Naomi Klein re-releases 'No Logo' 10 years later

Naomi Klein has announced a new release of her bestselling book “No logo.” The book includes an extended new introduction, covering the Wall Street bailout and the rise of the most powerful brand in the world – the Obama Brand.

The first edition of No Logo was released shortly after massive protests against the WTO meeting in Seattle in November 1999. Very quickly, the book became a manifesto of the anti-globalization movement as well as an international bestseller and financial success for its author and publisher. In her book, Klein describes multinational corporations and their impact on our daily lives. She documents the history of brands and their development from a recognizable face on factory-produced products to brands as a products themselves. Klein also shows how corporations, brands and logos increasingly dominate the spaces of life, including public spaces like schools, universities, streets, city squares and so on. She argues that there is no choice and no space for us – the only choice is one of the corporation and the only space is the corporate. Additionally, because of the corporate policy, there are no decent jobs – the only job is the 'McJob' – temporary, low-paying, insecure and low-prestige. From the start, No logo provoked sharp protests – mainly from multinationals. Nike immediately published a long response to the allegations and the Economist's strong criticism led to a broadcast debate, dubbed No Logo vs. Pro Logo. Other critics pointed out that No Logo was published by a multinational corporation and that it become a logo and a brand itself. "There is nothing wrong with logos, the wrong is the way the multinationals use them", Klein responded. Beyond these allegations, there are still some unsolved controversies. Although Klein says she supports independent bookstores, there are links on her website leading to the bookstore chains such as Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Powells and Amazon websites. The bookstore chains, as she argues in No Logo, are responsible for the disappearance of small, independent bookshops. “Part of the problem is the Wall-Mart effect: the superstore chains have negotiated discounts on wholesale books with many publishers, making it nearly impossible for the independents to compete on price,” Klein writes on page 158 of the book. And Amazon is even worse, she says on page 22: “It is on-line that the purest brands are being built: liberated from the real-world burdens of stores and product manufacturing, these brands are free to soar, less as the disseminators of goods or services than as collective hallucinations.” Last year I attended the lecture by Klein that took place at the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom. She was talking about her new book The Shock Doctrine and after the event she signed copies of the book. In the University building around her there were many logos for Borders bookstores, an organization unfavourable described in No Logo. The 10th Anniversary edition of No Logo will be released in the U.S. and Canada in late-November and in the UK in January. It's already available via pre-order on Amazon. The link to the book page at the Amazon website is posted on Klein's website.