No Logo -100 Best NonFiction Books

Known as the bible of the alterglobalization movement, Naomi Klein's No Logo catalogs the modern history of branding and casts the labels from your closet and fridge — Coca-Cola, Gap and Nike. These multinationals leave no billboard unplastered, squelch all competition and drive up profits on the backs of the exploited poor of the First and Third Worlds. A string of passionately woven anecdotes, like one about Nike factory workers being beaten with shoe parts in Vietnam, amounted to a call to action in an era known for activism like the protests at the 1999 WTO conference in Seattle. And the Canadian-born journalist is not above the radical's method of elevating bogeymen in the interest of nurturing rage. "Logos have grown so dominant that they have essentially transformed the clothing on which they appear into empty carriers for the brands they represent," she writes.