David Graeber: Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art and Imagination (2011)

Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Yet faced with this prospect, the knee-jerk reaction is often to cling to what exists because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even more oppressive and destructive. The political imagination seems to have reached an impasse. Or has it?

In this collection of essays David Graeber explores a wide-ranging set of topics including political strategy, global trade, debt, imagination, violence, aesthetics, alienation, and creativity. Written in the wake of the anti-globalization movement and the rise of the war on terror, these essays survey the political landscape for signs of hope in unexpected places.

At a moment when the old assumption about politics and power have been irrefutably broken the only real choice is to begin again: to create a new language, a new common sense, about what people basically are and what it is reasonable for them to expect from the world, and from each other. In this volume Graeber draws from the realms of politics, art, and the imagination to start this conversation and to suggest that that the task might not be nearly so daunting as we’d be given to imagine.

Publisher Minor Compositions, an imprint of Autonomedia, November 2011
ISBN 1570272433, 978-1-57027-243-1
120 pages

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Gabrielle Hecht (ed.): Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (2011)

“The Cold War was not simply a duel of superpowers. It took place not just in Washington and Moscow but also in the social and political arenas of geographically far-flung countries emerging from colonial rule. Moreover, Cold War tensions were manifest not only in global political disputes but also in struggles over technology. Technological systems and expertise offered a powerful way to shape countries politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Entangled Geographies explores how Cold War politics, imperialism, and postcolonial nation building became entangled in technologies and considers the legacies of those entanglements for today’s globalized world.

The essays address such topics as the islands and atolls taken over for military and technological purposes by the supposedly non-imperial United States, apartheid-era South Africa’s efforts to achieve international legitimacy as a nuclear nation, international technical assistance and Cold War politics, the Saudi irrigation system that spurred a Shi’i rebellion, and the momentary technopolitics of emergency as practiced by Medecins sans Frontières.

The contributors to Entangled Geographies offer insights from the anthropology and history of development, from diplomatic history, and from science and technology studies. The book represents a unique synthesis of these three disciplines, providing new perspectives on the global Cold War.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2011
Inside Technology series
ISBN 0262515784, 9780262515788
336 pages

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Johansson, Kuznetsov, Zimprich (eds.): Post Funding Eastern Europe (2007) [English/Ukrainian]

“The Center for Communication and Context (CCCK) has been developed during a residency period in Kiev in August 2006 as a collaboration between Ingela Johansson, Volodymyr Kuznetsov and Inga Zimprich. Within the exhibition Private With Public CCCK started to investigate its host-center’s history, ideological background and future perspectives. Getting involved with a former Soros institution the idea emerged to follow other cases of Soros Centers and to investigate other East-European institutions which were established with the help of or dependant on Western cultural funding. Under the term of Post-funding we would like to expand this project during 2007, researching emerging local financial models and the interdependencies developed in cultural East-West exchange.

Since our first visit to the Center for Contemporary Art, Kiev (CCA) the local situation transformed significantly. With the appearance of the Pinschuk Art Center CCA’s exclusive role to provide a window to and from the West has changed. Given the space to shift its focus CCA is reformulating its program aiming to provide more space for experimentation, research and exhibition practices beyond the merely visual. However, the relevant decision of the Renaissance Foundation whether to support the Center in the future is still pending.” (editors)

Editors: Ingela Johansson, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Inga Zimprich
Published by CCCK – Center for Communication and Context, Kyiv; and R.E.P. (Revolutionary Experimental Space), Kyiv
28 pages
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license

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