Jump to content

Naomi Klein

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Marshmellowgoggles (talk | contribs) at 19:15, 12 May 2008 (once again, someone is giving WP:undue weight to the minority of negative reviews). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Naomi Klein
Occupationjournalist, author, activist
Subjectanti-globalization, Neo-Liberalism
Website
http://www.naomiklein.org/

Naomi Klein (b. 5 May 1970, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian journalist, author and activist well known for her political analyses of corporate globalization.

Klein ranked 11th in the The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll, a list of the world's top 100 public intellectuals compiled by Prospect magazine[1] in conjunction with Foreign Policy magazine. She was the highest ranked woman on the list. Prospect based the list and its rankings entirely on an Internet poll.[2][3][4]

Family

Klein was brought up in Jewish family which has a history of activism, as does that of her husband, Avi Lewis. Her grandfather was fired for labour organizing at Disney in the United States. Her father Michael, a physician, was a Vietnam War resister and a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her mother, film-maker Bonnie Sherr Klein, directed and scripted the anti-pornography documentary film, Not a Love Story.[5][6] Her brother Seth is director of the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Her in-laws are Michele Landsberg and Stephen Lewis, son of David Lewis. An aunt of Klein's is married to architect Daniel Libeskind.

Education

Klein's writing career started early with contributions to The Varsity, a University of Toronto student newspaper, where she served as editor-in-chief. She credits her wake-up call to feminism as the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students.

Klein once lectured as a Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics.[7]

Klein was the keynote speaker at the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC)'s first National conference.

Career in journalism

In 2000, Klein published the book No Logo, which for many became a manifesto of the anti-globalization movement. This movement had shut down the WTO Meeting of 1999 one month before the release of No Logo. The book lambasts brand-oriented consumer culture by describing the operations of large corporations. These corporations are also accused of being often guilty of exploiting workers in the world's poorest countries in pursuit of ever-greater profits, she writes. Klein criticized Nike so much in the book that it became one of the first publications to receive feedback from the company.[8] No Logo became an international bestseller, selling over one million copies, and translated into over 28 languages.[9]

In 2002 Klein published Fences and Windows, a collection of articles and speeches she had written on behalf of the anti-globalization movement (all proceeds from the book go to benefit activist organizations through The Fences and Windows Fund). Klein also contributes to The Nation, In These Times, The Globe and Mail, This Magazine, and The Guardian.

She has continued to write on various current issues, such as the war in Iraq. In a September 2004 article for Harper's Magazine entitled "Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia",[10] she argues that, contrary to popular belief and criticisms, the Bush administration did have a clear plan for post-invasion Iraq, which was to build a fully unconstrained free market economy. She describes plans to allow foreigners to extract wealth from Iraq, and the methods used to achieve those goals.[11][12]

Also in 2004, Klein and her husband, Avi Lewis, released a documentary film called The Take, about factory workers in Argentina who took over the closed plant and resumed production, operating as a collective. The first African screening was in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the South African city of Durban where the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement began.[13]

The Shock Doctrine

Klein's third book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, was published on 4 September 2007, becoming a New York Times bestseller[9] and receiving favorable reviews from such figures as Howard Zinn, Arundhati Roy, Seymour Hersh, Jeremy Scahill, Anthony Shadid, Studs Terkel, Jane Smiley, Chalmers Johnson, John Berger, Peter Carey,[14] and such publications as The Washington Post, Village Voice, Time Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, The Observer, The Independent, Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, The Oregonian, New Statesman, and New York Times.[15]

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz praised it in the New York Times, adding, "[T]he case against these policies is even stronger than the one Klein makes."[16] Paul B. Farrell from the Dow Jones Business News called it "one of the best economic book[s] of the 21st century".[17] John Gray wrote in The Guardian, "There are very few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books."[18]

The work is not without its critics. Economist Tyler Cowen, writing in the New York Sun, called Klein's rhetoric "ridiculous," calling the book a "true economics disaster."[19] In the London Review of Books, Stephen Holmes criticized the books for its naivite and, more egregiously, conflating "'free market orthodoxy' with predatory corporate behavior."[20] John Willman from Financial Times describes Shock Doctrine as "a deeply flawed work that blends together disparate phenomena to create a beguiling – but ultimately dishonest – argument."[21] The book also received a negative review by Tom Redburn from New York Times.[22] The section on Russia has been challenged by Anders Åslund[23] and Fred Kaplan.[24]

The Shock Doctrine was also adapted into a short film of the same name, released onto YouTube. The film was directed by Jonás Cuarón, produced and co-written by his father Alfonso Cuarón. The video has been downloaded over one million times.[9]

Books

  • 2000. No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. ISBN 0312421435
  • 2002. Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate. ISBN 0312307993
  • 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. ISBN 0805079831

References

  1. ^ "Prospect Magazine List of Top 100 Public Intellectuals". Prospect Magazine. Prospect Publishing Limited. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
  2. ^ Herman, David (2005). "Global public intellectuals poll". Prospect Magazine. Prospect Publishing Limited. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  3. ^ What Are We Fighting For? January 27, 2005
  4. ^ Democratic Rights in Wartime Feb, 2005
  5. ^ Not a Love Story: A Motion Picture About Pornography. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |director= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |producer= ignored (help)
  6. ^ DiCaprio, Lisa (1985). "Not a Love Story: The film and the debate". Jump Cut (30): 39–42. Retrieved 2007-09-09. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  7. ^ "Visiting teaching fellows". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
  8. ^ "Nike's response to No Logo". Nike. 2000-03-08. Archived from the original on 2001-06-18.
  9. ^ a b c http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/naomi_klein
  10. ^ "Baghdad year zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia". Harper's Magazine. The Harper's Magazine Foundation. 2004. Retrieved 2007-09-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  11. ^ Interview by Amy Goodman about Klein's article, "James Baker's Double Life", October 13, 2004 (video, audio & print transcript)
  12. ^ PBS Frontline: The Persuaders: interview via KQED, November 9, 2004
  13. ^ "Seattle to Baghdad" - An assessment of Klein's shift from analyzing 90's corporate culture to the War in Iraq, by Kim Phillips-Fein in n+1 magazine.
  14. ^ http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/advance-praise
  15. ^ http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews
  16. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph (2007-09-30). "Bleakonomics". New York Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  17. ^ Farrell, Paul (2007-10-16). "War, Terror, Catastrophe: Profiting From 'Disaster Capitalism'". Dow Jones Business News. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ Gray, John (2007-09-15). "The End of the World as We Know It". The Guardian. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  19. ^ Cowen, Tyler (2007-10-03). "Shock Jock". {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Holmes, Stephen (2008-05-08). "Free Marketeering". {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ The profits of doom - John Willman, Financial Times, October 20 2007
  22. ^ It’s All a Grand Capitalist Conspiracy - Tom Redburn, New York Times, September 29, 2007
  23. ^ "Free-Market Mischief in Hot Spots of Disaster". New York Times. 2007-09-10. Retrieved 2007-11-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ Kaplan, Fred (2007-10-02). "Blame Yeltsin". Slate. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Media


Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Naomi_Klein&oldid=211932441"