We've just posted online our introduction to CSR from our 2008 text co-written with Laura Spence, Corporate Social Responsibility: Readings and Cases in a Global Context. It's available for free download here at the Social Science Research Network, albeit only in the pre-typeset version.

[T]ucked into the bill passed by the Senate on Thursday is a provision that requires any publicly traded company that uses certain minerals to file reports annually with the Securities and Exchange Commission certifying whether the minerals originated in Congo or neighboring countries.

Today, the large majority of violent conflicts are ended by peace negotiations. Although a multiple actors approach of mediation…is the rule, business actors are rarely involved…

But, the flimflam gang returned with a vengeance in our time — the monied interests and political mercenaries who connived to bring on a calamity that lost eleven million Americans their jobs, robbed people of their homes and pensions, and brought the world's economy crashing down.

The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World A 25-Point Program for Action

Agenda: To identify and popularize actions that support a transition to a global system of rules and institutions designed to act at the global level to ensure universal rights and protect the integrity of the biosphere and act at all levels to ensure that decisions are taken at the most local level feasible and that the rights of regions to pursue diverse paths are protected.

Draft Global Code of Conduct....aims to recognize that private services are often performed in circumstances where the rule of law has been essentially undermined and where governments may be unable to effectively enforce the law..

"The challenge of optimizing nitrogen use in a hungry world is far too important to rely on any one approach or technology for its solution. We don't want to put all our eggs in the GE basket." ~ Doug Gurian-Sherman, Senior Scientist and author of the report

In the spring of 2007, after Energy Department analyst Erik Shuster circulated a document revealing that 151 new coal-fired power plants were slated for construction, climate scientists sounded the alarm.

Twenty-five years ago, a gas leak at a Union Carbide chemicals plant in Bhopal released 40 tonnes of poisonous gases over the Indian city, killing thousands of people and injuring tens of thousands more.

[Material marking 25 anniversary of Bhopal disaster from a range of sources including: Times of India, Mint, Financial Times, New York Times, Amnesty Intl., Dow Chemical, Union Carbide]

Diane Wilson continues her forty-three-day hunger strike for climate justice as she prepares to fly to Copenhagen for the international climate talks there

Here's a bit of a plug for the new book - out in the UK in December, in the US in January.

Eric Holt-Giménez, executive director of Food First/the Institute for Food & Development Policy reads from his new book, 'Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice', co-written by Raj Patel with Annie Shattuck.

They didn't start out as environmental warriors. Clair Patterson was a geochemist focused on determining the age of the Earth. Herbert Needleman was a pediatrician treating inner-city children. But in the chemistry lab and the hospital ward, they met a common enemy: lead. It was literally everywhere-in gasoline and paint, of course, but also in water pipes and food cans, toothpaste tubes and toys, ceramics and cosmetics, jewelry and batteries. Though few people worried about it at the time, lead was also toxic.

In the decades after World War II, evangelical Christianity nourished America’s devotion to free markets, free trade, and free enterprise. The history of Wal-Mart uncovers a complex network that united Sun Belt entrepreneurs, evangelical employees, Christian business students, overseas missionaries, and free-market activists.

Powell's/BENMeet the economic gangster. He's the United Nations diplomat who double-parks his Mercedes on New York City streets at rush hour because the cops can't touch him--he has diplomatic immunity. He's the Chinese smuggler who dodges tariffs by magically transforming frozen chickens into frozen turkeys. The dictator, the warlord, the unscrupulous bureaucrat who bilks the developing world of billions in aid. The calculating crook who views stealing and murder as just another part of his business strategy. And, in the wrong set of circumstances, he might just be you.

Building Powerful Community Organizations is a comprehensive, easy-to-use guidebook for people who want to make a difference in the world and know they can’t do it alone.
Click here to visit UCS Online Book Catalog to purchase items.

Click here to visit UCS Online Book Catalog to purchase items.

In Recipe for America, food activist Jill Richardson shows how sustainable agriculture—where local farms raise food that is healthy for consumers and animals and does not damage the environment—offers the only solution to America’s food crisis. In addition to highlighting the harmful conditions at factory farms, this timely and necessary book details the rising grassroots food movement, which is creating an agricultural system that allows people to eat sustainably, locally, and seasonally.

Subsidizing Sweatshops II, a new report released today by SweatFree Communities, documents severe violations of labor law and human rights in nearly all factories investigated, including:

Inspiring stories of Mexico’s farmer to farmer movements restoring degraded hillsides and watersheds, reclaiming old methods of seed saving and seed exchange, and incorporating the latest agroecological techniques developed by other farmers and agroecology scientists and practitioners.

The U.S. press corps followed Gates’s lead in presenting the military increase as a decrease. The Wall Street Journal even claimed that Gates and President Barack Obama had gutted the Pentagon’s budget.

A bill that will help close the multi-billion dollar annual gap that exists between wastewater infrastructure needs and current funding was passed today by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Global leaders from business, labor and civil society today declared their belief that the lack of transparency in the existing system for corporate reporting has failed its stakeholders. In issuing The Amsterdam Declaration on Transparency and Reporting, Board Members of the Global Reporting Initiative called on governments to introduce policies requiring companies to address publicly environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.

Almost 2 billion people lack access to essential medicines. This deprivation causes immense and avoidable suffering: ill health, pain, fear, loss of dignity and life.

"Lakoff (Don't Think of an Elephant) harnesses cognitive science to rally progressive politicians and voters by positing that conservatives have framed the debate on vital issues more effectively than liberals. According to his research, conservatives comprehend that most brain functioning is grounded not in logical reasoning but in emotionalism — as a result, huge portions of the citizenry accept the Republican framing of the 'war in Iraq' and 'supporting the troops' rather than liberal appeals and phrasing of 'the occupation in Iraq' and 'squandering tax money.'

In February 2009, National Labor Committee issued a report "High Tech Misery in China", alleging labour abuses at Mae Tay Plastics & Electronics factory in China. The factory reportedly supplies computer equipment to HP, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft and IBM.

Today’s economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. However, as David Korten shows, the steps being taken to address it – including pouring trillions of dollars into bailouts for the Wall Street institutions that created the mess – do nothing to deal with the reality of a failed economic system. It’s like treating cancer with band aids. And the financial collapse now in the public spotlight is only the tip of the iceberg. The system’s social and environmental failures may ultimately be even more destructive.

On September 10, 2001, precisely one day before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told senior staff that the Pentagon was wasting $3 billion a year by not outsourcing many non-combat duties to the private sector. “At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors?”

After ending his academic career and returning to farming in the late 60’s, farmer and activist Will Allen made a couple of important discoveries: 1. You don’t need to use pesticides to be a successful commercial farmer,

According to news reports, two cable companies, Time Warner and Charter Communications, are expected to implement new plans to cap customers' Internet use. Time Warner, which began trialing 5GB to 40GB caps last January in Beaumont, Texas, announced on a quarterly call that it will expand its caps to additional cities. Charter will begin imposing a 100GB cap on any connection below 15Mbps, and a 250GB cap on connections over 15Mbps.

“You can only begin to be certain that there is no forced labour in your supply chains once you are properly equipped to look for it.”

The deepening economic recession makes progress on implementing labour standards and decent working conditions more challenging but also ever more important. 2008, however, saw some bright lights. The ILO’s adoption of the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation in June 2008 signalled a commitment to renewing the institution and a boost for the Decent Work Agenda. Indeed, the concept of decent work has become better integrated within international institutions, with its formal incorporation into the Millennium Development Goals at the beginning of the year.

Though the proportion of women in national assemblies still barely scrapes 16% on average, the striking outliers-Rwanda with 49% of its assembly female, Argentina with 35%, Liberia and Chile with new women presidents this year-have raised expectations that there is an upward trend in women's representation from which we may expect big changes in the quality of governance. But getting into public office is just the first step in the challenge of creating governance and accountability systems that respond to women's needs and protect the rights.

Winner of the 2007 Nautilus Silver Book Award for Business/Conscious Leadership Winner of the 2008 Axiom Bronze Business Book Award for Business Ethics

In spring 2006, Christine MacDonald left journalism for a dream job at Conservation International, one of the world’s largest environmental organizations. Soon after she reported to the group’s Washington offices, it became all too apparent to her that something is rotten in today’s clubby, well-upholstered world of conservationists.

An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China.

Indigenous peoples have historically gained little from large-scale resource development on their traditional lands, and have suffered from its negative impacts on their cultures, economies and societies.

Some view the negative impacts of economics and environment as separate. But Hervé Kempf sees financial inequality and environmental destruction as inextricably linked. The author of How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth, Kempf says the wealthy of the world are living unsustainable lifestyles, and everyone else is also trashing the Earth trying to keep up with the rich Joneses. The solution? Move away from materialism and growth.

Ahead of the the UN Climate Change meeting on Dec 1st in Poznan, the "Little REDD Book" is a guide to aid understanding of the UN mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). The mechanism will be a major issue of discussion at Poznan and getting it right represents the single biggest opportunity to help halt deforestation in developing countries.

The incidence of obesity has risen dramatically over the last few decades. This epidemic may be affected by exposure to xenobiotic chemicals. Bisphenol A (BPA) , an endocrine disruptor, is detectable at nanomolar levels in human serum worldwide. Adiponectin is an adipocyte-specific hormone that increases insulin sensitivity and reduces tissue inflammation. Thus, any factor that suppresses adiponectin release could lead to insulin resistance and increased susceptibility to obesity-associated diseases.

There was new evidence early this week that the world has not yet absorbed just how deeply humans have depleted our “exhausted oceans.” At the latest meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, created under a treaty 42 years ago to manage shared fisheries in that ocean, European governments ignored a strong recommendation from the group’s own scientific advisers for deep cuts in some harvests of the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

“The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington’s handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal,” says Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine. [includes rush transcript]

In the tradition of An Inconvenient Truth comes Antonia Juhasz's The Tyranny of Oil (Morrow), a chilling and important exposé of the modern American oil industry — and a blueprint for what citizens can do to take power back.

From tainted pet food to toxic toys, Americans can thank the successful lobbying efforts of the U.S. chemical industry for the secret ingredients in everyday products that have been linked to rising rates of infertility, endocrine system disruptions, neurological disorders, and cancer.

"We still haven't found any slaves!", Sandy whispers in my ear, worried about the financial and journalistic ramifications. "We have to leave tomorrow and, if we don't come across any slaves today, just think about the thousands of dollars we've invested in this article..."

‘The lack of sanitation endured by 2.6 billion people is a hidden international scandal. It is the principal reason for the spread of diarrhoeal diseases and the toll they take on human lives. This book makes us think about these things, and does so with great power. The authors truly deserve credit for bringing out into the open a subject we instinctively avoid.’

Our tissues, genes, and organs are becoming, in the words of the head of one pharmaceutical company, 'the currency of the future'. From the trafficking of women for their eggs to 'beauty junkies', Dickenson reveals the ingenious ways that body parts are converted into profits. Drawing on 20 years of insider knowledge, Dickenson's sweeping exploration goes beyond the horror stories to suggest a range of strategies to bring the global biotechnology industry to heel.

Inequalities in the world's food system have been aggravated by recent developments to create the much talked-about food crisis. But what is behind the headlines? This new series delves into agrofuels, trade policy, corporate concentration, climate change, and rising demand to help sort out the real causes of the crisis and what needs to be done about it.

There are approximately 1,400 guest workers at the Mediterranean factory—from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India. All of the guest workers are currently on strike due to the abusive conditions and gross violations of their fundamental rights. The workers sew clothing for Wal-Mart (White Stag label) and Hanes (Champion).

For two decades veteran photojournalist David Bacon has documented the connections between labor, migration, and the global economy. In Illegal People Bacon explores the human side of globalization, exposing the many ways it uproots people in Latin America and Asia, driving them to migrate. At the same time, U.S. immigration policy makes the labor of those displaced people a crime in the United States. Illegal People explains why our national policy produces even more displacement, more migration, more immigration raids, and a more divided, polarized society.

According to the United Nations, more than one billion people now live in the slums of the cities of the South. In this brilliant and influential book, Mike Davis explores the future of a radically unequal and explosively unstable urban world.

An eminent law professor and legal theorist, Bakan contends that the corporation is created by law to function much like a psychopathic personality whose destructive behavior, if left unchecked, leads to scandal and ruin.

Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese-both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation, traveling from the "green deserts"of Brazil and protester-packed streets of South Korea to bankrupt Ugandan coffee farms and barren fields of India.

More than ever before, large corporations wield an unjustifiably excessive influence over every aspect of life - economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental - feeding a rabid consumer culture that harms the environment, undermines a shared sense of national prosperity, and threatens ideals of a citizen-powered democracy.

While there have been other books on Wal-Mart, none has provided scholarly economic analysis of the impact of this retail giant. "The Local Economic Impact of Wal-Mart" offers significant empirical evidence which highlights important questions.

In recent years, New Yorkers have been surprised to see workers they had taken for granted—Mexicans in greengroceries, West African supermarket deliverymen and South Asian limousine drivers—striking, picketing, and seeking support for better working conditions.

Nationally known community organizer and activist Harry C. Boyte incites readers to join today's "citizen movement," offering practical tools for how we can change the face of America by focusing on issues close to home.

A practical and inspirational guide to overcoming barriers of class and race. Again and again social change movements--on matter s from the environment to women's rights--have been run by middle-class leaders. But in order to make real progress toward economic and social change, poor people--those most affected by social problems--must be the ones to speak up and lead.

This timely and accessible guide debunks the twenty-one biggest myths and stereotypes in today's immigration debate

A landmark eyewitness expos of how China's factory economy competes for Western business by selling out its workers, its environment, and its future

A report that challenges conventional views.

In Gaveling Down the Rabble, author/activist Jane Anne Morris explores a century and a half of efforts by corporations and the courts to undermine local democracy in the United States by using a "free trade" model. It was that very nineteenth-century model that was later adopted globally by corporations to subvert local attempts at protecting the environment and citizen and worker health.

Food in America is cheap and abundant, yet the vast majority of it is diminished in terms of flavor and nutrition, anonymous and mysterious after being shipped thousands of miles and passing through inscrutable supply chains, and controlled by multinational corporations. In our system of globalized food commodities, convenience replaces quality and a connection to the source of our food. Most of us know almost nothing about how our food is grown or produced, where it comes from, and what health value it really has. It is food as pure corporate commodity. We all deserve much better than that.

This is an important book for labor’s difficult times of change. Based on his work with national, regional and local unions as well as his academic expertise in labor relations and economics, the author presents a rich combination of practical experience aimed at providing labor leaders with the tools to strengthen both their unions and their relations with management.

BAN is the world's only organization focused on confronting the global environmental injustice and economic inefficiency of toxic trade (toxic wastes, products and technologies) and its devastating impacts. Working at the nexus of human rights and environment, we confront the issues of environmental justice at a macro level, preventing disproportionate and unsustainable dumping of the world's toxic waste and pollution on our global village's poorest residents.

Responding to the invitation by the Human Rights Council for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises to submit his views and recommendations for its consideration, this report presents a conceptual and policy framework to anchor the business and human rights debate, and to help guide all relevant actors. The framework comprises three core principles: the State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and the need for more effective access to remedies. The three principles form a complementary whole in that each supports the others in achieving sustainable progress.

Bronfenbrenner (director of labor education research, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell U.) presents ten papers form the February, 2006 conference, "Global Companies--Global Unions--Global Research--Global Campaigns," which brought together representatives of labor unions, non-governmental organizations, and academia with the overall goal of strengthening labor's ability to conduct corporate research and run cross-border campaigns against transnational companies.

This is an important book for any worker or union activist who has reason to be concerned about workplace privacy issues, ranging from the monitoring of telephones and computers to the trend toward the required wearing of electronic badges that trace your every movement -- even to the point of monitoring how long you’re in the bathroom or washing your hands.

This 2006 book is a must-have for any union or activist considering aggressive action to combat management’s growing economic war against workers. With a deep understanding of the complex web of rules regulating forceful work-related activities, noted labor attorney and author Robert Schwartz offers examples of what unions can do, pointers on how to do it legally, picketing instructions, sample letters and answers to scores of common questions.

Now in its third edition, this is an organizer’s bible: a comprehensive, real-world tool for organizers of all stripes determined to create attention and affect change. Compiled by leaders of the Midwest Academy, a respected training ground for serious union, community and nonprofit organizers since 1973, the book deals with everything from tactics to the mechanics of how to track a campaign, from coalition-building to using the media to supervising less experienced organizers.

This is an accessible guide written for nonspecialists including local union officers and management representatives, stewards, rank-and-file activists and students of labor. 418 pages paperback

This is an attractive and well-illustrated Spanish-language history of the labor movement in the United States, aimed at the increasing numbers of Spanish speakers migrating north to join the American workforce.

This is an aggressive new guide to building a strong and effective local union. Don’t buy this book if your goal is simply to be a local union officer like "Old Joe" was before you, doing things the way they’ve always been done and skating by as things just bump along. That, the author says, is what has weakened unions and made them less a force than they once were, and can be again. Rather than one or maybe a handful of officers running your local from the top, he says, you’ve got to educate and involve your members at every level, using the Organizing Model of unionism – and he shows you how to do it.

Drawing upon 40 years' experience as an ecological farmer and marketer, Joel Salatin explains with humor and passion why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. From child labor regulations to food inspection, bureaucrats provide themselves sole discretion over what food is available in the local marketplace.

Our only chance to save the planet and take back control of our economy and political system lies in our ability to control our dollars. In a brilliant synthesis of thirty years of experience, John C. Harrington gives investors the strategies to thwart corporate domination of the earth's resources, decentralize our economy, restore democracy, tame corruption, and regain community control of our financial resources.

The author chronicles the long-lasting environmental harm to Prince William Sound, Alaska, and investigates the health problems suffered by many cleanup workers. Exxon's spill provided a portal to understanding a startling truth: oil is much more toxic than we previously thought. Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$ frames the larger story of discovery of the truly toxic nature of oil.

A complete handbook on using talk media to promote an issue, a product, or a candidate?a guide to success in campaign 2006. Ready, Set, Talk! will help anyone?from the novice activist to the sophisticated public relations professional?develop a talk media message, prepare a campaign, and roll it out.

America's working families have been struggling for decades, but the creative, can-do spirit that has served the country well in the past is alive and well, even if it is lacking in so many of our so-called leaders. The Service Employees International Union, known as the most aggressive voice for working Americans, went to the people to find out what's wrong and what can be right in our economy and politics.

A CIA-connected labor union, an assassination attempt, a mysterious car crash, listening devices, and stolen documents--everything you'd expect from the latest thriller. Yet, this was the reality of Tony Mazzocchi, the Rachel Carson of the U.S. workplace; a dynamic labor leader whose legacy lives on in today's workplaces and ongoing alliances between labor activists and environmentalists, and those who believe in the promise of America.

Breast cancer incidence rates in the United States increased by more than 40 percent between 1973 and 1998. In 2008, a woman's lifetime risk of breast cancer is one in eight.

India remains a mystery to many Americans, even as it is poised to become the world’s third largest economy within a generation, outstripping Japan. It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050.

In each cup of coffee we drink the major issues of the twenty-first century — globalization, immigration, women's rights, pollution, indigenous rights, and self-determination — are played out in villages and remote areas around the world. In Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee, a unique hybrid of Fair Trade business, adventure travel, and cultural anthropology, author Dean Cycon brings readers face-to-face with the real people who make our morning coffee ritual possible.

With insight, clarity, warmth, and enthusiasm Hazel Henderson announces the mature presence of the green economy. Mainstream media and big business interests have sidelined its emergence and evolution to preserve the status quo.

This CorpWatch report, by Eliza Strickland and Azibuike Akaba, tells the story of corporate malfeasance and government incompetence two years after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. This is our second report – Big, Easy Money by Rita J. King was the first – and it digs into a slew of new scandals.

Will Allen is an organic farming visionary. A true activist, entrepreneur, and expert, he understands the complexities of farming first hand and the impact that commercialization has had.

To an increasing number of American families the CSA (community supported agriculture) is the answer to the globalization of our food supply. The premise is simple: create a partnership between local farmers and nearby consumers, who become members or subscribers in support of the farm. In exchange for paying in advance—at the beginning of the growing season, when the farm needs financing—CSA members receive the freshest, healthiest produce throughout the season and keep money, jobs, and farms in their own community.

Every week, millions of North Americans take advantage of their freedom of choice by shopping at Wal-Mart. Ironically, the cumulative effect of these actions may be to remove real choice by driving alternatives to Wal-Mart out of business. As a result, many who spend their money at a Wal-Mart store may nevertheless end up wishing that it had never been built.

The largest company in the world by far, Wal-Mart takes in revenues in excess of $280 billion, employs 1.4 million American workers, and controls a large share of the business done by almost every U.S. consumer-product company. More than 138 million shoppers visit one of its 5,300 stores each week.

In this powerful book, eminent social scientist Riane Eisler, author of the mega-bestseller The Chalice and the Blade, shows that the great problems of our time — such as poverty, inequality, war, terrorism, and environmental degradation — are due largely to flawed economic systems that set the wrong priorities and misallocate resources. Conventional economic models fail to value and support the most essential human work — caring and caregiving — so basic human needs are increasingly neglected, despair and ecological destruction escalate, and the resulting social tensions fuel many of the conflicts we face today.

Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed lays out, in practical steps and far-reaching concepts, a program to ensure food and agriculture become more socially and ecologically sustainable. The book harvests the work and ideas produced by thousands of communities around the world. Emerging from the historic gatherings at Terra Madre, farmers, traders, and activists diagnose and offer prescriptions to reverse perhaps the worst food crisis faced in human history.

In the mid-1990s Linda and Larry Faillace had a dream: they wanted to breed sheep and make cheese on their Vermont farm. They did the research, worked hard, followed the rules, and, after years of preparation and patience, built a successful, entrepreneurial business. But just like that, their dream turned into a nightmare. The U.S. Department of Agriculture told them that the sheep they imported from Europe (with the USDA's seal of approval) carried a disease similar to the dreaded BSE or "mad cow disease."

Reich sets out a clear course to a vibrant capitalism and aconcurrent, equally vibrant democracy. He argues forcefully that the spheres of business and politics must be kept distinct. He calls for an end to the legal fiction that corporations are citizens, as well as the illusion that corporations...

Building the Green Economy shows how community groups, families, and individual citizens have taken action to protect their food and water, clean up their neighborhoods, and strengthen their local economies. Their unlikely victories — over polluters, unresponsive bureaucracies, and unexamined routines — dramatize the opportunities and challenges facing the local green economy movement.

Coal tar in dandruff shampoo, lead in lipstick, and 1,4-dioxane in baby soap? How is this possible? Simple: The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful that they've kept themselves unregulated for decades. Not one cosmetic product has to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration before hitting the market. Incredible? Consider this: The European Union has banned more than 1,100 chemicals from cosmetics. The United States has banned just nine. Only 11 percent of chemicals used in cosmetics in the United States have been assessed for health and safety-leaving a staggering 89 percent with unknown or undisclosed effects. More than 70 percent of all cosmetics contain phthalates, which are linked to birth defects and infertility. Many baby soaps are contaminated with the cancer-causing chemical 1,4-dioxane.

Making responsible social and environmental choices has not always been a first priority for many corporations, but recent history has changed all that. Small but mighty nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), using twenty-first-century global communications, are nipping at the heels of corporations caught in unethical and irresponsible practices.

In her groundbreaking reporting from Iraq, Naomi Klein exposed how the trauma of the invasion was being exploited to remake the country in the interest of foreign corporations. She called it “disaster capitalism.” Covering Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami and New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic “shock therapy,” losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.