Category: Monthly Review Press /

One Day in December reviewed in Z Magazine

February 20, 2024

In the opening pages of a new biography, Alice Walker's Foreword sets the stage for the poignant portrayal of a person with scant name recognition in North America. Until, that is, the publication of One Day in December. Author Nancy Stout divides the book into four parts: Pilón, Manzanillo, Sierra Maestra, and Havana, Cuba, the main places where Sánchez and scores of other Cubans resisted, eventually toppling the Cuban government and replacing it with a revolutionary regime.

America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth reviewed on Counterfire

February 20, 2024

Giroux asserts that a fundamental attack on democracy is currently occurring in the US, and urgent action is needed to defend democratic values against this assault. His view is that an examination of the education system provides evidence for this attack, and that education is itself both a key battleground, and the crucible in which the defence of democracy can be formed.

The Work of Sartre reviewed in LSE Review of Books

February 20, 2024

Although Jean-Paul Sartre was a popular and influential philosopher, he has not become as common a topic for serious scholarship as some of his peers. While Husserl and Heidegger are engines of continental thought, and Merleau-Ponty has a sizable following, Sartre tends to be used in introductory courses more than dissertations. Nonetheless, many philosophers do consider his work important and look forward to new insights about his legacy. The Work of Sartre promises to be such a book.

Alan Wieder discusses Ruth First and Joe Slovo on imiXwhatilike! Radio

February 20, 2024

Alan Wieder is the author of Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, recently released by Monthly Review Press. He is interviewed by Dr. Jared A. Ball for imiXwhatilike! Emancipatory Journalism & Broadcasting, about the lives of Ruth First and Joe Slovo, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and revolution.

Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates discuss A Freedom Budget for All Americans on CBS Pittsburgh

February 20, 2024

Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates are the authors of A Freedom Budget for All Americans, recently published by Monthly Review Press. They discuss their book, the civil rights movement, and socialism with Chris Moore of CBS affiliate KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA.

Lettuce Wars reviewed in the Indypendent

February 20, 2024

When Cesar Chavez died in 1993, he was a cultural icon and progressive hero. Cast into poverty at a young age, he worked the fields as a youth before he went on to fuse his brand of Catholicism and grassroots organizing into the United Farm Workers, a union that sought to raise his Mexican farm laborer base out of poverty and into power. Chavez built a fighting union from the ground up — Si se puede! ("Yes we can!") was its battle cry — but by the time of his death he left an organization gutted of its farm worker base, purged of its organizing core and tattered from relentless grower assaults.

One Day in December reviewed in the Morning Star

February 20, 2024

"Celia Sanchez is not a familiar name beyond Cuban borders but that should change with this, the first comprehensive biography of her life. As a committed soldier of social justice, she was instrumental in driving the one of the greatest revolutions of the 20th century and US writer Nancy Stout retells the story of an inspirational female revolutionary . . . This is an extraordinary biography, charting Sanchez's involvement from initial organisation of Fidel's landing to her remarkable transformation of a thorny thicket - marabuzal - into a preliminary training ground for rebel soldiers."

NYC Book Launch for Hell’s Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space

February 20, 2024

Join author Joseph Varga and MR Press for a book launch celebrating Hell's Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space, Thursday, September 26, 7 pm, at The New School for Social Research, 80 5th avenue (at 14th street and 5th ave), in New York City.

Race in Cuba "Essential" Choice review

February 20, 2024

The appearance of these essays in English translation is an important milestone, because Esteban Morales Domínguez (Cuban Academy of Sciences) is one of the most important and influential commentators on Cuban race relations today. This book brings together, in essay and interview form, Morales's thinking from the past decade ... Morales takes complex, thoughtful, and sometimes unexpected positions; his is a voice that ought to be heard in North American discussions about race. Summing Up: Essential.

Race in Cuba reviewed by LSE Review of Books

February 20, 2024

Professor Emeritus of Political Economy of the University of Havana, Morales Domínguez, who continues to live in and write from Cuba, is a prolific social scientist and a leading scholar of race. With this collection of articles, essays, and interviews, he demonstrates how one can both be a supporter of the Revolution as well as a critic of its shortcomings primarily where it comes to race... This is an extraordinary addition to Cuban Studies