With 'Mumbo Jumbo' Francis Wheen has found a polite catch-all term to describe how irrational thought, religious obscurantism, blind faith and new fads increasingly pervade all aspects of life the world over.

A well worn Marxist axiom is that the dominant theories and beliefs in a given society tend to be those of its ruling class and Wheen ably charts how the initial development of capitalism as a system went hand in hand with giant leaps in philosophy, art, science and technology.

The prevailing belief was one that human reason and a scientific method could be brought to bear on any challenge. This stood in stark contrast to the proceeding dark ages where the church had a virtual monopoly on learning and art and a firm lid was placed on any advances in understanding that went beyond the scriptures.

For Wheen, science and reason had the upper hand over mumbo jumbo for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries right until the end of the long postwar upswing and a few years more for good measure. However he identifies two events in 1979 as marking a turning point heralding an era where mumbo jumbo has come back with a vengeance.

One is the Ayatollah coming to power in Iran and the other is Margaret Thatcher's election victory. Both, admittedly by different routes, set their respective societies back years, one by a religious obscurantism which has become a powerful anti Western philosophy in the Muslim world.

The other destroyed Britain's manufacturing base and preached mumbo jumbo in the guise of monetarism, privatisation and trickle down theory. All of which have by now become the orthodox approach for governments of the right and former left throughout the world.

What both have in common is the notion that the world and the market are essentially beyond human understanding and are incapable of being changed for the better through collective action in this lifetime. One offers rewards in the afterlife, the other poses individual advancement within the capitalist framework.

The book is sometimes hilarious as Wheen catalogues all the ills a world dominated by mumbo jumbo brings, from self help books, to crystal treatment and from the horoscopes to the revival of creationism in US schools. Tony Blair's third way is not spared either but rather shown up as an example of essentially right wing ideas explained with lefty sounding words.

There is plenty in this book to arm socialists and Marxists with arguments against crackpot theories. Wheen however is no Marxist and clearly views the post war "consensus" with a developed welfare state and a high level of trade union organisation as the ideal. How we are supposed to achieve that is left unanswered.

The most dissatisfactory part of the book is Wheen's swipe at the left for its opposition to recent wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan. It is true that some on the left have given hostages to fortune, adopting a virtually uncritical position on political Islam. Wheen essentially sees only military powers and alliances as being capable of stopping ethnic cleansing and despots. He overlooks the potential for workers and poor to act independently on their own behalf. In the end it was the people of Serbia that overthrew Milosevic and not NATO bombs.

Despite these flaws, How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World deserves some praise for presenting such a vast and daunting topic in an accessible and often funny book.

In the past few years, particularly since US imperialism launched its so-called ''war on terror'' against Afghanistan and Iraq, George Galloway has come to prominence as an outspoken figure against these wars and the Blair government.

A government, that has slavishly followed the diktats of the Bush administration.

In his new book I'm Not the Only One Galloway puts forward his own political outlook and evolution. In it he gives a devastating critique of Tony Blair's domestic and foreign policy as well as graphically illustrating the crimes carried out by imperialism particularly against the people of the Middle East over the past 50 years.

Galloway correctly links the causes of war to the capitalist system. However when it comes to offering a socialist alternative to both he is found wanting. For example he poses the idea of a ''democratic United Nations'' (page 20) with greater powers being given to the General Assembly as well abolishing a veto for any country on the Security Council as way of restraining US imperialism. He also argues that the European Union could act as a progressive counterweight to the US (page 23). The idea that either of these capitalist institutions can play a positive role in curbing the power of the US is completely false. It is farcical to believe th0ialism will allow itself to be controlled by countries against which it is waging war and exploiting. As regards the EU, it is reactionary to argue it can play the role of a more progressive imperialism different to that of the US.

Recently Galloway said that he was ''not as left wing as you think''. This is seen in the book when in many parts he tries to distance himself from his ''hard left'' image, as shown by his description of his experiences of the Labour Party. While he supported Tony Benn for the deputy leadership of the party, he attacks the Militant (the forerunners of the Socialist Party) as ''working parasitically'' in the Labour Party (page 137). Such terminology echoes that of the right wing leadership at the time who were attempting to expel the Militant for consistently arguing for the need to adopt a socialist programme and because of its growing influence.

He also attacks the policies of the Militant led Labour Liverpool City Council as ''ultra-left''. Again this is an argument that mirrors that of the right reformists of Labour who were opposed to the Council's strategy of mobilising the working class of Liverpool against the Thatcher government.

Finally Galloway talks of the RESPECT initiative that both he and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) have launched. The programme of RESPECT, which is put forward in the book, can be described at best as right reformist. In many ways Galloway seems intent on doing nothing more than rebuilding the old social democracy. Despite the fact that both Galloway and the SWP are avowed socialists, there is no mention of socialism in RESPECT's programme.

In the past few years, a new generation of young people and workers have become radicalised particularly by the war on Iraq and its consequences. Many reading this book will agree with the conclusions that Galloway puts forward about the profit system under which we live, but Galloway fails to put forward an argument for how things can be changed. This is a major shortcoming of this book.

Al Franken was one of the chief comedic weapons in the arsenal of John Kerry's campaign.

He is part of that tradition - Jackie Mason, Jerry Seinfeld - of mostly Jewish origin comedy that emerged from holiday venues in the Catskill mountains in upstate New York.

Like Michael Moore he opposes George Bush but his primary motivation is his liberal disgust at right wing propaganda rather than industrial downsizing.

He sets out to disprove the notion purveyed by Republican sympathizers that the media is biased to the left. He does this with brilliant simplicity in writing about how syndicated columnist Ann Coulter felt so strongly about the liberal biased media, that she appeared on a long list of popular shows such as Larry King Live among others to complain that conservatives do not get enough media coverage. Ann Coulter is the columnist who demanded that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" following 9/11.

Another of the featured lying liars is Fox News' Bill O' Reilly: lying, splotchy bully who is a fragile individual. O' Reilly, who is currently defending a sexual harassment lawsuit, lied about coming from a rich family, attending private school, being a registered Republican and lied about winning the prestigious Peabody journalism award.

Reading this book and the various personalities the reader feels as if they are witnessing a series of schoolyard lunch break fights. Right wing media presenter picks on a liberal wimp and shouts them down when they dare to speak, while liberals like Franken sneer "you're hurting us with your lies".

Al Franken has done a service to expose lies and media propaganda but his propaganda for John Kerry, which takes up much of this book, is as Republican commentators say about Kerry's speeches, long and windy - funny that.

Left-wing journalist Michael McCaughan's new book The Battle of Venezuela, is a vivid account of the process which has been evolving since the election of left-wing populist President Hugo Chavez six years ago.

McCaughan kicks off his book with an introduction to the troubled history of Venezuela.

It is a history of military coups, a two-party state, left-wing guerrilla struggle and the disillusionment in the neo-liberal policies of the IMF; a history of corrupt government and big business resulting in the rising of workers and poor in the Caracazo of 1989, which was viciously put down by the army and police. This process further led to Chavez's failed coup attempt in 1992 and ultimately to his election victory in 1998.

The second part of the book titled The Bolivarian Project, details the many reforms and changes brought about under Chavez. McCaughan describes among others, the introduction of the recall referendum, the establishment of huge communal farms, the dropping of school fees allowing a further 600,000 to enter school, the programme to eradicate illiteracy, and how the working week has been fixed at a maximum of 44 hours with night work at 35 hours. However he does not take these reforms at face value, but is alive to the real situation facing the working class in Venezuela; "Such laws would come as some surprise to the workers in the bakery opposite my hotel, who work 7am to 9pm, six days a week, not forgetting an hour each way on the bus."

The third part of the book is titled Reaction, and details the opposition to Chavez's rule from big-business, the church, the middle-class and the right-wing politicians supported by US imperialism. It describes the failed coup of 2002 and the bosses' lock-out of December 2002-February 2003. Part four, Scenes from the Bolivarian Revolution, describes the process on the ground and the change in the lives of ordinary people in the cities, shanty-towns and countryside.

McCaughan's book is a very enjoyable and informative read. He does an excellent job of highlighting the history of Venezuela and the many reforms initiated by Chavez. More importantly, he vividly describes what this process has meant for the ordinary people in Venezuela. He describes the benefits it has brought them but also the crime, the reaction of business and little anecdotes that really bring home the gritty reality of life in Venezuela.

McCaughan ends his book by saying that, "The next phase of this process will not rely on the charisma of a single individual but upon the collective memory and joint action of a people awoken from the slumber of the bayonet, alive now to the certainty that they can reclaim their country from its arrogant elite".

McCaughan is correct in this point. However, while realising that the next step will rely on the mass of the people, he fails to put forward the alternative that they must embrace in order to ensure a future free from corruption, poverty, and exploitation. That alternative for Venezuela is socialism..