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Keywords for Capitalism: Power, Society, Politics is a field guide to the way we talk about politics in the United States today.
About the author
John Patrick Leary is the author of A Cultural History of Underdevelopment: Latin America in the U.S. Imagination (2016) and Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism (2018). He is the author of Loose Talk, a column on language and culture in The New Republic.
Summary
Keywords for Capitalism: Power, Society, Politics is a field guide to the way we talk about politics in the United States today.
Foreword
Promotion targeting left leaning publications like the Nation, Jacobin, Dissent.
Direct marketing to activist groups and core Haymarket audience.
Social media publicity campaign.
Additional text
Praise for Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism:
“A sharp recent book.” —The New York Times
“Leary’s Keywords is definitely stimulating and well worth a read....” —Naked Capitalism
“The extent to which the language of the market has appropriated so many aspects of our lives is both fascinating and troubling. Because it’s so ubiquitous we use this language without questioning its deeper meaning, some of which, as Leary illustrates, is less than benign.” —The Independent, Santa Barbara
“As [Leary] explores what our language has looked like, and the ugliness now embedded in it, [he] invites us to imagine what our language could emphasize, what values it might reflect. What if we fought ‘for free time, not ”flexibility”; for free health care, not “wellness”; and for free universities, not the “marketplace of ideas”?’ His book reminds us of the alternatives that persist behind these keywords: our managers may call us as ‘human capital,’ but we are also workers. We are also people. ‘Language is not merely a passive reflection of things as they are,’ Leary writes. ‘[It is] also a tool for imagining and making things as they could be.‘’ —The Outline
“[Leary] has written a clever, even witty examination of the manipulation of language in these days of neoliberal or late stage capitalism. Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism reminds the reader that those who control the language can more easily control the culture while also providing that reader with the tools needed to decipher the capitalist class’s manipulation of the words we use.” —Counterpunch
