With movements like Idle No More and Defenders of the Land following the footsteps today of centuries of struggle, Aboriginal Rights Are Not Human Rights reminds us that the wolves, indeed, are howling.

Balko recommends greater accountability and the scaling back of government grants supplying powerful weapons to local and state police. He doesn’t go much further, but then again, political will is not his focus; rather, it is to expose the hazards of a police state and warn readers of how disturbingly vivid it may become.

Julie Devaney weaves a powerful story of devastating illness and great strength in the face of a system that lacks the sensitivity needed to heal the sick. Her experiences lead her to a determination to transform something that is so fundamental to Canadians’ everyday lives – our medical system.

Digital Disconnect seeks to strip away this benign patina by challenging the notion that the internet is fundamentally apolitical.

Exhibition catalogues rarely serve as more than an archive, but here the difference is by design. Envisioned as a series of intersecting projects, It’s the Political Economy, Stupid ( Pluto Books, 2013) exists independently of — and parallel to — four site-responsive exhibitions (with more stops to come) and various public programming.

Let us begin with a word, and the word is “globalization.” Not chosen randomly, but because it jumped out of the mindless chatter and could not be ignored.

Dirty Wars provides a raw and gripping exposé on the dark side of US foreign policy in the post-9/11 era.

In early 2009 the anarchist movement in Austin was shocked to learn that Brandon Darby was an FBI informant who had helped entrap David McKay and Bradley Crowder, two young activists from Midland, Texas, into constructing 8 Molotov cocktails. The documentary Informant tells the story Brandon Darby,

Mark Perelman’s argument can be summed up as follows: Sport is inseparable from the global games industry, which has its beginnings in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Nazis did not appropriate the Olympics, rather the nature of sport is congruent with Nazi ideology and laid the foundations for the Second World War with its nationalist bravado, saluting of the flag and so on.

Keep True is a better read than its rather lame title might suggest. Pawley recounts his career in a clear, crisp and concise manner. His record of his time in government can be helpful in teaching activists how to build a progressive movement capable of winning political office. This would be of no small benefit: as the crushing of the Occupy movement shows, those who wish to effect democratic change will need the power of government as well as the support of the streets. But if activists need guidance on what to do when they form government, they will need to look further.