Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere
Paul Mason
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere
Our world is changing dramatically. The global economic crisis has given way to social crisis: corrupt and dictatorial politics enmeshed with a global financial elite - and an ever-widening gulf between the haves and have-nots. In 2011 this profound disconnect found expression in events that we were told had been consigned to history: revolt and revolution. In this compelling new book, Paul Mason sets out to explore the causes and consequences of this new wave of struggle. From London to Cairo, Wisconsin to Tehran, he charts the new forms of collective action: fluid networks of agile, Twitter- and Facebook-savvy networks of youthful protesters who understand how power works. The events, says Mason, reflect the expanding power of the individual and call for new ways of thinking about political alternatives, elite rule and global poverty.
3.0 out of 5 based on 3 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Business, Finance & Law, Society, Politics & Philosophy |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
224 |
| RRP |
£12.99 |
| Date of Publication |
January 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-1844678518 |
| Publisher |
Verso |
| |
Our world is changing dramatically. The global economic crisis has given way to social crisis: corrupt and dictatorial politics enmeshed with a global financial elite - and an ever-widening gulf between the haves and have-nots. In 2011 this profound disconnect found expression in events that we were told had been consigned to history: revolt and revolution. In this compelling new book, Paul Mason sets out to explore the causes and consequences of this new wave of struggle. From London to Cairo, Wisconsin to Tehran, he charts the new forms of collective action: fluid networks of agile, Twitter- and Facebook-savvy networks of youthful protesters who understand how power works. The events, says Mason, reflect the expanding power of the individual and call for new ways of thinking about political alternatives, elite rule and global poverty.
Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed by Paul Mason
Reviews
The Guardian
Andy Beckett
"... there is great value in the journalist who can simply make you register how much the world has changed. Yet Mason is also much more sophisticated and thorough than most reporters in explaining exactly how the new protest cultures came into being and developed."
14/01/2012
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The Scotsman
Kenny Farquharson
"You will learn something new and challenging on every page of this book ... and the insights Mason offers into the 21st-century art of technologically connected revolution are fascinating. But the old Trot emerges far too often, and there is an element of wishful thinking in Mason’s attempt to link the unemployed Tunisian worker and the white dreadlocked anti-capitalist tussling with NYPD’s finest in Lower Manhattan."
15/01/2012
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The Observer
Ian Birrell
"For all his undoubted reporting skills and passion for the cause, this collection of essays is little more than a jumble of often questionable generalisations, tendentious assertions and impressionistic sketches. Ultimately, Mason is let down by his desire to force the messy mosaic of last year's amazing events into the straitjacket of his own ideological leanings."
15/01/2012
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