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1: The Zapatistas: A movement to preserve commons against modern enclosures

In my totally unbiased opinion, I believe that it does all of the above and more. It gives an inspiring account of the Zapatista uprising, whilst at the same time providing vital practical advice on how to help. This is done by drawing on written and photographic accounts of the uprising from people who have spent time in Zapatista communities, bringing a much needed personal touch to the text, which is absent from many other dry political histories and critiques of the Zapatistas. If you are thinking of going to Chiapas and working in Zapatista communities (or even doing support work from the comfort of your own armchair), then this text will make it infinitely easier. I strongly suggest you get your grubby hands on a copy and read it thoroughly before you go - as if found with a copy by Mexican immigration you may well find yourself deported! This text is a passionate yet practical guide to helping the Zapatista struggle and it certainly brought back many memories of my experiences in the 'zone' (especially that time when I almost got the ball past that final defender...). Working and living in communities that are effectively autonomous from state interference can be an incredibly inspiring experience, and anything that makes doing this easier should be applauded.

2: Characterization of the ideas of Eleanor Ostrom and scholars that study the Commons

I consider that scholars in the neo-Hardinian tendency have carried on many important empirical studies of common property systems across the planet as well as have made a number of important distinctions in the study of common property. This is not the place to assess their empirical studies (cf. the extensive bibliography on Private and Common Property Rights in (Nelson and Edsvik 2000 71) and the Digital Library on the Commons mentioned above), but their most important theoretical distinctions are worth reviewing, since some can be useful to the anti-capitalist commonist movement.

Of course, the primary one is between common property and open access regimes, since the confusion between them is the basis of Hardin's deduction of the tragedy of the common. Common property regimes are "where the members of a clearly demarcated group have a legal right to exclude nonmembers of that group from using a resource. Open access regimes (res nullius)-including the classic cases of the open seas and the atmosphere-have long been considered in legal doctrine as involving no limits on who is authorized to use a resource" (Giddens 2001 67). On the basis of this distinction, common property and open access regimes are mutually exclusive and anyone who had as their political ideal the creation of an open access regime would not be a supporter of the commons.

The second important distinction is between a common-pool resource (which is a thing or stuff) and a common property regime (which is a set of social relations). A common-pool resource is such that (a) "it is costly to exclude individuals from using ...