I am so so glad to have read this. It took me forever bc every page is heavily annotated, but it was totally worth it. Klein is very very smart and provides the kind of analysis that you cant get from the mainstream or a politics a level bc they pretend the only options are neoconservatism or neoliberalism. neoliberalism is the worst thing man it makes me so angry
this book also deals a lot with terrorism. I think it's a totally necessary read in this regard. terrorism is a stupid term used mainly for propaganda. the USA shooting down civilian airplanes killing hundreds doesnt count as terrorism, but peaceful protest does? thats where you realise it is bullshit.
Another aspect is protests. People view any form of activist group as bad because theyre challenging elected politicians and therefore democracy. When people expressing their views is the most democratic thing!!! the point is democracy is a word that has been captured and used as a propaganda tool by the west, when western democracies are nowhere close to a true democracy. But you cant criticise them because "its worse elsewhere" it makes me sick.

I learnt about so many things i had never heard of. the us funding anti democratic terrorist groups and coups in Guatemala and Nicaragua. the battle for seattle, the zapatistas. to name a few

I liked her earlier book, "No Logo" but this one seemed to drag a bit. It was also a bit repetitive in places, I guess because these were actually written as op-ed or other pieces that she collected together for the book. It is still quite relevant given the silly season going on in the US at this time. Sadly folks in the US would not likely read this and most wouldn't get it if they did. Otherwise how do you explain Trump.

P.S. I have been away from my Goodreads desk for several months. My review is scant since I simply don't remember a lot of the details from my reading of it.

Fantastic, prophetic, depressingly topical, but still and urgent message that too many have and will continue to ignore.

Well worth reading.

Klein is on point as always, ripping apart arguments for the neoliberal, neocolonial globalisation order, providing some of the most fierce arguments against it while also revealing windows of hope especially in indigenous struggles and showing through articles and speeches the way that mobilisation for a different globalisation - of commons and solidarity - could, and in some instances, does work.

This book gave for me, an industrial engineering student, new perspectives to politics and economy. Economy is not simple, especially global economy. I feel a bit contradictory, but that's just good. I have a lot to think.

Es el segundo libro que leo de Naomi Klein, más que un diario de lucha como lo fue No Logo realmente se trata de una recopilacion de articulos escritos de forma individual, personalmente me hubiera gustado que continuara con el estilo narrativo de No Logo, sin embargo tiene muy buenos articulos personalmente el que mas me impacto fue el de "Calculo Brutal del Sufrimiento".

This collection of short articles and speeches served mostly to chronicle the explosion of anti-globalism protests that dominated world news up until the eve of September 11, 2001 and its quick demise. This was clearly not the intent of the author who, writing in 2002, seemed to imply the beginning of an international movement to end the uncontested hegemony of the neo-liberal economic policy. While I applauded Klein for trying to justify the amorphous nature of these protest and the attention she gives to signs that it was developing into something more tangible, the two decades passed since the movement and the almost identical arch of the “Occupy” movement of the early 2010s gives me little hope that this style of protest would ever amount to much.

I love reading books by people who are way smarter than me. Definitely need to pick up some of Klein's more recent work.

must read, eye opening book about trade, politics, and democracy

Una serie di articoli scritti dalla Klein nell'arco di alcuni anni a partire da seattle, e dell'inizio del movimento antiglobalizzazione, per passare da Porto Alegre, senza dimenticare Genova e le torri gemelle.
Un bignami su cosa è il movimento, dove va, che cosa vuole, perché lo vuole, e, soprattutto, sul perché è nel nostro interesse essere d'accordo con il movimento e non con la Banca Mondiale e l'FMI.

Both Inspiring/enlightening and discouraging. Much has remained the same or has gotten worse. Great writing; well deserved praise for her reports and observations, she nails it frequently:
"....when Wally Olins, co-founder of... brand consultancy, was asked for his take on America’s image problem, he complained that people don’t have a single clear idea about what the country stands for but rather have dozens if not hundreds of ideas that ”are mixed up in people’s heads in a most extraordinary way. So you will often find people both admiring and abusing America, even in the same sentence.”....
Having conflicting views about the U.S.- admiring its creativity, for instance, but resenting its double standards- doesn’t mean you are mixed up” to use Olin’s phrase, it means you are paying attention.”
The possibilities-...”’the participatory budget,’ a system that allows direct citizen participation in the allocation of scarce city resources. Through a network of neighbourhood and issue councils, residents vote directly on which roads will be paved and which health care facilities will be built. In Porte Alegre (Brazil), this devolution of power has brought results that are the mirror opposite of global economic trends. For instance, rather than scaling back on public services for the poor, as is the case nearly everywhere else, the city has increased those services substantially. And rather than spiralling cynicism and voter dropout, democratic participation increases every year.”