CounterpointStimulating debate with the British Council

Debate and Book launch

Published November 2009, by Palgrave Macmillan. Edited by Jonathan Pugh, Senior Academic Fellow, Newcastle University

On 25  November 2009,  Catherine Fieschi (Director Counterpoint) and Jonathan Pugh (Director, the Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space network) hosted this book launch and debate at Canada House on Trafalgar Square.

The panel discussion  also featured  Doreen Massey, Saskia Sassen and David Chandler.

 Audio and Video files to follow!

 

 

A crisis makes you re-think your life. The recent economic crisis is no exception. All of us are now thinking how the world could be run differently. Despite this, a radical alternative has hardly emerged to mobilise the masses, which begs the question: What is radical politics today? In this book, leading academics, politicians, journalists and activists attempt to pinpoint an answer, debating the issues facing radical politics in the 21st Century. Rarely united in their opinions, they collectively interrogate the character and spirit of being radical in our times.

Including original contributions from Zygmunt Bauman, Frank Furedi, Paul Kingsnorth, James Heartfield, Terrell Carver, Clare Short, Edward W. Soja, David Chandler, Hilary Wainwright, Dora Apel, Michael J. Watts, Jason Toynbee, James Martin, Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, Doreen Massey, Gregor McLennan, Tariq Modood, Nick Cohen, Amir Saeed and David Bates, Alastair Bonnett, Ken Worpole, Sheila Jasanoff, Nigel Thrift, Will Hutton, Saul Newman, Chantal Mouffe, David Featherstone, Alejandro Colas and Jason Edwards, David Boyle, and Saskia Sassen.

Read Jonathan Pugh’s introduction, and two short comments by Alastair Bonnet and Terrell Carver, who have contributed to the volume.

‘This is a bold, brave and timely book. As we emerge, blinking into the light after three decades of neo-liberal darkness, Jonathan Pugh has put together a collection of essays that will provoke and provide clues to the question of what comes next; what indeed is radical politics today ?’

Neal Lawson (Chair, Compass)

‘This collection is a model for the kinds of discussion we need to move forward.’

Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth

‘ … we need this sort of sustained critical discussion of the kinds of alternative politics available to us.’

James Tully (University of Victoria).

‘ … a challenge to fatalism.’

Catherine Fieschi, Director of Counterpoint (Think Tank of the British Council).

‘…a major contribution to the ongoing debate on the problems of our times.’

Lord Bhikhu Parekh