World Social Forum: Challenging Empires

a considerable amount of writing in a book listed as being in very good condition. very good should have no writing at all.

When the first World Social Forum was held in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, few people could have predicted the event's stunning rise to international prominence in the ensuing years. Originally orchestrated by an array of groups, from France's ATTAC to Brazil's PT, the WSF, conceived of as a symbolic alternative to the Davos WEF, would shortly come to represent a unique instance of opposition to neoliberalism. The later forums, attended by the tens and hundreds of thousands; the successful actions that the process has fostered, such as the unprecedented worldwide mobilization against the Iraq War in 2003; the increasing discussion about the power and nature of the forum--all attest to the significance of this new--and novel--phenomenon.Published in 2009 in a revised second edition, World Social Forum: Challenging Empires is to my mind the best resource available to those interested in this alternative political force. Edited by Jai Sen, an architect and activist from India heavily involved in the forum process, and Peter Waterman, a long-time writer on global society and politics, the book brings together essays on every imaginable aspect of the WSF topic. There are investigations into the event's antecedents, colorful descriptions of what actually happens at a `forum,' criticism of how the WSF is organized, interviews about what the process means, official forum documents, and everything in between. The breadth of high-level academic and political writing contained in the volume makes it a wonderful introduction to not only the forum process, but also the entire spectrum of recent developments in worldwide counter-hegemony.The book is organized into four parts that keep similar styles of essays together while avoiding a repetitive monotony. A number of the essays were insightful enough to be read (and reread) on their own; WSF founding member Chico Whitaker's piece, which contrasted the "Forum as space" and the "Forum as movement," as well as Bonaventura de Sousa Santos' conception of the "sociologies of absences and emergences," were especial highlights. Sen and Waterman succeeded in selecting work from diverse contributors, and it is certainly invaluable to have the opinions of activists, organizers, professors and intellectuals collected in a cohesive whole. The miscellany could be read front to back and remain entertaining, or used as a resource from which to draw pieces of particular interest.If the WSF is a process in flux, a process that is inchoate in practice (as well as in definition) then a lively critical discussion is all the more important for effecting positive changes in the future of that process. The WSF is revolutionary in its audacity, in its diversity, in ways that the revolutionaries and reformers of the past tried to be but failed to be. Our current historical moment is unique (like all others) and the WSF is a reflection of that moment: this moment. This book offers a comprehensive discussion of the WSF and should be recommended to everyone interested in the possibility of "another world" in our lifetime.