Kristian Williams

Two excerpts from my collection on Orwell, Between the Bullet and the Lie, were posted online this week.

Toward Freedom ran the introduction, “Between the Bullet and the Lie: George Orwell in His Time, and Ours.” In it, I discuss what I see as Orwell’s enduring relevance and explain my approach to understanding his work.

Lithub ran a half-chapter titled “What George Orwell Wrote About the Dangers of Nationalism: On Facts, Fallacies, and Power.” In the excerpt, I sum up the argument from Orwell’s essay “Notes on Nationalism,” in which he describes the bad thinking that arises from “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.” In the book, I go on to apply his analysis to our present political movements, left as well as right.

I am pleased to announce Between the Bullet and the Lie: Essays on Orwell.

Approximately the first half of the book forwards an interpretation of Orwell’s thought, especially as it relates to the intersection of ethics and politics; the second half applies his thought to our present moment, with particular attention to issues of intellectual clarity, personal integrity, pessimism in politics, and the failures of the left.

If you would like a copy, send me $18 and I’ll put it in the mail to you.

Or better still, if you are in San Francisco on Sunday, November 19th, you can find me at the Howard Zinn Bookfair. I’ll be speaking at 2:45 in Room 315, and tabling all day.

And as always, drop me a line if you’d like to bring me to speak at your school, church, union hall, bookstore, or pub.

Episode 6 of the Submedia video series Trouble serves as a good introduction to counterinsurgency, the military science of counter-revolutionary warfare. Featuring interviews with Gord Hill, Dawn Paley, and me (among others), the video connects COIN with the history of policing, the drug war, and indigenous resistance.

Check it out.

Image from the Baltimore Book Fair:

Last time I was in Baltimore, a police captain bought Our Enemies in Blue and asked for a bag precisely so no one would take his picture with it.

I guess the lower ranks are not so cautious.