Category: Monthly Review Press /

Meticulous study of ecological scholarship: ISA reviews “The Return of Nature”

February 20, 2024

John Bellamy Foster’s ground-breaking Marx’s Ecology in 2000 demonstrated that Marxism, from the beginning, dealt with ecological questions. Its long-awaited sequel, The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, developed these ideas from the deaths of Marx and Darwin to the 1960s, tracing a continuous thread of dialectical thinking about the environment. It is a meticulous study of the co-evolution of socialism and ecology citing a huge wealth of sources, including the significant contributions of Engels, the 'Left Darwinist' Ray Lankester, and the Romantic Marxist, William Morris...

“Walking through the door of a global clash”: ResoluteReader on “Dead Epidemiologists”

February 20, 2024

While I was recommending his earlier book, Wallace himself was being bombarded with requests for interviews, articles and speaking engagements. Out of that came this excellent new book. Dead Epidemiologists is a collection of material that grapples with the big questions around Covid-19 - its origins, the failure of capitalist governments to deal with it and the way the disease exacerbates existing social, political and economic fractures in society....

Biden’s COVID Plan Is Better Than Trump’s, But Still Far From Sufficient: Rob Wallace via Truthout…

February 20, 2024

Presuming Donald Trump’s electoral defeat will lead to little more than some revenge firings, a parade of pardons for any Trump fixers still standing, and a practice run at the mechanics of a rightist coup for next time, what does a Biden administration promise us come January 2021?...

Eric Chester & Mitch Jeserich on the Suppression of Speech in WWI, with Implications for a Biden Presidency

February 20, 2024

Eric T. Chester, author of the recently released Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent During World War I, talked to Mitch Jeserich, host of KPFA's Letters and Politics, about the legacy of dissent, what happens when the United States works to suppress it, and how this might play out in light of the oncoming Biden administration...

Gerald Horne & Margaret Prescod on Ethiopia, via Sojourner Truth Radio

February 20, 2024

Gerald Horne, author of The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century, talked with Margaret Prescod of Sojourner Truth Radio about the current Ethiopia / Tigray conflict, its history, and its implications for the region...

“Global ecologically sensitive socialism”: Left Unity reviews John Bellamy Foster’s “The Return of Nature”

February 20, 2024

"This brilliant book—which traces and establishes the link between socialism and ecology—couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time, given the ever-worsening Climate and Ecological Crises, and the mounting health and economic impacts of the closely-linked Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of these combined crises, more people than ever are accepting the need for some fundamental ‘System Change’..."

Maduro’s Government and the Left: CounterPunch looks at “Venezuela, the Present as Struggle”

February 20, 2024

“Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela poses a unique dilemma for some on the left. They have criticisms of it, but decided against voicing them too obstreperously now, for the obvious reason that that could aid and comfort a mortal enemy–the most powerful military empire of all time, namely the United States...

Marx & Modern Society: Journal of the History of Ideas interviews Michael Heinrich

February 20, 2024

In 2019, Michael Heinrich published Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society: The Life of Marx and the Development of His Work. It was the first installment of a biography slated to stretch across three volumes. Kathrin Witter interviewed Heinrich about his book for the Journal of the History of Ideas...

Crafting a revolutionary healthcare system–NACLA reviews 2 books on Cuban Health Care

February 20, 2024

The Right to Live in Health and Cuban Health Care, when read together, historicize Cuba’s pathbreaking medical system. ... While observers often focus on Cuba’s health infrastructure and policies, Rodríguez and Fitz instead emphasize consciousness and ideology. These two books show that throughout the twentieth century, Cubans voiced new demands and prioritized specific values, and, as a result, crafted a revolutionary healthcare system...

“Colossal intellectual undertaking”: Irish Marxist Review on John Bellamy Foster’s “The Return of Nature”

February 20, 2024

"John Bellamy Foster is a U.S.-based writer and lecturer whose works are essential reading for all revolutionaries and environmentalists. Over two decades, Foster has produced an immensely important body of work, and alongside a small number of others (like Ian Angus), has clarified and rescued Marxist thinking on key environmental issues in the age of climate catastrophe..."