Showing results for "pluto press" in All Categories

Capitalist ideology wants us to believe that there is an optimal way to live. "Making connections" means networking for work. Our emotional needs are to be fulfilled by a single romantic partner, and self-care equates to taking personal responsibility for our suffering. We must be productive and heteronormative; we must have babies and buy a house. But the kicker is most people cannot and do not want to achieve all or any of these life goals. Instead, we are left feeling atomized, exhausted, and disempowered. Radical Intimacy shows that it doesn't need to be this way.

Mental health affects us all, and yet it remains elusive as a concept. Does getting a diagnosis help or hinder it? How is mental well-being, which is often incredibly personal, driven by widespread societal suffering? Can it be a social construct and real at the same time? These are some of the big questions Micha Frazer-Carroll asks as she reveals mental health to be a political issue that needs deeper understanding beyond today’s 'awareness raising' campaigns.

The Russian Revolution may be the most misunderstood and misrepresented event in modern history, its history told in a mix of legends and anecdotes. In A People's History of the Russian Revolution, Neil Faulkner sets out to debunk the myths and pry fact from fiction, putting at the heart of the story the Russian people who are the true heroes of this tumultuous tale.

'Work hard, get paid.' It's simple. Self-evident. But it's also a lie—at least for most of us. For people today, the old assumptions are crumbling; hard work in school no longer guarantees a secure, well-paying job in the future. Far from a gateway to riches and fulfilment, 'work' means precarity, anxiety and alienation. In this audiobook, beautifully narrated by award-winning actor Libby Mai, Amelia Horgan poses three big questions: what is work? How does it harm us? And what can we do about it?

In this audiobook, beautifully narrated by the author, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan reveals how Islamophobia not only lives under the skin of those who it marks, but is an international political project designed to divide people in the name of security, in order to materially benefit global stakeholders. It can only be truly uprooted when we focus not on what it is but what it does.

The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles, and teas. But it also conquered much of India with its private army and broke open China's markets with opium. The Company's practices shocked its contemporaries and still reverberate today.

The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the collections of empire we once took for granted.

This book is a profound search for a theory of social change. Through clearing away the cobwebs of revolutionary socialism, it renews the fight for the ending of capitalism and the construction of a new, fairer world. After a century of failed attempts by radical projects, the concept of revolution itself is in crisis.

Radicals in Conversation is a monthly podcast from Pluto Press, one of the world’s leading independent, radical publishers. Every month we sit down with leading campaigners, authors and academics to bring you in-depth conversations and radical perspectives on the issues that matter the most.

The mainstream discourse surrounding gender equality is a repertoire of violence: harassment, rape, abuse, femicide. These words designate a cruel reality. But don't they also hide another reality: that of violence committed with the complicity of the State? In this book, Françoise Vergès denounces the carceral turn in the fight against sexism.

For neoclassical economists, Homo economicus, or economic human, represents the ideal employee: an energetic worker bee that is a rational yet competitive decision-maker. Alternatively, one could view the concept as a cold and selfish workaholic endlessly seeking the accumulation of money and advancement - a chilling representation of capitalism. Or perhaps, as Peter Fleming argues, Homo economicus does not actually exist at all. Fleming presents this controversial claim with the same fierce logic that launched his Guardian column into popularity.

The government constantly attacks unions, CEOs devote endless time and resources to undermining them, and many unions themselves are stuck in the past. Despite this, inspiring work is happening all the time, from fast food strikes and climate change campaigning to the modernization of unions for the digital age. Speaking to academics, experts and grassroots organizers from TUC, UNISON, ACORN, IWGB and more, Eve Livingston explores how young workers are organizing to demand fair workplaces, and reimagines what an inclusive union movement that represents us all might look like.

Fashion is political. From the red carpets of the Met Gala to online fast fashion, clothes tell a story of inequality, racism and climate crisis. In The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion, Tansy E. Hoskins unpicks the threads of capitalist industry to reveal the truth about our clothes.

Socialist Feminism: A New Approach reclaims theories of women’s oppression through a return to humanism, enriched by social reproduction theories, Black feminist intersectionality, abolitionism, queer theories, Marxist-Humanism and the author’s own experiences as an Iranian American feminist, scholar, and activist.

What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, with deadly gun violence, male suicide rates and incels on Reddit, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In this audiobook, beautifully narrated by the author, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into.

Silencing and punishing critical voices is a project that lies at the heart of Narendra Modi's authoritarian regime in India. In this unique book, Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia look at the present of India through the lived experiences of political prisoners. Combining political and legal analysis with firsthand testimonies, the book explores the small gestures that constitute resistance inside and outside jail for the prisoners and their families, telling a story of destruction of institutions and erosion of rights.

One thing we know for certain is that sex is personal - perhaps, the most intimate thing of all. But sex is also shaped by a complicated web of cultural, social, and political forces outside of ourselves. Fear-mongering, moral panic, and outdated attitudes prevail, but if #MeToo has taught us anything, it's how dangerous it is to keep conversations about sex hidden from view.

Musicians have often wanted to change the world, and many channel that desire through the political power of music. Music has a unique ability to unsettle the most fundamental political and social conventions - or, alternatively, to stabilize the status-quo. Sound System is the story of one musician’s journey to discover what exactly makes music so powerful. Years of touring, protesting, and performing have given Dave Randall an insider’s view of the music industry, enabling him to shed light on the most tightly held secrets of celebrity, commodification, and culture.

It is 2008, and Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist with a growing interest in cryptography, starts looking into the little-known organization WikiLeaks. Through hushed meetings, encrypted files, and explosive documents, what she discovers sets her on a life-long journey that takes her deep into the realm of secret power.

Stitched Up delves into the alluring world of fashion to reveal what is behind the clothes we wear. Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, the book explores consumerism, class, and advertising to reveal the interests which benefit from exploitation. Tansy E. Hoskins dissects fashion’s vampiric relationship with the planet and with our bodies to uncover what makes it so damaging.