In her major address to the 99th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association on August 16, 2004, "Public Power in the Age of Empire," broadcast nationally on C-Span Book TV and on Democracy Now! and Alternative Radio, writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly examines the limits to democracy in the world today. Bringing the same care to her prose that she brought to her Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, Roy discusses the need for social movements to contest the occupation of Iraq and the reduction of "democracy" to elections with no meaningful alternatives allowed. She explores the dangers of the "NGO-ization of resistance," shows how governments that block nonviolent dissent in fact encourage terrorism, and examines the role of the corporate media in marginalizing oppositional voices.
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"Reading Arundhati Roy is how the peace movement arms itself. She turns our grief and rage into courage." -- Naomi Klein, author of No Logo
"The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating." -- The New York Times Book Review
"The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating." -- The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
ARUNDHATI ROY is the author of the novel, The God of Small Things, for which she was awarded the Booker Prize in 1997. Roy has also published four essay collections: An Ordinary Person''s Guide to Empire, War Talk, Power Politics, and The Cost of Living, and is the subject of The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Interviews with Arundhati Roy, edited by David Barsamian. Roy received the 2002 Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom from the Lannan Foundation. She lives in New Delhi, India.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Justice,
By
This review is from: Public Power in the Age of Empire (Open Media Series) (Paperback)
Nobody expressed better the existence of an Empire than a president who said `I don't care what the facts are'. In other words, `I (can) always do what I want without any justification.'
In this violent pamphlet, Arundhati Roy attacks the existent world order and the policies of terror under the helm of the one and only hegemon: `the most powerful nation in the world with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs is peopled by a terrified citizenry. This synthetically manufactured fear is used to gain public sanction for further aggression.' Legislation, like the Patriot Act, curbs freedom in the name of protecting freedom. Antiterrorism laws are used to intimidate civil society. On the economic front, Western countries which together spend more than one billion dollars a day on subsidies to farmers demand that poor countries withdraw all agricultural subsidies. In the era of neo-liberalism, poverty is a crime and protesting against it is being defined as terrorism. But, for those who are on the wrong side of Empire, the humiliation is becoming unbearable. For some, there is no alternative but terrorism, albeit vicious, ugly and dehumanizing. But so is war waged by the hegemon and its allies. The alternative to terrorism is justice. For Arundhati Roy, `no amount of nuclear weapons or full-spectrum-dominance can buy peace at the cost of justice.' With her sharp pen, Arundhati Roy defends violently the mass of the wretched. Her text is a must read for all those who want to understand the world we live in.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing book of information,
By Kaleem "kevin9984" (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Public Power in the Age of Empire (Open Media Series) (Paperback)
I really enjoyed this book, the language, the expressive power, the content and the goal is fabulous. I am very impressed by the author and this book. I highly recommend this book.
1.0 out of 5 stars
If you love left wing propoganda, a great book!,
This review is from: Public Power in the Age of Empire (Open Media Series) (Kindle Edition)
I thought this book completely distorted how the world works. The author lives in a fairytale world. She should have kept writing fiction, like her God of Small Things, a pretty decent story, though rough in polish.
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