Selling Our Death Masks

A radical historical ethnography on the meaning of a fundamentally new physical landscape of our age of austerity: cash-for-gold shops that numerically exploded in the wake of the worst economic crisis of our times.

The Dresden Files have taken the genre of paranormal mystery to a new level of action, excitement, and hard-hitting magical muscle. Now, in Death Masks, Jim Butcher’s smart-guy private eye may have taken on more than he can handle... Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But he also knows that whenever things are going good, the only way left for them to go is bad. Way bad. Such as: • A duel with the lethal champion of the Red Court, who must kill Harry to end the war between vampires and wizards... • Professional hit men using Harry for target practice... • The missing Shroud of Turin—and the possible involvement of Chicago's most feared mob boss... • A handless and headless corpse the Chicago police need identified... Not to mention the return of Harry’s ex-girlfriend Susan, who’s still struggling with her semi-vampiric nature. And who seems to have a new man in her life. Some days, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. No matter how much you’re charging.

The National Bestseller “Focused and persuasive... Bray’s book is many things: the first English-language transnational history of antifa, a how-to for would-be activists, and a record of advice from anti-Fascist organizers past and present.”—THE NEW YORKER "Insurgent activist movements need spokesmen, intellectuals and apologists, and for the moment Mark Bray is filling in as all three... The book’s most enlightening contribution is on the history of anti-fascist efforts over the past century, but its most relevant for today is its justification for stifling speech and clobbering white supremacists."—Carlos Lozada, THE WASHINGTON POST “[Bray’s] analysis is methodical, and clearly informed by both his historical training and 15 years of organizing, which included Occupy Wall Street…Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook couldn’t have emerged at a more opportune time. Bray’s arguments are incisive and cohesive, and his consistent refusal to back down from principle makes the book a crucial intervention in our political moment.”—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE In the wake of tragic events in Charlottesville, VA, and Donald Trump's initial refusal to denounce the white nationalists behind it all, the "antifa" opposition movement is suddenly appearing everywhere. But what is it, precisely? And where did it come from? As long as there has been fascism, there has been anti-fascism — also known as “antifa.” Born out of resistance to Mussolini and Hitler in Europe during the 1920s and ’30s, the antifa movement has suddenly burst into the headlines amidst opposition to the Trump administration and the alt-right. They could be seen in news reports, often clad all in black with balaclavas covering their faces, demonstrating at the presidential inauguration, and on California college campuses protesting far-right speakers, and most recently, on the streets of Charlottesville, VA, protecting, among others, a group of ministers including Cornel West from neo-Nazi violence. (West would later tell reporters, "The anti-fascists saved our lives.") Simply, antifa aims to deny fascists the opportunity to promote their oppressive politics, and to protect tolerant communities from acts of violence promulgated by fascists. Critics say shutting down political adversaries is anti-democratic; antifa adherents argue that the horrors of fascism must never be allowed the slightest chance to triumph again. In a smart and gripping investigation, historian and former Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray provides a detailed survey of the full history of anti-fascism from its origins to the present day — the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism in English. Based on interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, Antifa details the tactics of the movement and the philosophy behind it, offering insight into the growing but little-understood resistance fighting back against fascism in all its guises.

Tracing the flows of people, material items, and digital content between Havana and Miami, as well as between Cuba and Panama, Guyana, and Mexico, this book demonstrates the worldmaking of marginalized Cuban communities in a transnational setting.

Poignant stories from one of the world’s largest political exoduses of children Praise for the first edition: “Compelling reading.”—New Republic “A collection of tearful testimonies woven with a tale of the event that unfolded in Cuba and led desperate parents to make the heart-wrenching decision to send their children along to a foreign country.”—Miami Herald “[Conde] does an impressive job of reporting dozens of personal stories and fascinating vignettes. . . . A compilation of tales, some moving, many astonishing.”—Chicago Tribune “A well-researched history of Operation Pedro Pan, a portrait of early revolutionary Cuba and a compendium of testimony from the now-grown children.”—Publishers Weekly “The book’s primary value lies in the individual stories, from tearful departure and arrival in Miami to temporary shelters and placement in homes or, in some cases, in orphanages; to learning a new language and adjusting and, in many cases, assimilating; to reunions with parents, adolescence in the ’60s and ’70s, and adulthood.”—Booklist “Conde does an excellent job of narrating the essential outline of the history of Operation Pedro Pan, and an equally superb job of analyzing the circumstances that created this exodus, from the viewpoint of those who felt compelled to create it and keep it going. . . . Operation Pedro Pan is . . . as much a primary source as it is a work of history, as much a window onto a mentality as it is a guide to events, names, and institutions.”—Carlos M. N. Eire, Hispanic American Historical Review “Fascinating is the least one can say about this book. It’s the story of thousands of Cuban children who wouldn’t grow up under communism and were sent by their parents to the never-never land of America. Some of them lived happily ever after because this version of Peter Pan is a tragedy with a happy ending sometimes. Fidel Castro, by the way, plays a very credible Captain Hook.”—Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Cervantes Prize‒winning novelist On August 11, 1961, at the age of ten, Yvonne Conde left Cuba in one of the world’s largest political exoduses of children in history—Operation Pedro Pan. Between 1960 and 1962 over 14,000 children were sent out of Cuba alone by desperate parents who feared for their children’s future under Castro. Unlike Peter Pan, however, these children continued to grow up even while separated from their families. As the children arrived in temporary camps in Miami, volunteers such as Father Bryan O. Walsh helped them find new homes across the country. Conde tracked down hundreds of these children to tell their diverse stories—their uplifting, poignant, and sometimes tragic experiences in American foster homes and orphanages. Because Conde herself was a Pedro Pan child, others have opened up to her like never before to share their feelings about this painful time in their lives. Today, these children and their families struggle to heal the emotional scars of their long separation. In this edition, with a new prologue, Conde looks back on Operation Pedro Pan from the vantage point of six decades and brings readers up to date on events and discoveries since the groundbreaking first publication of this book in 1999. Writing with compassion and rare insight, Conde uncovers the true tales of a little-known episode of the Cold War.

Freedom's Captives offers a compelling, narrative-driven history of the gradual abolition of slavery in the majority-black Colombian Pacific.

Crisis and Criticism is a series of interventions from 2009 to 2021 engaging with the literary, cultural and political responses to the capitalist crisis of 2007–8. Challenging the tendency to treat crisis as natural and beyond human control, this book interrogates our cultural understanding of crisis and suggests the necessity of ruthless criticism of the existing world. While responses to crisis have retreated from the critical, choosing to inhabit apocalyptic fantasies instead, only a critical understanding of the causes of crisis within capitalism itself can promise their eventual overcoming.