Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left

Left Turn shows why the left should be taken seriously. The essays are passionate, relevant and radical, by voices that are dying to be heard in an increasingly barren media landscape.

The 2008 financial crisis opened the door for a bold, progressive social movement. But despite widespread revulsion at economic inequity and political opportunism, after the crash very little has changed.

Has the Left failed? What agenda should progressives pursue? And what alternatives do they dare to imagine?

Left Turn is aimed at the many Australians disillusioned with the political process. It includes passionate and challenging contributions by a diverse range of writers, thinkers and politicians, from Larissa Berendht and Christos Tsiolkas to Guy Rundle and Lee Rhiannon. These essays offer perspectives largely excluded from the mainstream. They offer possibilities for resistance and for a renewed struggle for change.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent journalist, author and blogger. He has written for the Guardian, The Nation, The Sydney Morning Herald, Haaretz and many others. His first book, My Israel Question (2006), was a bestseller and shortlisted for the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award. His second book, The Blogging Revolution, on the internet in repressive regimes, was released in 2008. Both titles have been re-released in new, updated editions and translated across the world. He is currently working on another book for MUP, on disaster capitalism, due in 2013 and a book in 2012 called After Zionism. Antony appears regularly in the media in Australia and overseas in print, radio and TV. His website is antonyloewenstein.com.

Jeff Sparrow is the editor of Overland literary journal, and works at Victoria University. He is the co-author, with sister Jill, of Radical Melbourne: A Secret History and Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy Within, and the author of Communism: A Love Story (shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award) and Killing: Misadventures in Violence (a finalist in the Melbourne Prize for Literature Best Writing Award 2009). His work has appeared in a range of print and online publications and journals.