This volume is on the Balmikis of Delhi, who work as sanitation workers and keep the city clean. They live in poverty and face sustained discrimination. In response the Balmikis fight to liberate themselves. Untouchable Freedom is the first comprehensive study of this community and traces their struggles from the 1860s to the present, as they have moved from agricultural labor to urban work.

Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community

History

PRASHAD, Vijay

Asia

Oxford University Press

This volume is on the Balmikis of Delhi, who work as sanitation workers and keep the city clean. They live in poverty and face sustained discrimination. In response the Balmikis fight to liberate themselves. Untouchable Freedom is the first comprehensive study of this community and traces their struggles from the 1860s to the present, as they have moved from agricultural labor to urban work.

Land of Blue Helmets: The United Nations and the Arab World

Born in 1945, the United Nations came to life in the Arab world. It was there that the UN dealt with early diplomatic challenges that helped shape its institutions such as peacekeeping and political mediation. It was also there that the UN found itself trapped in, and sometimes part of, confounding geopolitical tensions in key international conflicts in the Cold War and post–Cold War periods, such as hostilities between Palestine and Iraq and between Libya and Syria. Much has changed over the past seven decades, but what has not changed is the central role played by the UN. This book’s claim is that the UN is a constant site of struggle in the Arab world and equally that the Arab world serves as a location for the UN to define itself against the shifting politics of its age. Looking at the UN from the standpoint of the Arab world, this volume collects some of the finest scholars and practitioners writing about the potential and the problems of a UN that is framed by both the promises of its Charter and the contradictions of its member states. This is a landmark book—a close and informed study of the UN in the region that taught the organization how to do its many jobs.

Makdisi, Karim

Middle East

University of California Press

The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution

This fast-paced and timely book from Vijay Prashad is the best critical primer to the Middle East conflicts today, from Syria and Saudi Arabia to the chaos in Turkey. Mixing thrilling anecdotes from street-level reporting that give readers a sense of what is at stake with a bird's-eye view of the geopolitics of the region and the globe, Prashad guides us through the dramatic changes in players, politics, and economics in the Middle East over the last five years. “The Arab Spring was defeated neither in the byways of Tahrir Square nor in the souk of Aleppo,” he explains. “It was defeated roundly in the palaces of Riyadh and Ankara as well as in Washington, DC and Paris.”   The heart of this book explores the turmoil in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—countries where ISIS emerged and is thriving. It is here that the story of the region rests. What would a post-ISIS Middle East look like? Who will listen to the grievances of the people? Can there be another future for the region that is not the return of the security state or the continuation of monarchies? Placing developments in the Middle East in the broader context of revolutionary history, The Death of the Nation tackles these critical questions. 

This fast-paced and timely book from Vijay Prashad is the best critical primer to the Middle East conflicts today, from Syria and Saudi Arabia to the chaos in Turkey. Mixing thrilling anecdotes from street-level reporting that give readers a sense of what is at stake with a bird's-eye view of the geopolitics of the region and the globe, Prashad guides us through the dramatic changes in players, politics, and economics in the Middle East over the last five years. “The Arab Spring was defeated neither in the byways of Tahrir Square nor in the souk of Aleppo,” he explains. “It was defeated roundly in the palaces of Riyadh and Ankara as well as in Washington, DC and Paris.” The heart of this book explores the turmoil in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—countries where ISIS emerged and is thriving. It is here that the story of the region rests. What would a post-ISIS Middle East look like? Who will listen to the grievances of the people? Can there be another future for the region that is not the return of the security state or the continuation of monarchies? Placing developments in the Middle East in the broader context of revolutionary history, The Death of the Nation tackles these critical questions.

From Cuba to Vietnam, from China to South Africa, the October Revolution inspired millions of people beyond the territory of Russia. The Revolution proved that the masses could not only overthrow autocratic governments, but also form an opposing government in their own image. The new idea that the working class and the peasantry could be allied, combined with the clear strength and necessity of a vanguard party, guided multiplying revolutions across the globe. This book explains the ideological power of the October Revolution in the Global South. From Ho Chí Minh to Fidel Castro, to reflections on polycentric Communism and collective memories of Communism, it shows how, for a brief moment, another world was possible. It is not a comprehensive study, but a small book with a large hope – that a new generation will come to see the importance of this revolutionary spirit for the working class and peasantry in the parts of the world that suffered under the heel of colonial domination for centuries.

Red Star Over the Third World

Military

Pluto Press

Selected as One of the Village Voice's Favorite 25 Books of 2001 In this landmark work, historian Vijay Prashad refuses to engage the typical racial discussion that matches people of color against each other while institutionalizing the primacy of the white majority. Instead he examines more than five centuries of remarkable historical evidence of cultural and political interaction between Blacks and Asians around the world, in which they have exchanged cultural and religious symbols, appropriated personas and lifestyles, and worked together to achieve political change. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Beacon Pr

Selected as One of the Village Voice's Favorite 25 Books of 2001 In this landmark work, historian Vijay Prashad refuses to engage the typical racial discussion that matches people of color against each other while institutionalizing the primacy of the white majority. Instead he examines more than five centuries of remarkable historical evidence of cultural and political interaction between Blacks and Asians around the world, in which they have exchanged cultural and religious symbols, appropriated personas and lifestyles, and worked together to achieve political change.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity

Africa

Beacon Press

What does it mean to be a model minority? 
"How does it feel to be a problem?" asked W. E. B. Du Bois of black Americans in his classic The Souls of Black Folk. A hundred years later, Vijay Prashad asks South Asians "How does it feel to be a solution?" In this kaleidoscopic critique, Prashad looks into the complexities faced by the members of a "model minority"-one, he claims, that is consistently deployed as "a weapon in the war against black America." 
On a vast canvas, The Karma of Brown Folk attacks the two pillars of the "model minority" image, that South Asians are both inherently successful and pliant, and analyzes the ways in which U.S. immigration policy and American Orientalism have perpetuated these stereotypes. Prashad uses irony, humor, razor-sharp criticism, personal reflections, and historical research to challenge the arguments made by Dinesh D'Souza, who heralds South Asian success in the U.S., and to question the quiet accommodation to racism made by many South Asians. A look at Deepak Chopra and others whom Prashad terms "Godmen" shows us how some South Asians exploit the stereotype of inherent spirituality, much to the chagrin of other South Asians. Following the long engagement of American culture with South Asia, Prashad traces India's effect on thinkers like Cotton Mather and Henry David Thoreau, Ravi Shankar's influence on John Coltrane, and such essential issues as race versus caste and the connection between antiracism activism and anticolonial resistance. 
The Karma of Brown Folk locates the birth of the "model minority" myth, placing it firmly in the context of reaction to the struggle for Black Liberation. Prashad reclaims the long history of black and South Asian solidarity, discussing joint struggles in the U.S., the Caribbean, South Africa, and elsewhere, and exposes how these powerful moments of alliance faded from historical memory and were replaced by Indian support for antiblack racism. Ultimately, Prashad writes not just about South Asians in America but about America itself, in the tradition of Tocqueville, Du Bois, Richard Wright, and others. He explores the place of collective struggle and multiracial alliances in the transformation of self and community-in short, how Americans define themselves. 
Vijay Prashad is assistant professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

The Karma of Brown Folk

University of Minnesota Press

In January 2020, China alerted major international scientific bodies about the eruption of a dangerous new virus and heavily promoted basic precautions. U.S. politicians and corporate media ridiculed and ignored the warnings.Washington ramped up its policy of racist propaganda, military encirclement, trade war and sanctions. The consequence, tens of thousands of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. – the highest in the world.Rather than global cooperation on testing, vaccine development and PPE supplies, the U.S. chose competition, profits and military build-up.Even with fewer resources, socialist countries, including Cuba and Vietnam, using people’s mobilizations, were better prepared to protect their populations. Their death rates are among the lowest. What can we learn?An anthology by social justice activists. Edited by: Sara Flounders & Lee Siu Hin

Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S.

Griswold, Deirdre

Baraka, Ajamu

Hin, Lee Siu

Flounders, Sara

Martínez, Carlos

Moorehead, Monica

Zeese, Kevin

Jamal, Mumia Abu

Kimberley, Margaret

Politics & Government

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PRASHAD, Vijay. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by PRASHAD, Vijay

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PRASHAD, Vijay. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community

Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community

Land of Blue Helmets: The United Nations and the Arab World

The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution

The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution

Red Star Over the Third World

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity

The Karma of Brown Folk

Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S.