Far-left political ideologies and movements Books

Book Synopsis*A Foyles Top 10 Read for March and one of Glamour''s Best Books of March*Longlisted for the inaugural Women''s Prize for Non-Fiction''A galvanising takedown of neoliberalism''s free market logic, one rooted in as much history as it is in current events'' NAOMI KLEIN''A must-read for anyone keen to put the demos back in democracy'' YANIS VAROUFAKISEverything you know about capitalism is wrong.Free markets aren't really free. Record corporate profits don't trickle down to everyone else. And we aren't empowered to make our own choices they're made for us every day.In Vulture Capitalism, acclaimed journalist Grace Blakeley takes on the world's most powerful corporations by showing how the causes of our modern crisis are the intended result of our capitalist system. It's not broken, it's working exactly as planned. From JPMorgan to Boeing, Henry Ford to Richard Nixon, Blakeley shows us exactly where late-stage capitalism has gone wrong.Searing, explosive and timely, Vulture Capitalism is the book you need to understand what is happening in the world around you and what you can do to change it.''Read this book if you want to make fundamental changes to the world'' HA-JOON CHANG''If you''ve ever wondered why you (and everyone you know) feel so out of control of the world around you, this book will give you the answer'' ASH SARKAR

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Book SynopsisThe Communist Manifesto is a timeless classic providing intelligent insight into socialism, communism and today’s group identity politics. This pocket edition includes a new introduction by the economist and bestselling author of Adults in the Room, Yanis Varoufakis.The Communist Manifesto was first published in London in 1848, by two young men in their late twenties. Its impact reverberated across the globe and throughout the next century, and it has come to be recognised as one of the most important political texts ever written. Maintaining that the history of all societies is a history of class struggle, the manifesto proclaims that communism is the only route to equality, and is a call to action aimed at the proletariat. It is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand our modern political landscape.

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Book SynopsisWhat if we could do better than the family?We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonment and neglect, to abuse and violence. Nobody is more likely to harm you than your family.Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting. It could be otherwise: in this urgent, incisive polemic, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis makes the case for family abolition.Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after.Trade ReviewSharp, engaging, and bursting with intellectual energy, Abolish the Family is a triumph. Whether you come to this book as a critic of The Family or as its most ardent supporter, you're sure to find something within its pages to move, challenge, or provoke you. It's a joy to read, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. -- Helen HesterI am consistently dazzled by Sophie Lewis's work, which is both intellectually capacious and heart-expanding. Abolish the Family is a liberatory demand and a world-making project proposed here with revolutionary love and inimitable style. Without fail, Lewis clarifies, disrupts and inspires. -- Natasha Lennard, author of Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist LifeThe idea of family abolition tends to provoke skeptical reactions: Can't families be a source of solidarity? Without families, who would we count on when things get tough? Shouldn't we protect vulnerable families, ostracized families, separated families? Sophie Lewis faces up to the hard questions without flinching, while ultimately steering us towards different ones: How else could we live, and who else could we be? Abolish the Family is a rigorously utopian, radically compassionate, unapologetically revolutionary manifesto, by equal parts thrilling and sobering. We all deserve better than the family, Lewis argues, and it's up to all of us to build new forms of solidarity and care that reach beyond biology or even kin, even if we don't know quite what they'll look like. Abolish the Family will make you want to find out. -- Alyssa BattistoniSophie Lewis once again shines forth as one of the boldest thinkers of our current moment with this highly anticipated sequel to her groundbreaking Full Surrogacy Now. How might we understand caring, sharing, and loving outside the concept of kinship? In this energizing little book - part history and critical analysis, part manifesto - Lewis helps us understand family abolition as world-making rather than as a subtraction of infrastructure, and she does so with remarkable clarity, precision, and wit. -- Sianne Ngai, author of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist FormWhat would it be like to imagine a communism not just of wealth but also of care, love and belonging? Where the full range of human needs are met without depending on the fragile bubble of the nuclear family? That institution we are all supposed to believe will be there for us - even though so many books and films detail all the ways in which it fails. This is the difficult yet important terrain where Sophie Lewis ventures. Abolish the Family is a short, sharp shock to our assumptions about the good life and how to achieve it. -- McKenzie WarkIn her writing, Lewis shows us the kind of feminist care that is within our reach and the intellectual work we must do to actualise it. Generous, charged and always underpinned by a comradely orientation to its reader, Abolish the Family traverses historical and contemporary arguments for unmaking the bourgeois family and methodically interrogates the idea that it is an unshakeable, ubiquitous institution that must be protected at all costs. Lewis draws on a number of radical political genealogies to say "no" - the nuclear family is a deficient provider of care and resource, a conceptual footstool for the racist nation-state and its many border regimes, a hotbed of gendered exploitation and violence...there are other possibilities! Let's embrace them together! -- Lola OlufemiSophie Lewis and her expansive vision of feminism are desperately needed right now. She makes the work of undoing what 'womanhood' has come to mean look possible and irresistible. -- Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the WhoreSophie Lewis is at the top of a new generation of scholars and activists thinking the transformation of gestational labor within contemporary pharmacopornographic capitalism. Neither simply natural nor banally cultural, gestation appears as the unthought core of gender and sexual politics, and the key of a forthcoming womb revolution: trans-Marx meets mammal's politics! -- Paul B. Preciado, author of Testo JunkieA bracing invitation to think beyond an institution that immiserates so many but that, for just as many, remains a fixed point of social possibility. Sophie Lewis is, as always, sharp, bold, compassionate and fearless. -- Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to SexSophie Lewis is at the forefront of a vital queer, trans, feminist communist movement to create an expansive field of revolutionary theory and strategy for today. Abolish the Family is an important contribution to Lewis's already discourse-shaping body of work, analyzing and seeking ways to move beyond the contradictory and complex function of families under conditions of extreme capital accumulation and capitalist crisis. A call for liberation from the privatization of domestic labor and the cruel scarcities of care under capitalism, Abolish the Family exhorts us toward something so much better than what we've got. -- Jordy Rosenbery, author of Confessions of the FoxA lively, sharp and relatively short primer on family abolition ... Lewis does not pretend to have all the answers, but makes a solid case for joining her in finding them. -- Amy Hall * New Internationalist *Sophie Lewis is our most eloquent, furious and funny critic of how the family is a terrible way to satisfy all of our desires for love, care, nourishment. -- Erin Maglaque * New Statesman *Thrilling. -- Emily Kenway * Refinery29 *A timely provocation. -- Tom Whyman * ArtReview *The manifesto I needed. -- Zakia Uddin * White Review, Best Books 2022 *Anchored in a strikingly hopeful feminist Marxism, Lewis leads the reader through a systematic, didactic introduction to the politics and possibilities of cutting ourselves loose from the constraints and impositions of the traditional patriarchal, capitalist family. -- Hanne Blank * LIBER *Lewis builds a harsh yet well-grounded portrait of familial dysfunction. This provocation stings * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisSpies and Lies by Alex Joske is a groundbreaking exposé of elite influence operations by China’s little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China’s past, present and future. Mere years ago, Western governments chose to cooperate with China in the hope that it would liberalise, setting aside concerns about human rights abuses, expansionism and espionage. But the axiom of China's 'peaceful rise' has been fundamentally challenged by the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian behaviour under Xi Jinping. How did we get it wrong for so long? Spies and Lies pierces the Ministry of State Security’s walls of secrecy and reveals how agents of the Chinese Communist Party have spent nearly 40 years manipulating Western leaders’ attitudes – from an Australian prime minister to the US Congress, prominent think tanks and the FBI – about China’s rise. Through interviews with defectors and intelligence officers, classified Chinese intelligence documents and original investigations, the book unmasks dozens of active Chinese intelligence officers along with global MSS fronts including travel agencies, writers associations, publishing houses, alumni associations, newspapers, Buddhist retreats, a record company and charities. Spies and Lies is an extraordinary insight into the most successful influence operation in history, one which has fooled the West for years, and indispensable reading. Trade Review'Mr. Joske’s incisive history and analysis provides a much-needed look inside Beijing’s complex, often ruthlessly effective efforts to shape and soften Western responses to its rapid global ascendance.' – Dan Blumenthal, Wall Street Journal 'The revelations by Joske – an ultra-talented researcher into the Chinese Communist Party’s covert influence ops – will keep you up all night reading, learning and marvelling at how Beijing’s agents pulled the wool over the eyes of the world for so long. A brilliant book.' – Matt Pottinger, former US Deputy National Security Advisor 'Alex Joske is one of the leading researchers on the subject of Chinese Communist Party influence and interference around the world' – Josh Rogin, The Washington Post 'There are only a handful of researchers in Australia of whom it can be said their work has a truly global impact. Alex is one of them.' – Clive Hamilton, author of Silent Invasion 'Fearless and forthright, Alex Joske has for years now been ahead of the media and academic pack in chasing the story of how the Commuinst Party’s intelligence and influence apparatus operates abroad.' – Nick McKenzie, The Age 'Joske, only a couple of years removed from university, has quickly risen to prominence on issues of Chinese government influence.' – David Barboza, The Wire China 'Alex Joske is one of the most innovative and impressive voices on China policy today.' – Mike Gallagher, Member of US Congress Mr. Joske’s incisive history and analysis provides a much-needed look inside Beijing’s complex, often ruthlessly effective efforts to shape and soften Western responses to its rapid global ascendance. * Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2023Capital is currently cannibalizing every sphere of life-guzzling wealth from nature and racialized populations, sucking up our ability to care for each other, and gutting the practice of politics. In this tightly argued and urgent volume, leading Marxist feminist theorist Nancy Fraser charts the voracious appetite of capital, tracking it from crisis point to crisis point, from ecological devastation to the collapse of democracy, from racial violence to the devaluing of care work. These crisis points all come to a head in Covid-19, which Fraser argues can help us envision the resistance we need to end the feeding frenzy. What we need, she argues, is a wide-ranging socialist movement that can recognize the rapaciousness of capital - and starve it to death.Trade ReviewNancy Fraser is a legendary radical philosopher grounded in the best of the Marxist and feminist traditions yet whose genuine embrace and profound understanding of Black, ecological, immigrant and sexual freedom movements make her a unique figure on the contemporary scene! Cannibal Capitalism is not only a singular gem - it is an instant classic for our bleak times! -- Cornel West, author of Race MattersA brilliant synthesis of Fraser's many pathbreaking contributions to a Marxian theory of capitalism for the twenty-first century, beautifully written. -- Wolfgang Streeck, author of How Will Capitalism End?Cannibal Capitalism conjures up a monster that voraciously consumes the very land, labor and natural world upon which it thrives. With characteristically clear and inventive prose, Nancy Fraser unpacks capitalism's historically shifting, interlaced dynamics, revealing the interrelations between seemingly disparate crises and social violences. Throughout, we see the powerful potential of an anti-racist, eco-social reproduction critique. And we see why the future of the planet and humanity depend upon the socialist left building anti-capitalist struggles that reach across workplaces, streets, forests and oceans. -- Sue Ferguson, author of Women and WorkNancy Fraser has produced the most elegant theory yet of capitalism in our age - capitalism not in the narrow economic sense, but capitalism in the sense of a total omnivore, a system that cannot stop devouring everything around it, destroying the lives of people and nature. This is Marxist theory for our age of crisis - and, we shall hope, of reckoning. -- Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a PipelineShould serve to remind ... that capitalism remains a guzzler of care, and this is an unsustainable position -- Rachel Andrews * White Review, Best Books 2022 *An explicit plea for a political project. The parallels between care and ecology are instructive. -- James Butler * London Review of Books *Fraser captures how gender oppression, racial domination, and ecological destruction are not incidental to capitalism, but structurally embedded in it. -- Rhoda Feng * The Nation *Table of ContentsPreface: Cannibal Capitalism: Are We Toast?1. Omnivore: Why We Need to Expand Our Conception of Capitalism2. Glutton for Punishment: Why Capitalism Is Structurally Racist3. Care Guzzler: Why Social Reproduction Is a Major Site of Capitalist Crisis4. Nature in the Maw: Why Ecopolitics Must Be Trans-environmental and Anti-capitalist5. Butchering Democracy: Why Political Crisis Is Capital's Red Meat6. Food for Thought: What Should Socialism Mean in the Twenty-First Century?Epilogue: Macrophage: Why COVID Is a Cannibal Capitalist Orgy

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Book SynopsisIn the two decades following the fall of the Berlin Wall, global capitalism became entrenched in its modern, neoliberal form. Its triumph was so complete that the word "capitalism" itself fell out of use in the absence of credible political alternatives. But with the outbreak of financial crisis and global recession in the twenty-first century, capitalism is once again up for discussion. The status quo can no longer be taken for granted.As Eric Hobsbawm argues in his acute and elegant introduction to this modern edition, in such times The Communist Manifesto emerges as a work of great prescience and power despite being written over a century and a half ago. He highlights Marx and Engels's enduring insights into the capitalist system: its devastating impact on all aspects of human existence; its susceptibility to enormous convulsions and crises; and its fundamental weakness.Trade ReviewAs a force for change, its influence has been surpassed only by the Bible. As a piece of writing, it is a masterpiece. * Guardian *[T]he best possible explanation of what the world was about that I had ever read. It pointed out that the real conflicts in the world were not between black and white, men and women, Muslims, Christians and Jews, Americans, Russians and Chinese; it was about the conflict of economic interest between 95 per cent of the population of the world, who create the world's wealth, and the 5 per cent who own it. I think of Marx as a prophet: the last of the Old Testament prophets. And we should think of him as a teacher ... Karl Marx discovered it all long before I did, and I am very grateful to him. -- Tony Benn * The New Statesman *

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Book Synopsis**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**‘A sort of survival book, a sort of symptom-diagnosis manual in terms of losing your democracy and what tyranny and authoritarianism look like up close’ Rachel Maddow 'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer History does not repeat, but it does instruct. In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperilled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny. Now is a good time to do so.Trade ReviewThe most coherent manifesto on confronting Trump… powerful. -- Sarah Ditum * New Statesman *Snyder’s beautifully weighted book is the perfect clear-eyed antidote to [Trump's] deliberate philistinism … Always measured in their observation, these 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten … You will read no more relevant field guide to that wisdom than this book. -- Tim Adams * Observer *On Tyranny is a slim book that fits alongside your pocket constitution and feels only slightly less vital... Clarifying and unnerving… a memorable work that is grounded in history yet imbued with the fierce urgency of what now. -- Carlos Lozada * Washington Post *Following paths trodden by Hannah Arendt, Czeslaw Milosz and Václav Havel, Snyder has written a manifesto for surviving the political rampages of our time with our rights and freedoms intact… Snyder’s book is addressed to the American reader, but its message is broader. Read in Budapest or Warsaw, it will have an especial resonance … Slim and accessible, On Tyranny is a book to read quickly, ponder slowly and pass on -- Annabelle Chapman * Prospect *Urgent, indignant, winningly ragged in execution, On Tyranny is in the best tradition of polemical pamphlets. Timely agitprop, it offers some relief from Trump anxiety disorder. -- Lewis Jones * Daily Telegraph *A chilling description of how authoritarian mindsets work -- Hillary ClintonSteeped in the history of interwar Germany, Snyder writes with bracing immediacy about how to prevent, or at least forestall, the repression of lives and minds. * Washington Post *We are rapidly ripening for fascism. This American writer leaves us with no illusions about ourselves -- Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for LiteratureOn Tyranny will help you keep going for the next four years, or however long it takes. -- Masha GessenHe is undoubtedly a scholar of great distinction and authority… If more people follow Snyder’s injunctions to read newspapers, avoid falling for contrived online “scandals”, make friends across national boundaries and remember professional ethics then the world will indeed be a better place. -- Michael Gove * The Times *In an erudite yet accessibly manner, with brevity and precision, Snyder draws on his prodigious knowledge of 20th century despotism to present 20 sobering lessons for dealing with the Trump phenomenon -- Muhammad Idrees Ahmad * National *On Tyranny is [a] response to the rise of Donald Trump, although it is not, strictly speaking, about Trump, who is never mentioned by name. It is, rather, a primer in how to think historically -- Ken Early * The Irish Times *A slim volume more like a guide than a tome of historical scholarship, though Snyder drew on 25 years of research and writing -- Stav Ziv * Newsweek Europe *

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Book SynopsisWritten in Paris in the early 1950s, this book created instant controversy in its analysis of modern society that had allowed itself to be hypnotized by socio-political doctrines, and to accept totalitarian terror on the strength of a hypothetical future.Table of ContentsThe pill of the Murti-Bing; looking to the West; Ketman; Alpha, the moralist; Beta, the disappointed lover; Gamma, the slave of history; Delta, the troubadour; man, his enemy; the lessons of the Baltics.

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Book SynopsisIn the most rigorous articulation of his philosophical system to date, Slavoj Žižek provides nothing short of a new definition of dialectical materialism.In forging this new materialism, Žižek critiques and challenges not only the work of Alain Badiou, Robert Brandom, Joan Copjec, Quentin Meillassoux, and Julia Kristeva (to name but a few), but everything from popular science and quantum mechanics to sexual difference and analytic philosophy. Alongside striking images of the Möbius strip, the cross-cap, and the Klein bottle, Žižek brings alive the Hegelian triad of being-essence-notion. Radical new readings of Hegel, and Kant, sit side by side with characteristically lively commentaries on film, politics, and culture.Here is Žižek at his interrogative best.Trade Review[This] is certainly the best organized and clearly structured of the author's “big” books … Žižek's writing style is much clearer (relatively speaking) than it was in earlier works and thus reflects the fact that many careless readers have (mis)read him simplistically … Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. * CHOICE *Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj Žižek. * John Gray, New York Review of Books *Like Socrates on steroids ... breathtakingly perceptive. The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in many decades * Terry Eagleton *The excitable fluency, ursine congeniality and gleeful readiness to provoke and offend all feed the sense of authentic sponanaeity and energy that has made Žižek somethig like European philosophy’s punk icon, packing out auditoriums around the world. * Josh Cohen, New Statesman *A gifted speaker—tumultuous, emphatic, direct—he writes as he speaks. * Jonathan Rée, Guardian *The most dangerous philosopher in the West * Adam Kirsch, New Republic *Žižek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation * New Yorker *A penetrating new study that redefines a term that most would be wary of returning to: dialectical materialism. What the feeling of déjà vu in reading Sex and the Failed Absolute does come from is the re-experiencing of the excitement that characterised reading his first book back in 1989. * Scottish Left Review *a relentless iconoclast, a restless wordsmith, an inventive thinker with a hatred of received wisdom, an underminer of conventionally acknowledged truths. * Bookforum *Sex and the Failed Absolute is to Žižek’s corpus what Malevich’s Black Square was to his artistic oeuvre. In this watershed book, interweaving the odd couple of quantum physics and sexuality, Žižek offers readers the distilled essence of a new dialectical materialism. This reinvents the very foundations of Žižekian ontology * Adrian Johnston, Professor and Chair of Philosophy, University of New Mexico, U.S.A *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION: THE UNORIENTABLE SURFACE OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM THEOREM I: THE PARALLAX OF ONTOLOGY Modalities of the Absolute—Reality and Its Transcendental Supplement – Varieties of the Transcendental in Western Marxism - The Margin of Radical Uncertainty COROLLARY 1: INTELLECTUAL INTUITION AND INTELLECTUS ARCHETYPUS: REFLEXIVITY IN KANT AND HEGEL Intellectual Intuition from Kant to Hegel—From Intellectus Ectypus to Intellectus Archetypus SCHOLIUM 1.1: BUDDHA, KANT, HUSSERL SCHOLIUM 1.2: HEGEL’S PARALLAX SCHOLIUM 1.3: THE “DEATH OF TRUTH” THEOREM II: SEX AS OUR BRUSH WITH THE ABSOLUTE Antinomies of Pure Sexuation—Sexual Parallax and Knowledge—The Sexed Subject - Plants, Animals, Humans, Posthumans COROLLARY 2: SINUOSITIES OF SEXUALIZED TIME Days of the Living Dead – Cracks in Circular Time SCHOLIUM 2.1: SCHEMATISM IN KANT, HEGEL… AND SEX SCHOLIUM 2.2: MARX, BRECHT, AND SEXUAL CONTRACTS SCHOLIUM 2.3: THE HEGELIAN REPETITION SCHOLIUM 2.4: SEVEN DEADLY SINS THEOREM III: THE THREE UNORIENTABLES Möbius Strip, or, the Convolutions of Concrete Universality—The “Inner Eight”—(((Suture Redoubled)))—Cross-Capping Class Struggle—From Cross-Cap to Klein Bottle—A Snout in Plato’s Cave COROLLARY 3: THE RETARDED GOD OF QUANTUM ONTOLOGY The Implications of Quantum Gravity—The Two Vacuums: From Less than Nothing to Nothing – Is the Collapse of a Quantum Wave Like a Throw of Dice? SCHOLIUM 3.1: THE ETHICAL MOEBIUS STRIP SCHOLIUM 3.2: THE DARK TOWER OF SUTURE SCHOLIUM 3.3: SUTURE AND HEGEMONY SCHOLIUM 3.4: THE WORLD WITH(OUT) A SNOUT SCHOLIUM 3.5: TOWARDS A QUANTUM PLATONISM THEOREM IV: THE PERSISTENCE OF ABSTRACTION Madness, Sex, War— How to Do Words with Things—The Inhuman View – The All-Too-Close In-Itself COROLLARY 4: IBI RHODUS IBI SALTUS! The Protestant Freedom—Jumping Here and Jumping There—Four Ethical Gestures SCHOLIUM 4.1: LANGUAGE, LALANGUE SCHOLIUM 4.2 - PROKOFIEV’S TRAVELS SCHOLIUM 4.3: BECKETT AS THE WRITER OF ABSTRACTION

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is the only book of its kind: it's a readable, yet expertly crafted, tour through the Frankfurt School, along with a forceful account of why the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory still matters a decade into the new millennium. I can't recommend it highly enough. * Jeffrey T. Nealon, professor of English, Penn State University; co-editor of Rethinking the Frankfurt School *The book's forthright critique and call to transformation are a breath of fresh air. * Joan Braune, Philosophy in Review *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Introduction: What is critical theory? Chapter 1: The Frankfurt School Chapter 2: A matter of method Chapter 3: Critical theory and modernism Chapter 4: Alienation and reification Chapter 5: Enlightened illusions Chapter 6: The utopian laboratory Chapter 7: The happy consciousness Chapter 8: The great refusal Chapter 9: From resignation to renewal Chapter 10: Unfinished tasks References Further Reading Index

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Book Synopsis''The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.''Marx and Engels''s revolutionary summons to the working classes - one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Marx''s works available in Penguin Classics are Capital, Dispatches for the New York Tribune, Early Writings, Grundrisse, The Portable Karl Marx and Revolution and War.

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Book Synopsis"The Communist Manifesto" still remains a landmark text: a work that continues to influence and provoke debate on capitalism and class. The author's extensive and scholarly introduction provides an assessment of the place of "The Communist Manifesto" in history, and its continuing relevance as a depiction of global capitalism.Table of ContentsPart 1 Introduction: the reception of the manifesto; the "spectre of communism"; the communist league; Engels' contribution; Marx's contribution - prologue; the young Hegelians; from republicanism to communism; political economy and "the true natural history of man"; the impact of Stirner; communism; conclusion; a guide to further reading. Part 2 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - the communist manifesto: bourgeois and proletarians; proletarians and communists; socialist and communist literature; position of the communists in relation to the various existing opposition parties.

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Book SynopsisThis 1899 polemic by the famous Red Rosa Luxemburg explains why capitalism can never overcome its internal contradictions. An effective refutation of revisionist interpretations of Marxist doctrine, it defines the position of scientific socialism on the issues of social reforms, the state, democracy, and the character of the proletarian revolution.

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Book SynopsisWorking men of all countries, unite! First published in 1848, The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential pieces of writing of all time. Written by two leading German philosophers whose names are now universally known, The Communist Manifesto is a documentation of class struggle and the plight of workers under capitalism, and a call for redress. In it, Marx and Engels lay out a searing account of the damage wrought by capitalism, and set out a route towards an alternative: a society without class, private property or a state. Beating a path for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism, The Communist Manifesto is a stirring call to arms that resounds with truth and power today.Trade Review'As a force for change, its influence has been surpassed only by the Bible. As a piece of writing, it is a masterpiece.' (Guardian) 'The words of The Communist Manifesto flare like the fiery writing on the wall above the crumbling bastions of capitalist society.' (Rosa Luxemburg)

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Book SynopsisPutting the record straight about the last years of Rudolf Hess's lifeTrade ReviewCrisply authoritative first-hand account . . . The odd story of Hess’ imprisonment and death is one of those fascinating footnotes of history and readers will not find a better account of them than this book. -- The Washington Times

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Book SynopsisThe astonishing drama of Cold War nuclear poker that divided humanity - reissued with a new Postscript to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the wall. During the night of 12–13 August 1961, a barbed-wire entanglement was hastily constructed through the heart of Berlin. It metamorphosed into a structure that would come to symbolise the insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Frederick Taylor tells the story of the post-war political conflict that led to a divided Berlin and unleashed an East–West crisis, which lasted until the very people the Wall had been built to imprison breached it on 9 November 1989. Weaving together history, original archive research and personal stories, The Berlin Wall, now published in fifteen languages, is the definitive account of a divided city and its people in a time when humanity seemed to stand permanently on the edge of destruction.Trade ReviewA gripping, impassioned history of the Cold War’s most malevolent symbol * New York Times *Superb, fast-paced and readable history * Evening Standard *Masterful * Guardian *Compulsive reading -- London Review of Books

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Book SynopsisThe first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorised account of Mao's life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution. Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China.This edition includes extensive notes on the military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today.Trade ReviewThe remarkable thing about Red Star Over China was that it not only gave the first connected history of Mao and his colleagues and where they had come from, but it also gave a prospect of the future... This book has stood the test of time on both these counts - as a historical record and as an indication of a trend. * From the Introduction by John K. Fairbank *It truly was a book that shook the world. * China Daily *Irreplaceable... by far the most important single source regarding [Mao's] life * Stuart R. Schram *Scoop of the century * Foreign Affairs *

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Book SynopsisAmong the major Marxist thinkers of the period of the Russian Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg stands out as one who speaks to our own time. Her legacy grows in relevance as the global character of the capitalist market becomes more apparent and the critique of bureaucratic power more widely accepted within the movement for human liberation. The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will be the definitive one-volume collection of Luxemburg's writings in English translation. Unlike previous publications of her work from the early 1970s, this volume includes substantial extracts from her major economic writings-above all, The Accumulation of Capital (1913)-and from her political writings, including Reform or Revolution (1898), the Junius Pamphlet (1916), and The Russian Revolution (1918). The Reader also includes a number of important texts that have never before been published in English translation, including substantial extracts from her Introduction to Political Economy (1916), and a recently-discovered piece on slavery. With a substantial introduction assessing Luxemburg's work in the light of recent research, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will be an indispensable resource for scholarship and an inspiration for a new generation of activists.

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Book SynopsisIs socialism desirable? Is it even possible? This book presents a moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated.Trade Review"Characteristically lucid, engaging and gently humorous... Cohen says things that need to be said, often better than anyone else; and his last book is especially effective as an argument against the obstacles to socialism typically ascribed to human selfishness. His style of argument is very accessible, and it is certainly a more attractive mode of persuasion than dreary analyses of how capitalism actually works."--Ellen Meiksins Wood, London Review of Books "Is socialism really such an alien way of organizing human society? In this stimulating essay titled Why Not Socialism? (just 92 pages long), the late Oxford philosopher G. A. Cohen invites us to think seriously about what socialism has to offer in comparison with capitalism."--Sanford G. Thatcher, Centre Daily Times "Beautifully written... In sublimely lucid fashion, Cohen draws up taxonomies of equality, offers ethical objection to capitalism ... and distinguishes between two questions: is socialism desirable?; and, if desirable, is it feasible? ... Tiny books are all the rage in publishing nowadays; this is one of the few that punches well above its weight."--Steven Poole, The Guardian "[A] stimulating and thoughtfully argued advocacy of the better world that we need to fight for."--Andrew Stone, Socialist Review "A quietly urgent book."--Owen Hatherley, Philosophers' Magazine "Cohen brings his characteristic clarity to his final defence of socialism."--Tim Soutphommasane, The Australian "No doubt the best forms of socialist organization will emerge, like everything else, after much trial and error. But a vast quantity of preliminary spadework is necessary to excavate the assumptions that keep us from even trying. With Why Not Socialism?, Cohen has turned over a few shovelfuls, bringing us a little nearer the end of the immemorial--but surely not everlasting--epoch of greed and fear."--George Scialabba, Commonweal "[Here] we have a renowned scholar producing an accessible, concise work addressing a vital topic from a committed, progressive standpoint: would that more of today's academic star scholars would follow this example."--Frank Cunningham, Socialist Studies "Why Not Socialism? is a lucid and accessible statement of some of Cohen's deepest preoccupations."--Alex Callinicos, Radical Philosophy "However small the package ... the problems that Cohen addresses in this slim volume are of enormous importance, and can be taken seriously by readers ranging from those with only a tangential interest in the field, to serious scholars of egalitarian and socialist thought."--Robert C. Robinson, Political Studies ReviewTable of ContentsCHAPTER I: The Camping Trip CHAPTER II: The Principles Realized on the Camping Trip CHAPTER III: Is the Ideal Desirable? CHAPTER IV: Is the Ideal Feasible? Are the Obstacles to It Human Selfishness, or Poor Social Technology? CHAPTER V: Coda Acknowledgment

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Book SynopsisA classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society. It has also proved to be the most influential work in social science in the twentieth century; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology. Millions of readers this century have treated Capital as a sacred text, subjecting it to as many different interpretations as the bible itself. No mere work of dry economics, Marx''s great work depicts the unfolding of industrial capitalism as a tragic drama - with a message which has lost none of its relevance today. This is the only abridged edition to take account of the whole of Capital. It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867, excerpts from a new translation of `The Result of the Immediate Process of Production'', and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking guide to moving beyond capitalism, which shows that radical change can only come from exploiting 'cracks' in the system.Trade Review'Infectiously optimistic' -- Steven Poole, the GuardianTable of ContentsPart I Break 1. Break. We want to break. We want to create a different world. Now. Nothing more common. Nothing more obvious. Nothing more simple. Nothing more difficult. 2. Our method is the method of the crack. 3. It is time to learn the new language of a new struggle. Part II Cracks: The Anti-Politics of Dignity 4. The cracks begin with a No, from which there grows a dignity, a negation-and-creation. 5. A crack is the perfectly ordinary creation of a space or moment in which we assert a different type of doing. 6. Cracks break dimensions, break dimensionality. 7. Cracks are explorations in an anti-politics of dignity. Part III Cracks on the Edge of Impossibility 8. Dignity is our weapon against a world of destruction. 9. Cracks clash with the social synthesis of capitalism. 10. Cracks exist on the edge of impossibility, but they do exist. Moving they exist: dignity is a fleet-footed dance. Part IV The Dual Character of Labour 11. The cracks are the revolt of one form of doing against another: the revolt of doing against labour. 12. The abstraction of doing into labour is the weaving of capitalism. 13. The abstraction of doing into labour is a historical process of transformation that created the social synthesis of capitalism: primitive accumulation. Part V Abstract Labour: The Great Enclosure 14. Abstract labour encloses both our bodies and our minds. 15. The abstraction of doing into labour is a process of personification, the creation of character masks, the formation of the working class. 16. The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of the male labourer and the dimorphisation of sexuality. 17. The abstraction of doing into labour is the constitution of nature as object. 18. The abstraction of doing into labour is the externalisation of our power –to-do and the creation of the citizen, politics and the state. 19. The abstraction of doing into labour is the homogenisation of time. 20. The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of totality. 21. Abstract labour rules: The abstraction of doing into labour is the creation of a cohesive law-bound totality sustained by the exploitation of labour. 22. The labour movement is the movement of abstract labour. Part VI The Crisis of Abstract Labour 23. Abstraction is not just a past but also a present process. 24. Concrete doing overflows from abstract labour: it exists in-against-and-beyond abstract labour. 25. Doing is the crisis of abstract labour 26. The breakthrough of doing against labour throws us into a new world of struggle. Part VII Doing against Labour: the melodies of interstitial revolution 27. Doing dissolves totality, synthesis, value. 28. Doing is the moving of the mulier abscondita against character masks. We are the mulier abscondita. 29. Doing dissolves the homogenisation of time. Part VIII A Time of Birth? 30. We are the forces of production: our power is the power of doing. 31. We are the crisis of capitalism, the misfitting-overflowing of our power-to-do, the breakthrough of another world, perhaps. 32. Stop Making Capitalism Index

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Book SynopsisChina Miéville's brilliant reading of the modern world's most controversial and enduring political document: The Communist Manifesto. 'It's thrilling to accompany Miéville... as he wrestles – in critical good faith and incandescent commitment – with a manifesto that still calls on us to build a new world' Naomi Klein 'Read this and be dazzled by its contemporaneity' Mike Davis 'A rich, luminous reflection of and on a light that never quite goes out' Andreas Malm 'Reading with [Miéville] today sharpens our senses to contemporary internationalist movements from below' Ruth Wilson Gilmore '[Written] with diligence and a ruthlessly critical eye worthy of Marx himself' Sarah Jaffe In 1848, a strange political tract was published by two German émigrés. Marx and Engles's apocalyptic vision of an insatiable system, which penetrates every corner of the globe, reduces every relationship to that of profit, and bursts asunder the old forms of production and of politics, remains a picture of our world. And the vampiric energy of that system is once again highly contentious. The Manifesto shows no sign of fading into antiquarian obscurity, and remains a key touchstone for modern political debate. China Miéville is not a writer hemmed in by conventions of disciplinary boundaries or genre, and this is a strikingly imaginative take on Marx and what his most haunting book has to say to us today. Like the Manifesto itself, this is a book haunted by ghosts, sorcery and creative destruction.Trade ReviewThe Manifesto is one of history's most profound prophecies. In Miéville's brilliant interpretation it is like a great comet whose periodic return blinds the sky with its light and urgency. Read this and be dazzled by its contemporaneity -- Mike DavisChina Miéville's elegant book patiently explains composition – style, structure, class – to reveal the Communist Manifesto's spectral energies. Reading with him today sharpens our senses to contemporary internationalist movements from below -- Ruth Wilson GilmoreAn excellent book, very lively and engaging, written in clear and readable prose... For today's readers Miéville does excellent work presenting and reviewing a huge amount of twentieth-century history -- Professor Terrell CarverIt's thrilling to accompany Miéville, one of the greatest living world-builders, as he wrestles – in critical good faith and incandescent commitment – with a manifesto that still calls on us to build a new world -- Naomi KleinVery enjoyable and well done... Properly scholarly and thorough in its apparatus of discussion and issue-identification... Lively, politically driven appreciation -- Professor Gregor McLennanWith diligence and a ruthlessly critical eye worthy of Marx himself, China Miéville expands upon the Communist Manifesto, calling us into renewed struggle for the best of what humanity could be. Against the million little cruelties and death-making of capitalism, this book builds a case for the value of the Manifesto to today's struggles without demanding fealty. It turns long-standing complaints about Marx on their heads to challenge the reader even while seducing with luminous prose. I didn't know I needed this book, but I did -- Sarah JaffeA book about another book might sound boring, but The Communist Manifesto is more than a book: it represents a bulging galaxy of historical struggle, ever moving and shining, even if only on the periphery of our vision. Here, China Miéville opens up the pages of the Manifesto and transmits the energy of communism across the pallid present. Close reading, historical essay, political commentary and a manifesto of sorts: A Spectre, Haunting is a rich, luminous reflection of and on a light that never quite goes out -- Andreas MalmChina Miéville, mind, soul and pen ablaze, guides his readers through Marx and Engels's unignorable, inextinguishable, eternally uncomfortable and always essential Manifesto. This is both a history of critical thought and a magnificent exemplar of reading and thinking critically. Miéville has written a thrillingly lively and lucid exegesis on the Manifesto, its contents and its discontents. He's gathered together an astonishingly heterogenous array of voices and responses, making a case for the Manifesto as a locus of politically engaged analysis and argument for nearly two centuries. Miéville adjudicates and synthesizes with unfailing clarity, wit, courage, decency and passion, writing brilliantly about nationalism, race, gender, literary style, and – my particular favorite section – about the perils and necessity of hate. He gives us a Manifesto that is simultaneously a central artifact of our species and a means for understanding our present, hazardous moment, a historical work that remains absolutely, ferociously alive -- Tony Kushner, author of Angels in AmericaA rare combination, both scholarly and exciting to read * The Prisma *Whatever the reader's position on these questions, A Spectre, Haunting ultimately succeeds. It is a clear, fair, and non-doctrinaire introduction * TLS *

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Book SynopsisA veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the futureTrade Review"A book full of vivid and well-chosen anecdotes."—Financial Times"David Satter has written a book full of vivid and well chosen anecdotes. . . . The use of nostalgia is Satter's field. Russia is not, he believes, able to give itself a chance; in love with their chains, its people cannot face up to the horrors of a past they wish to ignore or romanticize."—John Lloyd, Financial Times"Rich in detail and enthused by civil passion, It Was A Long Time Ago contains many precise, moving and original observations."—Alexander Etkind, Times Literary Supplement"A sweeping study of how the former Soviet Union’s bloody past continues to poison Russia’s present and threatens to strangle the country’s future."—Newsweek"Satter’s reflective, expert analysis of a Russian society in moral and cultural flux after the end of communism provides great food for thought beyond today’s headlines."—Publishers Weekly"This book, its title deliberately inviting a loud shout of ‘No!’ is more vehement than his previous studies of post-Soviet Russia, but just as impeccably argued."—Donald Rayfield, Literary Review"Satter casts fascinating light on the (comparatively cheerful) way in which repression was endured by the citizens of the USSR. . . . An informed and insightful essay – with disturbing implications."—Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman"A meticulous, sweeping and wrenching history of Russia's burial of Soviet crimes. It is also a sensitive, compelling and convincing exploration of the importance of memory. But it makes a broader contention - that forgetting is a symptom of an illness that Russia contracted before the Soviet era . . . a humane, measured, first-hand, historically and philosophically rooted argument that is hard to refute."—Andrew Gardner, European Voice"Impeccably argued. . . . Satter is a man whom no Russian leader would wish to meet, let alone shake by the hand, but he has their measure."—Donald Rayfield, Literary Review"A meticulous, sweeping and wrenching history of Russia's burial of Soviet crimes . . . [and] a sensitive, compelling and convincing exploration of the importance of memory."—European Voice"Truly illuminating. . . . Satter is both a gifted journalist and a chronicler of intellectual and political currents. . . . Splendidly researched and engagingly written, this book offers invaluable vignettes of various reactions to the still unprocessed remembrance of totalitarian times."—Vladimir Tismaneanu, International Affairs"Highly successful in shedding light on both the nature of the Soviet system and the post-Communist period, this is a lucid, illuminating portrait of the outlook and attitudes of Russians. This book is one of the best I have ever read about the Soviet system and what it left behind."—Paul Hollander, author ofPolitical Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism"The central message of this important new book—that Russia cannot reverse its current decline without first coming to terms with the crimes of its Soviet past—is both sobering and absolutely compelling."—Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy"In this penetrating analysis of Russia today, David Satter demonstrates how terror, ideology and mass murder were integrated and institutionalized in the Soviet Union, then dismantled in economic collapse, and are now resurrected in a modern, lighter authoritarian regime, minus the ideology. 'It Never Happened' gives the reader original insights and analysis by a Russian expert par excellence, and one exceptionally well written."—Richard V. Allen, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and former National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan"An insightful, informative and fact-filled book."—Paul Hollander, author of Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism"Many of our finest journalists have grappled with the moral legacy of Soviet communism. This book is a reminder that no one has stayed with the issue longer, dug deeper, or thought harder about it than David Satter."—Stephen Sestanovich, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for the former Soviet Union, 1997-2001

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Book SynopsisRobert Service is the author of the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, Russia: Experiment with a People and Stalin: A Biography, as well as many other books on Russia's past and present. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's College, Oxford. He is married with four children.

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Book SynopsisThis landmark text by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy is a classic of twentieth-century radical thought, a hugely influential book that continues to shape our understanding of modern capitalism.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Each of the chapters of this erudite and breezy . . . tract begins with a series of assertions about Marx and Marxism, which Eagleton then proceeds to debunk . . . through excursions into philosophy, political practice and literary analogy. . . . Polemically charged and enjoyable."—Guardian"A lively defense. . . . Eagleton offers a richer, more complex and nuanced picture of the father of modern socialism. . . . Throughout, the author is witty, entertaining, and incisive."—Publishers Weekly“Not so much a good read as a romp, this is an irresistibly lively, and thought-provoking essay.”—Michael Kerrigan, Scotsman"A short, witty, and highly accessible jaunt through Marx’s thought in preparation for the second coming."—Frank Barry, Irish Times"Why Marx Was Right is no abstract argumentation but an eloquent, fact-based rebuttal of the usual criticisms of Marxism."—John Green, Morning Star"This is a wonderful book that every socialist should have on their bookshelves."—Gareth Jenkins, Socialist Worker"Why Marx Was Right is designed for a wide audience and deserves one. With flair, sparkling wit, and no fear of vigorous rebuttal, Eagleton's book seeks to address some of the most often heard criticisms of Marx and Marxist thought. . . . Terry Eagleton has taken much of the best the Marxist tradition has to offer in thinking about class, nature, revolution, history, and many such grand subjects, and summarized it briefly with clarity, intelligence, and a sense of humor. And for this he deserves our thanks."—Matthijs Krul, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books"Refreshing and challenging. . . . [A] most compelling read."—Michael O’Sullivan, Tablet (Books of the Year)"Terry Eagleton takes on some of the most common objections to Marxism and answers each in turn, in a clear, non-technical and often humorous way."—London Review of Books “Much of it is illuminating” —Jonathan Wolff, Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisAlthough one of the most influential thinkers of the last millennium, Karl Marx was relatively unheralded during most of his lifetime. Famous for predicting the inevitable demise of capitalism, it was only after his death that his immortal clarion call reached a wide audience: "Workers of the world unite – you have nothing to lose but your chains." Andrew Collier breathes new life into the achievements of Karl Marx, arguing that his work is still of vital relevance in today’s global climate of inequality. Covering all the elements of Marxist thought from his early writings to his masterpiece, Das Kapital, Collier probes the apparent inconsistencies in Marx’s work and reclaims him as a philosopher and political theorist. This jargon-free introduction is a timely reminder of his undiminished influence, and will fascinate students, activists and interested readers alike.Trade Review"A superb new introduction to Marx's thought. Andrew Collier draws readers into this discussion with the relaxed grace and wit of a valued conversation partner, and demonstrates why Marxian thought continues to find an audience in the twenty-first century." Mark Rupert, Professor of Political Science, Syracuse University and author of Ideologies of Globalization"Collier has written a first-rate introduction to Karl Marx. He surveys the full range of Marx's writings with lucidity and intelligence." Warren Breckman, Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Marx, the Young Hegelians, and the Origins of Radical Social Theory

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Book SynopsisProgress requires the conquest of nature. Or does it? This new account overturns conventional interpretations of Marx and in the process outlines a more rational approach to the current environmental crisis. Marx, it is often assumed, cared only about industrial growth and the development of economic forces. John Bellamy Foster examines Marx's neglected writings on capitalist agriculture and soil ecology, philosophical naturalism, and evolutionary theory. He shows that Marx, known as a powerful critic of capitalist society, was also deeply concerned with the changing human relationship to nature. Marx's Ecology covers many other thinkers, including Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Ludwig Feuerbach, P. J. Proudhon, and William Paley. By reconstructing a materialist conception of nature and society, Marx's Ecology challenges the spiritualism prevalent in the modern Green movement, pointing toward a method that offers more lasting and sustainable solutions to the ecological crisis.Table of ContentsThe materialist conception of nature; the really earthly question; parsonian naturalism; the materialist conception of history; the metabolism of natue and society; coevolution and sustainability.

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Book Synopsis''A towering achievement. There is simply nothing like it in the history of Black radical thought'' Cornel West''Cedric Robinson''s brilliant analyses revealed new ways of thinking and acting'' Angela Davis''This work is about our people''s struggle, the historical Black struggle''Any struggle must be fought on a people''s own terms, argues Cedric Robinson''s landmark account of Black radicalism. Marxism is a western construction, and therefore inadequate to describe the significance of Black communities as agents of change against ''racial capitalism''. Tracing the emergence of European radicalism, the history of Black African resistance and the influence of these on such key thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James and Richard Wright, Black Marxism reclaims the story of a movement.Trade ReviewA towering achievement. There is simply nothing like it in the history of Black radical thought -- Cornel WestCedric Robinson's brilliant analyses revealed new ways of thinking and acting -- Angela DavisI can say, without a trace of hyperbole, that this book changed my life. -- Robin KelleyBlack Marxism shattered the taken-for-granted of understanding the modern world, allowing us to see the racist nature of capitalism. There are very few books that transform how we have to approach the world and Black Marxism is one of them -- Kehinde AndrewsA handbook for a new generation of radicals and activists ... Robinson's work helpfully points to the tension in Marxism between the march towards progress and the spontaneous character of revolution... offers a sense of belonging and a means of imagining a common future -- Kevin Okoth * London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisA deep dive into the strategies and tactics used by the radical left in recent years to undermine the institutions of the United States, along with suggestions for how to counter their advances."Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Gorka document the Left’s metamorphosis into a bastardized, racialized Marxism that is a threat to everything Americans hold dear. In this deeply insightful book, readers will understand the nature of the beast—and how to fight it in their communities."— Christopher Rufo, Senior Fellow, Manhattan InstituteMany Americans believe that the United States is in decline. They see a country that has become unrecognizable: where individuals are reduced to their race, ethnicity, or sexual identity; where children are indoctrinated into radical ideologies; where anti-semitism has become widespread. This book explains how all of these ills are rooted in Marxism. To be

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Book SynopsisSocialism has always had internationalist ambitions, but what those ambitions should be and how to rethink them in the 21st century remain open questions. Before his tragic passing in 2020, Michael Brooks talked about a new kind of cosmopolitan socialism that would be appropriate for our time. A How To Guide To Cosmopolitan Socialism builds upon Brooks' vision to argue that we need a left which knows no boundaries and recognizes the fundamental moral equality of all individuals on the planet while securing the material conditions for their flourishing. Only such a sweeping vision can successfully combat the forces of reaction and violence confronting us today.

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Book SynopsisHistory and Class Consciousness was the most important of Georg Lukács's early theoretical writings, published in Germany in 1923. The subject of high praise and passionate criticism, it had a major impact on all the Marxist debates that followed, introducing key new concepts such as 'totality', 'reification' and 'imputed class consciousness'. This centenary edition, with a new preface by Michael Löwy, comprises a series of essays exploring, among other topics, the definition of orthodox Marxism, the question of legality and illegality, Rosa Luxemburg as a Marxist, the changing function of historic Marxism, and the substantiation and consciousness of the proletariat. This classic book has influenced many key philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Adorno, Debord, Heidegger, Lefebvre, Merleau-Ponty and Zizek, and it can lay claim to being one of the cornerstones of contemporary thought.Trade ReviewOne of the indispensable works of the twentieth century. -- Raymond WilliamsGeorge Lukács's History and Class Consciousness is a truly extraordinary work, and its English translation, after almost fifty years of neglect by English and American publishers, is a major event. The full quality of Lukács's brilliance is most powerfully manifested in this 'youthful' work (done when merely 38!), where he reveals himself as by far and away the most talented philosopher among 20th-century Marxists, and as their most penetrating critic of contemporary culture. He is a major stimulus in the development of what is certainly the most creative school of social theorists in the 20th century, and of whom Herbert Marcuse is only the best-known member. For all this, then, we owe homage to Georg Lukács. -- Alvin W. Gouldner * New York Times Book Review *Lukacs' book History and Class Consciousness leads Marx back to Hegel to a significant extent, and leads the latter meaningfully beyond himself; here, too, a metaphysics of understanding oneself in existence, of raising our head, our reality above the crooked process, traces its dialectical arcs. -- Ernst BlochHistory and Class Consciousness, a work of genius inseparable from the brief moment when the Bolshevik Revolution seemed to be the beginning of a world revolution. -- Etienne BalibarFor Lukacs, Marxism is, or should be, this integral philosophy without dogma. Weber understood materialism as an attempt to deduce all culture from economics. For Lukacs, it is a way of saying that the relations among men are not the sum of personal acts or personal decisions, but pass through things, the anonymous roles, the common situations, and the institutions where men have projected so much of themselves that their fate is now played out outside them. The exceptional merit of Lukacs-which makes his book, even today, a philosophical one-is precisely that his philosophy was not by implication to be understood as dogma but was to be practiced, that it did not serve to 'prepare' history, and that it was the very chain of history grasped in human experience. His philosophical reading of history brought to light, behind the prose of everyday existence, a recovery of the self by itself which is the definition of subjectivity. -- Maurice Merleau-PontyOn the level of currents of thought we must no doubt go back to Lukacs, whose History and Class Consciousness was already raising questions to do with a new subjectivity. -- Gilles DeleuzeLukács's critique of 'reification' in History and Class Consciousness shows the path toward a philosophy of social praxis, according to which social objectivity must be understood as the creation of human beings themselves in the process of reproducing their material and cultural worlds. -- Seyla BenhabibI can still remember the way that first page of Lukács made my head spin. The cosmic chutzpah of the man was staggering. I'd known plenty of Marxists who were willing to admit that Marx might be wrong about many tjings; in spite of this, they said, he was right about the essential things and that was why they were Marxists. Now here was a Marxist saying that Marx might be wrong about everything, and he couldn't care less, that the truth of Marxism was independent of anything that Marx said about the world, and hence that nothing in the world could ever refute it; and that as the essence not merely of Marxist truth, but of Marxist Orthodoxy. -- Marshall BermanThe charter document of Hegelian Marxism. -- Martin JayTable of ContentsTranslator's NotePreface to the centenary edition (2023)Preface to the new edition (1967)PrefaceWhat is Orthodox Marxism?The Marxism of Rosa LuxemburgClass ConsciousnessReification and the Consciousness of the ProletariatI The Phenomenon of Reifi The Phenomenon of ReificationII The Antinomies of Bourgeois ThoughtIII The Standpoint of the ProletariatThe Changing Function of Historical MaterialismLegality and IllegalityCritical Observations on Rosa Luxemburg's "Critique of the Russian Revolution"Towards a Methodology of the Problem of OrganisationNotes to the English EditionIndex

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Book SynopsisFired up by the outbreak of the First World War and outraged by the capitulation of most socialist parties to the demands of national bourgeoisies, Lenin sought to understand the deeper roots of the crisis of the world movement. The result was Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which went on to become a core text for the international communist movement. But Lenin also sought to break with the Eurocentrism of the socialist movement, which tended to look down with disdain at or simply reject struggles for self-determination, especially among colonized peoples.This volume, with an introduction by the renowned abolitionist and anti-imperialist theorist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, brings together the texts on imperialism and those on the national question to provide a window into Lenin's global vision of revolution.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Ruthie Wilson GilmoreCritical Remarks on the National Question (1913)The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1915)Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline (1916)The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up (1916)Draft Theses on National and Colonial Questions for The Second Congress of The Communist International (1920)Memo Combatting Dominant Nation Chauvinism (1922)The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation' (1922)Notes

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Book SynopsisThis edition of letters by Antonio Gramsci vividly evokes the 'great and terrible world' in which he lived, a description he used a number of times in his correspondence. The letters show Gramsci beginning to form the theoretical concepts that come to fuller fruition in the Prison Notebooks, but they also give an essential and rounded picture of Gramsci's development, politically, intellectually and emotionally - the latter especially through letters to his family and wife. Broadly speaking, the letters are of three types: early letters to Gramsci's family; overtly political letters from Turin, Moscow, Vienna, and Rome; and letters to the Schucht sisters, including Jul'ka, whom he married while in Moscow. The political letters constitute a fascinating insight into the period, both with regard to the Communist International and, more often, to Italian politics. The volume also includes the famous letter of 1926 in which Gramsci, writing in the name of the Italian Party's Political Bureau, criticises the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party for their handling of internal opposition. The book follows a broadly chronological structure, and includes a general introduction, a guide to the main personalities involved, and additional contextual information for each chapter. It also includes some little-known photographic material.Trade Review'This collection of Gramsci's early correspondence provides new insight into his life and work. Through these letters, we follow the development of Gramsci's own thought and his involvement with the international communist movement. This book will prove an indispensable resource, not only to Gramsci scholars, but to anyone interested in the history of the left more widely.' Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism and Ghosts Of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures 'This is a meticulous translation of a selection of Gramsci's pre-prison letters with an extensive introduction that places them in their historical context. These letters furnish fascinating new insights into both his personal and political life. Gramsci the man and Gramsci the politician emerge in new depth and detail. The volume is an invaluable asset to anyone interested in better understanding his ideas and his humanity.' Professor Anne Showstack Sassoon, author of Gramsci and Contemporary PoliticsTable of ContentsGeneral introduction 1. School and home in Sardinia 2. University student in Turin 3. Revolutionary Journalist: L'Avanti! and L'Ordine Nuovo 4. Comintern leader in Moscow 5 .Vienna: towards the new PCI leadership 6. Rome I: Political upheaval, family matters 7. Rome II: The last months of freedom Note on the translation Note on main characters

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Book SynopsisWashington Bullets is written in the best traditions of Marxist journalism and history-writing. It is a book of fluent and readable stories, full of detail about U.S. imperialism, but never letting the minutiae obscure the larger political point. It is a book that could easily have been a song of despair—a lament of lost causes; it is, after all, a roll call of butchers and assassins; of plots against people’s movements and governments; of the assassinations of socialists, Marxists, communists all over the Third World by the country where liberty is a statue. Despite all this, Washington Bullets is a book about possibilities, about hope, about genuine heroes. One such is Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso—also assassinated—who said: “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.” Washington Bullets is a book infused with this madness, the madness that dares to invent the future.Trade ReviewThis book brings to mind the infinite instances in which Washington Bullets have shattered hope. — Evo Morales Ayma, former President of Bolivia // Like his hero Eduardo Galeano, Vijay Prashad makes the telling of the truth lovable; not an easy trick to pull off, he does it effortlessly. — Roger Waters, Pink Floyd

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Book SynopsisCrowds and Party channels the energies of the riotous crowds who took to the streets in the past five years into an argument for the political party. Rejecting the emphasis on individuals and multitudes, Jodi Dean argues that we need to rethink the collective subject of politics. When crowds appear in spaces unauthorized by capital and the state-such as in the Occupy movement in New York, London and across the world-they create a gap of possibility. But too many on the Left remain stuck in this beautiful moment of promise-they argue for more of the same, further fragmenting issues and identities, rehearsing the last thirty years of left-wing defeat. In Crowds and Party, Dean argues that previous discussions of the party have missed its affective dimensions, the way it operates as a knot of unconscious processes and binds people together. Dean shows how we can see the party as an organization that can reinvigorate political practice.Trade ReviewIn this enthralling and exhilarating book, Jodi Dean shows that, contrary to neo-anarchist cliche, the party form and class struggle are very far from being outmoded. The revival of the party has produced a surge of enthusiasm in contemporary left politics-an enthusiasm that Crowds and Party both explains and stokes up. -- Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist RealismJodi Dean's new book isn't just a timely reminder that to change our thoroughly and deliberately atomized society demands collective action and militant organization; it is also a passionate analysis of the fractured passion of shared political commitment, linking the enthusiasm of group experience with the sustained and steady discipline of popular empowerment. -- Peter Hallward, author of Damming the FloodWritten clearly, forcefully, and passionately, Dean gives us-the Left-not just a diagnosis of our defeat but, more importantly, a way out: the communist Party. -- Derek R. Ford * The Hampton Institute *Dean has a powerful point to make: political movements have to move beyond immediate expression-the crowd-and embrace long-term organization-the party. -- Matt Ray * Open Letters Monthly *Jodi Dean's book rejects those who invest positively in the individual or the multiple per se and instead asks for a new and more subversive collective subject of politics. From real crowds like the Occupy Movement to the theoretical conceptions of crowds and mobs, Dean's book interrogates the role of the crowd and the party in an attempt to provide a way forward politically. -- Alfie Bown * Hong Kong Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisUncovering the melancholic tradition of the global left.Trade ReviewThe perfect meditation for our melancholy age. -- Peter Gordon * Boston Review *Left-Wing Melancholia is well-written, timely and original. -- Eli Zaretsky, The New School for Social ResearchAn exciting, original, and illuminating discussion, which sets the contemporary Left's feeling of disorientation and loss into a rich and varied landscape of memory practices and emotional states. * American Historical Review *Left-Wing Melancholia’s breadth is impressive, almost intimidating. -- Sean Cashbaugh, Stevens Institute of Technology * H-Net Socialisms, H-Net Reviews *This brilliant book seeks to recover a hidden, discreet tradition: that of 'left-wing melancholia.' * Against the Current *[This] wide-ranging study is triumphant in plumbing the depths of socialist despair. * Times Higher Education *Spirited, engaging, and almost panoramic. * History and Theory *Traverso makes a persuasive case. * Marx and Philosophy Review of Books *A stirring . . . call for the left to challenge this narrative and rethink its past. . . . A brilliant piece of historical study. * 3:AM Magazine *Left-Wing Melancholia is a path breaking work that combines history and political theory with a concise, richly analytical, exciting narrative. Enzo Traverso redefines our understanding of the current regimes of temporality—a sorrowful transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century—and challenges historians and critical theorists alike to think beyond the standard binaries between history and memory, revolution and defeat, and melancholy and politics. In other words, this book is a gem. -- Federico Finchelstein, The New School for Social ResearchMarvelously learned and gorgeously poetic, Left-Wing Melancholia is a transcendent masterpiece of the Marxist imagination. Each engrossing chapter provides a tour-de-force of trenchant observations and lucid argumentation about the melancholic landscape of socialist memory. Intricately constructed with acrobatic prose, electric compressions, and magisterial assuredness, Traverso's scholarly milestone synthesizes an ambitious spectrum of interventions into the revolutionary aspirations and defeats of the twentieth century that is historically engaging, eminently readable, and pressingly pertinent. -- Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor of English Literature and American Culture, University of MichiganAccording to Freud, mourning is differentiated from melancholia in its working through grief by acknowledging the irreparable loss of a love object. If so, should the contemporary Left finally concede the failure of its dreams of revolutionary redemption? Or, and this is the gamble of Enzo Traverso's provocative new book, is it better to remain defiantly melancholic in the hope that those dreams may still be realized? Drawing on a lifetime of immersion in the history of modern European culture and politics, he provides future progressive movements a glimmer of hope that the dialectic of defeat may not yet be history's final word. -- Martin Jay, University of California, BerkeleyWith Left-Wing Melancholia, Enzo Traverso provides us with a timely and learned meditation on the politics of grief, mourning, and historical loss. Yet, in the tradition of Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, Traverso also instructs us on how the experience of loss can simultaneously generate heretofore untapped repositories of social hope. Left-Wing Melancholia is both an exhilarating work of intellectual synthesis as well as a pathbreaking study in cultural history. -- Richard Wolin, author of Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of RedemptionIn this wide-ranging, conceptually rich, nuanced and thoughtful meditation, Enzo Traverso takes stock of the current historical moment as marking a fundamental historical and cultural crisis for the Left. The overarching trajectory of struggles oriented toward an emancipatory future that characterized and motivated movements in the past two centuries has been fundamentally broken, resulting in a profound melancholia. Taking inspiration from heterodox critical responses to the darkness enveloping Europe in 1940, Traverso seeks to uncover trace elements of a new utopian imaginary, as a leap without guarantees, a melancholy wager. -- Moishe Postone, University of ChicagoTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Haunting Pasts Without Utopias1. The Culture of Defeat2. Marxism and Memory3. Melancholy Images4. Bohemia: Between Melancholy and Revolution5. Marxism and the West6. Adorno and Benjamin: Letters at Midnight in the Century7. Synchronic Times: Walter Benjamin and Daniel BensaïdNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In his monumental Central Asia, Adeeb Khalid puts the region at the 'crossroads of history'. A laboratory of colonialism, revolution, nation building and telescoped social and cultural transformation, it has experienced 'every achievement of modernity and every one of its disasters'."---Daniel Beer, Times Literary Supplement"Khalid presents a masterful history of modern Central Asia which is at once scholarly, analytical and wonderfully accessible. . . .Adeeb Khalid deserves our gratitude for producing a path-breaking study of modern Central Asian history. One hopes it will pave the way for more."---Scott C. Levi, History Today ​​​​​​​"The book is successful in revealing the two centuries of political, social and cultural history of the peoples of Central Asia, and serves to further progress knowledge about this region."---Mirzokhid Askarov, Ethnic and Racial Studies"One of the newest and comprehensive studies on the region. It is a very broad and, at the same time, concise introduction to Central Asian history."---Marat Iliyasov, The Rest Journal"Formidably detailed, Central Asia is ideal for upper-level students wondering how a chronically misunderstood region has been shaped by broad currents and dominant powers of modern world history, in concert with local actors."---Andrew M. Wender, World History Connected

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Book SynopsisWith the recent revival of Karl Marx's theory, a general interest in reading Capital has also increased. But Capital – Marx’s foundational nineteenth century work on political economy – is by no means considered an easily understood text. Central concepts such as abstract labor, the value form, or the fetishism of commodities, can seem opaque to us as first time readers, and the prospect of comprehending Marx’s thought can be truly daunting. Until, that is, we pick up Michael Heinrich’s How to Read Marx's Capital. Paragraph by paragraph, Heinrich provides extensive commentary and lucid explanations of questions and quandaries that arise when encountering Marx’s original text. Suddenly, such seemingly gnarly chapters as “The Labor Process and the Valorization Process” and “Money or the Circulation of Capital” become refreshingly clear, as Heinrich explains just what we need to keep in mind when reading such a complex text. Deploying multiple appendices referring to other pertinent writings by Marx, Heinrich reveals what is relevant about Capital, and why we need to engage with it today. How to Read Marx's Capital provides an illuminating and indispensable guide to sorting through cultural detritus of a world whose political and economic systems are simultaneously imploding and exploding.Trade ReviewPraise for Michael Heinrich’s An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital: “Whether one is a ‘traditional worldview Marxist’ like myself, or a student who wants to understand this world we live in, or an activist who is committed to changing it, Michael Heinrich’s succinct, lucid, compelling summary of the three volumes of Marx’s Capital is a ‘must read’ in our time of crisis.” —Paul LeBlanc, author, From Marx to Gramsci and Marx, Lenin and the Revolutionary Experience

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Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017''A brilliant, compelling, propulsively written, magnificent tour de force'' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard''The second volume of what will surely rank as one of the greatest historical achievements of our age ... The War and Peace of history: a book you fear you will never finish, but just cannot put down'' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Well before 1929, Stalin had achieved dictatorial power over the Soviet empire, but now he decided that the largest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took. What it took, and what Stalin managed to force through, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Rather than a tale of a deformed or paranoid personality creating a political system, this is a story of a political system shaping a personality. Building and running a dictatorship, with power of life or death over hundreds of millions, in conditions of capitalist self-encirclement, made Stalin the person he became.Wholesale collectivization of agriculture, some 120 million peasants, necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, but Stalin did not flinch; the resulting mass starvation and death elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. By 1934, when the situation had stabilized and socialism had been built in the countryside too, the internal praise came for his uncanny success in anticapitalist terms. But Stalin never forgot and never forgave, with bloody consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite.Stalin had revived a great power with a formidable industrialized military. But the Soviet Union was effectively alone, with no allies and enemies perceived everywhere. The quest to find security would bring Soviet Communism into an improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain did not work out as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective countries, drew ever closer to collision.Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941 is, like its predecessor Stalin: Paradoxes of Power: 1878-1928, nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin''s desk. It is also, like its predecessor, a landmark achievement in the annals of the biographer''s art. Kotkin''s portrait captures the vast structures moving global events, and the intimate details of decision-making.Trade ReviewMasterly, a riveting tale, written with pace and aplomb. [of volume one] * New York Times *Exhilarating, compelling, terrifying and utterly gripping... Stalin emerges from Kotkin's book as that most frightening of figures -- a man of absolute conviction. [of volume one] -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * New Statesman *Original, engaging, with a sharp, irreverent wit [of volume one] -- Sheila Fitzpatrick * Guardian *

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