As protests work to remake the world, the reissue of Vivian Gornickʼs The Romance of American Communism invites a new generation to reflect on what it means to live a life of political commitment—where the passionate pursuit of justice meets organized political action. The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick Verso.
More than a Left Foot
27 June 2020, byBob Findlay’s final sentence in his book hopes that “it has provided an insight into an array of historical events, socio-political issues and personal narratives worthy of your time”. It certainly does and is in fact several books for the price of one.
The Living Flame
7 June 2020, byThe Living Flame – the revolutionary passion of Rosa Luxemburg by Paul Le Blanc, Haymarket 2019.
“Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey”
23 May 2020, by“Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey” by Suzanne Berliner Weiss, Roseway Publishing 2019.
A book that reads almost like a thriller
18 May 2020, byOriginally published in French and in Greek in March 2020 under the title Capitulation entre Adultes, the book will be available in English before the end of 2020. The book looks back at Syriza coming to power in Greece in January 2015 and the ensuing six months, marked as they were by stark confrontation between the new Greek government and the European Union. As scientific coordinator of the debt audit, alongside the President of the Hellenic Parliament, Éric Toussaint had a grandstand view of events. He criticises the government’s policies and explains that there was plenty of scope for different strategies.
Bohrer’s loving, fuming critique
6 April 2020, by“Ashley Bohrer’s Marxism and Intersectionality is indispensable reading for socialists trying to understand how class, race and gender mesh. ” Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism by Ashley J. Bohrer, Bielefeld (Germany): Transcript, 2019, distributed by Columbia University Press, $45.00
Understanding the Holocaust
4 April 2020, byUnderstanding the Holocaust is a direct challenge to Marxism. Marxism is a body of theoretical and experiential understanding, which tries to explain the rationality behind history, but the fusion of racism, slave labour, oppression, persecution, irrationalites and barbarism, of the Holocaust and Auschwitz is hard to explain even with Marxism’s insights.
Prophets Unarmed. Chinese Trotskyists in Revolution, War, Jail, and the Return from Limbo
31 March 2020, byReview of Gregor Benton (ed.) Prophets Unarmed. Chinese Trotskyists in Revolution, War, Jail, and the Return from Limbo Leiden e.a., Brill, 2015. XVII, 1269 pp. (Historical Materialism Book Series. 81). – ISBN 978-90-04-26976-7.
Looking at Social Reproduction
9 March 2020, byMaterialist and Marxist feminist theory is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. Wide-ranging conceptual and empirical work on social reproduction is a major part of that theoretical innovation. So, too, are the recent international women’s strikes highlighting key issues such as gender violence and attacks on reproductive autonomy, as well as the range of unpaid social reproductive labor often performed by those gendered as women.
More than a cultist
7 March 2020, byLivio Maitan, Memoirs of a critical communist. Towards a History of the Fourth International, Preface by Daniel Bensaid, translated by Gregor Benton, edited with and introduction by Penelope Duggan, Resistance Books, IIRE, Merlin Press, 2019, 455 pages