subcutaneous stopped reading Madagascar by Maureen Covell (Marxist Regimes)
Got through the historical overview, then lost interest.
Reviews and Comments
Deepening political imaginations.
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subcutaneous stopped reading Labour by Robert Clough (Counterattack, #2)
The story of a left wing which constantly sanctioned global genocide and terror because it …
Didn't dislike it, just read far enough to get the point.
subcutaneous stopped reading On Zionist Literature by Ghassan Kanafani (Liberated Texts)
Translated into English for the first time after its publication in 1967, Ghassan Kanafani's On …
I stopped reading this because of the anti-Jewish historical distortions. Strident opposition to israel & zionism is good; along with the project of deploying literary criticism on the cultural front of a liberation war, it's what drew me to the work in the first place. But Kanafani insists on assimilationist understandings of alternative Jewish politics—rather than suggesting methods of self-determination that don't reinforce colonialism, or just saying nothing if he doesn't have any alternatives—& whitewashes arab & islamic empires' long track record of oppressing Jews & countless other peoples. I'd guess this flows from the pan-arabism that produced the PFLP, but maybe someone more knowledgeable about his intellectual development should speak on that.
subcutaneous commented on Hizbu'llah by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb
The book includes a chapter arguing that Hezbollah is fundamentally hostile to Judaism & that this can't be reduced to or written off as a spinoff from their opposition to zionism & israel.
subcutaneous commented on Unfuck Your Friendships by Faith G. Harper
>Friendship deserves more credit in a society obsessed with romantic and sexual relationships. In reality, …
Why does the author recommend an "ex"-FBI body language specialist? Were there really no other options? I doubt it.
subcutaneous reviewed Armed Struggle in Africa by Gérard Chaliand (Modern Reader)
A solid technical guide
4 stars
This is a very cut-and-dry report on the PAIGC's anti-colonial revolutionary war. It's broken into three main parts: first, background on the colony; the centerpiece, reporting on a journey across the nation-to-be with the party's leaders, who are interviewed and quoted at length; lastly, some comparative analysis with other revolutionary movements in Africa and latin amerika.
The book is fairly narrowly focused on practical how-a-revolution-gets-made questions, and it provides useful, clear answers to those questions. It's not really written to be a compelling story, though if you care about the Guinean revolution you'll likely find interesting stories in here anyway. The author's analysis is straightforward, and like others who actually spent time with the guerrillas he correctly observed that they were comeptent to a much greater degree than many of their contemporaries.
If you had to look up the acronym PAIGC, I might not recommend starting this book until …
This is a very cut-and-dry report on the PAIGC's anti-colonial revolutionary war. It's broken into three main parts: first, background on the colony; the centerpiece, reporting on a journey across the nation-to-be with the party's leaders, who are interviewed and quoted at length; lastly, some comparative analysis with other revolutionary movements in Africa and latin amerika.
The book is fairly narrowly focused on practical how-a-revolution-gets-made questions, and it provides useful, clear answers to those questions. It's not really written to be a compelling story, though if you care about the Guinean revolution you'll likely find interesting stories in here anyway. The author's analysis is straightforward, and like others who actually spent time with the guerrillas he correctly observed that they were comeptent to a much greater degree than many of their contemporaries.
If you had to look up the acronym PAIGC, I might not recommend starting this book until the general story of 20th-century anticolonialism in Africa is more familiar to you. You'd probably get a lot more out of it that way.
subcutaneous reviewed The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth, #3)
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS... FOR THE LAST TIME.
The Moon will soon …
Didn't get the hype
4 stars
I enjoyed the trilogy, but didn't find it particularly outstanding overall.
subcutaneous commented on The Shape of Things to Come by J. Sakai
J. Sakai is one of North America’s most insightful and challenging radical intellectuals, best-known for …
Very curious to see who ends up railing against sakai not for shitting on white labor (already know who hates that) but for calling china a capitalist dictatorship and acknowledging uyghur genocide.
subcutaneous commented on Sunviews by Sundiata Acoli
A collection of writings by Sundiata Acoli, a member of the Black Liberation Army. Published …
Not him listing "the rise of rampant homosexuality and bi-sexuality among both black men and women" as a problem. UGH.
subcutaneous commented on Sunviews by Sundiata Acoli
A collection of writings by Sundiata Acoli, a member of the Black Liberation Army. Published …
Sucks that Sundiata was writing regular columns for the APSP newspaper. Wonder what his options were.
This investigation of the origins of the Angolan civil war of 1975-76 exmines the interaction …
The more I learn about the MPLA, the more they come across as the lesser of 3 evils rather than actually any good. Like…at least they didn't work with apartheid south africa??
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang
The city of dreaming spires.
It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.
And at its …
The city of dreaming spires.
It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in …
Not the author straight up saying astrology is fake! Bold.
The city of dreaming spires.
It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in …
Content warning midway-ish spoiler, death
Reply to this post if you don't believe for a second that Anthony really died while traveling & his death was news to Victoire. Like…the author already tipped us off, not so subtly either.
subcutaneous reviewed Zemmour & Gaullism by Marlon Ettinger
Éric Zemmour is an apparent contradiction – widely viewed as a dissident racist, he’s a …
Useful intervention
4 stars
Helpful overview of the current state of french fascism for anglophone readers. Tracing the politics of de gaulle ties the history quite clearly to the present.