John Tully interviewed on Radio New Zealand
February 20, 2024
Listen to the author of The Devil's Milk discuss the social history of rubber on This Way Up with Simon Morton.
Category: Monthly Review Press /
The Science & Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould reviewed in Human Ecology Review
February 20, 2024
Undoubtedly, Stephen Jay Gould is one of the great thinkers of the Twentieth Century. Gould was a leading figure in the fields of evolutionary biology and paleontology, and made important theoretical and empirical contributions to those fields over his accomplished career. The Science and Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould, by sociologists Richard York and Brett Clark, broadly examines the philosophical underpinnings of Gould's work, and its application for understanding the interweaving relations among and between natural and social systems. This book provides a concise, yet remarkably thorough, survey of key aspects of Gould's powerful worldview and philosophy, applying a rich overarching analysis of a scientific perspective that reveals numerous insights into the complexity of nature and, compellingly, society.
The Devil's Milk reviewed on Counterfire
February 20, 2024
What is a commodity? On the face of it, simply an object. Marx pointed out however that it is really 'a very queer thing indeed, full of metaphysical subtleties and theological whimsies'. A commodity like rubber on the one hand contains all sorts of useful, non-reducible physical properties, and on the other, within a capitalist economy, is just the equivalent of a given quantity of money; it contains an abstract exchange value of a definite amount. Moreover, the individual commodity contains within itself all the natural and social processes which brought it into being as a discrete product, from the growth, in this case, of the rubber-producing tree, to its harvesting, transport and manufacture into commercial rubber.
The Ecological Rift reviewed in Earth Island Journal
February 20, 2024
There are more factors than climate change that threaten our existence on Earth. Scientists warn that it is only one of nine "planetary life-support systems" vital for human survival. The other boundaries are: global freshwater use, chemical pollution, ocean acidification, land use change, loss of biodiversity and the increasing extinction rate, ozone and aerosol levels in the atmosphere, and the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles that regulate soil fertility.
The Ecological Rift reviewed in Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
February 20, 2024
In the last few decades, there has been a renewed interest in exploring issues of ecology and sustainability from a Marxist perspective. Partially inspired by the ecological movement more widely, partially by the revival of Marxist economic theory since the 1980s, the topic of 'Marx and ecology' has been given wide attention in a range of publications in recent years. All three of the authors of the present book have earned their stripes in this field of research, and in particular John Bellamy Foster has been influential in putting ecological questions on the agenda of socialist politics, a tradition that had hitherto often been hostile to the claims of (middle class) 'green' campaigners.
Fred Magdoff & John Bellamy Foster in NYC on October 22
February 20, 2024
Join the authors of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism at the Brecht Forum in New York City, 6 PM, October 22, 2011.
Mexico's Revolution Then and Now reviewed on Counterfire
February 20, 2024
The first twenty years of the twentieth century were decades of revolution that set the terms of world politics perhaps for the rest of the century. The most familiar events would be the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, but others of world importance include the Chinese revolution of 1911, and the German revolution of 1918-19. To these should be added Mexico's revolution that began in 1910.
NEW: Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume II by István Mészáros
February 20, 2024
In The Dialectic of Structure and History, Volume Two of Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, István Mészáros brings the comprehension of our condition and the possibility of emancipatory social action beyond the highest point reached to date. Building on the indicatory flashes of conceptual lightning in the Grundrisse and other works of Karl Marx, Mészáros sets out the relations of structure and agency, individual and society, base and superstructure, nature and history, in a dialectical totality open to the future.
Steve Early on Book Tour
February 20, 2024
author of Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Homeand The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, forthcoming from Haymarket Books, is on book tour.
James Cockcroft on Book Tour
February 20, 2024
James D. Cockcroft, the author of Mexico's Revolution Then and Now and Mexico's Hope, is currently on book tour.