Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, The Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet (2013)

Hacking Politics is a firsthand account of how a ragtag band of activists and technologists overcame a $90 million lobbying machine to defeat the most serious threat to Internet freedom in memory. The book is a revealing look at how Washington works today – and how citizens successfully fought back.

Written by the core Internet figures – video gamers, Tea Partiers, tech titans, lefty activists and ordinary Americans among them – who defeated a pair of special interest bills called SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (“Protect IP Act”), Hacking Politics provides the first detailed account of the glorious, grand chaos that led to the demise of that legislation and helped foster an Internet-based network of amateur activists.

Included are more than thirty original contributions from across the political spectrum, featuring writing by Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz; Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School; novelist Cory Doctorow; Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA.); Jamie Laurie (of the alt-rock/hip-hop group The Flobots); Ron Paul; Mike Masnick, CEO and founder of Techdirt; Kim Dotcom, internet entrepreneur; Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder and co-director of Fight for the Future; Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit; Nicole Powers of Suicide Girls; Josh Levy, Internet Campaign Director at Free Press, and many more.

Edited by David Moon, Patrick Ruffini, and David Segal
Publisher OR Books, May 2013
ISBN 9781939293046
316 pages
via gnd

publisher (pay-what-you-wish)

Download, alt link (PDF)
Download, alt link (EPUB)
Download, alt link (MOBI)
Download (torrent, all three formats)

Wang Hui: The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity (2009)

A compelling examination of the future of Chinese modernity by the leading member of China’s “New Left.”

Challenging both the bureaucratic one-party regime and the Western neoliberal paradigm, China’s leading critic shatters the myth of progress and reflects upon the inheritance of a revolutionary past. In this original and wide-ranging study, Wang Hui examines the roots of China’s social and political problems, and traces the reforms and struggles that have led to the current state of mass depoliticization.

Arguing that China’s revolutionary history and its current liberalization are part of the same discourse of modernity, Wang Hui calls for alternatives to both its capitalist trajectory and its authoritarian past.

From the May Fourth Movement to Tiananmen Square, The End of the Revolution offers a broad discussion of Chinese intellectual history and society, in the hope of forging a new path for China’s future.

Publisher Verso Books, 2011
ISBN 1844673790, 9781844673797
274 pages

review (Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Los Angeles Times)

publisher
google books

Download
Download (alt link)

Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies (1943-) [EN, DE, IT, PT, GR, PL, CZ, BA, ES]

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in two volumes in 1945, Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of all time. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a “vigorous and profound defence of democracy”, its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems and through underground editions become an inspiration to lovers of freedom living under communism in Eastern Europe.

Popper’s highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thoughts of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies and why it demands to be read today and in years to come.

First edition
Publisher George Routledge & Sons, London, 1945
2 Volumes: The Spell of Plato; The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath
268 and 352 pages

wikipedia (English)
google books (English, 2011 ed.)

Download (Volume 1, 1st edition, 1945)
Download (Volume 2, 1st edition)
Download (Volumes 1-2, 5th edition, 1966)
Download (Volumes 1-2, revised edition, with a preface by Václav Havel and a note by E. H. Gombrich, 2002/2011, EPUB)
Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde, Volume 1, Volume 2 (German, trans. P. K. Feyerabend, 1958/1980)
La società aperta e i suoi nemici, Volume 1, Volume 2 (Italian, 2nd edition, 1973/1981)
A sociedade aberta e seus inimigos, Volume 1, Volume 2 (Portuguese, trans. Milton Amado, 1974)
Η ανοιχτή κοινωνία και οι εχθροί της (Greek, Volume 1, trans. Ειρήνη Παπαδάκη, 1980/1991)
Społeczeństwo otwarte i jego wrogowie (Polish, Volumes 1-2, trans. Halina Krahelska, 1993)
Otevřená společnost a její nepřátelé (Czech, Volume 1, trans. Miloš Calda, 1994, no OCR)
Otvoreno društvo i njegovi neprijatelji (Bosnian, Volumes 1-2, 1998)
La sociedad abierta y sus enemigos (Spanish, Volumes 1-2, trans. Eduardo Loedel Rodríguez, 2006)

Kate Khatib, Margaret Killjoy, Mike McGuire (eds.): We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy From Occupation to Liberation (2012)

We have all been swept up by the momentum of the Occupy movement. We have seen the results of years of organizing in different communities come together in ways that few could have imagined, bolstered by the scores of people who have left the comfort of their daily routine behind and taken to the streets. Yet as a movement so overflowing with new social and political actors, we lack the framework we need to help us all to understand what a social movement is, to understand how change has happened in the past, to understand what this moment means and what this movement makes possible.

We Are Many is a reflection on Occupy from within the heart of the movement itself. Examining key questions—what worked? what didn’t? why? how? is it reproducible?—the authors and activists in this collection point toward a movement-based framework for future organizing. Heavily illustrated and annotated, We Are Many is a celebration of what worked, and a thoughtful analysis of what didn’t.

With contributions by Michael Andrews, Michael Belt, Nadine Bloch, Rose Bookbinder, Mark Bray, Emily Brissette, George Caffentzis, George Ciccariello-Maher, Annie Cockrell, Joshua Clover, Andy Cornell, Molly Crabapple, CrimethInc., Croatoan, Paul Dalton, Chris Dixon, John Duda, Brendan M. Dunn, Lisa Fithian, Gabriella, David Graeber, Ryan Harvey, Gabriel Hetland, Marisa Holmes, Mike King, Koala Largess, Yvonne Yen Liu, Josh MacPhee, Manissa M. Maharawal, Yotam Marom, Cindy Milstein, Occupy Research, Joel Olson, Isaac Ontiveros, Morrigan Phillips, Frances Fox Piven, Vijay Prashad, Michael Premo, Max Rameau, RANT, Research & Destroy, Nathan Schneider, Jonathan Matthew Smucker, Some Oakland Antagonists, Lester Spence, Janaina Stronzake, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Team Colors Collective, Janelle Treibitz, Unwoman, Immanuel Wallerstein, Sophie Whittemore, Kristian Williams, and Jaime Omar Yassin.

Afterword by David Graeber
Publisher AK Press, 2012
ISBN 1849351163, 9781849351164
355 pages

publisher
google books

Download

David Graeber: The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement (2013)

A bold rethinking of the most powerful political idea in the world—democracy—and the story of how radical democracy can yet transform America

Democracy has been the American religion since before the Revolution—from New England town halls to the multicultural democracy of Atlantic pirate ships. But can our current political system, one that seems responsive only to the wealthiest among us and leaves most Americans feeling disengaged, voiceless, and disenfranchised, really be called democratic? And if the tools of our democracy are not working to solve the rising crises we face, how can we—average citizens—make change happen?

David Graeber, one of the most influential scholars and activists of his generation, takes readers on a journey through the idea of democracy, provocatively reorienting our understanding of pivotal historical moments, and extracts their lessons for today—from the birth of Athenian democracy and the founding of the United States of America to the global revolutions of the twentieth century and the rise of a new generation of activists. Underlying it all is a bracing argument that in the face of increasingly concentrated wealth and power in this country, a reenergized, reconceived democracy—one based on consensus, equality, and broad participation—can yet provide us with the just, free, and fair society we want.

The Democracy Project tells the story of the resilience of the democratic spirit and the adaptability of the democratic idea. It offers a fresh take on vital history and an impassioned argument that radical democracy is, more than ever, our best hope.

Publisher Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House, New York, 2013
ISBN 081299356X, 9780812993561
326 pages
via wakita

publisher
google books

Download (EPUB)

Andrew Hsiao, Audrea Lim (eds.): The Verso Book of Dissent: From Spartacus to the Shoe-Thrower of Baghdad (2010)

A sparkling anthology of revolt and resistance to orthodoxy and repression.

Throughout the ages and across every continent, people have struggled against those in power and raised their voices in protest—rallying others around them and inspiring uprisings in eras yet to come. Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti-Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Baghdad to Caracas and Los Angeles.

This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent will become an invaluable resource, reminding today’s citizens that these traditions will never die.

Preface by Tariq Ali
Publisher Verso Books, 2010
ISBN 1844674487, 9781844674480
366 pages

publisher
google books

Download (updated on 2013-5-2)

Simone Weil: An Anthology (1986/2005)

Simone Weil was one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century: a philosopher, theologian, critic, sociologist and political activist. This anthology spans the wide range of her thought, and includes an extract from her best-known work The Need for Roots, exploring the ways in which modern society fails the human soul; her thoughts on the misuse of language by those in power; and the essay “Human Personality”, a late, beautiful reflection on the rights and responsibilities of every individual. All are marked by the unique combination of literary eloquence and moral perspicacity that characterised Weil’s ideas and inspired a generation of thinkers and writers both in and outside her native France.

First published by Virago Press, 1986
Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles
Publisher Penguin Books, 2005
Penguin Classics series
ISBN 0141188197, 9780141188195
312 pages

publisher
google books

Download (updated on 2013-5-2)