Hyper-capitalism and extreme identity politics are driving us to distraction. Both destroy the basis of a common life shared across ages and classes. The COVID-19 crisis could accelerate these tendencies further, or it could herald something more hopeful: a post-liberal moment. Adrian Pabst argues that now is the time for an alternative – postliberalism – that is centred around trust, dignity, and human relationships. Instead of reverting to the destabilising inhumanity of 'just-in-time' free-market globalisation, we could build a politics upon the sense of localism and community spirit, the valuing of family, place and belonging, which was a real theme of lockdown. We are not obliged to put up with the restoration of a broken status quo that erodes trust, undermines institutions and trashes our precious natural environment. We could build a pluralist democracy, decentralise the state, and promote embedded, mutualist markets. This bold book shows that only a politics which fuses economic justice with social solidarity and ecological balance can overcome our deep divisions and save us from authoritarian backlash.​

In the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations, and concern that the internet has heightened rather than combated various forms of political and social inequality, it is time we ask: what comes after a broken internet? Ramesh Srinivasan and Adam Fish reimagine the internet from the perspective of grassroots activists and citizens on the margins of political and economic power. They explore how the fragments of the existing internet are being utilized - alongside a range of peoples, places, and laws - to make change possible. From indigenous and non-Western communities and activists in Tahrir Square, to imprisoned hackers and whistleblowers, this book illustrates how post-digital cultures are changing the internet as we know it - from a system which is increasingly centralized, commodified, and "personalized," into something more in line with its original spirit: autonomous, creative, subversive. The book looks past the limitations of the internet, reconceptualizing network technology in relation to principles of justice and equality. Srinivasan and Fish advocate for an internet that blends the local concerns of grassroots communities and activists with the need to achieve scalable change and transformation.

Increasingly age appears to be the key dividing line in contemporary politics. Young people across the globe are embracing left-wing ideas and supporting figures such as Corbyn and Sanders. Where has this ‘Generation Left’ come from? How can it change the world? This compelling book by Keir Milburn traces the story of Generation Left. Emerging in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, it has now entered the electoral arena and found itself vying for dominance with ageing right-leaning voters and a ‘Third Way’ political elite unable to accept the new realities. By offering a new concept of political generations, Milburn unveils the ideas, attitudes and direction of Generation Left and explains how the age gap can be bridged by reinventing youth and adulthood. This book is essential reading for anyone, young or old, who is interested in addressing the multiple crises of our time.

More objects and devices are connected to digital networks than ever before. Things - from your phone to your car, from the heating to the lights in your house - have gathered the ability to sense their environments and create information about what is happening. Things have become media, able to both generate and communicate information. This has become known as 'the internet of things'. In this accessible introduction, Graham Meikle and Mercedes Bunz observe its promises of convenience and the breaking of new frontiers in communication. They also raise urgent questions regarding ubiquitous surveillance and information security, as well as the transformation of intimate personal information into commercial data. Discussing the internet of things from a media and communication perspective, this book is an important resource for courses analysing the internet and society, and essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand the rapidly changing roles of our networked lives.

Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is generally acclaimed as being among the most influential works of economic history in the twentieth century, and remains as vital in the current historical conjuncture as it was in his own. In its critique of nineteenth-century ‘market fundamentalism’ it reads as a warning to our own neoliberal age, and is widely touted as a prophetic guidebook for those who aspire to understand the causes and dynamics of global economic turbulence at the end of the 2000s. Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market is the first comprehensive introduction to Polanyi’s ideas and legacy. It assesses not only the texts for which he is famous – prepared during his spells in American academia – but also his journalistic articles written in his first exile in Vienna, and lectures and pamphlets from his second exile, in Britain. It provides a detailed critical analysis of The Great Transformation, but also surveys Polanyi’s seminal writings in economic anthropology, the economic history of ancient and archaic societies, and political and economic theory. Its primary source base includes interviews with Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi-Levitt, as well as the entire compass of his own published and unpublished writings in English and German. This engaging and accessible introduction to Polanyi’s thinking will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, providing a refreshing perspective on the roots of our current economic crisis.

In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.