Amway: The Cult of Free Enterprise

Stephen Butterfield

A hilarious and thorough account of the Amway experience written by a disillusioned “distributor” who is also a professor of English. This is delicious armchair sociology, manna for the conspiracy theorist, and worth the attention of anyone who has sat next to an Excel troglodyte selling pyramid long-distance phone service on a cross-country flight. HJ

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 186 pages

Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era

Dennis Hayes

“Explores the alarming silence about toxic Orwellian ‘clean’ rooms and why unions don’t organize their workers; how the work-centered code of the new professional predisposes an entire generation to self-serving and self-destructive lifestyle enclaves; why the computer worker is eminently corruptible by technology, despite the ‘cyberpunk’ antiauthoritarian trappings of teenage hackers. Isolated by structured programming techniques, and at military sites by a gulag of security clearances, computer workers ignore the social implications of their work.”

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 215 pages

Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda

Edward S. Herman with cartoons by Matt Wuerker

Satirical essays, cartoons and a lexicon of double-speak terms used by the U.S. government, media and corporations. AK

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 240 pages
Illustrated

Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom

David Edwards

“A treatise on what freedom truly means and on the concept that the greatest single obstacle to freedom is the assumption that it has already been attained and need no longer be striven for.”

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 248 pages

The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda

Edward S. Herman

An exposé of U.S. foreign policy, separating the myth of an “international terrorist conspiracy” from the reality. Tours the state-sanctioned bloodbaths of U.S.-sponsored dictatorships.

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 252 pages

Time Without Work: People Who Are Not Working Tell Their Stories

Walli F. Leff and Marilyn G. Haft

Leff and Haft collected in-depth interviews from people who weren’t working for various reasons, and presented them in this book with related commentary and statistics. In late-20th-century America, work equals identity. However, the authors, through their research, challenge the very notion of maintaining a work-based identity. Their message is even more compelling now than when Time Without Work was first published, thanks to the current downsizing trend and layoffs in almost every industry. With the very nature of work changing, so are many people’s expectations about work. No longer does one have a single employer or, for that matter, a single career. Consequently, people will have periods of unemployment. How will this new facet of the job market relate to societal ideas about work? The stories given here offer some possibilities. SC

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 403 pages

Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management

Edited by Holly Sklar

Exposé of trilateralism and the Trilateral Commission—the strategies used by those who see the world as their factory, farm, supermarket and playground. AK

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 605 pages

After the Cataclysm: Post-war Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman

Focuses on the myth and reality of the current situation in post-war Indochina. Shows the effects of the war and discusses the refugee problem, the Pol Pot regime, the question of human rights, and the role of the media.

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 392 pages

The Culture of Terrorism

Noam Chomsky

Examines the U.S. role in Central America, focusing on the Iran-Contra scandal. Shows how the real issue of the scandal—continuing terrorism in the world—was ignored to better concentrate on more inconsequential issues. Reveals the role the media played in facilitating a vision of the scandal as a “mistake” committed by high-minded individuals who later saw the error of their ways.

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 269 pages

Liberating Theory

Noam Chomsky et al.

In a landmark theoretical work which might influence progressive thinking, seven respected activist/scholars from various backgrounds and movements have collaborated to create a new theory of liberation. The authors combine various theories of history (Marxism, anarchism, feminism and nationalism) to develop an alternative conceptual framework that they call “complementary holism,” and apply this theory to questions of economics, politics, gender, race and culture. “Complementary holism” is intended to be used to understand society and create new strategies for its transformation. SC

Publisher: South End
Paperback: 197 pages