In Being Human in Digital Cities, Myria Georgiou explores how technology reshapes urban life, transforming how we relate to ourselves, each other and the space around us. Examining the digital order’s influence, including datafication, surveillance and mapping, Georgiou’s essential book advocates for centring humans through the paradigm of the “right to the city” based on social justice, equity, democracy and sustainability, writes Samira Allioui. Being Human in Digital Cities. Myria Georgiou. Polity. 2023. Technology, embodied through so-called smart cities ..read more

In She Who Struggles, Marral Shamshiri and Sorcha Thomson compile a selection of essays about women’s (often overlooked) contributions to revolutionary causes around the world, with particular focus on the Global South. According to Lydia Hiraide, the book is an accessible and stimulating read exploring the role of women and feminist thought in building transnational and anti-colonial and social movements. She Who Struggles: Revolutionary Women Who Shaped the World. Edited by Marral Shamshiri and Sorcha Thomson. Pluto Press. 2023. As the title of Marral Shamshiri and Sorcha Tho ..read more

In One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax, Dipesh Chakrabarty examines human interrelatedness with, and responsibility within, the Earth System from a decolonial perspective. Drawing on a diverse range of disciplines, this book is a critical intervention that considers perspectival gaps and differences around the climate crisis, writes Elisabeth Wennerström. One Planet, Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax. Dipesh Chakrabarty. Brandeis University Press. 2023. In One Planet, Many Worlds, Dipesh Chakrabarty addresses existing perspectival gaps and differences around the Earth System. T ..read more

In this interview with Anna D’Alton (LSE Review of Books), Sumi Madhok speaks about her latest book, Vernacular Rights Cultures which subverts prevailing frameworks around human rights by exploring how subaltern groups mobilise for justice through particular political imaginaries, conceptual vocabularies and gendered political struggles. Read a review of the book for LSE Review of Books here. Vernacular Rights Cultures: The Politics of Origins, Human Rights and Gendered Struggles for Justice. Sumi Madhok. Cambridge University Press. 2024 (paperback); 2021 (hardback ..read more

In The Inequality of Wealth: Why it Matters and How to Fix it, Liam Byrne examines the UK’s deep-seated inequality which has channelled wealth away from ordinary people (disproportionately youth and minority groups) and into the hands of the super-rich. While the solutions Byrne presents – from boosting wages to implementing an annual wealth tax – are not new, the book synthesises them into a coherent strategy for tackling this critical problem, writes Vamika Goel. Liam Byrne launched the book at an LSE event in February 2024: watch it back on YouTube. The Inequa ..read more

In Who’s Afraid of Gender?, Judith Butler confronts contemporary attacks on gender from right-wing movements that have undermined the rights of women, queer and trans people in areas from reproductive justice to protections against violence. The book deftly unpacks the phantasm of gender as it has been weaponised against queer and trans people and argues for countering it not with commensurate hate, but by making more desirable a way of living based in freedom and empathy, writes Elaine Coburn. Judith Butler came to LSE to launch the book in March 2024: watch it back ..read more

In Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times, Samuel Moyn dissects intellectual battles within Cold War liberalism through six key figures: Judith Shklar, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling. Teasing out their complex relationships with Enlightenment ideals, historicism, Freudianism and decolonisation, Moyn’s masterful group biography sheds light on the evolution of liberalism and the cause of the Red Scare, writes Atreyee Majumder. Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals ..read more

In Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North, Kay Standing, Sara Parker and Stefanie Lotter compile multidisciplinary perspectives examining experiences of and education around menstruation in different parts of the world. Spanning academic research, activism and poetry, this thought-provoking volume advocates for inclusive approaches that encompass the diverse geographical, social, cultural, gender- and age-related subjectivities of menstruators worldwide, writes Udita Bose. Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North: Towards a ..read more

In The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen contends that the focus on access in design around disability perpetuates inequalities, arguing instead for centralising disabled people in architectural and urban planning. Amy Batley finds that the book’s attempts to reframe disability in contemporary urban landscapes are overpowered by historical tangents and subjective claims. The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access. David Gissen. University of Minnesota Press. 2022. Wh ..read more

In The Wealth of a Nation: Institutional Foundations of English Capitalism, Geoffrey Hodgson traces the roots of modern capitalism to financial and legal institutions established in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Hodgson’s astute historical analysis foregrounds the alienability of property rights as a key condition of capitalism’s rise to supremacy, though it leaves questions around the social dimensions of the free market system unanswered, writes S M Amadae. The Wealth of a Nation: Institutional Foundations of English Capitalism. Geoffrey M. Hodgson. P ..read more