Arundhati Roy
Paperback | Pages: 200 pages Rating: 4 | 1907 Users | 140 Reviews
Describe About Books An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
| Title | : | An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire |
| Author | : | Arundhati Roy |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 200 pages |
| Published | : | 2004 by South End (first published 2003) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Politics. History. Cultural. India. Writing. Essays |
Relation Toward Books An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
Just in time for the elections, Arundhati Roy offers us this lucid briefing on what the Bush administration really means when it talks about “compassionate conservativism” and “the war on terror.” Roy has characteristic fun in these essays, skewering the hypocrisy of the more-democratic-than-thou clan. But above all, she aims to remind us that we hold the essence of power and the foundation of genuine democracy—the power of the people to counter their self-appointed leaders’ tyranny.First delivered as fiery speeches to sold-out crowds, together these essays are a call to arms against “the apocalyptic apparatus of the American empire.” Focusing on the disastrous US occupation of Iraq, Roy urges us to recognize—and apply—the scope of our power, exhorting US dockworkers to refuse to load materials war-bound, reservists to reject their call-ups, activists to organize boycotts of Halliburton, and citizens of other nations to collectively resist being deputized as janitor-soldiers to clear away the detritus of the US invasion.
Roy’s Guide to Empire also offers us sharp theoretical tools for understanding the New American Empire—a dangerous paradigm, Roy argues here, that is entirely distinct from the imperialism of the British or even the New World Order of George Bush, the elder. She examines how resistance movements build power, using examples of nonviolent organizing in South Africa, India, and the United States. Deftly drawing the thread through ostensibly disconnected issues and arenas, Roy pays particular attention to the parallels between globalization in India, the devastation in Iraq, and the deplorable conditions many African Americans, in particular, must still confront.
With Roy as our “guide,” we may not be able to relax from the Sisyphean task of stopping the U.S. juggernaut, but at least we are assured that the struggle for global justice is fortified by Roy’s hard-edged brilliance.
Itemize Books To An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
| Original Title: | An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire |
| ISBN: | 0896087271 (ISBN13: 9780896087279) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating About Books An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
Ratings: 4 From 1907 Users | 140 ReviewsWrite Up About Books An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
In this book, Roy talks about how the Empire (US) manages to control other countries for its profit, no matter what rights are trampled and lives are lost (in wars and smaller conflicts). Iraq is used as an example, and this is still fairly fresh though the book is 10 years old now. Iraq is still far from being messy even though war isn't really there now.There is also useful insight in India's hair-rising wrongs - how little of it we read in our news, but then there's plenty of other countriesWhat is Empire? The elucidation of this question is what is attempted in this book by Arundhati Roy.It is actually a collection of her essays, articles and speeches during the period 2002 2004, and not a book with a beginning, middle and end. But one theme runs through all these seemingly unconnected pieces how the cancer of corporate power is choking our supposedly free world.The essay The Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire has been aptly chosen as the title of the book, for here Ms. Roy sets
"For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning." the celebrated author of The God of Small Things States So. An Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire is a well constructed essay collection written between 2002 and 2004 most of them from those published in newspapers. Roy reveals her passion for writing through 14 chapters. She dissects the situation at Iraq and the Middle East and about those who
I think the Iraqi people are suffering and we should liberate them. Thats what I said early in the invasion of Iraq. I was 15.Surprisingly, many people who supported the war didn't have the excuse of being 15. There were people who were old enough to remember Baghdad as the Paris of the Middle East, or U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, or even the brutal U.N. economic sanctions following the Gulf War that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths from malnutrition and lack of
An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (Paperback)by Arundhati RoyI picked up this book while in India last fall. The hotel I was staying at in Jaipur was selling it in their gift shop. I started it while still traveling but didn't finish it until the beginning of the new year. Consisting of a collection of essays and lectures given on the topic of empire, verbalization, trade and resistance within the context of the developing world (especially focusing on India) it is filled with Roy's usual
I so thought this would be better and more inspiring than it was. It was filled with stereotypes of Americans and Westerners (apparently none of us have read Chomsky or have a conscience). For such a poetic, insightful and nuanced writer to write essays and speeches of such limited subtlety was a huge disappointment. I know she has done great work as a humanist and activist, but this book felt like a waste of time to me as a reader.
Made some good points in the beginning and then became rambly and whiny. She needed to introduce some new points.
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