In Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below, Dario Azzellini offers an account of the Bolivarian Revolution from below. While authors on Venezuela commonly concentrate on former president Hugo Chávez and government politics, this book shows how workers, peasants and the poor in urban communities engage in building 21st century socialism through popular movements, communal councils, communes and fighting for workers' control. In a relationship of cooperation and conflict with the state, social transformation is approached on 'two tracks', from below and from above. Azzellini’s fascinating account stands out because of the extensive empirical examples and original voices from movements, communal councils, communes and workers.

Cultural Writing. SHIFTING BORDERS, NEGOTIATING PLACES is a compilation of papers presented at the international conference on cultural studies held at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 2000 and indicate some of the many directions scholars working in cultural studies have taken. Presented in both English and Italian (without translation), these papers present investigations sparked by European political and economic unification, globalization, and the place of cultural studies in apprehending and theorizing transnational change. Cultural studies may have taken hold in Italy later than it did in Great Britian and North America, but Italian academia now includes both many enthusiastic practitioners and a committed audience, as the diverse proceedings of this intellectually satisfying conference indicate.