Humankind – A Hopeful History (Bloomsbury 2020) by Rutger Bregman, bestselling author of Utopia for Realists (Bloomsbury 2017).
Prophet Prolonged….?
25 October, byDave Kellaway reviews Dan La Botz’s book, Trotsky in Tijuana, published by BookLocker.com, Florida 2020.
“Why it is worth preparing for breaches to open in these two systems and strive for socialism”
13 October, byLivio Maitan, Memoirs of a critical communist. Towards a History of the Fourth International, Preface by Daniel Bensaid, translated by Gregor Benton, edited and with an introduction by Penelope Duggan, Resistance Books, IIRE, Merlin Press, 2019, 455 pages.
Global Fever
13 October, by“For the upcoming movements around COVID and climate, such ‘Leninist’ interventions will be indispensable, and those involved will learn much, and gain great inspiration, from this electrifying book.”
War Communism? Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency
13 October, byGradual reforms can’t do the job: only profoundly radical measures can ensure human survival in an epoch of global sickening.
Hong Kong in revolt and The Art of Rebellion
13 October, byTwo recent additions to the literature on the 2019 revolt in Hong Kong: Au Loong-Yu’s Hong Kong in revolt is a compelling and informative narration of the revolt for a broad international audience, while The Art of Rebellion gives further insight through an effective mixture of reportage, artwork and photography.
The Fight for Indigenous Liberation
21 September, byAs Long as Grass Grows:
The Indigenous Struggle for Environmental Justice,
from Colonization to Standing Rock
By Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Beacon Press, 2019, 222 pages.
Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NODAPL Movement
Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon, editors
University of Minnesota Press, 2019, 420 pages.
Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations
with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders
J. Kéhaulani Kauanui, editor
University of Minnesota Press, 2018, 400 pages.
Questions without Answers: The Dutch and German Communist Left
18 September, byLeft-communism was initially a response to setbacks faced by the communist movement after the failure of the German Revolution. The movement put its hopes in workers’ self-activity, yet remained apart from most of the working class. In this book, Philippe Bourrinet discusses the history of this movement, from its roots in the Dutch and German revolutionary Left before and during the First World War to its final evolution. The book provides a detailed overview of its theoretical debates, and traces how left-communist ideas evolved into council communism. However, the strong focus on theoretical debates means the reader learns little about the movement’s relative weight in the workers’ movement or about its social composition. Ultimately, the left-communists hit a dead-end as the movement was caught in its own contradictions.
Dead Trotskyists Society: Provocative Presence of a Difficult Past
5 September, byEVEN THOUGH ALLEN Ginsberg’s “America” was not among the ardent verses recited in the 1989 teen drama Dead Poets Society, his 1956 anti-capitalist protest poem hurled a celebrated challenge of defiance against the stifling conformity of his native land: “When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?”
“Chinese model of (hyper) development, and its disastrous ecological consequences”
17 August, byRichard Smith, China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse, London: Pluto Books, 2020, 320 pages.
