Émile Zola: Germinal (1885) [FR, EN, DE]
Filed under book | Tags: · 1800s, coal, labour, mining, politics, protest, riot
Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola’s twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola’s masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel – an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers’ strike in northern France in the 1860s – has been published and translated in over one hundred countries as well as inspiring five film adaptations and two television productions.
The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means “seed”; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst the miners.
commentary (Ruth Scurr, The Guardian, 2010)
PDF (French, published by G. Charpentier, 1885)
PDF (French, published by G. Charpentier, 1900, Vol. 1)
PDF (French, 1900, Vol. 2)
PDF (English, translated by Carlynne, published by Belford, Clarke, Chicago/New York, 1885)
PDF (English, translated by Havelock Ellis, 1894)
PDF (EPUB, German)
Philippe Pignarre, Isabelle Stengers: Capitalist Sorcery: Breaking the Spell (2005–) [FR, EN]
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, capitalism, magic, philosophy, protest, resistance, witchcraft
“If denunciation were effective, capitalism would have disappeared a long time ago. But denunciation is never enough. Capitalism is a system that reinvents itself permanently, through the creation of infernal alternatives, alternatives which take us all hostage: ‘if we don’t cut the deficit, we’ll never regain our competitiveness’.
In other traditions than that of the moderns, this sort of paralysis would be described as sorcery. Capitalist Sorcery takes this idea seriously – literally – and explores the consequences of our vulnerability to a system which daily recruits the minions that it needs to cast its spells.
Proposing a pragmatic reading of Marx, a reading which seeks to ward off the thoughtlessness encouraged by the theme of progress and the resignation that arises from accepting that capitalism is the ‘only game in town’, the authors look at how we can protect ourselves from the logic which – from financial collapse through GM foods to oil spills and climate catastrophe – runs scared of the cry ‘another world is possible’.”
La sorcellerie capitaliste: Pratiques de désenvoûtement
Afterword by Anne Vièle
Publisher La Découverte, Paris, 2005
ISBN 2707143979
228 pages
English edition
Translated and edited by Andrew Goffey
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
ISBN 0230237622, 9780230237629
224 pages
La sorcellerie capitaliste (French, 2005)
Capitalist Sorcery (English, 2011)
David Graeber: Inside Occupy (2012) [German]
Filed under book | Tags: · activism, debt, history, occupy movement, politics, protest, revolution
“Occupy Wall Street!” Mit diesem Aufruf besetzt im September 2011 eine Gruppe von Aktivisten den Zuccotti-Park im New Yorker Finanzdistrikt. Sie wollen friedlich gegen die Finanzmärkte und Banken, die ungerechte Verteilung der Vermögen sowie die Untätigkeit der Politik demonstrieren. Was steckt hinter dieser Bewegung, die in kurzer Zeit Millionen Menschen rund um den Globus mobilisiert? Was steckt hinter den Guy-Fawkes-Masken der Besetzer? Was steckt hinter ihrem Mut und ihrem Zorn? Der Vordenker und Aktivist David Graeber berichtet aus erster Hand, wie alles begann, wie die Bewegung stark werden konnte und warum dies erst der Anfang ist.
Translated by Bernhard Schmid
Publisher Campus Verlag, Frankfur/New York, 2012
ISBN 3593397196, 9783593397191
200 pages
PDF (includes Revolution Guide, 28pp)
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