Abolition Democracy: beyond empire, prisons and torture by Angela Y Davis, Seven Stories Press. £7.99. Three decades ago Angela Davis was an iconic black political figure. Placed on the FBI's ten most wanted list on false charges, labelled an "enemy of the state", driven underground, 16 months - she was only released following a big international campaign.
This is a series of recent interviews with her about black politics, prisons, global justice, the "war on terror", feminism and class justice.
Davis's personal history is by no means confined to the period that made her famous. In the late 1960s she studied in Frankfurt with Marcuse, Adorno, Habermas and Horkheimer. And she twice ran as vice-presidential candidate for the Communist Party of the United States, not leaving the party till the early 1990s.
She still considers herself a communist, but makes no attempt at a critique of the CP tradition let alone Stalinism. This can be held against her, but many like her are involved in realignments central to the formation of pluralistic new broad socialist parties across Europe. She didn't bend in the wind, drifting over to right wing social democracy
On the contrary she is significant as a black voice linking vital aspects of the 1960s radical movement (the struggle against racism and repression) with today's new left. Not only does she argue the relevance of Marxism to the global justice and antiwar movements but has some useful advice.
For instance on the question of activism - she emphasises the primacy of organising movements and not just mobilising all the time. Demos are vital, but unless you couple this with patient long term work in putting down roots they don't create the powerful movement that can change the balance of forces.
Today's mass mobilisations have a broad, but shallow, political character compared with those three to four decades ago.
There is also an interesting critique of both black and feminist politics from a class perspective, pointing out the limitations of identity politics, multiculturalism and a patronising stance towards Muslim and middle eastern communities in the name of exporting western rights and freedoms.
She calls for solidarity across the ditterent parts of the black community particularly to defend The best
those facing the material is main brunt of the on the warr on tenor
She wobbles a bit "racialisation on the Democratic " of the penal Party, stating that system in the sne would preler a
Clinton Presidency. But then emphasises the continuity between him and Bush on domestic and foreign policy and criticises those who failed to organise an opposition to him.
However the best material is on the "racialisation" of the penal system in the USA and the "prison-industrialcomplex", the focus of her activity in recent years.
Drawing on WE Du Bois and George Jackson, she roots its racist nature in the unresolved issues of the postCivil War period. The status of the death penalty as a uniquely US phenomenon (among western stales) Is a modern day legacy of slavery.
And she maps out connections between the penal system and the torture and detention of the "war on terror" - comparing the Abu Ghraib abuse photos with those of lynchings in southern USA.