Civil Liberties & Political Activism

“Thoughtful and often moving.” Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian

Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars provides important theoretical background and context to the ‘gender wars’ or ‘TERF wars’ – the fracture at the forefront of the LGBTQ international conversation. Using queer and female masculinities as a lens, Finn Mackay investigates the current generational shift that is refusing the previous assumed fixity of sex, gender and sexual identity. Transgender and trans rights movements are currently experiencing political backlash from within certain lesbian and lesbian feminist groups, resulting in a situation in which these two minority communities are frequently pitted against one another or perceived as diametrically opposed.

Uniquely, Finn Mackay approaches this debate through the context of female masculinity, butch and transmasculine lesbian masculinities. There has been increasing interest in the study of masculinity, influenced by a popular discourse around so-called ‘toxic masculinity’, the rise of men’s rights activism and theory and critical work on Trump’s America and the MeToo movement.

An increasingly important topic in political science and sociological academia, this book aims to break new ground in the discussion of the politics of gender and identity.

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The surge in divisive and far-right politics and growing Islamophobia in Britain pose new challenges for Muslim advocacy organisations. British Muslim activism has taken centre stage in the public sphere as a result. Yet for over fifty years Muslim advocacy groups have worked to preserve religious identity, lobby the state and provide concerted responses to the political establishment.
This is the first book to chart critically the national and global factors influencing the political mobilisation of British Muslim activists as Muslims. Khadijah Elshayyal traces the changes of thought, direction and method within Muslim identity politics after 1960, noting key organisations and turning points such as the Rushdie Affair, the 9/11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings and the current conflict in Syria. The book argues that the Rushdie Affair prompted new debate around the subject of freedom of expression, which has continued to be a point of contention ever since. Providing a history of the interaction between Muslim advocacy groups and the state, and the impact of state policy on Muslim communities, Muslims Identity Politics shows that Muslim citizens continue to experience an `equality gap’ and recommends where transformation and progress can be made. Based on primary sources and in-depth interviews, this book is a vital resource for government officials, policy-makers and researchers interested in multiculturalism, Islamophobia and security issues in Britain.

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Discover the power and impact of protest art with this authoritative, richly illustrated history of social and political protest graphics from around the world.
 
Expertly written and unique in its scope, this extraordinary book features hundreds of the best examples of posters, prints, murals, graffiti, political cartoons and other endlessly inventive graphic forms that have been used in political protest throughout history and to the present.
 
Spanning continents and centuries, Protest! documents the vital role of the visual arts in calling for freedom and change. It examines how graphics have been used to highlight injustice, protest wars, satirize authority figures, demand equal rights and fight for an end to discrimination.
 
An astounding emotional visual exploration which includes:
Hogarth’s Gin Lane, Goya’s Disasters of War, Thomas Nast’s political caricatures, French and British comics, postcards from the women’s suffrage movement, satirical anti-fascist magazines­, ‘Ban the Bomb’ demonstrations, clothing of the 1960s counterculture, Cuban revolutionary poster art, the anti-apartheid illustrated book How to Commit Suicide in South Africa, the “Silence=Death” emblem from the AIDS crisis, The Last Whole Earth Catalog, anti-corporate advertising campaigns, Stonewall posters and postcards, murals created during the Arab Spring, electronic graphics from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, posters created for the Women’s March, the Trump Baby inflatable blimp, the magazine Charlie Hebdo, Black Lives Matter posters and flags.

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The great scholar of Islam directly confronts the events of September 11th and the reasons behind Islamic terrorism in the modern world – a Sunday Times bestseller.

President Bush has made it clear that we are engaged in a war against terrorism. But for Osama bin Laden and his followers this is religious war, a war for Islam against infidels, especially the United States, the greatest power in the world of the infidels. In this book Bernard Lewis shows us where the anger and frustration have come from, and the extent to which almost the entire Muslim world is affected by poverty and tyranny.

He looks at the influence of extreme Wahhabist doctrines in the Saudi kingdom, where custodianship of Islam’s holy places and the revenues of oil have given worldwide impact to what would otherwise have been an extremist fringe in a marginal country. He looks at American double standards, which have long caused Muslim anger, and tells us the real meaning of `Islamic fundamentalism’, `jihad’ and `fatwa’, and why the peoples of the Middle East are conscious of history in a way most Americans find difficult to understand.

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‘An indispensable guide to the law and your rights, giving you a lawyer in your pocket for a multitude of legal questions and problems that crop up in everyday life. … Exceptional’ – The Secret Barrister
‘Brilliant and generous and very necessary’ – Sarah Langford, author of In Your Defense
‘A triumph of a book. It should form the basis for a national curriculum in law.’ – Joanna Hardy-Susskind

From junior barrister Christian Weaver comes an indispensable guide to your basic legal rights.

We engage with the law every day: when we leave the house, and even when we don’t, we’re bound by rules we don’t even notice. Until they’re used against us. Knowing our rights means taking control of our lives.

In this handbook, lawyer Christian Weaver brings together everything you need to know to claim your space in the world. Whether you are arguing with your landlord, looking for a refund, going to a protest or being harassed, this essential guide illuminates the full power of the law, and arms you with your rights, including:
– in a relationship
– at home
– out on the street
– when you’ve spent money, owe it or are owed it

From housing to relationships, police conduct to travel, this guide will give you the confidence and clarity to take control in any situation.

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Written by a number of Islamic religious authorities and Muslim scholars, this work presents the views and teachings of mainstream Sunni and Shi’i Islam on the subject of jihad. It authoritatively presents jihad as it is understood by the majority of the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today, and supports this understanding with extensive detail and scholarship. No word in English evokes more fear and misunderstanding than “jihad.” To date the books that have appeared on the subject in English by Western scholars have been either openly partisan and polemical or subtly traumatized by so many acts and images of terrorism in the name of jihad and by the historical memory of nearly 1,400 years of confrontation between Islam and Christianity. Though jihad is the central concern of War and Peace in Islam: The Uses and Abuses of Jihad, the range of the essays is not confined exclusively to the study of jihad. The work is divided into three parts: War and Its Practice, Peace and Its Practice, and Beyond Peace: The Practice of Forbearance, Mercy, Compassion and Love. The book aims to reveal the real meaning of jihad and to rectify many of the misunderstandings that surround both it and Islam’s relation with the “Other.”

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