Re: [OPE-L] (new book) Paul Burkett _Marxism and Ecological Economics_

From: Patrick Bond (pbond@MAIL.NGO.ZA)
Date: Mon May 08 2006 - 19:08:20 EDT


Are there any other OPE-Lers who have books that are about to
> be printed?


In a week or so we'll have the second edition of Talk Left, Walk Right 
(http://www.unpress.co.za/book.php?action=displaybook&conf%5Bbookid%5D=204and below) and in June *Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation*. 
Here's the shameful back-cover self-promotion:

Looting Africa

Zed Books (London) and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (Pietermaritzburg)

ISBN: 1842778129
EAN: 9781842778128
224 Pages

Despite the rhetoric, the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are becoming 
poorer. From Tony Blair’s Africa Commission, the G7 finance ministers’ 
debt relief, the Live 8 concerts, the Make Poverty History campaign and 
the G8 Gleneagles promises, to the United Nations 2005 summit and the 
Hong Kong WTO meeting, Africa’s gains have been mainly limited to public 
relations. The central problems remain exploitative debt and financial 
relationships with the North, phantom aid, unfair trade, distorted 
investment, capital flight and the continent’s brain/skills drain. 
Moreover, capitalism in most African countries has witnessed the 
emergence of excessively powerful ruling elites. While noting their role 
as collaborators, this book contextualises Africa’s wealth outflow 
within a stagnant yet financially volatile world economy.

"Patrick Bond’s book provides a solid theoretical, empirical, and 
analytical framework proving that the processes of looting the African 
continent, which started with the slave trade, have continued to this 
day.///" - Professor Issa Shivji//, University of Dar es Salaam//, 
Tanzania/

"Patrick’s books on post-apartheid South Africa have been a beacon, and 
his latest is a brilliant analysis and timely expose of the rapacious 
forces ranged against Africans today./" - //John Pilger, author and film 
maker
/

***

*TALK LEFT WALK RIGHT*
South Africa's Frustrated Global Reforms

*Authors: *     Bond, Patrick 
<http://www.unpress.co.za/author.php?action=displayauthor&conf%5Bauthorid%5D=172&PHPSESSID=238c3550de1b3b975800d715484bebccAuthor Zapiro 
<http://www.unpress.co.za/author.php?action=displayauthor&conf%5Bauthorid%5D=240&PHPSESSID=238c3550de1b3b975800d715484bebccIllustrator
*Category: *    Political Economy
*Binding: *     Softcover
*Soft Cover ISBN: *     1 86914 054 0
*Price: *       R160
*Width: *       150mm
*Height: *

        230mm

Thabo Mbeki recently advocated unity with 'anti-globalisation' 
activists: "They may act in ways you and I may not like and break 
windows in the street, but the message they communicate relates."

This raises two critical questions: is the South African government 
genuinely opposed to what Mbeki calls 'global apartheid'? And are the 
reforms advocated by Pretoria succeeding - even on their own limited 
terms? Talk Left Walk Right answers both in the negative.

Mbeki's critics, from left and right alike, suggest that his AIDS 
policies, corrupt arms deal and support for Zimbabwe's repressive regime 
have damaged his credibility beyond repair. Others claim Mbeki's global 
ambition is his saving grace. But the content of Pretoria's broader 
reform strategy is rarely examined.

Between incomparable cartoons by Zapiro, Patrick Bond considers the 
dynamics of international political economy and geopolitics.

He reviews a series of contemporary examples where Pretoria is 
frustrated by unfavourable power relations: US unilateralism and 
militarism, the UN's World Conference Against Racism and reparations for 
apartheid profits, soured trade deals, stingy debt relief and 
counterproductive international financial flows, unsuccessful reform of 
multilateral institutions, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, 
the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World 
Water Forum, UN Security Council reform, haggling with the G8, and 
African peace-building.

The Afterword to this updated edition provides critical analysis from 
the 2004-06 period, characterised by backsliding in nearly all areas of 
global governance.

Bond poses alternatives and also assesses the progressive social 
movements, which may well be Mbeki's most persistent, unforgiving 
judges, both locally and globally.

Patrick Bond teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of 
Development Studies and directs the Centre for Civil Society. Zapiro is 
a cartoonist for a number of South African newspapers.

'Thanks to Patrick Bond's analytical skills and brilliant cartoons by 
Zapiro, Talk Left, Walk Right allows global justice activists to decode 
rhetoric and reality: from Washington and Davos conferences to the South 
African townships. Mbeki and the ANC are not hapless victims, but are 
deeply implicated in promoting faraway ideologies and unaccountable 
powers' - Njoki Njoroge Njehu, director, Daughters of Mumbi Global 
Resource Centre, Nairobi

'Bond knows the debates on political economy as well as he knows South 
Africa and its politics ... More than any other writer, he keeps alive 
our early hopes for a different script for South Africa's foreign 
policy.' - Peter Vale, Nelson Mandela Chair of Politics, Rhodes 
University, in "International Affairs"

//


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