2020 marked an epochal shift in the movement for trans liberation, as the chant “Black Trans Lives Matter” became a feature of the multi-racial, multi-gender rebellions that swept the United States that summer. The popularization of the chant not only expressed the emancipatory desires of the most marginalized section of the trans community, but also signaled the emergence of trans liberation politics within the broader Left.
Revisiting the Jewish question
6 November, byI once heard an anecdote about a Jewish comrade walking into his first meeting of a new socialist organization in the United States and asking a friend who the other Jews were in the room. The friend pointed out a handful of people—about a third, perhaps half of the room—to which the comrade responded, “This is the most goyische [non-Jewish] socialist meeting I’ve ever seen.”
Bringing Malcolm to Life
6 November, byThis is a powerful new biography of one the greatest African Americans of the 20th century, Malcolm X (Muslim name el Hajj Malik el-Shabazz). His voice still resonates across the world as his speeches are played to new generations of activists.
“‘Mao Zedong Thought’ is a must-read for anyone studying Maoism and the Chinese Revolution”
22 October, byWang Fanxi
Mao Zedong Thought
Brill, Historical Materialism Book Series, Volume: 210, Leiden, 2020. 326 pp., €150.00 hb
ISBN 9789004358904
Climate struggle on a radicalized track
22 October, byAndreas Malms new book How to Blow up a Pipeline. Learning to fight in a World on Fire has got a great deal of attention. The focus has been on Malms critique of parts of the climate movement that a priori and in any given situation advocates civil disobedience. Malm highlights the role of sabotage as one of several tactical methods in the struggle against the fossil capital.
Daniel Bensaïd The Dispossessed: Karl Marx’s Debates on Wood Theft and the Right of the Poor
22 October, byIn this rather unusual volume edited by Robert Nichols, we find his translations of Bensaïd’s 2007 title essay, as well as new translations of Marx’s five 1842 Die Rheinische Zeitung articles on wood theft, from which Bensaïd draws. Nichols also provides a substantial introduction in which he calls this collection an ‘experiment’ representing ‘a deliberately asynchronic juxtaposition.’
The Republic of Ireland: A socialist Rosetta Stone
3 October, byA new Introduction by longtime comrade John McAnulty to D.R. O’Connor Lysaght’s 1970 book The Republic of Ireland made available online following his recent death.
Adrienne Rich, Trailblazer
2 September, byAdrienne Rich was many things to many people. She was one of the United States’ leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, beginning while she was still in college and continuing until her death in 2012. In her forties, Rich became a lesbian feminist icon, idolized by crowds who flocked to her readings and talks, renowned for her book on motherhood Of Woman Born and her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”
The Paris Commune: an ode to emancipation
2 September, by“We do not pay homage to a man, a hero or a great thinker, but to a crowd of anonymous people whom we refuse to forget.”
Shifting Identities in a Settler Land
15 August, byIn 1880, five years before the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the federal government’s imposition of a head tax on Chinese immigrants, Dukesang Wong (1845-1931) migrated from China to “Gold Mountain,” the term Chinese migrants used to refer to the west coast of the United States and Canada. He landed in Portland and eventually found work building the railway in British Columbia. Later he became a tailor, brought his wife to Canada, and settled his family here.
