The Battle for Paradise Lib/E: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists
In the rubble of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans and ultrarich Puertopians are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island.
In this vital and startling investigation, New York Times bestselling author and activist Naomi Klein uncovers how the forces of shock politics and disaster capitalism seek to undermine the nation's radical, resilient vision for a just recovery.
All royalties from the sale of this book in English and Spanish go directly to JunteGente, a gathering of Puerto Rican organizations resisting disaster capitalism and advancing a fair and healthy recovery for their island. For more information, visit http: //juntegente.org.
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Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist, documentary filmmaker and author of the international bestsellers No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, and No Is Not Enough.
She is Senior Correspondent for The Intercept, and contributor to the Nation Magazine. She is also a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and her writing appears widely in such publications as The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian. Klein is a member of the board of directors for climate-action group 350.org and one of the organizers behind Canada's Leap Manifesto, a blueprint for a rapid and justice-based transition off fossil fuels. In November 2016 she was awarded Australia's prestigious Sydney Peace Prize for, according to the prize jury, "inspiring us to stand up locally, nationally and internationally to demand a new agenda for sharing the planet that respects human rights and equality."
Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award-winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
This short audiobook packs as potent a punch as the hurricanes that devastated the island of Puerto Rico in 2017...Narrator Erin Bennett approaches this work in a clear, authoritative voice that reflects the no-nonsense tone of Klein's words. Bennett takes control immediately, pausing effectively and pacing herself so that we can both understand and analyze the book's message. Even more memorable, she maintains a measured approach even when the message becomes fiery.
-- "AudioFile"Hurricane Maria left more than destruction in its wake. There is now a brewing political conflict over how to rebuild Puerto Rico, the subject of Klein's investigation...On one side are what she calls the 'disaster capitalists' looking for a profit, and on the other, local communities.
-- "New York Times"Fearless necessary reporting...Klein exposes the 'battle of utopias' that is currently unfolding in storm-ravaged Puerto Rico.
-- "Junot Diaz, New York Times bestselling author"A revealing, on-the-ground report that ably shows that the real looters after disaster are not the poor.
-- "Kirkus Reviews"Lays out the challenges facing Puerto Ricans who seek to transform their island into a democratic polity that serves the people's interests rather than colonial kleptocracy...A welcome update on the situation in Puerto Rico-one that portends similar battles worldwide as climate change accelerates.
-- "Publishers Weekly"This book explains, with careful and unbiased reporting, only the efforts of our community activists can answer the paramount question: What type of society do we want to become and who is Puerto Rico for?
-- "Carmen Yulin Cruz, mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico"There's no-one better to tell the story of Hurricane Maria and its global significance than Naomi. In the face of speculation, exploitation, and climate crisis, this book calls on us to recognize Puerto Rico's struggle for democracy, justice, and human life itself, as our own.
-- "Ada Colau Bollano, mayor of Barcelona, Spain"A gripping and timely account of classic 'shock doctrine' being perpetrated in Puerto Rico. Naomi Klein chronicles the extraordinary grassroots resistance by the Puerto Rican people against neoliberal privatization and Wall Street greed in the aftermath of the island's financial meltdown, of hurricane devastation, and of Washington's imposition of an outside control board over the most important US colony.
-- "Juan Gonzalez, cohost of Democracy Now! and author of Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America"
