Category: Monthly Review Press /

The Socialist Alternative reviewed in Science & Society

February 20, 2024

Michael Lebowitz has drawn on the diverse experiences that led to the failure of socialism in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and elsewhere, and those in Venezuela where he has resided for nearly a decade, to bolster his thesis on the need to place the transformation of values at the center of socialist construction. In his emphasis on consciousness, Lebowitz follows the tradition of Georg Lukács, Karl Korsh and Che Guevara, while rejecting the determinist notion of the superstructure as an appendage of the structure lacking in autonomy.

David Wilson, co-author of The Politics of Immigration, on Occupying the Immigration Debate

February 20, 2024

People in the United States may not be as rabidly anti-immigrant as we've been led to believe. An article posted on the Center for American Progress website in December, "The Public's View of Immigration," summarizes five recent U.S. opinion polls. Authors Philip E. Wolgin and Angela Maria Kelley find that while the media and the politicians frantically call for the mass deportation of "illegals," a majority of U.S. adults don't favor the idea of removing all 11 million of the country's unauthorized immigrants. And while immigrant rights advocates don't dare use the word "amnesty," the polls show a majority of the population supporting some form of legalization for many or most of the undocumented -- in other words, they support an amnesty.

The Science & Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould reviewed in New Politics

February 20, 2024

It has been almost 10 years since the death of the Harvard paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould at the relatively early age of 60. Gould was not only a major figure in the life sciences, he was also one of the great popularizers of science. He wrote a monthly column for Natural History magazine from 1974 to 2001, generating exactly 300 essays that explained complex scientific ideas without oversimplifying them. Ten collections of Gould's popular articles, together with several other books aimed at a general audience, were best sellers, making him one of the best-known scientists of his generation. A year before his death, he was named a "living legend" by the U.S. Library of Congress. What makes Gould of particular interest to readers of this journal is that his scientific views were informed in interesting ways by his radical politics.

Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Vol. II reviewed in Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

February 20, 2024

Mészáros is a master dialectician. Having been mentored by Lukács, he is one of a few contemporary philosophers to have a viable sense of the depth of connection between Marx and Hegel and his contribution to Marxist thought over many decades has been seminal, earning him a variety of accolades including the Deutscher prize.

NEW! The Crisis and the Left: Socialist Register 2012

February 20, 2024

The global economic crisis that closed the first decade of the 21st century has demonstrated that the contradictions of capitalism cannot be overcome. The challenge for socialist analysis is to reveal both the nature of these contradictions in the neo-liberal era of globalized finance, and their consequences in our time. This volume, a companion to The Crisis This Time: Socialist Register 2011, examines the response of the international Left and asks, how has the Left responded and can it offer an alternative to faltering capitalism?

The People's Lawyer author Albert Ruben on The Center for Constitutional Rights vs. The Pope

February 20, 2024

Albert Ruben, author of The People's Lawyer: The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Fight for Social Justice, From Civil Rights to Guantánamo, describes the recent lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights against the Catholic Church.

NEW! Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back, edited by Michael D. Yates

February 20, 2024

This timely book brings together some of the best labor journalists and scholars in the United States, many of whom were on the ground at the time, to examine the causes and impact of the Wisconsin Uprising, and suggest how the labor movement might proceed in this new era of union militancy. Includes a foreword by Robert W. McChesney.

NEW! The God Market: How Globalization is Making India More Hindu by Meera Nanda

February 20, 2024

Conventional wisdom says that integration into the global marketplace tends to weaken the power of traditional faith in developing countries. But, as Meera Nanda argues in this path-breaking book, this is hardly the case in today's India. Against expectations of growing secularism, India has instead seen a remarkable intertwining of Hinduism and neoliberal ideology, spurred on by a growing capitalist class.

NEW! Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror by Oliver Villar and Drew Cottle

February 20, 2024

Since the late 1990s, the United States has funneled billions of dollars in aid to Colombia, ostensibly to combat the illicit drug trade and State Department-designated terrorist groups. The result has been a spiral of violence that continues to take lives and destabilize Colombian society. This book asks an obvious question: are the official reasons given for the wars on drugs and terror in Colombia plausible, or are there other, deeper factors at work? Scholars Villar and Cottle suggest that the answers lie in a close examination of the cocaine trade, particularly its class dimensions.

Wisconsin Uprising Book Party in NYC, 2/17

February 20, 2024

Join David Newby, Michael Zweig, Stephanie Luce, and Rand Wilson for a party and discussion celebrating the publication of Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back, at Stony Brook Manhattan in New York City.