River of Fire: Commons, Crisis, and the Imagination

ISBN 10: 0984921664 / ISBN 13: 9780984921669

Published by Pumping Station, 2016

About this Item

Unread book in perfect condition.

Seller Inventory # 28158421

Bibliographic Details

• Title: River of Fire: Commons, Crisis, and the Imagination
• Publisher: Pumping Station
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0984921664
• ISBN 13: 9780984921669
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

In this collection, artists and activists and scholars, poets, teachers and artisans--all opponents of capital and empire--reflect on art and history, on education, health and work and welfare, on the city, on nature and the country--in the context of what we call the commons, a term here greatly expanded so as to include not just natural resources such as land, forests, water, and air, but also other forms of common property, including intellectual, cultural, genetic, now all subject to enclosure. The commons, of course, is much contested terrain, the scene of great damage done, (and being done) by the present order of things, to ourselves and our planet, but also of inevitable resistance to the barbarities of modern life as well as to alternatives. Imagine? Can we imagine a better world? There is no roadmap offered here, certainly no line; rather commitments to commons in the here and now, as well as to a future where enclosure and privatization give way to sharing and art and work and life become inseparable, much in the spirit of the artist socialist, William Morris from whom we take our title, River of Fire.

Review

The contributors to this powerful collection bring much-needed critical and creative thinking to the politics of class and the commons, and the multiple forms and spaces of capitalist capture and enclosure across the globe. In helping to broaden our knowledge and unlock our imaginations, they offer, individually and collectively, new possibilities for resistance and liberation. -Betsy Hartmann, Professor Emerita of Development Studies and senior policy analyst, Population and Development Program, Hampshire College The critical, reflective pieces in this volume not only illuminate aspects of our current world system necessary to interrogate if we wish to create a better one, but reflect a collectivity in action and the very kind of community through difference that one would wish for the future. -Katharine Wallerstein, UC Berkeley