Jess
It starts off a bit clunky, and I was unsure if I would get into it. Quickly, though, I found myself pulled in. A melancholic window into the world of Miles Davis and Frances Taylor. The novella follows a traumatic encounter Miles has with some cops as he processes the event via flashbacks as he drives around New York. Frances also processes the event in her own way, waiting for miles to come home. What is being processed along with the police brutality is the brutality between the two; what Frances has been asked to give up— a huge part of herself— and how she has still been treated in the aftermath. I think Brown did her justice by telling the story in a way that centers her perspective alongside Davis's.
This is apparently a book that Calvino was not proud of. The introduction explains, Calvino was not fond of the genre of autobiography nor fictional works that veer into its territory. Though he may find himself embarrassed in indulging in the use of memory in the crafting of a story, he does it extremely well.
The three stories all give us, the reader, a window into the world of a young Italo Calvino as fascism rises and war looms in Italy. Through this setting, we see the existential qualms of a young man facing a world on the horizon of large and terrifying possibilities. We also see how the peaceful nature of his parents contributed to his outlook on life and his rejection of Italian fascism.
This also gave me the chance to learn more about his life by doing a little research on my own before and after reading.
This book is marvelous, inspiring, and informative. Wow. I knew that plenty of it would contain disheartening knowledge, and it does, but it contains so so so much more than sad facts about the way that capitalist-imperialism has harmed our planet. It is extremely skilled in its combination of these harsh realities with the equally important realities of possibility, of projects being built now by people who care, and of detailed ways to move forward. I highly recommend to anyone suffering from climate anxiety who may feel there is no way out or through.
This book is remarkably thorough, informative, and critical in its analysis of the history of pre-colonial imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism at large in Africa and African response throughout those eras. Written when it was written, We now know more about some of the topics discussed (re: the Soviet Union, China, and how those states developed) than was probably possible in the 70s. The introduction by Vincent Harding is also very beautifully written, and speaks to who Rodney was to his peers. Definitely recommend reading it in full, including the reading guides which include interesting commentary on lists of related books for each section.
I wish I could give this 3.5 stars. It is a very well written, well researched work of non-fiction. It is informative and compelling in a number of ways. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in food forests, especially if you want to feel hyped-up about the wide breadth of possibilities out there. It was exciting to learn about all these different projects surrounding fruit trees in cities. What's missing for me is a deeper, more critical lens on the global situation that leads to a lack of knowledge and interest in local food. Specifically, while Moncrieff makes important nods to indigenous food-ways she also romanticizes the colonial system that has displaced indigenous communities. While she makes important notes to the rise in processed food, she doesn't draw the important connection between global capitalism, food scarcity, and malnutrition. It isn't that I expect one book to speak on everything, but I'd like to see books like this go beyond a simple nod or passing mention. I'd like to get excited about what's possible without romanticizing the damage that was done that got us to this point.
Excellent, thorough work on topics simultaneously prescient and historical. I would recommend to anyone interested in diving deeper into the violent history of police and the liberating nature looting can have. Subverting the property relationship in America- a relationship that begins with the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans and the genocide and displacement of indigenous groups- is necessary if we ever want to see a world worthy of the label “free.”
This book was difficult to read. It challenged a lot of the anger within me. I would recommend this book to anyone who is pro-abolition but struggles with the coming to terms with the fact that that includes rethinking how we deal with sex offenders. I was disappointed by the last section... it was the one I was most looking forward to and I felt let down by it. It seemed rushed, for starters, but it also reproduces the dichotomy between sex positivity and sex negativity- which causes a lot of problems. I would have liked to see more nuance in the final section, especially the section on consent. I think it's very important to think beyond consent when thinking about sexual ethics. Thinking beyond consent means a lot of things- confronting the ambiguous nature of most of our relationships is one, but another is thinking about harm without automatically thinking about punishment. This is what I expected a discussion of abolition feminism to do, but instead I received a half hearted paragraph explaining how BDSM is a good example of “playing with consent” by “saying no and not meaning it.” This simply lacks critical examination and reproduces the neoliberal assumptions worth critiquing in consent in the first place.
Phenomenal work! I used this for a class I am teaching called Landscape of American Thought. Brilliant and challenging analysis of the coloniality of western thought. This is a book I want to read and re-read, in order to more fully understand the rich ethical theory presented by Dr. Burkhart. I would absolutely recommend.