Evidently the "ordinary person" referred to in the title must be hit over the head repeatedly with the same tired rants against neoliberalism and far right radicalism to be properly introduced to empire. Needlessly repetitive and insufficiently nuanced for anyone with more than a passing knowledge of international politics and development. Credit where credit is due, though - Roy can rage against the machine like no one else. The energy and passion in her arguments are almost tangible; I just wish they were a little more constructive.

on of the only books I have found that explain modern colonial law. Cote DiVior and Ghana cannot sell chocolate at a profit because the tarrifs against them are so high. So they must sell cocoa beans to france belgium and the US, who grind the beans with sugar and sell it as chocolate. There are no tarrifs against french Chocolate. Ony against ghana, and Cote Divoir Chocolate. And slavery exist in these places on chocolate farms.If they could make a real profit by selling chocolate they could afford to end slavery and pay real wages. Our colonial tarrifs force them into slavery. That is what colonialism is, lawful economic subjugation.

At first I felt that Roy was simply rehashing other journalist musings concerning the rise of a type of neo-liberal imperialism that has taken over in the last 10 years, in particular after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. However, Roy's rhetorical skills are unsurpassable. I was not aware of her activist work, and her skill in culling evidence, displaying logic, and drawing in a listener of her speeches or reader of these speeches is insurmountable.

This is an excellent collection of speeches that Roy made around 2003 and 2004, and the entire set of essays can be read in 1 or 2 settings. For Western readers the strength of the neo-liberal state in India as described in a few of these essays would be particularly informative and insightful.

Reading Arundhati Roy is not an pleasant experience. How could it be, when every word she writes is bloated with her frustrated dejection? She, sometimes, employs black humour and satire to put her points forth, but that doesn't necessarily give you laughter, does it?
She seethes with anger with what she sees around and attacks vehemently the very reason she feels oppressed for, with the only weapon she wields well - her pen. She agitates you, takes you to uncomfortable places, asks you questions that you have always ignored and rouses the dissident on you against the authority.

She writes - "....Though it might appear otherwise, my writing is not really about nations and histories; it's about power. About the paranoia and ruthlessness of power. About the physics of power. I believe that the accumulation of vast unfettered power by a State or a country, a corporation or an institution - or even an individual, a spouse, a friend, a sibling -regardless of ideology, results in excesses...."

Of course, there are always two sides of the story. Though her opinions are backed by extensive research, that doesn't force you to accept whatever she says. She also agrees to this and invites you to do more research before jumping to any sort of conclusion. She is just putting her views across ------ There can never be a single story. There are only ways of seeing. So when I tell a story, I tell it not as an ideologue who wants to pit one absolutist ideology against another, but as a story-teller who wants to share her way of seeing......

Most of her researches are against the authority, and especially in this book the authority of American Government, who so blatantly and inhumanly raises war for profit in the name of dispensing justice. Who gave them the rights to be the messiah of justice anyway?

OK Ma'am. I heard you. I cannot say I entirely agree with your opinions and conclusions, though. I have to understand more before I come to any sort of judgement.

Only problem, I have with this collection of her essays, that those are sometimes very repetitive and doesn't add more to what she had said earlier.

As one of the reviewers rightly says, "...whether you agree with her or disagree with her, adore her or despise her, you will want to read her." Yes, she is very good writer.

An important votary of anti-imperialism shares her fears and hopes in these speeches/essays . They are all peppered with Arundhati Roy's trademark irony and wit. Hope all Americans get to read this. This Arundhati Roy is our own Chomsky.

I read this a halfway a long time ago, this was somewhat boring too but still, it's a good piece to learn power, democracy, justice and injustice. The chapter about the devastation in Iraq is an eye-opener that how Bush invades and destroys.

In this book, Roy talks about how the Empire (US) manages to control other countries for its profit, no matter what rights are trampled and lives are lost (in wars and smaller conflicts). Iraq is used as an example, and this is still fairly fresh though the book is 10 years old now. Iraq is still far from being messy even though war isn't really there now.

There is also useful insight in India's hair-rising wrongs - how little of it we read in our news, but then there's plenty of other countries whose similar awful things are never heard much, no doubt about it. I really do feel bad for the oppressed there, cornered pretty much by the majority.

Roy's writing style is on point, doesn't wander and have plenty of sentences to underline. Nothing too long or complicated so that one would feel accomplished for understanding what was written (something that happens to me sometimes with some writers *cough*).

After reading about all the wrongs that the Empire (US) and other goverments (in this case India is used as another example), Roy still manages to write in her optimism and hopes for the future, however shaky (suggesting boycotts and refusing to serve as some actions; don't know how effective they are but at least one could say to have tried and not done anything). This makes the book less heavy and gloomy.

Collection of her speeches. Very readable. Very short. She does compare herself to the pardoned White House turkey. Good times. Not anything I didn’t know – the system is brutal and people are duped into thinking they are free. Went through some specifics in India that I didn’t know where the oppression was not terribly subtle.

Passionate analysis of corporate-led neoliberal globalization. "Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy" and "Do Turkeys Enjoy Thanksgiving?" are particularly good narratives about the spectacles of "democracy," "liberalism" and "development," especially the use of token people ("turkeys") as veils for exclusion and exploitation. Some of the rhetoric is too over the top, but the book is generally very valuable.

I agree that the American government during the Bush administration was and did everything she accuses it of. And I appreciate that she iterates and reiterates that a nation's people and its government must not be confused as one and the same. Not particularly helpful in the providing alternatives or solutions department, however. Curious as to what she thinks now.

An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (Paperback)
by Arundhati Roy

I picked up this book while in India last fall. The hotel I was staying at in Jaipur was selling it in their gift shop. I started it while still traveling but didn't finish it until the beginning of the new year. Consisting of a collection of essays and lectures given on the topic of empire, verbalization, trade and resistance within the context of the developing world (especially focusing on India) it is filled with Roy's usual politically charged cries to action. Although I have always been aware of the immense sectarian challenges facing modern India this book was a timely accounting of the issues, given that while I was there there were a number of bombings and "terrorist" incidents some involving and perpetrated by Hindu nationalist ideologues. At times the arguments, facts and figures became repetitive as the general thrust of her polemic was often repeated from lecture to lecture. However, the strength of her conviction and the demand for justice cannot and should not be ignored. The most innovative (read; new to me) idea which was discussed was her critique of the rise of NGO's internationally. The phrase she uses is the "NGO-ization of resistance. While she makes clear that she is not demonizing the work of NGOs she does stress that NGOs can create and facilitate a false sense of engagement, hope and political resistance without any of the real impacts and gains of actual resistance..

What is “Empire”? The elucidation of this question is what is attempted in this book by Arundhati Roy.

It is actually a collection of her essays, articles and speeches during the period 2002 – 2004, and not a book with a beginning, middle and end. But one theme runs through all these seemingly unconnected pieces – how the cancer of corporate power is choking our supposedly “free” world.

The essay “The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire” has been aptly chosen as the title of the book, for here Ms. Roy sets out to define empire in simple terms for the layperson.

This essay, along with many others are written with background of Bush Junior’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, to oust Saddam Hussein and uncover the “weapons of mass destruction”. Arundhati calls it out for what it is – the removal of a dictator who will no longer his master’s bidding, like the putting down of a hunting dog which has served its purpose. She reminds us, time and again, that it was America and its allies who propped Saddam up against Iran – the moment he disobeyed and attacked Kuwait, however, he became evil personified.

The destruction of Iraq (there is no milder word for it) has got one ulterior motive, however – give the exclusive right to “rebuild” Iraq to crony companies like Bechtel, Halliburton et al. And here is where the empire part comes in; because today’s empire is not a nation-centric but corporation-centric. These multinational corporations call all the shots and governments have to agree: because the political parties of the first world are bankrolled by them, and the poorer countries which are dependent on them must allow these economic behemoths to invade their world, otherwise they would be termed “investment unfriendly”. And we know what that would lead to – economic sanctions, ostracisation and in the worst case, invasion.

One of the myths of neoliberalism is development. Any kind of engineering and construction activity is seen as positive and any opposition to the same is considered “anti-development” in the normal case and in the worst case, “anti-national”. And on this theme, based on her interaction with the Narmada Bachao Andolan activists, Ms. Roy gives us a number of poignant essays and speeches about India’s dark underbelly: about the Dalits and Adivasis, the absolute have-nots who are considered collateral damage by the government as India strides forward on her agenda to dominate South Asia. Nobody with a heart can read through these essays (especially “The Road to Harsud”) without shedding a tear. And who is benefited? Naturally, the corporations, the World Bank, the IMF... the guys who hold the purse strings.

But a free country with a market economy and free press – isn’t that the ideal? We have been fed so many horror stories about communism over the years that we consider ourselves lucky to live in a free society. But who is this freedom benefitting?

The crisis in modern democracy is a profound one. Free elections, free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder.

For the bottom strata, pretty much the only freedom available is to starve and die.

Arundhati is also scathing in her criticism of the “free” press, echoing Noam Chomsky’s The Manufacture of Consent. The press is also controlled by mammon. So the reports we get are heavily skewed towards what the media barons want us to believe (in the post-truth world, this has now even degenerated to outright lies – though the author does not specifically mention it).

How to fight against this monster?

Arundhati Roy advocates continuous activism, spanning across national boundaries and political ideologies. And the fight should not only be symbolic, but should aim to hit empire where it hurts most – their profits. Boycotts, citizens’ protests, civil disobedience etc. hold the key. Ms. Roy cites the example of Gandhiji’s Dandi march time and again.

***

As I said in the beginning, this book lacks a coherent structure and there is repetition ad nauseum, so there is bound to be reader frustration. And I am a bit doubtful of how far her ideas of worldwide peaceful protests would work nowadays, given the fact that society has become highly stratified and many have slipped into violent ways of protest.
But for all that, the problems she highlighted are very valid – and she writes so lucidly and beautifully. For that alone, this book is worth a read.