system. Immigrants’ place in American democracy has long been intertwined with questions of cheap labor and exploitation, sovereign power, and the preservation of class relations. Through different facets of the immigration system, Borderlines explores how power and profit are perpetuated by the divisions between migrant and citizen and the resulting dehumanization of both. It demonstrates the necessity of a radical working-class demand for economic and political justice across borders and the edges of democracy.

Reviews:
Boredom and Art
by Julian Jason Haladyn

Examines the manners in which modern artists use boredom as a form of aesthetic resistance that, at its most positive, is the will to boredom.

Boredom and Art examines the use of boredom as a strategy in modern and contemporary art to resist or frustrate the effects of consumerism and capitalism. This book traces the emergence of what Haladyn terms the will to boredom in which artists, writers and philosophers actively attempt to use the lack of interest inherent in the state of being 'bored' to challenge people. Instead of accepting the prescribed meanings of life given to us by consumer or mass culture, boredom represents the possibility of creating meaning: ‘a threshold of great deeds’ in Walter Benjamin’s memorable wording. It is this conception of boredom as a positive experience of modern subjectivity that is the main critical position of Haladyn's study, in which he proposes that boredom is used by artists as a form of aesthetic resistance that, at its most positive, is the will to boredom.

Reviews:
Brad Pitt's Dog
by Johan Kugelberg

A Punch and Judy show of intellectual diaspora making mincemeat of some pop culture sacred cows

The first book of essays by a long-time renowned chronicler of underground culture. Johan Kugelberg's book on the early history of hip hop won the NYPL books for the teen age award 2008 and his book on the Velvet Underground won the Foreword silver medal for music 2010. The way this book mashes up lo-bro and hi-bro is readable, funny and thought-provoking, and also downright provoking. Johan Kugelberg's essays on punk, style and pop culture have entertained readers of international publications including Dazed and Confused, Another Man, Ugly Things, Perfect Sound Forever, Spin, Raygun and Fact over the last couple of decades.

Reviews:
I laughed out loud five times. ~ Bob Stanley
An eclectic assembly of perspectives from one of our more singular sockets, it may increase the readers bandwidth in quite unexpected ways.

~ William Gibson
Brexit: The Establishment Civil War
by Josh Hamilton

How dark money and big data were unleashed upon a divided and austerity ravaged population. They reached into our social divides and pulled us apart all for their own gain.

Wrapped up in a story of the British public's' rejection of the establishment is a much darker story about shady money, untoward digital campaign tactics, and a fraught battle exploding from the highest rungs of British politics and society. Brexit: The Establishment Civil War is a crucial examination of what is now driving British politics, the dark money and forces attempting to manipulate it, and the online warfare techniques that are being deployed in modern politics.

Brexit is nothing more than an establishment civil war that erupted from the upper echelons of the Conservative party and engulfed the entire country. It unleashed the growing power of big data on a divided and austerity ravaged population by pouring petrol on hot button issues like immigration and sovereignty. The Leave campaigns reached into our social divides and pulled us apart all for their own gain. Josh Hamilton examines the underlying factors that led to the Brexit vote, how technology made us more vulnerable to manipulation, how both sides of the establishment went to war over their own self-interests, and how disaster capitalists will use Brexit to further enrich themselves at the expense of the entire country.

Reviews:
British Marxist Historians, The
by Harvey J. Kaye

The first and most complete study of the work of the British intellectuals whose studies and stories of popular resistance, rebellion, and revolution from the bottom up radically transformed our understanding of the making of history.

The British Marxist Historians remains the first and most complete study of the founders of one of the most influential contemporary academic traditions in history and social theory. In this classic text, Kaye looks at Maurice Dobb and the debate on the transition to capitalism; Rodney Hilton on feudalism and the English peasantry; Christopher Hill on the English Revolution; Eric Hobsbawm on workers, peasants and world history; and E.P. Thompson on the making of the English working class. Kaye compares their perspective on history with other approaches, such as that of the French Annales school, and concludes with a discussion of the British Marxist historians’ contribution to the formation of a democratic historical consciousness. The British Marxist Historians is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the intellectual history of the late twentieth century.

Reviews:
Harvey Kaye's The British Marxist Historians... is a lasting contribution to the history of twentieth-century Marxism, to a corner of British cultural history, and to the study of how history and historians work. ~ Eric Hobsbawn, author of The Age of Revolution
British State, The
by Chris Nineham

The first attempt since the 1980s to analyse the British state's capacity to block change and derail social movements. A riposte to those who said there could never be a very British coup.

What happens if a radical government gets elected in Britain? How will the banks, the civil servants, the media and the military react? Is the idea of a British coup far-fetched? How can the left prepare?

Chris Nineham addresses these questions by looking behind the myths at the reality of two hundred years of British state rule. He brings us a warning from history. Don’t be fooled again, read this book.

Reviews:
5 out of 5 stars: An excellent eye-opening straight-to-the-point summary of the real history of the British state and how far it differs from the benign narrative we would prefer to believe. If you thought the establishment had attacked Corbyn enough over bad clothes, mixing with terrorists, not bowing low enough to the Queen, being in chronic bad health etc then read this book to prepare for the onslaught of attacks from the establishment should Corbyn get elected. Short, sharp and accessible - it doesn't pull its punches and nor should we! ~ Sofie Mason, Amazon
5 out of 5 stars: The British deep state despises democracy and will act to protect itself against any interference by us. Winning an election is one thing. But then what? This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know. ~ Shaun Wilde, Amazon
5 out of 5 stars: This is really excellent. I really can’t recommend this enough to everyone involved in campaigning and who wishes to change the world for better. Dispels a lot of woolly headed thinking about our essentially sound and benign institutions. The British State is of course neither of those things, and this book explains why brilliantly. Buy yourself and your colleagues a copy. ~ , Amazon
This gripping, fast-paced and provocative book is an alternative history of Britain. It shows how the carefully nurtured image of British fair play and liberalism has in fact concealed the real drama: the raw manipulation of power by and for a small number of people. British capitalism has, historically, actively undermined and suppressed any real change to the balance of power: this book warns that a future progressive government will face the same intransigence. ~ Brian Eno, musician and author of A Year with Swollen Appendices
An outstanding primer about one of the most urgent issues of the day. ~ John Pilger, author of Hidden Agendas
Fascinating and insightful. A timely and important book. ~ Francesca Martinez
A concise, salutary and very valuable history. The state as it really is not how it would like to appear. ~ Mike Wayne
Home Truths deftly told. ~ Danny Dorling
Can Architecture Be an Emancipatory Project?
by Nadir Z. Lahiji

Can architectural discourse rethink itself in terms of a radical emancipatory project? And if so, what would be the contours of such a discourse?

Can architectural discourse rethink itself in terms of a radical emancipatory project? And if so, what would be the contours of such a discourse?

Reviews:
Can architecture be an instrument of emancipation? Can architects unchain themselves from their own instrumentalisation within capitalism? In a format as provocative as the questions Lahiji asks of his interlocutors - Andreotti, Cunningham, Deamer, Swyngedouw and Ockman - these are given a platform to ask searching questions of architecture, the Left, and each other. Their arguments and exchanges over issues of autonomy and activism, over the relationship between the political and the economic, over form and abstraction, are passionate, insightful and contentious. The critical engagement of its authors illuminates, for the theory and practice of architecture, what is at stake in the central question of Can Architecture be an Emancipatory Project? ~ Douglas Spencer, Professor of Architecture, Architectural Association, London.
Can The Market Speak?
by Campbell Jones

This book attacks the ideological foundations of capitalism, starting with the mystifications surrounding the idea of ‘the market’.

It is said the market has moods and desires. It is said that we must listen to it and must anticipate how it will respond to our actions. What is the significance of these peculiar forms of speech? This book investigates the conceptual underpinnings of the idea that the market has intentions, consciousness and speech, and identifies the social and political consequences of this attribution to the market of capacities generally thought to be uniquely human. At once a work of philosophy, a cultural and social archaeology and a diagnosis of one of the central ideologies of our times, this book cuts to the heart of the linguistic forms through which our collective futures are decided.

Reviews:
In conclusion, Campbell Jones work raises a number of pertinent questions in regard to concepts such as hegemony, reification and the balance of forces between labour and capital. His book might not have all the answers to those questions but it can allow the kind of discussions which might arrive at them. Having had our tongues cut out by property developers and the priests of high finance, we will need books like Can the Market Speak? that believe in zombies’ ability to speak. ~ The Berlin Review of Books, http://berlinbooks.org/brb/2013/04/can-the-market-speak/
‘This remarkable little book teases apart modern market language, and offers a compelling critical reading of the personification of financial markets. There could have been no better time for its publication than in the midst of the current financial crisis. Through its reflections on the culture and history of the market’s personhood and personality, Campbell Jones offers new modes and avenues for dissent and resistance.’ ~ Professor Marieke de Goede, University of Amsterdam, author of Virtue, Fortune and Faith: A Genealogy of Finance.
‘The wisdom of our age tells us “Shut up and let the market speak”, but market talk betrays a certain mindlessness. In this piercing and piquant book, Campbell Jones invites us to “think the market” when it can’t actually think itself. This book will unleash the critical spirits to keep the beasts at bay and engage the most salient philosophical entailments of our moment along the way.' ~ Professor Randy Martin, New York University, author of Financialization of Daily Life
Cauldron of Anxiety, A
by William Briggs

Capitalism has passed its use-by-date, but a better, saner world is possible.

The veritable tsunami of anxieties that are affecting individual lives, the increasingly dysfunctional nature of society and the potential catastrophes of global conflict and of climate change, have a common cause. The inability of capitalism or the state to respond to existential crises and internal contradictions is the cause of what William Briggs terms A Cauldron of Anxiety. Briggs defends a Marxist perspective that would challenge this and provides an optimistic vision for the future.

Reviews:
A Cauldron of Anxiety is a book for anyone left feeling wretched by the state of our world: the poverty, the degradation of our environment, the brutality of our rulers. Briggs blames all our ills singly and compellingly on the capitalist system, insisting that it is the monster against which all of us should unite. He helps us to see a world beyond the misery of our present. ~ David Renton, author of The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right