Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism in the Era of COVID-19
Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism in the Era of COVID-19

Author: Pepe Escobar

Publisher: Nimble Books

Published: 2021-01-20

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9781608882205

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In RAGING TWENTIES, Pepe Escobar smashes a triple-wide jumbo bulldozer of erudition and insight through the painfully narrow and now Big Tech-fortified Overton window of conventional American political discourse. This volume includes 25 essays written for Asia Times, Consortium News, and Strategic Culture in the incomparable year of 2020 and adds a new introduction, afterword, and table of abbreviations. Educated people of all political persusasions will enjoy Escobar's stinging prose and his display of his wide-ranging and truly global knowledge of poetry, history, and political philosophy. American readers already skeptical of the dominant narrative will enjoy this scintillating dissection of the mammoth hypocrisy involved in the standard governmental and corporate narrative. And those with perspectives similar to the American mainstream will benefit from reading a truly Other-centered exemplar of the several billion people who find the political perspectives that are commonplace in Asia, Europe, China, Russia, and Iran more congenial than those of a US establishment that has gifted the world with seventy-five-plus years of continuous war. Escobar's first book in the US, Globalistan (Nimble, 2007), brilliantly anticipated the future of a disintegrating international system in an era of "Liquid" (hybrid) war. These were followed by Red Zone Blues (2007); Obama does Globalistan (2009); Empire of Chaos (2014); and 2030 (2015), all by Nimble Books. From the Introduction: The Raging Twenties started with a murder. That lethality was amplified when a virus cannibalized virtually the whole planet, devouring time. As time has been standing still-or imploded-ever since, we cannot even begin to imagine the consequences of the anthropological rupture caused by SARS-CoV-2. A new world starts when language-either a living entity, or a virus from outer space (William Burroughs)-starts metastasizing new words. A basket of concepts already stand out. Circuit breaker. Biosecurity. Negative feedback loops. State of exception. Necropolitics. New Brutalism. Hybrid Neofascism. And, as we shall see, New Viral Paradigm. The proliferation of new words-and concepts-paradoxically developed in parallel with the slow fade out of The Word.Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe summed it all up: "This end of the word, this definitive triumph of the gesture and artificial organs over the word, the fact that the history of the word ends under our eyes, that for me is the historical development par excellence." We all now live in Google town. Suddenly, we were forced to identify the lineaments of a new regime. A new mode of production: a turbo-capitalist survival engineered as Rentier Capitalism 2.0, where Silicon Valley behemoths take the place of estates, and also the State. That is the "techno-feudal" option, as defined by economist Cedric Durand. Squeezed and intoxicated by information performing the role of a dominatrix, we were presented with a new map of Dystopia, packaged as a "new normal", featuring cognitive dissonance, a biosecurity paradigm, the inevitability of virtual work, social distancing as a political program, info-surveillance, and triumphant Trans-humanism.

Raging Twenties
Raging Twenties

Author: Pepe Escobar

Publisher: Nimble Books

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9781608882335

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In RAGING TWENTIES, Pepe Escobar smashes a triple-wide jumbo bulldozer of erudition and insight through the painfully narrow and now Big Tech-fortified Overton window of conventional American political discourse. This volume includes 25 essays written for Asia Times, Consortium News, and Strategic Culture in the incomparable year of 2020 and adds a new introduction, afterword, and table of abbreviations. Educated people of all political persusasions will enjoy Escobar's stinging prose and his display of his wide-ranging and truly global knowledge of poetry, history, and political philosophy. American readers already skeptical of the dominant narrative will enjoy this scintillating dissection of the mammoth hypocrisy involved in the standard governmental and corporate narrative. And those with perspectives similar to the American mainstream will benefit from reading a truly Other-centered exemplar of the several billion people who find the political perspectives that are commonplace in Asia, Europe, China, Russia, and Iran more congenial than those of a US establishment that has gifted the world with seventy-five-plus years of continuous war. Escobar's first book in the US, Globalistan (Nimble, 2007), brilliantly anticipated the future of a disintegrating international system in an era of "Liquid" (hybrid) war. These were followed by Red Zone Blues (2007); Obama does Globalistan (2009); Empire of Chaos (2014); and 2030 (2015), all by Nimble Books. From the Introduction: The Raging Twenties started with a murder. That lethality was amplified when a virus cannibalized virtually the whole planet, devouring time. As time has been standing still-or imploded-ever since, we cannot even begin to imagine the consequences of the anthropological rupture caused by SARS-CoV-2. A new world starts when language-either a living entity, or a virus from outer space (William Burroughs)-starts metastasizing new words. A basket of concepts already stand out. Circuit breaker. Biosecurity. Negative feedback loops. State of exception. Necropolitics. New Brutalism. Hybrid Neofascism. And, as we shall see, New Viral Paradigm. The proliferation of new words-and concepts-paradoxically developed in parallel with the slow fade out of The Word. Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe summed it all up: "This end of the word, this definitive triumph of the gesture and artificial organs over the word, the fact that the history of the word ends under our eyes, that for me is the historical development par excellence." We all now live in Google town. Suddenly, we were forced to identify the lineaments of a new regime. A new mode of production: a turbo-capitalist survival engineered as Rentier Capitalism 2.0, where Silicon Valley behemoths take the place of estates, and also the State. That is the "techno-feudal" option, as defined by economist Cedric Durand. Squeezed and intoxicated by information performing the role of a dominatrix, we were presented with a new map of Dystopia, packaged as a "new normal", featuring cognitive dissonance, a biosecurity paradigm, the inevitability of virtual work, social distancing as a political program, info-surveillance, and triumphant Trans-humanism.

Globalistan
Globalistan

Author: Pepe Escobar

Publisher: Nimble Books LLC

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0978813820

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This warped travel book remixes three main themes: globalization, energy wars and the Pentagons Long War, originally packaged as the war on terror. Youre going to revisit the asymmetrical wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Youre going to crisscross the Islamic world. Youre going to follow a lot of pipelines. Youll be acquainted with the Iran the next war will probably hit. Youll see how national resistance wars have nothing to do with terrorism. Youll be confronted over and over again with strategic competitor Asiawhere the future of the 21st Century is being played out. Youre going to revisit how, where and who profits from economic globalization and especially war corporatism. Youll see how and where possible New Orders are emerging, and Old Orders disintegrating. And you will finish the pilgrimage back in the middle of apredictableglobal war of the privileged few against the excluded many.

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World

Author: Fareed Zakaria

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0393542149

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New York Times Bestseller COVID-19 is speeding up history, but how? What is the shape of the world to come? Lenin once said, "There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen." This is one of those times when history has sped up. CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria helps readers to understand the nature of a post-pandemic world: the political, social, technological, and economic consequences that may take years to unfold. Written in the form of ten "lessons," covering topics from natural and biological risks to the rise of "digital life" to an emerging bipolar world order, Zakaria helps readers to begin thinking beyond the immediate effects of COVID-19. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World speaks to past, present, and future, and, while urgent and timely, is sure to become an enduring reflection on life in the early twenty-first century.

Empire of Chaos: The Roving Eye Collection
Empire of Chaos: The Roving Eye Collection

Author: Pepe Escobar

Publisher: Nimble Books

Published: 2021-01-23

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 9781608882311

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From Syria and Iraq to Ukraine, from AfPak to Libya, from Iran to Russia, and from the Persian Gulf to China, foreign correspondent Pepe Escobar, author of The Roving Eye column for Asia Times/Hong Kong, crisscrosses what the Pentagon calls the "arc of instability." As Escobar tells it in the introduction, "the columns selected for this volume follow the period 2009-2014 - the Obama years so far. A continuum with previous volumes published by Nimble Books does apply. Globalistan, from 2007, was an extended reportage/warped travel book across the Bush years, where I argued the world was being plunged into Liquid War - alluding to energy flows but also to the liquid modernity character of post-modern war. Red Zone Blues, also from 2007, was a vignette - an extended reportage centering on the Baghdad surge. And Obama does Globalistan, from 2009, examined how the hyperpower could embark on a "change we can believe in". The outcome, as these columns arguably reflect, is Empire of Chaos - where a plutocracy progressively projects its own internal disintegration upon the whole world.""You will find some key overlapping nations/themes/expressions/acronyms in these columns; Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, China, Russia, Ukraine, Pipelineistan, BRICS, EU, NATO, GCC, the Global South, GWOT (the global war on terror), The New Great Game, Full Spectrum Dominance. You will also find a progressive drift towards not conventional war, but above all economic war - manifestations of Liquid War.""Incrementally, I have been arguing that Washington's number one objective now is to prevent a full economic integration of Eurasia that would leave the U.S. as a non-hegemon, or worse still, an outsider. Thus the three-pronged strategy of "pivoting to Asia" (containment of China); Ukraine (containment of Russia); and beefing up NATO (subjugation of Europe, and NATO as Global Robocop)."Book the ultimate trip to the Empire of Chaos, and see how the U.S. - and the West - are tackling the emergence of a multipolar world. Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik, TomDispatch, Strategic Culture Foundation, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online, where he also wrote the column The Roving Eye from 2000 to 2014. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009) and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble Books. Follow him on https: //www.facebook.com/pepe.escobar.77377 Facebook

Útrásarvíkingar!
Útrásarvíkingar!

Author: Alaric Hall

Publisher: punctum books

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1950192695

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As the global banking boom of the early twenty-first century expanded towards implosion, Icelandic media began calling the country's celebrity financiers útrásarvíkingar: “raiding vikings.” This new coinage encapsulated the macho, medievalist nationalism which underwrote Iceland's exponential financialisation. Yet within a few days in October 2008, Iceland saw all its main banks collapse beneath debts worth nearly ten times the country's GDP.Hall charts how Icelandic novelists and poets grappled with the Crash over the ensuing decade. As the first English-language monograph devoted to twenty-first-century Icelandic literature, it provides Anglophone readers with an introduction to one of the world's liveliest literary scenes. It also contributes a key case study for understanding global artistic responses to the early twenty-first century crisis of runaway, unregulated capitalism, exploring the struggles of writers to adapt realist forms of art to surreal times.As Iceland's biggest crisis since their independence from Denmark in 1944, the effect of the Crash on the national self-image was as seismic as its effects on the economy. This study analyses the centrality of whiteness and the abjection of the “developing world” in Iceland's post-colonial identity, and shows how Crash-writing explores the collisions of Iceland's traditional, nationalist medievalism with a dystopian, Orientalist medievalism associated with the Islamic world.The Crash in Iceland was instantly recognised as offering important economic insights. This book shows how Iceland also helps us to understand the cultural convulsions that have followed the Financial Crisis widely in the West.

Kumar Shahani
Kumar Shahani

Author: Kumar Shahani

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789382381617

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The fifty-one essays compiled in this book were written over a forty-year period by India's leading independent filmmaker. They provide new insights into a turbulent era in modern India's cultural history. Although known primarily as a filmmaker, Kumar Shahani has taught, spoken and written on a variety of subjects over this period, that include the cinema, but also politics, aesthetics, history and psychoanalysis. In these essays Shahani addresses diverse political issues, aesthetic practice, questions of artistic freedom and censorship. There are also personal essays on filmmakers and artists including his teachers and colleagues. Shahani's often polemical positions, as they occur in several previously unpublished essays and presentations, are essential contributions to film and cultural histories of the Indian cinema as well as of the New Cinema worldwide. The book includes a comprehensive introductory essay, "Kumar Shahani Now," by Ashish Rajadhyaksha.

Disintegration
Disintegration

Author: Andrei Martyanov

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2021-05-01

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1949762351

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The United States is undergoing a profound and radical transformation, all features of which point to the fact of its departure at an accelerated rate from its largely self-proclaimed status as a global hegemon. The United States has lost ground in every single category that defines the power and status of a nation in relation to its rivals. This book delves into the reasons for a catastrophic decline of the American nation, addressing a range of factors from the economic (especially energy), to cultural, technological and military factors. America’s deindustrialized economy is now deeply affected by what can only be described as a massacre of her small and middle-size businesses and the implosion of the US commercial aerospace industry. America’s only driver of real growth, the shale oil industry, is facing realities which may make the Great Depression pale in comparison. Disintegration also seeks answers to the precipitous moral and professional decline of the always mediocre qualities of the American elites, from the corridors of political power to those of the military and business, now spiraling out of control. More alarmingly, the trend also points to the possibility of the actual physical disintegration of the United States as a unified entity—whether the divisions are ethnic or ideological. The most profound fault line is cultural—between the Coastal self-proclaimed elites backed by the secular, liberal media and deep state, who promote the most radical ideologies as it concerns gender and race, and the working class majority whom the former polemicize as deplorables, Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, and climate and science denialists. Investigating these factors sheds light on America’s future which holds very little promise for the country which had once proclaimed itself to be a shining city on the hill. The American collapse is not just coming, we are presently experiencing it. How can we deal with a catastrophe which is unfolding before our very eyes? Disintegration lays out some possibilities.

The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs
The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs

Author: Andrei Martyanov

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1949762084

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The liberal world order, a euphemism for American global hegemony, is crumbling at an accelerating pace. While its collapse is tangible, the outcome of such a collapse remains a matter of speculation and public debate. The US is desperately seeking to preserve the status quo, which rests primarily upon recognition of its military supremacy. For millennia, warfare has been a driving force behind changes in the geopolitical status of power configurations (whether of peoples, states or empires), and it remains so, today. Accordingly, short of actual warfare, the assessment (modeling) of relative military power plays an inordinate role in the determination of national status. Models of emerging changes in military capability range from relatively simple to extremely complex ones. Viewing the evolution of the current system of international relations outside the framework of actual, rather than propaganda-driven, military capabilities is not only useless, it is dangerous since states’ mistaken assessment of their own and other states’ military power can lead to misadventures and catastrophic mistakes. The United States’ efforts to preserve not just its dominance but the perception of its dominance are bound to fail for many important reasons, none more important than what is often misidentified in past American military-theoretical hypotheses about the future of warfare, known generically as the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). This book explains why those hypotheses are failing and will continue to fail, and addresses the real RMA. In the end, technological development in weaponry as a response to tactical, operational and strategic requirements defines not only a nation’s geopolitical status but determines the global order. Assessments of military capacity, if reality-based, serve as good predictors of the level of volatility in international relations and the level of violence globally. This book gives an insight into the evolution of weapons and the way they influenced international relations in the 20th and 21st centuries. It also defines Revolution in Military Affairs as manifested via policy, politics, and technology. It reviews some models which are useful in assessing the current geopolitical situation. This book also tries to give a forecast of the future development of warfare and the ways in which it is going to change the whole system of the international relations, hopefully towards a new geopolitical equilibrium.

Dereliction of Duty
Dereliction of Duty

Author: H. R. McMaster

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-03-01

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 006203118X

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"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C." —H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion) Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants. A page-turning narrative, Dereliction Of Duty focuses on a fascinating cast of characters: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and other top aides who deliberately deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Congress and the American public. McMaster’s only book, Dereliction of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.