Writing On The Wall

Today we are endlessly connected: constantly tweeting, texting or e-mailing. This may seem unprecedented, yet it is not. Throughout history, information has been spread through social networks, with far-reaching social and political effects. Writing on the Wall reveals how an elaborate network of letter exchanges forewarned of power shifts in Cicero's Rome, while the torrent of tracts circulating in sixteenth-century Germany triggered the Reformation. Standage traces the story of the rise, fall and rebirth of social media over the past 2,000 years offering an illuminating perspective on the history of media, and revealing that social networks do not merely connect us today – they also link us to the past.

The Writing on the Wall tells the story of the art and life of Siksika (Blackfeet) artist, curator, writer and activist Dr. Joane Cardinal-Schubert, RCA.

'Memoirs such as this will ensure we do not lose the struggle against "forgetting" - that sly accomplice of tyranny' Magda Szubanski In 1939, as Hitler's troops march on Prague, a Jewish couple makes a heartbreaking decision that will save their eight-year-old son's life but change their family forever. Australian journalist Juliet Rieden grew up in England in the 1960s and 70s always sensing that her family was different in some way. She longed to have relatives and knew precious little about her Czech father's childhood as a refugee. On the night before Juliet's father died, in 2006, Juliet's father suddenly looked up and said: 'The plane is in the hangar.' In the years after his death, Juliet comes to truly understand the significance of these words. On a trip to Prague she is shocked to see the Rieden name written many times over on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue memorial. These names become the catalyst for a life-changing journey that uncovers a personal Holocaust tragedy of epic proportions. Juliet traces the grim fate of her father's cousins, aunts and uncles on visits to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps and learns about the extremes of cruelty, courage and kindness. Then in a locked box in Britain's National Archives, she discovers a stash of documents including letters from her father that reveal intimate details of his struggle. Meticulously researched and beautifully told, this is the moving story of a woman's quest to piece together the hidden parts of her father's life and the unimaginable losses he was determined to protect his children from. PRAISE FOR THE WRITING ON THE WALL 'Rieden sets out to chart her story with a journalist's rigour: facts, timelines, archival material. She does it brilliantly. But it is the small, powerful resonant moments within a harrowing arc that bring her story alive.' The Australian

A critical analysis of Israel's control of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, advocating a normative and functional approach.

Now published in paperback, this book is the first systematic study to explore the way in which words have encroached on the visual arts from the late 19th century to the present day. From the Impressionists to contemporary practitioners, Writing on the Wall shows how artists have responded to an environment increasingly saturated with words, and how the mass media has adopted and adapted artistic devices in typography, propaganda and advertising.

Mumia Abu Jamal’s essential perspectives on black experience, race relations, freedom, justice, social change, and the future of American society.

Decades of State and non-State violence in India’s landlocked North-east have taken a heavy toll on livelihoods, incomes, governance, growth and image, besides lives. Despite vast amounts of money being pumped into the region, basic needs and minimum services are yet to be met in terms of connectivity, health, education and power. What are the possible ways forward as the region stands at a crossroads? These fifteen personal essays provide an insider’s take on wide-ranging issues: from the Brahmaputra and the use of natural resources to peace talks in Nagaland; from the Centre’s failure to repeal the hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act, threats to the environment, corruption in government and extortion by armed groups to New Delhi’s Look East Policy and much more. Yet, as these essays make clear, hope, though distant, is not absent or lost. Restoring governance through people-driven development programmes, peace building through civil society initiatives, assuring the pre-eminence of local communities as evident in Hazarika’s conversations with the legendary Naga leader, Th. Muivah, and simple economic interventions through appropriate technologies — boats and health care, community mobilization and micro-credit — hold promise for solutions to the web of violence, poverty and marginalization. Writing on the Wall is a passionate call to all stakeholders in the North-east to embrace dialogue and use given platforms for peace, to go beyond the politics of tolerance to that of mutual respect. Only such multi-disciplinary, innovative approaches, rooted in realism, can bring stability and sustainable change to the region.

The 2008 global financial crisis has led to the re-emergence in public discourse of the idea that capitalism could end. For many, it was proof of the notion that capitalist civilisation has an endemic tendency towards crisis that will ultimately bring about its demise. Must we assume, however, that such an eventuality would inevitably result in the liberation of humanity, as many orthodox Marxists claim? Through a collection of specially revised essays, first published in France between 2007 and 2010, Anselm Jappe draws on the radical new perspective of “the critique of value” as a critical tool with which to understand today’s world and to re-examine the question of human emancipation. The Writing on the Wall offers a powerful new analysis of the decomposition of capitalism and its critics.