Category: Monthly Review Press /

Henry A. Giroux | “Thinking Dangerously: The Role of Higher Education in Authoritarian Times”

February 20, 2024

What happens to democracy when the president of the United States labels critical media outlets as ‘enemies of the people’ and disparages the search for truth with the blanket term ‘fake news’? What happens to democracy when individuals and groups are demonized on the basis of their religion? What happens to a society when critical thinking becomes an object of contempt? What happens to a social order ruled by an economics of contempt that blames the poor for their condition and subjects them to a culture of shaming? … ¶ What happens is that democracy withers and dies, both as an ideal and as a reality….

Teachers as Agents of Change: Against the Current reviews Educational Justice

February 20, 2024

In his introduction to Educational Justice, Howard Ryan states that he and his coauthors ‘offer theory, strategy and organizing case studies to inform and inspire those who are working to rebuild public education and put an end to the corporate occupation of our schools.’ This is an apt description, and the reason anyone interested in that work should read this book. Ryan’s motivation for writing this ambitious book was his conviction ‘that the fight to defend public schools had particular potential for energizing larger movements for democracy and social justice.’

From “Swine” to “NAFTA” Flu: Rob Wallace on CBC radio renames notable viruses

February 20, 2024

Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Infectious Disease, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science, is heard, along with other scientists, on CBCradio‘s ‘The 180 with Jim Brown,’ considering the question: Why do we name diseases the way we do?

OrganizeNorthCarolina.org reviews Michael Lebowitz’s The Contradictions of “Real Socialism”

February 20, 2024

The leaders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, 1922-1991) used the terms ‘real socialism’ and ‘actually existing socialism’ to ‘distinguish their real experience from merely theoretical socialist ideas.’ Lebowitz asks how that system actually functioned, how it reproduced itself, and why it ‘yield[ed] to capitalism without resistance from the working classes who were presumably its beneficiaries’. (p. 7) ¶ Interesting questions. Especially to those of us who want to construct a more humane system than the capitalism that defeated the USSR….

Gerald Horne: The New NRA Video & Trump’s Media Attacks = Symptoms of America in Decline

February 20, 2024

Jaisal Noor of The Real News Network turns to Monthly Review Press author, Gerald Horne (Confronting Black Jacobins; The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism), for Horne’s historical perspective on Trump’s tweets and the National Rifle Association’s recent recruitment video

Fred Magdoff in Chicago for July 6-9 Socialism2017 Conference

February 20, 2024

Come to Chicago this weekend for Socialism2017, where thousands of organizers and intellectuals will participate in over 100 meetings—one of which will be with Monthly Review Press author Fred Magdoff and Socialist Worker writer Michael Ware.
Saturday, July 8, 2-3:30pm: Magdoff, author, with Chris Williams, of Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation, will discuss with Ware how, in fighting for environmental and social justice, reforms are vital but revolution is essential.

“The earth shall rise on new foundations”: preface to Éditions Critiques publication of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

February 20, 2024

The following is the preface to the 2017 French-language edition of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster, originally published by Monthly Review Press in 2011. The French edition will be released by Éditions Critiques in September, and will appear as Ce que tout écologiste doit savoir à propos du capitalisme.

Gerald Horne and The Real News Network’s Paul Jay: “Comey Affair Sign of Fractured U.S.”

February 20, 2024

Historian Gerald Horne, author of several books, including Confronting Black Jacobins and Race to Revolution talks with TRNN anchor Paul Jay about Trump’s firing FBI Director James Comey

Brian Tokar in NYC’s The Indypendent: “Fighting Climate Change in the Age of Trump”

February 20, 2024

Long-time activist and author Brian Tokar, who, with Fred Magdoff, wrote Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal, just wrote a piece for the May issue of The... READ MORE

Anti-Imperialist U reviews Gerald Horne’s Confronting Black Jacobins

February 20, 2024

The Haitian Revolution, which ran from 1791-1804 was one of the most important events in modern history. It was the first successful anti-slavery revolution…. I dealt with this glorious moment in human history in my “Revolution in Haiti” based on C.L.R James classic The Black Jacobins…. Now I will deal with the part the Haitian revolution played in not only ending slavery on the island but throughout the americas relying on yet another masterpiece from Gerald Horne, Confronting Black Jacobins, which is both a sequel to The Counter-Revolution of 1776 and a companion to his excellent Negro Comrades of the Crown…