The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian [Hardcover]

Maude Barlow (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins Canada (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002557614
• ISBN-13: 978-0002557610
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,201,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Did we read the same book?, December 6, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian (Hardcover)

While other reviewers are certainly entitled to engage in ad hominem attacks, I think they are ridiculous and counterproductive.

This book is very engaging and stimulating. Ms. Barlow expresses complex ideas with ease. She conveys her passions rather convincingly! No easy matter when most people don't have a clue about trade issues, or the collective relinquishment of national sovereignty to all-powerful WTO bureaucrats! Please read this book, and decide for yourself! Don't listen to reviewers with an ax to grind!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fighting corporatism and so-called "free" trade., October 26, 2007

By 

Preston C. Enright (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian (Paperback)

The corporate propagandists who have been selling the world on "free" trade have done a good job of branding their agenda as having something to do with liberation. "Free" trade - who could be against that? - we're all for "freedom." But as Maude Barlow points out, "free" trade is actually about imposed markets foisted upon populations by transnational private tyrannies accountable to no one. These mega-corporations have been buying off legislators the world over, manipulating the hearts & minds of people, decimating local economies, destroying communities and ecosystems, and creating an ever-larger gap between the rich and poor.
Among other issues, Barlow has been a leader on the issue of water privatization Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water. Water, once a free resource, is being claimed as another product through which stockholders can enrich themselves. The corporation Bechtel tried to privatize the water supply in Cochabamba, Bolivia - even going so far as to declare capturing rainwater a crime. The Bolivian people fiercely opposed this attempt at corporate colonization and drove Bechtel out of their country. It was a heroic struggle that is discussed in the film The Corporation. "The Corporation," incidentally, will answer the negative reviewers questions as to why corporate control of human society is not such a good idea.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Running on Empty, August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian (Hardcover)

For over 200 pages Barlow repeats every single argument against free trade that she has stated in all of her other works. The difference this time is that she's decided to call it an autobiography.

If you've read any of her past work, Parcel of Rogues or Class Warfare, there is no need to read this book. She trots out her tired old arguments: corporations are bad, markets are bad, foreign ownership is bad. At one point she states that her nationalism is not xenophobic despite the fact that she constantly rails against foriegn ownership: foriegner ownership is bad because the owners are not your own nationality and therefore cannot be trusted, if this isn't xenophobic and potentially racist I don't know what is.

Another odd characteristice of the book is that any proponent of free markets is presented as fools, but any of Barlow formers colleagues who turned their back on her causes are pretty much forgiven.

National Socialists like Barlow should learn some economics and history before they write drivel like this and contribute to deforestation.