Don't bother me, I'm reading...

This page received an excellent Xmas gift from Walnut Boat: a copy of Tariq Ali's Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope. By no means, do not confuse this title with the Disney movies starring Johnny Depp: the only similarity is that Ali probably hates the Bush administration even more than Depp, who relocated to France in protest a few years ago.

In his previous book Clash of Fundamentalisms, Ali spelled out in rich historical and political detail a rise of Militant Islam in the Middle East that long predated September 11, 2001. In Pirates, he turns his focus to the rise of the New Left in Latin America, led by Evo Morales in Bolivia and the unrelenting Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. I'm about a third of the way through this book, but I can recommend it already. Here's a more detailed review.