Ten 2024 Book Recommendations (plus one)
Ten book published in 2024 and one extra, so good, that it is in the list again!
- Clive and Myra Hamilton, The Privileged Few (Wiley & Sons).
What if elite privilege was not just a by-product of wealth, but the organising principle for our society? This book is a detailed critique by two Australian scholars of the micropolitics that serve to sustain social inequality. The Hamiltons, in their unsparing survey of the landscape of privilege from Rhodes scholarships to super-yachts, and from philanthropy to elite private schools, point out that, even as we are told that the power of male and white privilege is on the wane, elite privilege remains stronger than ever.
- Thomas Piketty, translated by Willard Wood, Nature, Culture, and Inequality (Scribe UK)
Just brilliant. This treasure trove contains what you most need to read of Piketty’s most important work, in a very well-packed nutshell, and with much new material despite being so brief. Succinct and clear, this impressive book offers a concise synthesis of Piketty’s insights on subjects ranging from education to inheritance, from taxes to the climate crisis, and most importantly touches on the much bigger question of whether natural inequality exists. Piketty is the world’s most accomplished economist and this is his clearest work.
- Sarah Wise, The Undesirables: The Law that Locked Away a Generation (OneWorld)
This is a masterpiece of historical research, uncovering the incarceration of the poor and powerless under the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Sarah Wise’s exposure of the unbearably cruel ways we treated so many people a century ago, and more recently too, demands that we ask ourselves who among us is the most morally defective. It is all too easy to think that this inhumanity is safely behind us, but The Undesirables should lead us to reflect on policies that the large majority of our members of parliament support today, and which in future will be clearly seen as terrible and unjust.
- Francesca Froy, Rebuilding Urban Complexity: A Configurational Approach to Postindustrial Cities (Routledge)
A beautifully illustrated digital archaeology of what some call “the first American/Industrial city”, Manchester. Francesca Froy charts the evolution and integration, the complexity and morphology, the style and substance of a place made by people and the materials they consume, process and rely on. Relying on a wider range of sources than almost any other book of this kind, the result is an academic masterpiece. A little pricey, so ask your library to buy it, unless you only buy a very few books! Should you need more convincing, the configurations of Sheffield, Newcastle, Detroit and New Haven are also included.
- Jackie Kay, May Day (Pan Macmillan)
A slim, luminous book to give, read, and treasure, with as much wisdom, humanity and beautiful turns of phrase on each page as many other books contain in their entirety. Glaswegian, activist, poet, academic and memoirist Jackie Kay should need no introduction, but this latest collection is a wonderful reminder of why her work is loved by so many. May Day’s poems of love and loss, grief, solidarity and hope offer many tributes to the lives in struggle of Kay’s late parents and to the many figures who inspired them, from Angela Davis to Paul Robeson, and vividly evoke the city of Glasgow itself.
- George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life) (Penguin)
Are we all neoliberals now? If so, is there any alternative? This is an explosive and beautifully told account of the rise and rise of one of the greatest confidence tricks of our age. The truths in this courageous, definitive and damning book can free us from the lie that this is the only way the world can be. If you want to know why so many of the powerful tell us that it can only be one way and that there is no alternative to a system that benefits just a few so much, and how the lies behind this thinking were originally spun, then this book is the most efficient route into that truth; and is beautifully written.
- Peter Mertens, Mutiny: How Our World is Tilting (LeftWord)
“People are eager to understand how the world works,” says Mertens, who as leader of Belgium’s Workers’ Party (PVdA/PTB) helped spearhead its recent renewal as a significant political force representing the working class. The world is turning – so what do today’s mutinies in the North and South have in common? With US hegemony on the wane, what will replace it? A clear, jargon-free and insightful look at recent watershed moments from the Iraq War to the war in Ukraine via mass social protests in India and Chile, Mutiny considers what the future holds, and how: “the left can give people hope and perspective again – it must want to fight to win, and actually win”.
- Preeti Dhillon, The Shoulders We Stand On: How Black and Brown People Fought for Change in the United Kingdom (Dialogue Books)
A valuable, readable and timely account of many of the important movements and campaigns for justice in the UK from the 1960s to early 1980s, from the Black Education Movement and the Mangrove Nine to the Grunwick strike, from the Battle of Brick Lane to the Bristol Bus Boycott and 1981 uprisings around the country, via the experiences of activists from Stella Dadzie and Winston Trew to Jayaben Desai and Norman Samuels. A journey of discovery into the ongoing legacies of empire and oppression, and the role played by the state, police, judiciary and media in racial oppression. In spotlighting lessons for today, it is an essential contribution that deserves a broad readership. - Rhona Michie, Andrew Feinstein and Paul Rogers, with Jeremy Corbyn, Monstrous Anger of the Guns: How the Global Arms Trade is Ruining the World and What We Can Do About It (Pluto Books)
This edited volume shines another light on what is uncontestably “the most destructive business in the world”. Its murderous impact is seen from the vantage point of activists, researchers and scholars in locations including Palestine and Yemen, East Africa and India, Latin America, and Hawai’i, via mass movements, worker uprisings, strategic litigation and youth campaigns. In the face of a deadly, rapacious and hugely profitable industry, bolstered by governments around the world, this collection details the scale of its depredations, showing that global resistance is diverse, determined and growing.
- Angus Hanton, Vassal State: How America Runs Britain (Swift Press)
Vassal State is a shocking and meticulous description of how the fire sale of Britain was accelerated by Brexit, of how Britain was singled out, and why, today, a so much of all the assets held by US corporations in Europe are in the UK. Angus Hanton explains how Stephen Schwarzman’s private equity group, Blackstone, led the feasting predator pack; how every single recent British Prime Minster and Chancellor sold out their country and their own souls; and what must be done to avoid a historic bankruptcy of Britain and for the British to take back control from the Americans.
- Arianne Shahvisi, Arguing for a Better World: How to Talk About the Issues that Divide Us (John Murray)
Logical, readable, authoritative: philosopher Arianne Shahvisi offers up an everyday manual on how oppression came about, how it works, why it persists, and how to defeat it. This book was published in 2023, but it’s so good it richly deserves to be in a best of 2024 list. As the book’s blurb explains: “…imagine that instead of losing another hour of your life in a social media spat or knowing that the only way to make it through lunch was by biting your tongue, you could find a way to talk about injustice – and, just possibly, change someone’s mind”. How not to fall into the trap of talking about the dead cats they throw on the table.
top 10 books of 2024 (plus one)