Category: Monthly Review Press /

An Interview with Esteban Morales, author of the forthcoming Race in Cuba

February 20, 2024

(From the Havana Times) HT: What do you think of racism in Cuba? Does it exist? How can it be combated? Aren't the current socio-economic changes encouraging racist attitudes, which certainly don't contribute to greater equality between people? . . . EM: Certainly there are changes that don't contribute to greater equality, but there's no choice other than to implement them. We had an egalitarian system, but it threatened all of our equilibrium. It would be worse to repeat that kind of egalitarianism, it is not even possible to defend it. There will be people who within a yet unknown period of time will have to suffer so that in the end we're all saved. That is a price we have to pay for the mistakes that we acknowledge were committed. Within this, we need to seek policies so that the suffering is minimized – but we can't prevent it entirely.

Video Interviews with Nancy Stout on Celia Sánchez, the Cuban Revolution, and One Day in December

February 20, 2024

Nancy Stout is the author of One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution, published by Monthly Review Press. She was interviewed by our friends at New York University Press about the making of her book, doing research in Cuba, Celia's life and relationship with Fidel Castro, and more!

Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti reviewed in CounterPunch

February 20, 2024

Jeb Sprague's definitive Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti (Monthly Review Press, 2012) is the product of seven years of research and writing. Since the 2004 Bush Administration-backed overthrow of the democratically-elected Jean Bertrand Aristide government, journalist and scholar Sprague has been investigating key players behind that coup. His work is especially strong on interviews with figures in anti-Aristide political and paramilitary networks, and on unearthing cables from the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince and other relevant documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Sprague also combed through all the Haiti-related documents released through the activist project Wikileaks.

Ronnie Kasrils in NYC, Oct 22

February 20, 2024

Join Ronnie Kasrils, author of The Unlikely Secret Agent, anti-apartheid leader, and international solidarity activist, for a talk and book signing at The Riverside Church in NYC on Oct 22.

NEW! The Work of Sartre: Search for Freedom and the Challenge of History by István Mészáros

February 20, 2024

This landmark book, first published in 1979, met acclaim as a doubly important work of radical philosophy. Its subject, Jean-Paul Sartre, was among the twentieth century's most controversial and influential philosophers; its author, István Mészáros, was himself establishing a reputation for profound contributions to the Marxian tradition, which would continue into the next century. The Work of Sartre was thus considered essential for its insights on Sartre and as a piece of Mészáros's developing politico-philosophical project.

Read an excerpt from The Endless Crisis on Utne.com

February 20, 2024

The increasing trend of monolithic companies taking over large shares of industry has created a "financialization-stagnation trap" that's negatively affecting economies across the world, particularly in the Global South. That's John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney's argument in The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China (Monthly Review Press, 2012). In this excerpt from the book's introduction, Foster and McChesney explain how understanding the rise of financialization stagnation is essential to understanding global class struggle.

The Socialist Alternative reviewed by Radical Notes

February 20, 2024

This book is part of Michael Lebowitz's larger project of demonstrating the ever-existing necessity of a socialist transformation as the revolutionary resolution of class struggle in capitalism. It builds a theoretical foundation for such revolutionary praxis in the specific objectivity of the 21st century. Lebowitz's previous book, Build it Now, captured and described the specificities of socialist praxis and possibilities in the Bolivarian experience of Venezuela. The Socialist Alternative can be seen as building a coherent model of an alternative by gathering and arranging the elements that are found scattered in that experience.

Video interview with Jeb Sprague

February 20, 2024

Watch Jeb Sprague, author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, interviewed by David Zlutnick in San Francisco for Upheaval Productions. The conversation focuses on paramilitarism and its consequences in Haiti, but also touches on the roles of outside powers and their influence, Haiti's vibrant social movements, and the country's most recent developments.

Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital reviewed on Counterfire

February 20, 2024

There are an increasing number of helpful introductions to Capital to make it more accessible for those reluctant to jump in feet first. The German Marxist Michael Heinrich wrote this introduction in 2004, and it is very welcome that it is now available in English. One aspect of Capital that could well seem daunting is the number of terms with quite precise meanings, such as the various concepts of value, their distinction from price, or surplus value, which is not quite the same thing as profit, or even further, the various specific forms of capital. An understanding of these is not in fact difficult to acquire and Heinrich's short book is a crisp and clear introduction to all the relevant concepts, and the very exact ways in which Marx uses them.

Steve Brouwer events in November

February 20, 2024

Join MR Press author Steve Brouwer as he discusses his book, Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the World's Conception of Health Care, in Ithaca, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison.