Defines our understanding of colonialism and empire.

Examining a series of El Nino-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history.

Another illusion-shattering piece from the man The New York Times called arguably the most important intellectual alive . In 1970, about 90per cent of international capital was used for trade and long-term investment and 10per cent for speculation. By 1990, these figures had reversed.

Neoliberalism - the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action - has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970. This work tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage.

The experience of modernisation - the social changes that swept millions of people into the capitalist world - and modernism in art, literature and architecture are integrated in this account.

A fascinating collection of interviews with Edward Said, foremost thinker of our times