Blog post

Seasonal gift suggestions

Rowan Wilson 9 December 2010

New Fiction, History, Politics, Economics, Philosophy, Israel-Palestine and Cities titles suitable as gifts. 

FICTION

• John Berger: Corker's Freedom and A Painter of Our Time

Beautiful new editions of Berger's early novels.

• Wu Ming: Manituana (new in paperback)

From the authors of Q, a genre-breaking reimagining of the north American revolutionary war.

HISTORY

• Shlomo Sand: The Invention of the Jewish People (new in paperback)

A bestseller and historical tour de force, offering a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history.

• Sheila Rowbotham: Dreamers of a New Day: Women who Invented the Twentieth Century

A major new exploration of a period when women overturned social norms as they struggled to define themselves as individuals.

• Shlomo Sand and Ernest Renan: On the Nation and the 'Jewish People'

Two of Renan's classic texts on nationalism introduced by the author of The Invention of the Jewish People.

• Jordan Goodman: The Devil and Mr Casement (new in paperback)

A story of colonial exploitation and corporate greed in Latin America with enormous contemporary political resonance.

• Mary Kay Wilmers: The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story

A book of astonishing scope and thrilling originality that throws light into some of the darkest corners of the last century.

POLITICS

• The Verso Book of Dissent: From Spartacus to the Shoe-Thrower of Baghdad

Presents the voices of dissent through the ages: poems and songs, pamphlets and speeches, plays and manifestos.

• Gareth Peirce: Dispatches from the Dark Side: On Torture and the Death of Justice

The acclaimed human-rights lawyer examines the British government's complicity in torture.

• Karl Marx: Marx's Political Writings 

Brand-new editions of classic writings from 1848 through to the end of Marx's life introduced by Tariq Ali

The Revolutions of 1848

Volume 1, including The Communist Manifesto

Surveys From Exile

Volume 2, including The Eighteenth Brumaire.

The First International and After

Volume 3, including The Civil War In France.

• Joshua E.S. Phillips: None of Us Were Like this Before

The legacy of torture in the "War on Terror," told through the story of one tank battalion.

• Tariq Ali: The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad

A merciless dissection of Obama's overseas escalation and domestic retreat.

• Dan Hind: The Return of the Public

Eloquent exploration of how political and intellectual elites have constructed ideas of the public, designed to serve their own ends and preserve the status quo.

• Angelo Quattrocchi: The Pope is Not Gay!

An irreverent and provocative exploration of Pope Benedict XVI's stance on homosexuality.

ECONOMICS

• Paul Mason: Meltdown (new and fully updated edition)

A gripping account of the financial collapse that brought the global economy to its knees and undermined three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy.

• Martijn Konings and Jeffrey Sommers (eds): The Great Credit Crash

A comprehensive overview of the origins and consequences of the economic crisis which goes beyond the headlines.

• Giovanni Arrighi: The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (new edition)

Classic analysis of the development of world capitalism over several hundred years by the great late historian and political economist.

PHILOSOPHY

• Slavoj Žižek: Living in the End Times

A major new analysis of our global situation, arguing that our collective response to economic Armageddon correspond to the stages of grief.

• Slavoj Žižek and Costas Douzinas (eds.): The Idea of Communism

An all-star cast of radical intellectuals discuss the continued importance of communism.

• Alain Badiou: The Communist Hypothesis

A galvanizing call to arms that needs to be reckoned with by anyone concerned with the future of our planet.

• Boris Groys: The Communist Postscript

A provocative essay on the relationship between communism, philosophy and language.

• Fredric Jameson: Valences of the Dialectic (new in paperback) and The Hegel Variations: On the Phenomenology of the Spirit

The master philosopher and cultural theorist tackles the philosophy and key thinkers of modern dialectics.

Radical Thinkers Classic Editions

Hardback and embossed with foil, these are essential new editions of the highlights from four decades of uncompromising, radical publishing by Verso.

Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin et al.: Aesthetics and Politics

The most remarkable aesthetic debates in European cultural history, with an afterword by Fredric Jameson.

Raymond Williams: Culture and Materialism

A comprehensive introduction to the work of one of the outstanding intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Louis Althusser: For Marx

A milestone in postwar Marxist thought, containing Althusser's influential arguments on the epistemological break and anti-humanism.

Theodor Adorno: Minima Moralia

Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece, built from aphorisms and reflections.

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

• Avi Shlaim: Israel and Palestine (new in paperback)

Written with characteristic rigor and readability, reflections on a range of key issues, transformations and personalities in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

• Gideon Levy: The Punishment of Gaza

The story behind Israel's assault on Gaza, by the acclaimed Ha'aretz journalist.

CITIES

• Owen Hatherley: A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain

A darkly humorous architectural guide to the decrepit new Britain that neoliberalism built.

• Eric Hazan: The Invention of Paris

A radical guide to Paris through art, literature and revolution.

• Matthew Beaumont and Gregory Dart (eds): Restless Cities

An illuminating, revelatory journey to the heart of our metropolitan world.

• Sukhdev Sandhu: Night Haunts (new in paperback)

An intrepid journey through the London night, revitalizing the myth of London for a new century.

• Stephen Graham: Cities Under Siege

Powerful exposé of how contemporary political violence operates through the sites, spaces and infrastructures of everyday urban life.