LSE Review of Books
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LSE Review of Books publishes daily reviews of academic books across the social sciences. Our aim is to facilitate the sharing and exchange of knowledge between experts within and outside of the academy, and to open up academic research to increase its impact.
LSE Review of Books
2d ago
In One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax, Dipesh Chakrabarty examines human interrelatedness with, and responsibility within, the Earth System from a decolonial perspective. Drawing on a diverse range of disciplines, this book is a critical intervention that considers perspectival gaps and differences around the climate crisis, writes Elisabeth Wennerström.
One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax. Dipesh Chakrabarty. Brandeis University Press. 2023.
In One Planet, Many Worlds, Dipesh Chakrabarty addresses existing perspectival gaps and differences around the Earth System. T ..read more
LSE Review of Books
6d ago
In this interview with Anna D’Alton (LSE Review of Books), Sumi Madhok speaks about her latest book, Vernacular Rights Cultures which subverts prevailing frameworks around human rights by exploring how subaltern groups mobilise for justice through particular political imaginaries, conceptual vocabularies and gendered political struggles.
Read a review of the book for LSE Review of Books here.
Vernacular Rights Cultures: The Politics of Origins, Human Rights and Gendered Struggles for Justice. Sumi Madhok. Cambridge University Press. 2024 (paperback); 2021 (hardback ..read more
LSE Review of Books
6d ago
In The Inequality of Wealth: Why it Matters and How to Fix it, Liam Byrne examines the UK’s deep-seated inequality which has channelled wealth away from ordinary people (disproportionately youth and minority groups) and into the hands of the super-rich. While the solutions Byrne presents – from boosting wages to implementing an annual wealth tax – are not new, the book synthesises them into a coherent strategy for tackling this critical problem, writes Vamika Goel.
Liam Byrne launched the book at an LSE event in February 2024: watch it back on YouTube.
The Inequa ..read more
LSE Review of Books
6d ago
In Who’s Afraid of Gender?, Judith Butler confronts contemporary attacks on gender from right-wing movements that have undermined the rights of women, queer and trans people in areas from reproductive justice to protections against violence. The book deftly unpacks the phantasm of gender as it has been weaponised against queer and trans people and argues for countering it not with commensurate hate, but by making more desirable a way of living based in freedom and empathy, writes Elaine Coburn.
Judith Butler came to LSE to launch the book in March 2024: watch it back ..read more
LSE Review of Books
1w ago
In Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times, Samuel Moyn dissects intellectual battles within Cold War liberalism through six key figures: Judith Shklar, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling. Teasing out their complex relationships with Enlightenment ideals, historicism, Freudianism and decolonisation, Moyn’s masterful group biography sheds light on the evolution of liberalism and the cause of the Red Scare, writes Atreyee Majumder.
Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals ..read more
LSE Review of Books
1w ago
In Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North, Kay Standing, Sara Parker and Stefanie Lotter compile multidisciplinary perspectives examining experiences of and education around menstruation in different parts of the world. Spanning academic research, activism and poetry, this thought-provoking volume advocates for inclusive approaches that encompass the diverse geographical, social, cultural, gender- and age-related subjectivities of menstruators worldwide, writes Udita Bose.
Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North: Towards a ..read more
LSE Review of Books
1w ago
In The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen contends that the focus on access in design around disability perpetuates inequalities, arguing instead for centralising disabled people in architectural and urban planning. Amy Batley finds that the book’s attempts to reframe disability in contemporary urban landscapes are overpowered by historical tangents and subjective claims.
The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access. David Gissen. University of Minnesota Press. 2022.
Wh ..read more
LSE Review of Books
2w ago
In The Wealth of a Nation: Institutional Foundations of English Capitalism, Geoffrey Hodgson traces the roots of modern capitalism to financial and legal institutions established in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Hodgson’s astute historical analysis foregrounds the alienability of property rights as a key condition of capitalism’s rise to supremacy, though it leaves questions around the social dimensions of the free market system unanswered, writes S M Amadae.
The Wealth of a Nation: Institutional Foundations of English Capitalism. Geoffrey M. Hodgson. P ..read more
LSE Review of Books
2w ago
In Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century, Portia Roelofs critiques conventional Western ideas of “good governance” imposed in Africa, and specifically Nigeria, through fieldwork and historical analysis. Stephanie Wanga finds the book a grounded and nuanced argument for alternative, locally shaped and socially embedded models of governance.
Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century. Portia Roelofs. Cambridge University Press. 2023.
Good governance: a phrase ..read more
LSE Review of Books
3w ago
In Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century, Alessandro Ludovico assembles a vast repertoire of post-digital publications to make the case for their importance in shaping and proposing alternative directions for the current computational media landscape. Although tilting towards example over practical theory, Tactical Publishing is an inspiring resource for all scholars and practitioners interested in the critical potential of experimenting with the technologies, forms, practices and socio-material spaces that emerge around books, writes Rebekka Ki ..read more