<DIV><p>&ldquo;The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>The New York Times Book Review</i></p><p>&ldquo;Reading Arundhati Roy is how the peace movement arms itself. She turns our grief and rage into courage.&rdquo;&mdash;Naomi Klein, author of <i>No Logo</i></p><p>In her major address to the 99th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association on August 16, 2004&mdash;&ldquo;Public Power in the Age of Empire,&rdquo; broadcast nationally on C-Span Book TV, <i>Democracy Now!</i> and Alternative Radio&mdash;writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly examines the limits to democracy in the world today. Bringing the same care to her prose that she brought to her Booker Prize-winning novel <i>The God of Small Things</i>, Roy discusses the need for social movements to contest the occupation of Iraq and the reduction of &ldquo;democracy&rdquo; to elections with no meaningful alternatives allowed. She explores the dangers of the &ldquo;NGO-ization of resistance,&rdquo; shows how governments that block nonviolent dissent in fact encourage terrorism and examines the role of the corporate media in marginalizing oppositional voices.</p><p><b>Arundhati Roy</b> is the author of the novel <i>The God of Small Things</i>, for which she was awarded the Booker Prize in 1997. Roy has also published four essay collections: <i>An Ordinary Person&rsquo;s Guide to Empire</i>, <i>War Talk</i>, <i>Power Politics</i> and <i>The Cost of Living</i> and is the subject of <i>The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Interviews with Arundhati Roy</i>, edited by David Barsamian. Roy received the 2002 Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom from the Lannan Foundation. Trained as an architect, Roy lives in New Delhi, India.</p></DIV>