Browse

On January 18, 2012, millions of people participated in the now-infamous “Internet blackout” to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the rights it would have given intellectual property holders to shape how people use the Internet. SOPA’s withdrawal was heralded as a victory for an open Internet. However, as Natasha Tusikov documents in Chokepoints: Global Private Regulation on the Internet, rather than accept defeat, a small group of corporations, tacitly backed by the U.S. and other governments, have implemented much of SOPA via a series of secret, handshake agreements among powerful corporations, including Google, PayPal, and Microsoft. This book is the first to explore these agreements. Drawing on extensive interviews with corporate and government officials, Tusikov details the emergence of a new realm of global governance, in which large Internet firms act as global regulators for powerful intellectual property owners like Nike, and raises questions about the threat these new global regimes pose to democratic accountability itself. The book argues that these global regulators are significantly altering the ways in which governments and corporations regulate content and information on the Internet.

We are in the middle of a major, long-term food crisis—how do we get out of it? The goal of Balancing on a Planet is to empower readers to analyze the challenges facing the agrifood system so they can ask better questions, find more useful answers, and participate in discussion and decision making more effectively in order to contribute to solving the food crisis. This book is an interdisciplinary primer on critical thinking and effective action for the future of our global agrifood system that integrates biophysical, social, economic, cultural, and philosophical components. It explains the fundamental concepts needed for understanding the history, current situation, and possible futures of our agrifood systems—from local to global—and analyzes opposing perspectives. It covers a range of topics, including population, the Neolithic and subsequent revolutions, sustainability, plant breeding and biotechnology, agroecosystems management, common property management, climate change, and localization. A key component of the book is a thorough analysis of the assumptions underlying different perspectives on problems related to food and agriculture around the world and a discussion of alternative solutions. For example, the author argues that combining selected aspects of small-scale traditional agriculture with modern scientific agriculture can help balance our biological need for food with its environmental impact—and it can continue to fulfill cultural, social, and psychological needs related to food.