Note: Most book descriptions are publisher comments.
Deep Water
The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling - A Report to the President
By the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon
Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
On April 20, 2010 an explosion tore
through the Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig operating in the Gulf of
Mexico. The disaster happened as workers were finalizing the drilling of
the exploratory Macondo well, forty miles off the coast of Louisiana.
It was, by any standard, a catastrophe.
In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and Ending Our Oil Addiction
By Peter Lehner and Bob Deans
On April 20, 2010, when Deepwater Horizon's well blew out, resulting
in a massive explosion, eleven lives were lost, millions of barrels of
crude oil poured into one of the world's prime fishing grounds, and the
resultant slick covered 2,500 square miles.
Why did it happen? What led us to this tragic point? How can we avoid such accidents in the future? In Deep Water
benefits from the combined resources of the 400 scientists, activists,
and researchers at the Natural Resources Defence Council and provides
thorough answers to these questions.
Peter Lehner, Executive Director, NRDC also teaches
environmental law at Columbia University Law School. Chief of the
Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's
Office for eight years, he created and led New York City's
Environmental prosecution unit. He is a frequent contributor on NRDC's Switchboard blog.
Bob Deans, author of the 2007 book The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James,
was the Chief Asia Correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
and other Cox newspapers, and spent eight years covering the White
House. He also contributes on Switchboard.
Fuel on the Fire - Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq
By Greg Muttitt
Published 21 April 2011 by the Bodley Head, an imprint of Random
House
Pre-order now from Amazon
"Nothing short of a secret history of the war" --
NAOMI KLEIN
"The Iraqi civil society voices resound with dignity in
this brilliant, comprehensive account" -- NEW
INTERNATIONALIST
"A compelling read, brilliantly researched, revealing how
the oilmen colluded with politicians trying to outwit a
determined Iraqi people" -- DAVID HENCKE, former
Westminster correspondent, the Guardian
"Illuminating, informative and objective. On a subject
where truth was the first casualty, this book is the
closest to that truth" -- TAREQ ISMAEL, Professor of
Political Science, University of Calgary
Twitter: @FuelontheFire
Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eye Witness Accounts of the Occupations
by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz
In spring 2008, inspired by the Vietnam-era Winter Soldier hearings,
Iraq Veterans Against the War gathered veterans to expose war crimes in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are the powerful words, images, and
documents of this historic gathering, which show the reality of life in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that
well-publicized incidents of American brutality like the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the
town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few
bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed.
They are part of a pattern, the group says, of “an increasingly bloody
occupation.
"Winter Soldier makes us feel the pain and despair endured by those who
serve in a military stretched to the breaking point by stop-loss
policies, multiple combat tours, and a war where the goals and the
enemies keep shifting ... [and] also make[s] us admire the unbreakable
idealism and hope of those men and women who still believe that by
speaking out they can make things better both for themselves and for
those who come after them."--San Francisco Chronicle
Re:Imaging Change: An Introduction to Story-based Strategy
by Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough
Re:Imagining Change is an interactive and accessible resource guide to
smartMeme’s story-based strategy tools and methods. With 60 pages of
ideas, analysis, case studies, and strategies, you can change your
campaign, your community and your world.
Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War
by Pratap Chatterjee
Halliburton’s Army is the first book to show, in shocking
detail, how Halliburton really does business, in Iraq, and around the
world. From its vital role as the logistical backbone of the U.S.
occupation in Iraq-without Halliburto
n there could be no war or
occupation-to its role in covering up gang-rape amongst its personnel
in Baghdad, Halliburton’s Army is a devastating bestiary of
corporate malfeasance and political cronyism. Pratap Chatterjee-one of
the world’s leading authorities on corporate crime, fraud, and
corruption-shows how Halliburton won and then lost its contracts in
Iraq, what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did for it, and who the
company paid off in the U.S. Congress. He brings us inside the Pentagon
meetings, where Cheney and Rumsfeld made the decision to send
Halliburton to Iraq-as well as many other hot-spots, including Somalia,
Yugoslavia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and, most
recently, New Orleans. He travels to Dubai, where Halliburton has
recently moved its headquarters, and exposes the company’s freewheeling
ways: executives leading the high life, bribes, graft, skimming,
offshore subsidiaries, and the whole arsenal of fraud. Finally,
Chatterjee reveals the human costs of the privatization of American
military affairs, which is sustained almost entirely by low-paid
unskilled Third World workers who work in incredibly dangerous
conditions without any labor protection. Halliburton’s Army is
a hair-raising exposé of one of the world’s most lethal corporations,
essential reading for anyone concerned about the nexus of private
companies, government, and war.
The War Comes Homes: Washington's Battle Against America's Veternas
by Aaron Glantz
The War Comes Home is the first book to systematically document
the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz, who reported extensively from Iraq during
the first three years of this war and has been reporting on the plight
of veterans ever since, levels a devastating indictment against the
Bush administration for its bald neglect of soldiers and its
disingenuous reneging on their benefits. Glantz interviewed more than
one hundred recent war veterans, and here he intersperses their
haunting first-person accounts with investigations into specific
concerns, such as the scandal at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
This timely book does more than provide us with a personal connection
to those whose service has cost them so dearly. It compels us to
confront how America treats its veterans and to consider what kind of
nation deifies its soldiers and then casts them off as damaged goods..
Opium Season is the story of a young American working on the brutal
fault line where the war on terror meets the war on drugs. Joel
Hafvenstein didn't know what he was getting into when he signed up for
a year in Afghanistan's rugged Helmand province, the heart of the
country's opium trade. He was running an American-funded aid program
with two goals: to help tens of thousands of opium poppy farmers make a
legal living, and to win hearts and minds away from the former Taliban
government
Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal
by Michael Brune
Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal offers systemic solutions to our climate and energy challenges -- separating rhetoric from reality in the world of biofuels, "clean coal", offshore oil drilling and more. It's written by Michael Brune, the executive director of Rainforest Action Network, one of the country's foremost campaigning organizations, and identifies new and innovative ways for people to take collective action to create a clean energy future.
The book's publication date is September 17th. More info can be found at www.comingcleanbook.org.
Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal Election '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the FrontLines of the Class War
by Greg Palast
A White House spokesman said, "We hate that sonovabitch." They're not alone: From corporate suites to Osama's cave, they fear what Britain's Guardian calls "investigations up there with Woodward and Bernstein — and a lot funnier." But Greg Palast's fanatic following (nearly two million readers of his Web column) has made him "a cult fave among progressives" (Village Voice) who can't wait for his next release.
Palast's old-style gum-shoe detective work to dig out the info on the War on Terror, greed-dripping schemes to seize little nations with lots of oil, the hidden program to steal the 2008 election, and the media biases that keep it unreported are the meat and bones of this BBC television reporter's new book. Armed Madhouse is illustrated with dozens of documents marked "secret" and "confidential" that have walked out of file cabinets and fallen into Palast's hands.
You won't find Palast in the New York Times (except its bestseller list), but you will read his reports on the hottest Web sites worldwide, hear him regularly on Air America and the Pacifica radio networks, and see his stories reappearing as the basis for Eminem's hit video "Mosh," Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, and sampled by a dozen of today's top platinum rock artists.
Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War and Build a Better World
by David Solnit and Aimee Allison
Uniformed U.S. Army Officers lunch with students in elementary school cafeterias. Army training programs including rifle and pistol instruction replace physical education in middle schools. Like never before, military recruiters are entering the halls of U.S. schools with unchecked access in an attempt to bolster a military in crisis.
However, even as these destructive efforts to militarize youth accelerate, so do the creative and powerful efforts of students, community members, and veterans to challenge them. Today, the counter recruitment movement—from counseling to poetry slams to citywide lobbying efforts—has become one of the most practical ways to tangibly resist U.S. policy that cuts funding for education and social programs while promoting war and occupation. Without enough soldiers, the U.S. cannot sustain its empire.
Army of None exposes the real story behind the military-recruitment complex, and offers guides, tools, and resources for education and action, and people power strategies to win.
Army veteran Aimee Allison has led school and community counter-recruitment activities over the last decade. She is a contributor to 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military. Global justice and antiwar organizer David Solnit is the editor of Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World.
Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
by Riverbend
In her riveting weblog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation.
In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.
Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city - of neighbors whose home are raided by U.S. troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons, and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman's perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.
Interspersed with these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend's analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Ghraib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush's State of the Union Speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic post-war society.
With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media.
Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
by Dahr Jamail
"Dahr Jamail does us a great service, by taking us past the lies of our political leaders, past the cowardice of the mainstream press, into the streets, the homes, the lives of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation. He is a superb journalist."
-- Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States
Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources
by Dilip Hiro
This vivid history of oil--and the way it revolutionized civilian life, war, and world politics--sets the stage for the coming oil wars of the 21st Century.
When the Great Powers switched from coal to oil to run their navies just before World War I, it heralded a change in global politics comparable to the introduction of gunpowder in 1040. Oil became the chief strategic weapon of war. The victors' conclusion that oil--the "blood of the earth"--proved to be the "blood of victory" in that war has applied to all major conflagrations since.
With petroleum becoming an indispensable part of modern life--from fertilizers and gasoline to plastics, polyethylene, and pharmaceuticals--it has emerged as the prized commodity for which wars are fought.
Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power
by Phyllis Bennis
When millions around the world marched to protest the Iraq war and the U.S. drive towards empire, the New York Times dubbed global public opinion "the second super-power." What empowered those protests was their alliance -- if only for a brief moment -- with governments unexpectedly willing to stand up to U.S. pressure, and with the United Nations itself, when it followed its Charter's command to stop "the scourge of war." Bennis tracks the rise of U.S. unilateralism and the doctrine of preemptive war, looking particularly at Iraq and Israel/Palestine, and examines both the potential and the challenges ahead in reclaiming the UN as part of the global peace movement.
Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies and the author of numerous books on the Middle East and US foreign policy. Her most recent book is Before & After: US Foreign Policy and the War on Terrorism.
It's The Crude, Dude: Greed, Gas, War, and the American Way
by Linda McQuaiq
George W. Bush says he invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the Middle East. Some people believe that. But if you have nagging doubts, you'll be intrigued by the story unraveled in It's the Crude, Dude.
With all the drama of a thriller, Canadian bestselling author Linda McQuaig probes the mystery of what really lay behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She points to Washington's desire to gain control of the most spectacular untapped oil bonanza on Earth--even as rapidly dwindling worldwide oil reserserves threaten to turn competition for crude into the major international battleground of the future.
That battle has actually been raging for decades. Once tightly controlled by Big Oil, most of the world's oil reserves have been taken over by nationalistic regimes in the Middle East. Ever since those regimes imposed an oil embargo on the United States in the mid-1970s, Washington has been determined to regain control over oil--by force if necessary. With China's recent emergence as a voracious oil consumer, there soon won't be enough oil left to fuel two superpowers.
Against this backdrop--and the equally urgent problem of global warming--It's the Crude, Dude reminds us of the enormous consequences of our failure to curb our addiction to oil.
Road From ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía
by Camilo Mejía
Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía became the new face of the antiwar movement in early 2004 when he applied for a discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. After serving in the Army for nearly nine years, he was the first known Iraq veteran to refuse to fight, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. His principled stand helped to rally the growing opposition and embolden his fellow soldiers.
Despite widespread public support and an all-star legal team, Mejía was eventually convicted of desertion by a military court and sentenced to a year in prison, prompting Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience.
Now released after serving almost nine months, the celebrated soldier-turned-pacifist tells his own story, from his upbringing in Central America and his experience as a working-class immigrant in the United States to his service in Iraq—where he witnessed prisoner abuse and was deployed in the Sunni triangle—and time in prison. Far from being an accidental activist, Mejía was raised by prominent Sandinista revolutionaries and draws inspiration from Jesuit teachings. In this stirring book, he argues passionately for human rights and the end to an unjust war.
Camilo Mejía grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica before moving to the United States in 1994. He joined the military at age nineteen, serving as an infantryman in the active duty Army for three years before transferring to the Florida National Guard. He fought in Iraq for five months. He currently lives in Miami.
Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back
by Amy Goodman and David Goodman
From the authors of the New York Times bestseller The Exception to the Rulers comes a new book that pushes back against official lies and spin and gives voice to the silenced majority.
In Static, the sister-brother team of Amy Goodman, journalist and host of the popular international TV and radio news show Democracy Now!, and investigative journalist David Goodman once again take on government liars, corporate profiteers, and the media that has acted as their megaphone. They expose how the Bush administration has manipulated and fabricated news and how the corporate media has worked hand in glove with the powerful to deceive the public. They report on the many people who have taken a stand and are fighting back, but whose stories go too often untold.
Loyal to the Sky
by Marisa Handler
Communities Without Borders
by David Bacon
When Corporations Rule The World
by David Korten
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace
by Vandana Shiva
The Violence of Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics
by Vandana Shiva
Imperial Hubris
by Michael Scheuer
Hope in the Dark
by Rebecca Solnit
Rise of the Vulcans
by Jim Mann
Secrets and Lies: Operation Iraqi "Freedom" and After; A Prelude to the Fall of U.S. Power in the Middle East
by Dilip Hiro
Iraq: In The Eye of The Storm
by Dilip Hiro
The Longest War; The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict
by Dilip Hiro
War Without End
by Dilip Hiro
No Logo
by Naomi Klein
Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate
by Naomi Klein
American Dynasty
by Kevin Phillips
Blood and Oil
by Michael Klare
Whose Trade Organization?: A Comprehensive Guide to the World Trade Organization
by Lori Wallach
Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation
by Pratap Chatterjee
10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military
Introduction by Cindy Sheehan
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
by Daniel Yergin
Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War
by Anthony Shadid
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
by Greg Palast
Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire
by Walden Bello
Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis
by Phyllis Bennis
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
by Noam Chomsky
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
by Noam Chomsky
Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
by Anthony Arnove
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
by John Perkins
Another World Is Possible If...
by Susan George
My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope
by L. Paul Bremer
How to Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism
by Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin
The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them
by Amy Goodman
Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes
The War Comes Homes: Washington's Battle Against America's Veternas
Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier
