Category: Monthly Review Press /

Marx’s Ecology reviewed by the Freedom Socialist

Marx’s Ecology reviewed by the Freedom Socialist

February 20, 2024

Many environmentalists disdain the ideas of Karl Marx. Some tout the spiritual virtues of environmental ‛ideals.’ Some argue for individual solutions like recycling, reduced consumption and “going back to the land.” Anti-communists claim that the ecological crimes of the Stalinist-era USSR flowed from Marxism itself. John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature counters all these ideas. It is a dense and intricate analysis of Marxist theory, its historical and scientific foundations, and how central ecological concerns are to it.

Revealed! A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution

Revealed! A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution

February 20, 2024

The working class of Cuba played a much more decisive role in the Revolution than previously understood. Steve Cushion contends that significant portions of the Cuban working class launched an underground movement in tandem with the guerrillas operating in the mountains. From illegal strikes to sabotage to armed conflict with the state, workers' efforts helped clinch the Revolution's victory. A fresh and provocative take on the place of the working class in Cuban history.

Rage, Rebellion, Revolution … Register? Check out this year’s Left Forum

Rage, Rebellion, Revolution … Register? Check out this year’s Left Forum

February 20, 2024

Left Forum is the largest annual gathering of the broad Left in the United States. Each year thousands of conference participants come together to discuss pressing local, national, and global issues; to better understand commonalities and differences, and alternatives to current predicaments; or to share ideas to help build social and political movements to transform the world. Left Forum 2015 drew 4,000 participants for 400 panels and events. Recent speakers include Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera, Slavoj Zizek, Marina Sitrin, Amy Goodman, Immortal Technique, and Grace Lee Boggs.

The Hidden Structure of Violence reviewed in ISRA

The Hidden Structure of Violence reviewed in ISRA

February 20, 2024

This book should be of interest to anyone constructing an understanding of the causes of violence, particularly as fed by the power motive and influenced by hidden psychological processes. It is a “must read” and a valuable reference for one’s personal library....
I used the 2008 book in my psychology of aggression class and my peace psychology class. I feel that book was one of the best resources I had and an education for our students. I am now making plans to use the 2015 book in adult learning classes.

Politics of the Right “essential reading” —The Progressive Populist

Politics of the Right “essential reading” —The Progressive Populist

February 20, 2024

Far-right forces are on the move in and out of the US. Socialist Register 2016: The Politics of the Right, edited by Leo Panitch and Greg Albo, delivers crisp analyses of this trend.... A recurring theme in the book is the process of political centrism drifting to the right. This move enhances authoritarianism, a cultural feature of modern politics in the post Sept. 11 era.... Hard right politics dovetails with policing of national minorities. Lesley Wood outlines three related trends: “intelligence-led policing, community policing and strategic incapacitation protest policing,” which confront movements such as Black Lives Matter, pushing back for public control over this state function.

Laurence Shoup interviewed by Z Magazine

Laurence Shoup interviewed by Z Magazine

February 20, 2024

My interests cluster around understanding and exposing both global power structures and alternatives to the existing system. I approach this from the point of view of someone who wants to help create a socio-economic and political system worthy of humanity’s best inclinations. This would be a society and civilization without racial, class, sexual and gender divisions and conflicts, one based on authentic democracy, equality, civil freedoms, respect for the natural world, generous social arrangements, empathy, peace, social justice, and solidarity.

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