The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein, Canada's answer to Noam Chomsky, is in Edmonton Tuesday night, promoting her new book, The Shock Doctrine. [Hmm, is it okay to say "promoting" about a prominent critic of unfettered capitalism?!] The October 2nd event is at the Royal Alberta Museum at 7:30 pm.

Klein is best-known as the author of No Logo, the "bible" of the anti-globalization movement. No Logo captured the zeitgeist of the early 2000s - the anti-Word Trade Organization "Battle of Seattle" in 1999, the anti-G8 protest in Genoa in 2001 and so on. The book has sold more than a million copies and is available in 28 different languages (speaking of globalization!).

Since No Logo came out, Klein has published columns in prominent publications like The Nation and The Guardian. In 2004 she and husband Avi Lewis released The Take, a documentary film they created which depicts Argentinian workers taking over a closed factory, reopening it and running it a worker collective. Available on DVD at the Library.

For an overview of the book's thesis, take a look at the short film by Klein and Children of Men director Alfonso Cuarón, directed by Jonás Cuarón, here. Or for an even odder mix of celebrity politics, watch Naomi Klein inteviewed by actor/director John Cusack here.