This quote is from House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company. > “Long before anyone had heard of Ren Zhengfei or Huawei, Wan Runnan had been > China’s star entrepreneur in the 1980s, with his company, the Stone Group, > touted as “China’s IBM.” Wan had believed that economic change could lead to > political change. He had thrown his support behind the pro-democracy > protesters in 1989. As a result, he had to flee to France, with an arrest > warrant hanging over his head. He was never able to return home. Now, decades > later and in failing health in Paris, Wan recalled something that had happened > one day in the late 1980s, when he was still living in Beijing...

It’s been a month since Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship was published. From what we know, sales are good. Some of the book’s forty-three chapters are available online: chapters 2, 12, 28, 34, 38, and 41. We need more reviews—six on Amazon is not enough, and no one has yet posted a viral TikTok review. One review was published in Nature and another on the RSA Conference website, but more would be better. If you’ve read the book, please leave a review somewhere. My coauthor and I have been doing all sort of book events, both online and in person. This ...

My latest book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, will be published in just over a week. No reviews yet, but you can read chapters 12 and 34 (of 43 chapters total). You can order the book pretty much everywhere, and a copy signed by me here. Please help spread the word. I want this book to make a splash when it’s public. Leave a review on whatever site you buy it from. Or make a TikTok video. Or do whatever you kids do these days. Is anyone a Slashdot contributor? I’d like the book to be announced there...

I am pleased to announce the imminent publication of my latest book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI will Transform our Politics, Government, and Citizenship: coauthored with Nathan Sanders, and published by MIT Press on October 21. Rewriting Democracy looks beyond common tropes like deepfakes to examine how AI technologies will affect democracy in five broad areas: politics, legislating, administration, the judiciary, and citizenship. There is a lot to unpack here, both positive and negative. We do talk about AI’s possible role in both democratic backsliding or restoring democracies, but the fundamental focus of the book is on present and future uses of AIs within functioning democracies. (And there is a lot going on, in both national and local governments around the world.) And, yes, we talk about AI-driven propaganda and artificial conversation...

WE ROUND UP SOME OF THE TITLES TO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR, FROM RETROSPECTIVES ON PUNK SOCIAL CENTRES IN LONDON TO THE LIVES OF BRILLIANT ORGANISERS AND MUTUAL AID THAT THRIVES IN THE WAKE OF WILDFIRES. Born of Struggle, Living in Hope: The Anarcho-Punk Lives of the Centro Iberico by Nick Soulsby PM Press (Oct) 192 pages | £14.99 The Centiro Iberico in London Notting Hill was for many years at the heart of Spanish anarchism in exile. Lasting for 12 years, it became a legendary music venue and the base of operations for civil war veterans such as Miguel García García, benefitting from its links to political punk through to its loss to gentrification in the 1980s construction boom. Soulsby analyses the centre and its importance to solidarity groups in Britain and Spain. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Love and revolution: A Politics for the Deep Commons by Matt York Manchester University Press (Jun) 216 pages | £25 York brings classical and contemporary anarchist thought into a dialogue with a global cross-section of ecological, anti-capitalist, feminist and anti-racist activists – discussing real-life examples of the loving-caring relations that underpin many contemporary struggles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Associational Anarchism: Towards a Left-Libertarian Conception of Freedom by Chris Wyatt Manchester University Press (3 Jun. 2025) 224 pages | £25 Wyatt’s theory of political economy aims to unite the public sphere of citizenship with the private sphere of production in a system of communal ownership, through a scheme of self-governing horizontal networks held together by libertarian politics. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another War is Possible: Militant Anarchist Experiences in the Antiglobalization Era by Tomas Rothaus & CrimethInc PM Press (Jun) 448 pages | £26.99 Rothaus, who was active and present for many of the major events of the anti-globalisation movement around the turn of the Millennium, follows him through his early days as a militant across three continents. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country Edited by Dani Burlison and Margaret Elysia Garcia AK Press 184 pages | £13 Named after the term for a high fire risk, Red Flag Warning explores fires in rural and urban Northern California. It examines relationships to place and community and the importance of mutual aid, organising, community care, land stewardship, and resilience. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre by Garrett Felber AK Press 424 pages | £27 Sostre (1923-2015), from East Harlem, was an anarchist and key figure in black radicalism in the latter half of the 20th century as a campaigner, jailhouse lawyer, bookseller and political thinker. A lifelong organiser against all forms of oppression, his decades of activism are recounted by Felber in what is the first biography to have been written about him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Active Distribution meanwhile has the following due out over the summer: The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism, by Fredy Perlman Why Anarchists Abstain from Elections, by Tommy Lawson Against History Against Leviathan, by Freddy Perlman New Times, by Peter Kropotkin Society of the Spectacle and Comments, by Guy Debord Storming Heaven, by Roger Yates (Fiction) All Hands on Deck, by Jan Goodey The People’s War in Rojava (with new intro and update) Anarchist Techno Attacks, by Crimethinc Kropotkin Escapes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And Freedom Press has two books confirmed for this year: Housing: An Anarchist Approach by Colin Ward Continuing our series refreshing some of Ward’s key works. Ward produced some of the most influential anarchist writing to come out of Britain in the latter part of the 20th century, and housing was a specialist topic, taking in thoughts on squatting, tower life, self build and urban planning with a laser focus on the question of how we can, and should, be participants in the lifecycles of our own homes. Everything Continues: Anarchism and the Greek Financial Crisis by Neil Middleton Turmoil in Greece following the 2008 financial crisis was of a different order to that of anywhere else in Europe, lasting throughout the 2010s and destroying much of its economy. At the heart of popular revolt against the catastrophe was Europe’s most militant anarchist milieu, a force potent enough to control parts of Athens and overwhelm police lines, an embedded reality in the life of the nation. Neil Middleton examines the circumstances that led to this riotous assembly and how the anarchists’ story played out over a decade of tumult. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article first appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Freedom Journal The post Upcoming Anarchist Books for 2025 appeared first on Freedom News.