Incendiary and heartrending, the sixteen essays in The State Is the Enemy lay bare government brutality against the working class, immigrants, asylum seekers, ethnic minorities, and all who are deemed of “a lower order.” Drawing parallels between the Turkish State’s atrocities against the Kurds and the racist police brutality and government-sanctioned murders in the UK, James Kelman shatters the myth of Western exceptionalism, revealing the universality of terror campaigns levied against the most vulnerable and calling on a global citizenry to stand in solidarity with victims of oppression. Kelman’s case against the Turkish and British governments is not just a litany of murders or an impassioned plea—it is a cool-headed takedown of the State and an essential primer for revolutionaries.