Category: Monthly Review Press /

“More liberty than bourgeois society can reach”: Socialism & Democracy reviews “Culture as Politics: Selected Writings of Christopher Caudwell”

February 20, 2024

Ever since he died fighting for the Republican cause in Spain in February 1937, there has been a recurring critical debate about the work of Christopher Caudwell. Indeed, between 1950 and 1951 there was what came to be known as ‘the Caudwell controversy’ where leading members of the British Communist Party, of which Caudwell was a member, debated in the pages of The Modern Quarterly whether Caudwell was really an orthodox Marxist or just a bourgeois idealist....

“Of interest to all radicals and political gossips”–Dublin Review of Books considers “Navigating the Zeitgeist”

February 20, 2024

Autobiographies are tricky things. The memoir can ground the writer in external events or situations and provide an objective rationale. The autobiography places oneself at the centre of the narrative and is an act of whopping self-regard that demands a weighty justification...

New! “Shamrocks and Oil Slicks: A People’s Uprising Against Shell Oil in County Mayo, Ireland”

February 20, 2024

Shell promised wonderful things.... But when the citizens of County Mayo realized what Shell actually intended to do, they rose up. Shamrocks & Oil Slicks tells the story of County Mayo—the fishermen, farmers, teachers, business people—who, motivated by love for their environment, their community, and their country, fought one of the planet’s most powerful destroyers to a standstill.

In no way a Stalinist apologist: Counterfire reviews “A Socialist Defector”

February 20, 2024

Many people have always doubted the starkness of the good West, evil East narrative. Perhaps as a result, since the collapse of the Stalinist states of eastern Europe, a concerted effort has been made to reinforce the notion that the East German state, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), in particular, was a dystopian police state morally equivalent to the Nazi regime...

“Magisterial Biography”: Morning Star reviews Heinrich’s “Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society”

February 20, 2024

In a short appendix to this first of what is to be a multi-volume biography of Karl Marx — which is bound to become a referential touchstone for any subsequent treatment of his life and works — Michael Heinrich examines how biographical writing is possible today and the reader should start with this essay in order to recognise the intentions and detailed scope of his treatment of Marx through his childhood and youth from 1818 to 1841...

Marx & Philosophy reviews “From Commune to Capitalism”

February 20, 2024

What is remarkable about China’s agrarian reforms is that, despite their pivotal role in ending socialist production, some on the left have offered quite positive evaluations. ¶ Zhun Xu is a skeptic of these accounts….

The Key to China’s Future Is Its Past: “From Commune to Capitalism” reviewed by Against the Current

February 20, 2024

From Commune to Capitalism disputes the long-established claim that the decollectivization of Maoist-era peasant communes was better for the economy and an initiative wholly championed by the peasantry...

Op-Ed News: Gerald Horne discusses “The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism”

February 20, 2024

Gerald Horne, noted historian and prolific author, discusses one of his recent books, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism with Jeff J. Brown on OpEdNews.com

Victor Grossman: From Harvard to East Berlin, via Jacobin

February 20, 2024

The first book I wrote was published in East Berlin and talked about my life in the United States right up until the first days of my defection to the GDR in 1952. It was called The Way Across the Border. The funny thing is, some people in the GDR bought it thinking that I was talking about going in the other direction—they thought it would help them jump the Wall from East to West...

Caribbean Quarterly reviews Jane Franklin’s “Cuba and the U.S. Empire”

February 20, 2024

In this new edition, Franklin calls for persons to be a little more circumspect about the motivations for the ‘Cuban Thaw’, as it is known in the US. This is because Cuba-US relations are not simply a product of the Cold War, or a relict thereof; they are a barometer of American imperial politics since the 18th century. And as US imperialism continues to develop, attention to the rapprochement strategy is required, lest one overlook the changing social pacts and geo-political currents to which they are attuned....