Roy is a controversial writer. Her insights and conclusions often make the reader, if from the west, uncomfortable about the unfolding economy and world relationships with India. Having traveled in India a number of times, and having many Indian friends, this book highlights little understood cultural and economic issues taking place in one of the world's exploding economies. Whether you agree with Roy's conclusions or not, a reader wanting to be more aware of the expanding global economy on the Subcontinent will find this book a starting point for reflection and informed connection with India and its complex cultural relationship with the west.

I was recently reading this book 'An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire' by Arundhathi

Roy.



I have heard a lot about her writing, but this was my first read of her products.

To say the truth , I am very disppaointed.



She keeps on arguing about some childish matters, not looking at the global picture.

For example, her arguments against globalisation in India is meaningless. Indian CEOs

make profit by paying less to their employers. This has been the case for the last 50

years or so. Only when the foriegn companies entered India with their aggressive

recruitment drive, people are getting paid decently. Looks like Roy wants us to make

the India rich CEOs, richer. She is hell-bent on proving that America deserved a

september 11, saying that US participated in killings in Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.

Isn't it a cyclic argument? If US deserved a 9/11 in 2001 for those killings, then She'll

argue in her next book that Afghanistan deserves US-led invasion in 2006 for 9/11.

Now you can guess her next book's main topic.



I think she wants to act as though she does not belong to any country, or is not

behind any government. To show this explicitly, her arguments slowly move towards Kashmir

and Gujarath. She does not know what to speak of here, as her nose lengths into these

topics. She blames the government, RSS, security forces, etc. What she does not understand

is that Kashmir has been like for almost 40 years. This topic has been well-studied, and many many

books written about it. In this case, just providing incomplete data that security forces

were responsible for some killings in Kashmir by no means proves anything. I would like to ask

her the following question: "How did you define 'responsible for'? how about suicide bombings?

or number of people killed by terrorists supported from acorss the border? Don't you remeber

the fact that terrorists killed 100 people in a single night during Bill Clinton's visit? "



Coming to Gujarath incident, I agree with whatever she is saying. Though I've not checked

the figures she has provided, I do believe that the state government headed by Modi

was irresponsible.



However, I strongly condemn her again for deliberately missing the information on

Mumbai blasts. She talks about number of muslims killed, etc, but then

how about the serial blasts? Weren't they executed by the muslim terrorists?

Why doesn't Roy provide the whole figure on number of blast victims?

If She argues that 3000 innocent US Citizens deserved to die on 9/11 just because

their government did bad in many aspects in the past, then why you are against

1000 muslims dying as only the muslim terrorists organized serial blasts in Mumbai

to kill 3000 innocent people?



All she does in this book is providing information to prove whatever

she thinks is right. I have not read a write-up before such as this one,

so cruel, violent, barbaric, and illogical. Just because she has got some award, don't

assume she is good. Don't even think of buying this book, such a wast of time,

effort and money.

I was recently reading this book 'An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire' by Arundhathi
Roy.

I have heard a lot about her writing, but this was my first read of her products.
To say the truth , I am very disppaointed.

She keeps on arguing about some childish matters, not looking at the global picture.
For example, her arguments against globalisation in India is meaningless. Indian CEOs
make profit by paying less to their employers. This has been the case for the last 50
years or so. Only when the foriegn companies entered India with their aggressive
recruitment drive, people are getting paid decently. Looks like Roy wants us to make
the India rich CEOs, richer. She is hell-bent on proving that America deserved a
september 11, saying that US participated in killings in Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.
Isn't it a cyclic argument? If US deserved a 9/11 in 2001 for those killings, then She'll
argue in her next book that Afghanistan deserves US-led invasion in 2006 for 9/11.
Now you can guess her next book's main topic.

I think she wants to act as though she does not belong to any country, or is not
behind any government. To show this explicitly, her arguments slowly move towards Kashmir
and Gujarath. She does not know what to speak of here, as her nose lengths into these
topics. She blames the government, RSS, security forces, etc. What she does not understand
is that Kashmir has been like for almost 40 years. This topic has been well-studied, and many many
books written about it. In this case, just providing incomplete data that security forces
were responsible for some killings in Kashmir by no means proves anything. I would like to ask
her the following question: "How did you define 'responsible for'? how about suicide bombings?
or number of people killed by terrorists supported from acorss the border? Don't you remeber
the fact that terrorists killed 100 people in a single night during Bill Clinton's visit? "

Coming to Gujarath incident, I agree with whatever she is saying. Though I've not checked
the figures she has provided, I do believe that the state government headed by Modi
was irresponsible.

However, I strongly condemn her again for deliberately missing the information on
Mumbai blasts. She talks about number of muslims killed, etc, but then
how about the serial blasts? Weren't they executed by the muslim terrorists?
Why doesn't Roy provide the whole figure on number of blast victims?
If She argues that 3000 innocent US Citizens deserved to die on 9/11 just because
their government did bad in many aspects in the past, then why you are against
1000 muslims dying as only the muslim terrorists organized serial blasts in Mumbai
to kill 3000 innocent people?

All she does in this book is providing information to prove whatever
she thinks is right. I have not read a write-up before such as this one,
so cruel, violent, barbaric, and illogical. Just because she has got some award, don't
assume she is good. Don't even think of buying this book, such a wast of time,
effort and money.

Since Roy mostly preaches to the converted, most likely most people who read this review will hit the 'not helpful' button. But we're all entitled to our opinions, particularly in a democracy and the opinion of this review is not in the vein of being a fan of Roy.
"You are by no means a great nation," Roy writes of the United States, "But you COULD be a great people." If an American said the same thing about the Indian people, it would be taken as a highly offensive comment. And certainly, there is much to find by no means great about the Indians, right down to the cruelty they show one another. Especially if a nationI finds some of their own so poor that they're 'untouchable' as is the case with the Indian caste. Roy makes many sweeping comments about the West and Americans in her books, comparing them to Indians, right down to what individuals think. How someone can blanket statement what individuals think is beyond me. Her assessment of the US as a whole is also way off the mark. I don't think she'd educated on American in it's individual, human truth. Too much is TV branding. If does not sound like she's been inside every community and each varying ethnic section and geographical locale, which vary greatly. How she can say an Indian's mind is a lush, wild, wilderness, which would never be found in a Westerner's mind is not only offensive, it's stupid and seeing the world with a set of wooden glasses. Besides the point that she gets so many of the facts wrong, what I think is particularly unappealing about Roy is that she is a rich and spoiled girl who has had quite a bit of opportunity, including the chance to be schooled in the US, where she married into the system, not once, but twice, thus further enjoying the priveleges, earned approximately a million dollars (which she gladly took) for her novel from a company that is tightly tied in to the 'empire' and the 'corporations' which she sneers at, and pretends to have no part at.She is lecturing us not to buy into corporations, but clearly she found a profit there. If we are really not to support the corporations, then we must not buy her books. I find Roy to be an extremely immature voice, and most of what she says on empire and government is Chomsky 101. It's been said before, and better. And if she considers herself a "citizen of the world" then what's the deal with her dual hatred of, making money off of, and continued attempts to worm her way back into the US, while pretending she's above it? Her political holier-than-thou schtick is also a bit of a joke. Remember a few years ago when she attempted to make her Big Point , by allowing herself to be imprisoned.. saying how she was going in there for the long haul to make her point further, then spent a night in jail and got scared by the REALITY of it, and thenimmediately paid the fine, suddenly concocting a story that she didn't need to make her point further? It's this kind of speaking out of one side of her mouth, and her comfort zone really being in another that comes up all too often in this book.

"You are by no means a great nation," Roy writes of the United States, "But you COULD be a great people." If an American said the same thing about the Indian people, it would be taken as a highly offensive comment. And certainly, there is much to find by no means great about the Indians, right down to the cruelty they show one another. Especially if a nationI finds some of their own so poor that they're 'untouchable' as is the case with the Indian caste. Roy makes many sweeping comments about the West and Americans in her books, comparing them to Indians, right down to what individuals think. How someone can blanket statement what individuals think is beyond me. Her assessment of the US as a whole is also way off the mark. I don't think she'd educated on American in it's individual, human truth. Too much is TV branding. If does not sound like she's been inside every community and each varying ethnic section and geographical locale, which vary greatly. How she can say an Indian's mind is a lush, wild, wilderness, which would never be found in a Westerner's mind is not only offensive, it's stupid and seeing the world with a set of wooden glasses. Besides the point that she gets so many of the facts wrong, what I think is particularly unappealing about Roy is that she is a rich and spoiled girl who has had quite a bit of opportunity, including the chance to be schooled in the US, where she married into the system, not once, but twice, thus further enjoying the priveleges, earned approximately a million dollars (which she gladly took) for her novel from a company that is tightly tied in to the 'empire' and the 'corporations' which she sneers at, and pretends to have no part at.She is lecturing us not to buy into corporations, but clearly she found a profit there. If we are really not to support the corporations, then we must not buy her books. I find Roy to be an extremely immature voice, and most of what she says on empire and government is Chomsky 101. It's been said before, and better. And if she considers herself a "citizen of the world" then what's the deal with her dual hatred of, making money off of, and continued attempts to worm her way back into the US, while pretending she's above it? Her political holier-than-thou schtick is also a bit of a joke. Remember a few years ago when she attempted to make her Big Point , by allowing herself to be imprisoned.. saying how she was going in there for the long haul to make her point further, then spent a night in jail and got scared by the REALITY of it, and thenimmediately paid the fine, suddenly concocting a story that she didn't need to make her point further? It's this kind of speaking out of one side of her mouth, and her comfort zone really being in another that comes up all too often in this book.

"You are by no means a great nation," Roy writes of the United States, "But you COULD be a great people." I think that if an American would say the same thing about an Indian person, or the Indian people in general, it would be taken as a highly offensive comment. And certainly, there is much to find by no means great about the Indians, right down to the cruelty they show one another. Especially if a nationI finds some of their own so poor that they're 'untouchable' as is the case with the Indian caste. Besides the point that she gets so many of the facts wrong, what I think is particularly unappealing about Roy is that she is a rich and spoiled girl who has had quite a bit of opportunity, including the chance to be schooled in the US, where she married into the system, not once, but twice, thus further enjoying the priveleges, earned approximately a million dollars (which she gladly took) for her novel from a company that is tightly tied in to the 'empire' and the 'corporations' which she sneers at, and pretends to have no part at. I find Roy to be an extremely immature voice, and if she considers herself a "citizen of the world" then what's the deal with her dual hatred of, making money off of, and continued attempts to worm her way back into the US, while pretending she's above it? Her political holier-than-thou schtick is also a bit of a joke. Remember a few years ago when she attempted to make her Big Point , by allowing herself to be imprisoned.. saying how she was going in there for the long haul to make her point further, then spent a night in jail and got scared by the REALITY of it, and thenimmediately paid the fine, suddenly concocting a story that she didn't need to make her point further? It's this kind of speaking out of one side of her mouth, and her comfort zone really being in another that comes up all too often in this book.

"You are a by no means a great nation," Roy writes of the United States, "But you COULD be a great people."

Arundhati Roy's book "An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire" is a collection of essays and speeches compiled into a book. While some people may be disappointed in the format and the repetition of some information, that does not detract from her brilliance as one of the most prolific writers of our time. Roy speaks from the heart with justice in mind, and her incisive and witty commentary is devoid of any religious, political, or racial bias. She is one of those rare voices of reason in a progressively insane world, warning us of the danger and consequences from large corporations in the name of "imperial mix democracy".

Arundhati Roy's book "An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire" is a collection of essays and speeches compiled into a book. While some people may be disappointed in the format and the repetition of some information, that does not detract from her brilliance as one of the most prolific writers of our time. Roy speaks from the heart with justice in mind, and her incisive and witty commentary is devoid of any religious, political, or racial bias. She is one of those rare voices of reason in a progressively insane world, warning us of the danger and consequences from large corporations in the name of "imperial mix democracy".

Opened my eye to how America is perceived by the people we 'helped'. Certainly a view seldom held by the mainstream press. Definitely persuaded me to vote with my wallet and boycott corporations as much as I can.

The empire that appears in the title of the book does not pertain exclusively to US under the current Bush administration. Rather, the term empire is loosely used to refer to as various political entities as the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party -- which the author perceives as a Hinduism fundamentalist organization) of India and fundamental capitalistic multinational corporations.

Each chapter is more or less an independent essay or speech. Again contrary to what the reader might expect, the book is not a guide per se (there is no unifying narration). It perhaps would be best summarized as essays/speeches calling for action.

Though I found the author's deliverance powerful, her arguments did not appear particularly fresh. The observations and critiques she makes follows more or less along the lines of Noam Chomsky and the far left.

The biggest disappointment however was editorial -- too many chapters contained the same message, shared the same subjects, and cited identical events for examples. This book in my opinion does not provide much value over reading Roy's essays individually over the web.

From the title of the book I expected an explanation of the underpinnings of the now ubiquitous notion of empire. What one finds instead are calls to action. The term empire was also misleading in the sense that the author's criticism in the various different chapters (each chapter is more or less an independent essay and/or speech) were not only against US under the current Bush administration but also against the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party -- which the author perceives as a Hinduism fundamentalist organization) of India and against certain multinational corporations.

Though I found the author's deliverance powerful, her arguments did not appear particularly fresh. The observations and critiques she makes follows more or less along the lines of Noam Chomsky and the far left.

The biggest disappointment however was editorial -- too many chapters contained the same message, shared the same subjects, and cited identical events for examples. This book in my opinion does not provide much value over reading Roy's essays individually over the web.

Very informative and easy to read. Arundhati Roy is a special writer with keen insight into today's world affairs.

Very informative and easy to read. Arundhati Roy is a special writer with keen insight into today's world affairs.

I have always found Roy's writing style very very compelling. I never thought 'God Of Small Things' was much of a story but the writing style was par-excellence.

In similar vein, these sets of articles / speeches by Roy are written in a very crisp and compelling language with lots of facts (referenced properly)to back them.

Reading the book, one is reminded (or made aware of, depending on your ability to see-through the news) of the wrongs that are being perpetrated on the world today (US's illegal occupation of Iraq, Godhra riots in Gujarat, the `war against terror' charade, the Israel-Palestine conflict).

As a soi-disant responsible and conscientious citizen of the world, I somehow feel ashamed. We are unable to do anything about them. Unable to set them right. That is because, we the people, are powerless. We are reminded, time and again, by Roy how power-less we have all acted. And in doing so, we are doing a dis-service to ourselves and our fellow brethren.

Power is what the book is about. Lord Action's comment that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" seems as relevant today as when it was made in the 19th C. The people who are in power carry out deeds that are, ironically, at variance with what is good for mankind and also at cross purposes with what is beneficial for the poorest of the poor. Instead their actions are meant to fill the overflowing coffers of rich corporations and empires (people like Mr. Cheney). Their actions, which we as citizens of the world should see through and protest, are all about increasing one's power. But then, you ask yourself, don't these leaders (read rulers) derive their power from us people [go back to the lesson on democracy in political science class : demos (people) + cratos (power)]. And oddly the same people who bring cratos to these rulers are cratos-less in influencing their decisions. Why then, Roy argues, would the European countries support the US occupation of Iraq when no more than 11% of their citizens support this illegal occupation? The book is littered with compelling facts like these.

That is the question the book leaves us with. It asks us, why we don't stand up and point out and, in the process, somehow prevent the wrongs being done by our 'democratically' elected presidents and governments. If we all put our minds to it, we can, and should, prevent the blunders that are being made by the George W's of the world.

The book asks more questions than answers them. Yet isn't that what a writer is supposed to do? Bring ideas / questions / doubts in front of others and, through healthy debate, search for answers.

A must read for every citizen of the world who claims to have a conscience (yet does nothing about it).

This is a very moving and persuasive work, exactly the sort of passionate argument one should be able to expect from writers of Roy's power, lucidity and ethical stand, yet so often we are disappointed. I would recommend any of her books to readers wanting readable pamphlet-style pieces on hot topics, but this is very much my favorite. An excellent introduction to a topic of our times.

Some of the people have taken this book way out of context quoting specific lines and grossly misinterpreting them. what the hell.
i came to this country with my parents at the age of 10.
and there are a few things i've learned.

The American government is not nearly as corrupt as India's, but it surely is controlled by the rich. so not all of what the middle income and poor people have to say is legislated.

Roy is a humanitarian. she has equally criticized the governments of both India and the USA. How dare India pursue nuclear interests while so many in their country barely have enough to eat?! How is there billions of dollars being spent on a space station while global poverty is still such a major issue? have you ever wondered about that?

How does America claim to justify war started by politicians who refuse to send their own blood to the front lines?! I recently saw the polls on CNN that said the majority think that IRAQ was a mistake. Well...all i have to say to that, is only time will tell about that.

Some of Roy's points may come across as baseless for someone who has absolutely no idea where she's getting this information from. is it all true? you never know, but that's the birth of your curiosity to question your own governments for making the decisions they do. that's the start of academic discussion. That's the beginning of everyone acting like global citizens.

So instead of buying the next big toy that comes out in our unregulated free market, did you ever question how that could possibly benefit the world you live in?! well read this book.

There is one line that the author/ publisher have decided to use to advertise the book and Roy's vein of opinion. In referring to America: "You are by no means a great nation. But you could be a great people." I found lines like this particularly offensive. I found her hatred of America interesting too, since it is via America and it's (CORPORATE!) publishing industry and book-buying public that she made her little fortune in the world. While anti-Americanism comes in all forms and shapes and sizes, Roy's often seems a little naive and immature. I'm not a Republican, but I do have patriotic pride. One should be careful when dismissing a country that was more than a little responsible for any success and money one makes (via the evil empire system, no less) to not so casually insult that country ('by one means a great country..COULD be a great people') particularly when the one you call your own has a caste system that is steeped in such cruelty, hypocrcy, lack of civil rights, and bigotry.

Let me convey a summary of Roy's argument against 'Empire' and her rationalization for the solution she prescribes. These are her statements in brief...

1. Capitalism is bad. Corporations are overflowing with greed. They oppress the world's poor, and are in effect raping the land. The rift between the oppressed and the oppressors is growing at an alarming rate.

2. Democracy's a sham. It may appear people can vote for change, but they cannot. Democracy has sold out to corporate interests. Bush and Kerry are both equally maniacal in their thirst for power and have both sold out to corporate interests.

3. The system is broken. People are trapped if they try to work within the system. There is no hope for reform through voting. It may seem otherwise, but all political choices are equally corrupted by corporate greed.

4. Empire is taking over. Capitalism's need for more and more resources is driving the governments of the West to take over other countries in order to plunder their resources.

5. Empire must be fought. The only hope is to resist Empire. The need for real resistance movements is greater now then ever - it's our only chance at fighting against the world's misery.

6. Civil disobedience fights Empire. However, the media has turned a deaf ear to this type of resistance. It's old news. Additionally governments often brutally and murderously squash demonstrations.

7. Empire brings terrorism onto itself. Because Empire does not respond to nor honor nonviolent resistance, it then by default privileges those who turn violent.

8. Islamic resistance is effectively fighting Empire. The radical Islamic militants in Iraq are fighting the frontlines battle against Empire - so are those in Kashmir, Chechnya, and Israel.

9. Terrorism should be praised. It's absurd to condemn the rebel resistance. These are simply people fighting Empire for their freedoms.

10. "There's no alternative but terrorism." Terrorism. Armed struggle. Insurgency. Call it what you want. Terrorists are people who don't believe the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Do you think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. I've just summarized the entire book for you as fairly and honestly as I can. If you've read the book and disagree with any of the summary, please tell me why (via e-mail) and I will make changes.

Roy is honest. She's clearly not ashamed of her liberal ideals and doesn't hide it when those turn hard-progressivist, nor violent/eco-terrorist. And clearly she asserts the validity of terrorism. Here's the bold-faced justification for the death of innocents - men, women, children.

Award-winning writer Arundhati Roy presents An Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire, an anthology of her lectures and essays highlighting the injustice, greed, and corruption behind the "poverty draft" of the United States (in which the military is disproportionately made of individuals of indigent backgrounds, and very, very few politicians have a child serving in Iraq), murderous pogroms against Muslims in India with atrocities that bring so-called ethnic cleansing to mind, the transformation of South Africa that ultimately only further concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few, and more. From the obsessive nature of crisis reporting in the media that ignores underlying problems and history, or summarizes them in a backward progression if at all, to propaganda as a tool of empire-building, to the ruthlessness of the police state in so-called "democracies" that get their hands as bloody as any fascist, An Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire spares nothing in its effort to show the raw, real, and often vicious truth. Highly recommended.

At first I wasn't sure how all the dam construction in India related to me, a U.S. citizen. Then it hit me, and I've never been the same.

Arundhati Roy is an accomplished writer. This much was established early in her writing career when she won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first book, a novel called "The God of Small Things."

Subsequently, she began to nurture an instinct for activism and has never looked back.

Her first non-fiction piece, published in 1998 in response to India's juvenile nuclear test explosions, lambasted India's BJP-led government for acting irresponsibly toward its impoverished and illiterate citizens.

Roy masterfully pointed out the sheer absurdity of aiming for the 6th slot on the list of overt nuclear powers while occupying the 127th rank on the UNDP human development index (2004).

In the event, Roy had also expressed disgust at the hypocrisy evident in Western expressions of alarm at the prospect of colored peoples with WMD.

In "An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire," Roy continues in that trajectory and directs the might of her rebellious pen at America's irresponsible use of power worldwide.

Contrary to John Zxerce's simplistic review (Amazon, October 25, 2004), Roy makes no blanket statements such as "Democracy is a sham."

Roy's arguments have nuance, which George "War-monger" Bush supporters brought up on a strict diet of Fox News sound bites aren't competent to grasp.

Arundhati Roy, trained as an architect, is a spectacular blend of Michael Moore's wit, Noam Chomsky's intellect, and Howard Zinn's hands-on approach to activism.

Arundhati Roy, celebrated Indian millionaire novelist posing as an "ordinary person," here regurgitates an unsavory stew of half-digested, fake-profound insights for her salivating brood of likeminded leftwing wannabe unfledged nestlings, who will likely swallow it whole without questioning its nonnutritive properties.

One would have thought making Michael Moore look sane an impossible project, but Roy, wielding a dizzying array of florid metaphor linked to a Spockian (Dr. or Mr., it doesn't matter) pseudo-logic in service to a sledgehammer sharp wit, manages it with aplomb. Granted, this approach can be quite amusing in the short run, say, for three or four or ten pages. Soon, however, it begins to pale for all except true believers. True, there's a kind of kinky intellectual frisson for the thinking impaired, but the lack of substance eventually begins to gall.

Mildly interesting as a cynical deconstruction of Western democracies, the book nevertheless fails miserably as informed critique. The author, almost completely clueless in face of true politics, economics, theology, and historiography, instead unleashes a sustained rant of wacky armchair liberal proportions seldom if ever before encountered. Imagine an East Indian female Al Franken on steroids in possession of an occasional admittedly nice turn of phrase and, yes, considerably more functional brain cells, and you get the picture.

In this fine collection of speeches and essays, Roy stridently argues against the global injustice of imperial democracy, narrow-minded nationalism, corporate fascism, the military industrial complex, privatization, and the ideology of those who would bomb civilians as part of a war campaign with unparalleled passion, clarity and rhetorical flare. Hers is a voice confronting the powers of empire.

With the accuracy of someone weilding linguistic pruning shears, Roy deftly shreds our most sacred doctrines. "Flags", she reminds us, are nothing more than "bits of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." They are the symbols of our government's imperialist ambitions.

'Freedom' is the mask government wears to "murder, annihilate, and dominate other people." It is the freedom "to finance and sponsor despots and dictators across the world. The freedom to train, arm, and shelter terrorists. The freedom to topple democratically elected governments. The freedom to amass and use weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, and nuclear. The freedom to go to war against any country whose governments it disagrees with. And, most terrible of all, the freedom to commit these crimes against humanity in the name of 'justice', in the name of 'righteousness', in the name of 'freedom'."

Another word Roy takes issue with is 'Liberal Democracy' - a word the US government and its corporate cohorts have twisted, besmirched and spread over the world like an incurable STD. Liberal Democracy is simply a codeword for the type of imperialist market the US foists upon the world. It is a product we in the US sell to other countries, like Iraq, whether they want it or not, and death "is a small price...to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb)."

"Meanwhile," while we all sit around debating the fate of the biosphere, "down at the mall there's a mid-season sale. Everything's discounted - oceans, rivers, oil, gene pools, fig wasps, flowers, childhoods, aluminum, factories, phone companies, wisdom, wilderness, civil rights, ecosystems, air - all 4.6 billion years of evolution. It's packed, sealed, tagged, valued, and available off the rack (no returns). As for justice," she says, "I'm told it's on offer too."

Roy also takes aim on the War on Terrorism - not for what it is, but for how it's conducted. "The underlying logic of the terrorist attacks, as well as 'retaliatory' wars against governments that 'support terrorism', is the same: both punish citizens for the actions of their governments." Neither Bush nor Osama bin Laden can face this fact, though, which speaks to their overriding similarities: "They both hold people responsible for the actions of their governments. They both believe in the doctrine of collective guilt and collective punishment. Their actions benefit each other greatly." Furthermore, they both converse with with a god who has sanctified their war against 'evil doers' - ie, each other.

The only thing not for sale, it would seem, is Roy's voice. Of all her books, this is by far my favorite. And of all the great social critics - Naom Chomsky, Edward Said, Howard Zinn, Edward Herman, Amy Goodman, Michael Albert, Chalmers Johnson, William Blum, Anthony Arnove - she writes with the most urgency and passion. Her talent is unmatched, her critiques scathing, her prose sublime.

A MUST READ

j. william krueger
ecowilliam@yahoo.com