Part of Pluto's 21st birthday series Get Political, which brings essential political writing in a range of fields to a new audience.A. Sivanandan is a highly influential thinker on race, racism, globalisation and resistance. Since 1972, he has been the director of the Institute of Race Relations and the editor of Race & Class, which set the policy agenda on ethnicity and race in the UK and worldwide. Sivanandan has been writing for over forty years and this is the definitive collec...

This collection of A. Sivanandan's writings looks at the history of black struggles against British racism from the 1940s to the uprisings of Brixton and Toxteth in the 1980s.

"Haunting, with an immense tenderness . . . Unforgettable" JOHN BERGER"Profoundly moving" Evening Standard"A brilliant and moving first novel" Times Literary Supplement"I'm recommending When Memory Dies to everyone" Arthur C. ClarkeThe Buddha taught that to live is to experience suffering. Few family sagas, especially first ones, have captured this aspect of suffering...

Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment – all were issues to be avoided. Most profoundly, conservatives no longer seemed to have a compelling vision of the future – and arguably still don’t. How did the Right end up in this state? How might conservatism renew itself?In this illuminating essay, Waleed Aly begins by unravell...

Although a powerful, independent bureaucracy poses a threat to democracy, it is indispensable to its proper functioning. This book provides an overview of the complex relationship between bureaucracy and the politics of democracy and is essential reading for students of sociology, political science and public administration. It is designed to guide students through the maze of classical and modern theories on the topic, to give them basic information on the historical developments in this ...

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND THE LIBERAL CENTRE. This book is the fifth in a series of texts on government and politics designed for students and the general reader (see the author's other publications for a full list of titles). The books are linked but are designed to stand alone. Politics and political conflicts are shaped by ideas. Ideas give politics form, direction and purpose. Ideas define and differentiate political parties and their programmes. Ideas provide power-holders and power-seek...

In his 2 terms as prime minister, from 1963–1968, Lester B. Pearson oversaw the revamping of Canada through the introduction of Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, the Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the Auto Pact, and the new Maple Leaf flag. Pearson came to power after an impressive career as a diplomat, where he played a vital role in the creation of NATO and the United Nations, later serving as president of its General Assembly. He put Canada on the world stage when he won...

The nation has unfinished business. After more than two centuries, can a rightful place be found for Australia’s original peoples?Soon we will all decide if and how indigenous Australians will be recognised in the constitution. In the words of Professor Greg Craven: “We have a committed prime minister, and a committed opposition. We have a receptive electorate. There will never be a better time. We have no choice but to address the question. If constitutions deal w...

For how much longer can Canada expect to get a free ride?With 9/11 and the international “war on terrorism,” the time has come to ask some hard questions. Should we continue to starve our military, reduce our humanitarian assistance, dilute our diplomacy, and absent ourselves from global intelligence-gathering? Can we expect to sit at the global table by virtue of our economic power without pursuing a foreign policy worthy of our history, geography, and diversity?C...

'Before the current global era it is impossible to imagine that comparable events [like September 11] could have occurred, reflecting as they do our new-found interdependence. The rise of global terrorism, like world-wide networks involving in money-laundering, drug-running and other forums of organised crime, are all parts of the dark side of globalisation.' From the new Preface This book is based on the highly influential BBC Reith lecture series on globalisation delivered in 1999 by Ant...

The definitive biography of John Maynard Keynes, the most significant economic thinker of the world's most consequential century'A wonderfully lucid exposition of complicated ideas ... required reading' Guardian'Clarke's prose sparkles, and his book is the place to begin if you want to understand the economist's personality and charisma' New York TimesIn the midst of our current economic crisis, we...

We are far less free than we like to think.In Creating Freedom, Raoul Martinez exposes the mechanisms of control that pervade our lives and the myths on which they depend. Exploring the lottery of our birth, the coercive influence of concentrated wealth, and the consent-manufacturing realities of undemocratic power, he shows that our faith in free media, free markets, free elections and free will is dangerously misplaced. Written with empathy and imagination, this scholarl...