Debbie Bookchin

Breathing new life into revolutionary ideas.According to Murray Bookchin, a humane solution to the climate crisis will require replacing industrial capitalism with an egalitarian, ecological society; decentralized democratic communities; and sustainable technologies. Drawing on rich traditions of ecological science, anthropology, history, utopian philosophy, and ethics, Remaking Society offers a coherent framework for social and ecological reconstruction. This innovative work on nature and society provides readers with clear strategies for averting disaster.In their foreword to this new edition of Remaking Society, Marina Sitrin and Debbie Bookchin show that remaking is a continuing project: "If hierarchy has deeply wounded our relationships with each other and the natural world, capitalism has plunged a knife that much more deeply into the wound. Capitalism, Bookchin] believes, has distorted every aspect of political, social, and even personal life.... Our challenge then is to build movements everywhere that will preserve and expand our innate creativity and eradicate any tendencies toward hierarchy, status, or other forms of domination."

In a world in which fear and insecurity are being twisted into hate, and inequalities, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise, a renewed municipalist movement is standing up to defend human rights, radical democracy and the common good. In 2015 in Spain, housing rights activist Ada Colau was elected mayor of Barcelona, and movements from the squares won local elections across the country on manifestos pledging to tackle corruption and radicalize democracy. In the United States, cities are on the front line of resistance to Trump, standing up for diversity, women's and LGBTI rights, and working to tackle climate change. In Turkey and Syria, Kurdish democratic confederalism is a beacon of participatory democracy, feminism and human rights in a sea of violence and discrimination. In Latin America, new municipalist movements are springing up and working to fight poverty and inequality by building economic alternatives from below. It includes: The theoretical underpinnings of municipalism, including the politics of proximity and the movement's role in feminizing politics and stopping the far right. Examples of real radical policies being implemented in town and cities across the world to guarantee the right to housing, remunicipalize basic services and democratize decision-making. Practical organizing strategies and tools from municipalist platforms, from how to draw up a participatory manifesto to how to crowdsource funding or hold a neighbourhood assembly. Profiles of 50 pioneering municipalist platforms from around the world.

Jonas Salk's polio vaccine is regarded as a veritbale medical miracle, for it largely eradicated one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century. But the story of the vaccine has a dark side, one that has never been fully told before. Between 1954 and 1963, close to 98 million Americans received polio vaccinations contaminated with a carcinogenic monkey virus, now known as SV40. The government downplayed the incident, and it was generally accepted that although oncogenic to lab animals, SV40 was harmless to humans. But now SV40 is showing up in human cancers, and prominent researchers are demanding a serious public health response to this forgotten polio vaccine contaminant. A gripping medical detective story, "The Virus and the Vaccine" raises major questions about vaccine policy.