Is there a better way than veganism to solve the climate crisis? What does "feminism" mean today? How has unconcious bias affected technology?
Looking to turn your New Year's resolutions into reality and discover new ways of thinking? Start 2022 with a selection of bestselling essays, non-fiction long reads, anthologies and cult classics with our New Year Revolutions collection.
From the secrets of veganism, living in a digital reality, gender politics and Cryptocommunism, we highlight some of our most engaging and comprehensive titles that are must-reads this year start.
Dr Pragya Agarwal - Sway Unravelling Unconscious Bias
What happens in our brains when we are biased? How has bias affected technology? If we don't know about it, are we really responsible for it? Sway Unravelling Unconscious Bias gives a thoroughly researched and comprehensive look at unconscious bias and how it impacts day-to-day life, from job interviews to romantic relationships to saving for retirement.
Elisa Gabbert - The Unreality of Memory
We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase "Did you see?" The feeling that we're living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten. Poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert's The Unreality of Memory provides a hauntingly perceptive analysis of the anxiety intrinsic in our new, digital ways of being, and also a means of reconciling ourselves to this new world.
Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson - The Little Book Of Humanism
Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson share over two thousand years of humanist wisdom through an uplifting collection of stories, quotes and meditations on how to live an ethical and fulfilling life, grounded in reason and humanity. With universal insights and beautiful original illustrations, The Little Book of Humanism is a perfect introduction to and a timeless anthology of humanist thought from some of history and today's greatest thinkers.
Ed Winters - This is Vegan Propaganda (And Other Lies The Meat Industry Tells You)
Through exploring the major ways that our current system of animal farming affects the world around us, as well as the cultural and psychological factors that drive our behaviours, This Is Vegan Propaganda answers the pressing question, is there a better way? Whether you are a vegan already or curious to learn more, this book will show you the other side of the story that has been hidden for far too long.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - We Should All be Feminists
What does "feminism" mean today? That is the question at the heart of We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay - adapted from her much-viewed TEDx Talk of the same name. A personal and powerful essay from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun, based on her 2013 TEDx Talk of the same name.
Mark Alizart and Robyn Mackay - Cryptocommunism
Mark Alizart’s Cryptocommunism is the first book to consider the potential cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin for left-wing political, economic and philosophical thought. Creative and iconoclastic, it asks the right questions, and even if its answers will ultimately find little favour, it fills a notable gap in the literature.
Laurent de Sutter - Narcocapitalism
Have we forgotten what it means to be excited because our only excitement has become drug-induced? What do the invention of anaesthetics in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Nazis’ use of cocaine, and the development of Prozac have in common? The answer is that they're all products of the same logic that defines our contemporary era: ‘the age of anaesthesia’. Narcocapitalism shows how large aspects of our lives are now characterised by the management of our emotions through drugs, ranging from the everyday use of sleeping pills to hard narcotics.
Alfie Bown - Playstation Dreamworld
From mobile phones to consoles, tablets and PCs, we are now a generation of gamers. Playstation Dreamworld details how we can understand the world of videogames via Lacanian dream analysis. It also argues that the Left needs to work inside this dream space - a powerful arena for constructing our desires - or else the dreamworld will fall entirely into the hands of dominant and reactionary forces. Far from being a book solely for dedicated gamers, this book dissects the structure of our relationships to all technological entertainment at a time when entertainment has become ubiquitous. We can no longer escape our fantasies but rather live inside their digital reality.
Silvia Federici - Caliban and the Witch
A cult classic since its publication in the early years of this century, Caliban and the Witch is Silvia Federici's history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages through the European witch-hunts, the rise of scientific rationalism and the colonisation of the Americas, it gives a panoramic account of the often horrific violence with which the unruly human material of pre-capitalist societies was transformed into a set of predictable and controllable mechanisms.
Helen Hester - Xenofeminism
In an era of accelerating technology and increasing complexity, how should we reimagine the emancipatory potential of feminism? How should gender politics be reconfigured in a world being transformed by automation, globalisation and the digital revolution? These questions are addressed in this bold new book Xenofeminism by Helen Hester, a founding member of the Laboria Cuboniks collective that developed the acclaimed manifesto Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation.
Looking for a further dose of inspiration? There are plenty more titles to enrich your collection...
Ryunosuke Koike dives into the idea that only by thinking less, can we appreciate more. The Practice of Not Thinking outlines practical steps on how to breathe, listen, speak, laugh, love and even sleep in a new way- for a more stress free life.
Erik Olin Wright shares an urgent and powerful argument for socialism, and a unparalleled guide to help us get there in How to be an Anti Capitalist in the 21st century.
Historian Lucy Delap explores how a rich relationship to the past can infuse today's activism in Feminisms: A Global History
Carlo Rovelli unravels the mystery of time in The Order Of Time inviting us to imagine a world where time is in us and we are not in time.
In this masterful, sympathetic account, political theorist Ruth Kinna traces the tumultuous history of anarchism. The Government of No One reveals what makes a supposedly chaotic movement particularly adaptable and effective over centuries - and what we can learn from it.