There are few books that attempt to interpret the world and how it is run.The Leaderless Revolution offers a refreshing and potent contrast to the Panglossian optimism of Tom Friedman's The World is Flatbut, like that book, it offers a way of understanding the world of the 21stcentury that is both clear and easily comprehensible. Carne Ross takes different angles on contemporary issues - economics, politics, the state of democracy, the environment and terrorism - wrapping them into a unified explanation of how money and power function to control the lives of the earth's inhabitants, such that they feel powerless to affect their collective future. It seems that mankind has settled upon liberal democracy as the ideal form of government. Its triumph with the collapse of communism signalled the end of ideological struggle and thus of history. The Leaderless Revolutionwill show however that even in democracies, many if not most of the population feel that they are excluded from any agency over the issues that most trouble them, while governments appear less and less able to influence the global problems that threaten our peace and comforts. Mining the rich but little-examined histories of both cosmopolitanism and anarchism, The Leaderless Revolutionshows how both ideas, in combination, are relevant and necessary for the problems of today. Not only an antidote to our global crises; Carne Ross offers, moreover, a route to fulfillment and self-realisation.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve read a more interesting, informing, and inspiring book.”—Bill Moyers What can we do beyond Occupy Wall Street? Political and economic systems are failing us, and it’s time for citizens to create change—individually and collaboratively. In The Leaderless Revolution, Carne Ross sounds a call to action. With dramatic stories from the United States and around the world, Ross’s analysis contrasts with the naïve, Panglossian optimism of globalization boosters like Thomas Friedman. Uncontrolled economic volatility, perpetual insecurity, rampant inequality, and accelerating climate change are heading us into a dangerous period of prolonged crisis. Ross—a former British diplomat to Iraq who resigned over his nation’s involvement in the U.S.-led invasion—draws from his own experiences to offer an empowering new vision of how we can put things right.

The most dangerous enemy: One person with a grudge and a plan

Independent Diplomat is a compelling insider's account of the foreign policy world. Carne Ross was a diplomat on the front line of today's most pressing issues, from Israel/Palestine to Afghanistan and Iraq, over which he resigned from the British Foreign Office. He was trained to see the world through a prism of states and interests, but the reality of his negotiations revealed very different - more complex, and more human - forces at play. Independent Diplomat exposes this fundamental weakness of institutional diplomacy: exclusion of those most affected by its outcomes, whether at the UN, the EU or within national foreign ministries. Illustrated with vivid episodes from his career - from New York to Kabul - Ross offers a refreshing critique of contemporary diplomacy and of how to put it right.

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a leftist dissident who spent sixteen years as a political prisoner and now lives in exile. He describes with precision and fervour the events that led to Syria's 2011 uprising, the metamorphosis of the popular revolution into a regional war, and the 'three monsters' Saleh sees 'treading on Syria's corpse': the Assad regime and its allies, ISIS and other jihadists, and Russia and the US. Where conventional wisdom has it that Assad's army is now battling religious fanatics for control of the country, Saleh argues that the emancipatory, democratic mass movement that ignited the revolution still exists, though it is beset on all sides. The Impossible Revolution is a powerful, compelling critique of Syria's catastrophic war, which has profoundly reshaped the lives of millions of Syrians.

A comprehensive account of how revolutions begin, unfold and end, featuring a wide range of cases from across modern world history. Drawing on international relations, sociology, and global history, Lawson outlines the benefits of a 'global historical sociology' of revolutionary change, in which international processes take centre stage.

How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.