Far-left political ideologies and movements Books

Book SynopsisThis is an ambitious comparative study of regime consolidation in the ''revolutionary'' People''s Republic of China and the ''conservative'' Republic of China (Taiwan) in the years following the communist victory against the nationalists on the Chinese mainland in 1949.Julia C. Strauss argues that accounting for these two variants of the Chinese state solely in terms of their divergent ideology and institutions fails to recognise their similarities and their relative successes.Both, after all, emerged from a common background of Leninist party organization amid civil war and foreign invasion. However, by the mid-1950s they were on clearly different trajectories of state-building and development. Focusing on Sunan and Taiwan, Strauss considers state personnel, the use of terror and land reform to explore the evolution of these revolutionary and conservative regimes between 1949 and 1954. In so doing, she sheds important new light on twentieth-century political change in East Asia, deepeTrade Review'A meticulously researched and elegantly presented study of state consolidation in mainland China and Taiwan. By shrinking the mainland geographic focus to Sunan, where the social roots of the communists were relatively weak, Strauss exploits rich archival data and builds analytical leverage to illuminate commonalities and differences in strategies of the two states as outsiders after 1949.' Melanie Manion, Duke University, North Carolina'Historians have long recognized that for all their mutual hostility and apparent ideological opposition, the two regimes on either side of the Taiwan Strait after 1949 actually had much in common. In this provocative and impressively researched work, Julia C. Strauss treats this parallelism as a kind of natural experiment in state consolidation, which she analyzes to produce more general insight into how new states pursue their agendas.' Michael Szonyi, Harvard University, Massachusetts'Strauss (Univ. of London) has authored a fascinating comparison of two variants of the Chinese party-state in the mid-20th century.' S. C. Hart, Choice'Overall, an excellent book, well worth the attention that it will receive from both historians of modern China and political scientists interested in state formation.' Carl Minzner, Journal of Chinese Political ScienceTable of ContentsIntroduction. Modalities of state building and institution building: bureaucracies, campaigns, and performance; 1. Virtue and talent in making Chinese states: heroes and technocrats in Sunan and Taiwan, 1949–1954; 2. Comparative terror in regime consolidation: Sunan and Taiwan, 1949–1954; 3. Performing terror: lenience, legality, and the dramaturgy of the consolidating state; 4. Repertoires of land reform campaigns in Sunan and Taiwan, 1950–1954; 5. Theatres of land reform: bureaucracy, campaign, and the show, 1950–1954; Conclusion; Appendix: list of interviewees; Documentary collections, reports, and periodicals.

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Book SynopsisThe victories and failures of millennial socialism, as told by the writer who lived it.Amber A''Lee Frost came to New York City from her home state of Indiana as a working class activist (and member of then-unknown Cold War hold-out, Democratic Socialists of America), just before the first major movement for economic justice of the millennium, Occupy Wall Street. Of course, Occupy went bust, then Bernie Sanders went boom, and she threw herself into the campaign with everything she had. Frost has been one of the foremost evangelists of labor and socialist politics ever since, as a writer, activist, former staff and lifetime member of DSA, and cohost of the wildly popular Chapo Trap House podcast.Dirtbag is the much-anticipated debut from one of the most engaging and insightful writers of her generation. This book is more than a political memoir; it is a chapter in the story of the only movement that has a chance to reshape our world into something

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Book SynopsisMuriel Blaive is Advisor to the Director for Research and Methodology at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Czech Republic. She is the editor, together with Christian Gerbel and Thomas Lindenberger, of Clashes in European Memory: The Case of Communist Repression and the Holocaust (2010).Table of ContentsList of Figure List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction, Muriel Blaive (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Czech Republic) Part I: From Postwar to Stalinism 1. Secret Agents: Reassessing the Agency of Radio Listeners in Cold War Czechoslovakia (1945-1953), Rosamund Johnston (New York University, USA) 2. Practices of Distance, Perceptions of Proximity: Trade Union Delegates and Everyday Politics in Post-World War II Romania, Adrian Grama (Central European University, Hungary) 3. A Case Study of Legitimization Practices: The Czechoslovak Stalinist Elites at the Regional Level (1948-1951), Marián Lóži (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Czech Republic) 4. Policing the Police: The ‘Instructor Group’ and the Stalinisation of the Czechoslovak Secret Police (1948-1951), Molly Pucci (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) Part II: From Stalinism to Real Existing Socialism 5. Constructive Complaints and Socialist Subversion in Stalinist Czechoslovakia: E.F. Burian’s Scandal in the Picture Gallery, Shawn Clybor (Dwight-Englewood School, USA) 6. Perceptions of Society in Czechoslovak Secret Police Archives: How a ‘Czechoslovak 1956’ Was Thwarted, Muriel Blaive (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Czech Republic) 7. Crises and the Creation of Institutions for Assessing Popular Consumption Preferences in Communist Bulgaria, 1953-1970, Martin K. Dimitrov (Tulane University, USA) 8. Who is Afraid of Whom? The Case of the ‘Loyal Dissidents’ in the German Democratic Republic, Sonia Combe (Centre Marc Bloch, Germany) Part III: From Real Existing Socialism to the End - and Beyond 9. Did Communist Children’s Television Communicate Universal Values? Representing Borders in the Polish Series Four Tank-Men and a Dog, Machteld Venken (Vienna University, Austria) 10. Between Censorship and Scholarship: The Editorial Board of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1969-89, Libora Oates-Indruchová (Graz University, Austria) 11. ‘How Many Days Have the Comrades’ Wives Spent in a Queue?' Appealing to the Ceausescus in Late-Socialist Romania, Jill Massino (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA) 12. Authenticating the Past: Archives, Secret Police, and Heroism in Contemporary Czech Representations of Socialism, Veronika Pehe (Institute for Contemporary History, Czech Republic) Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisVictoria Fareld is Associate Professor of Intellectual History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University, Sweden.Hannes Kuch is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.Trade ReviewA source of knowledge about contemporary critical theory. * Marx and Philosophy Review of Books *The legacy of Hegel’s concepts and method within Marx’s thinking is one of the most decisive and most contested issues in contemporary critical theory. In the last two decades, new interpretations of Hegel and a renewed interest in the diagnostic power of Marx’s writings have challenged many of the established assumptions and made a full reassessment of that key theoretical nexus necessary. This volume, which brings together up-and-coming scholars and some of the best experts in the field, is a major contribution towards that goal. * Jean-Philippe Deranty, Associate Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia *These vital and necessary essays argue for the renewal and refashioning of the radical tradition of Hegelian-Marxism. Collectively, the seek to install a materialist Hegel; an always Hegelian Marx; a formation of critical theory driven by the force of the negative and struggles for recognition; and, above all, for tomorrow's socialism in which social freedom and democratic self-determination might come to be. Urgent and important. * J.M. Bernstein, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, U.S.A. *Table of ContentsFrom Marx to Hegel and Back: Toward a Helical Approach, Victoria Fareld (Stockholm University, Sweden) and Hannes Kuch(Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research, Germany) I. Reassessing the Legacy of Hegel and Marx Hegel and Marx: A Reassessment after One Century, Axel Honneth (University of Frankfurt, Germany and Columbia University, USA) Hegel, Marx, and Presentism, Emmanuel Renault (Paris West University Nanterre La Défense, France) Property and Freedom in Kant, Hegel, and Marx, Jacob Blumenfeld (New School for Social Research, USA) I, the Revolution, Speak: Lenin’s Speculative (Hegelian) Style, Frank Ruda (University of Frankfurt, Germany) II. Capitalism and Critique Critique in Hegel and Marx, Rocío Zambrana (University of Oregon, USA) Hegel and Marx on ‘Spiritual Life’ as a Criterion for Social Critique, Frederick Neuhouser (Columbia University, USA) Abstract Labor and Recognition, Sven Ellmers(Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany) Love Will Tear Us Apart: Marx and Hegel on the Materiality of Erotic Bonds, Federica Gregoratto(University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) III. Postcapitalism and Utopia Marx’s ‘Hegelian’ Critique of Utopia, David Leopold (University of Oxford, UK) Where Are We Developing the Requirements for a New Society? The Dialectic of Today’s Capitalism from a Hegelian Marxist Perspective, Eva Bockenheimer (University of Siegen, Germany) Social Freedom beyond Capitalism: Three Alternatives, Hannes Kuch (Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research, Germany) Honneth’s Democratic ‘Sittlichkeit’ and Market Socialism, Michael Nance (University of Maryland, USA) Contributors Sources Index

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Book SynopsisThis compelling, critical analysis of anti-communism illustrates the variety of anti-Communist styles and agendas, thereby making a persuasive case that the "threat" of domestic communism in Cold War America was vastly overblown.Trade ReviewCeplair (emer., history, Santa Monica College) has written an engaging survey of anticommunism in the 20th-century US. . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Official Anti-Communism, 1919–1939 2 Unofficial Anti-Communism, 1919–1939 3 The Second "Red Scare," 1939–1941 4 World War II 5 Official Anti-Communism, 1945–1948 6 Official Anti-Communism, 1949–1957 7 Institutional Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 8 Ex-Communist and Conservative Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 9 Liberal and Left-of-Liberal Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 10 Civil-Libertarian Anti-Communism, 1945–1957 11 The Decline and Periodic Revivals of Domestic Anti-Communism Conclusion Afterword: Can It Happen Again? Or, Is Anti-Terrorism the New Anti-Communism? Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIvan Boldyrev is Associate Professor at Higher School of Economics, Russia and Visiting Scholar at Humboldt University, Germany.Trade ReviewBoldyrev’s study will certainly contribute to a new perception of Ernst Bloch. He demonstrates convincingly that Bloch was a creative thinker, who developed his theories in constant dialogue with the most important personalities and ideas of his age. -- Christina Ujma, Paderborn University * Modern Language Review *This book is a welcome addition to the literature ... given the lack of material in English dealing with the complexities of Bloch's early intellectual formation. Boldyrev conveys well the swirling, turbulent thought of Central European intellectuals in the early decades of the twentieth century ... He is a skilful reader of texts and has a fine eye for subtle yet important distinctions ... [A] complex and challenging piece of work, but it is well worth the effort. * Vincent Geoghegan, History of Political Thought *This is arguably the most comprehensive English-language study of Bloch’s intellectual evolution and his philosophy of utopia. Boldyrev’s book is wide-ranging and knowledgeable; it weighs Bloch’s originality and significance through sustained comparison with his distinguished contemporaries. * Galin Tihanov, George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature (Queen Mary, University of London) *What Ivan Boldyrev has done here is to provide a fresh and accessible perspective not only on Bloch's approaches to the messianic and utopian, but to discuss those approaches in relation to so many other central philosophical figures of the 20th century. What becomes clear in this book is that Bloch's central operator of the Ontology of Not Yet Being brings into its orbit and helps to explain the ideas of Heidegger, Lukács, Benjamin and Adorno and throws into sharp relief some of the contradictions of 20th century thought. This is an excellent little book for those who wish to understand Bloch's place within the universe of German philosophy. * Peter Thompson, Reader in German, Department of Germanic Studies, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. *Whereas Freud examined our nightmares, Ernst Bloch focused on our daydreams, our fantasies of alternative realities as the ontological ground of the utopian imagination. In this erudite and compellingly nuanced study, Ivan Boldyrev places Bloch in conversation with his contemporaries – Adorno, Benjamin, Buber, Landauer, Lukács, Rosenzweig, and Scholem – illuminating his and their poetics of messianic hope. * Paul Mendes-Flohr, Divinity School, The University of Chicago; Professor emeritus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem *Bloch’s work is so unusual as to demand dis-engagement. Boldyrev’s juxtaposition with his contemporaries – on times and on mysticism – is helpful; but it is his extended discussion of Bloch’s long and fascinating relationship with Lukács that is the centerpiece of this useful book, and casts new light on both theorists. * Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies, Duke University, USA. *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Ernst Bloch’s Philosophical Prose 2. Heidelberg’s Apostles: Bloch Reading Lukács Reading Bloch 3. Eschatology and Messianism: Bloch with Buber, Landauer, and Rosenzweig 4. The Form of the Messianic: Bloch and Benjamin 5. The Void of Utopia and the Violence of the System: Bloch contra Adorno Conclusion: Drawing the Utopian Line Bibliography Index

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