Jeremy Kuzmarov, author, with John Marciano, of The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce, talks with Paul DeRienzo about the little-remembered history of Russia-United States relations. | more…
A Redder Shade of Green is a very welcome compilation of posts from Ian Angus’ website “Climate and Capitalism,” some original, others updated and revised. Ian Angus is a Canadian ecosocialist activist and scholar. This book follows two other earlier ones, the excellent critique of populationism/neoMalthusianism (with Simon Butler), Too Many People (Haymarket, 2011), and Facing the Anthropocene (Monthly Review Press, 2016), a splendid introduction to this subject…. | more…
During the past two decades, economist Michael A. Lebowitz has written a number of books, proposing to build socialism as a practical alternative. Lebowitz’s new book, The Socialist Imperative from Gotha to Now, is a continued project about proposing the building of socialism in the 21st century…. Lebowitz’s book attempts to establish a theoretical vision of socialism and the lessons from the experience of ‘real socialism’… | more…
In the early 1980s, China dismantled its socialist rural collectives and divided the land among millions of small peasant families. Mainstream history argues that this “decollectivization campaign” greatly improved agricultural productivity and the lives of the peasants. A closer examination suggests a much different and more nuanced story…. | more…
Like Saddam Hussein a decade and a half ago, Russia and its President Vladimir Putin have been repeatedly vilified in the Western media over the last five years, helping to mobilize popular support for the reemergence of a new Cold War… | more…
“Ecosocialism needs Marx,” Kohei Saito once wrote. In Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism, Saito shows why…. This work and Saito’s familiarity with a range of international debates regarding Marxist theory and practice make possible his beautiful analysis of Marx’s ecosocialism, an analysis that should inform our struggle for revolutionary socioecological change…. | more…
Stephen Cushion’s A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution, the result of extensive archival and oral history research, is one of the most important books (in any language) on the history of the Batista regime and its opponents during the 1950s to appear in the last three or more decades. It is also an openly revisionist account that challenges much research and writing produced by both Cuban and foreign scholars….” | more…
Howard Waitzkin, author, with the Working Group on Health Beyond Capitalism, of Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health, will be in Beloit, Wisconsin Saturday, July 7 to discuss the U.S. health-care crisis — how we can rescue it and make it an integral part of a new and radically different society | more…
Karl Marx famously wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then as farce. The first Cold War was a tragedy. The new Cold War is playing out as a dangerous farce. That’s the thesis of Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano in The Russians are Coming, Again. Brian Becker and John Kiriakou speak with Kuzmarov, author and assistant professor of American history at the University of Tulsa. | more…
These days we see a seemingly odd project taking place in the realms of American liberalism: ferocious insistence that the truly outrageous Donald J. Trump is at his worst when….making peace with our enemies! Has he been brainwashed by Russian and/or North Korean agents, perhaps? Or is this all, perhaps, a crude plan to place Trump Steaks in Trump hotels in heretofore unbidden locations? What kind of madness would lessen the threat of American nukes that keeps us all as safe as we may reasonably hope to be?… | more…
Ian Angus’ (author of Canadian Bolsheviks, 1981; Facing the Anthropocene, 2016) latest book A Redder Shade of Green: Intersections of Science and Socialism consists of a collection of essays/talks made over the course of the past few years. It is readable, current, and packed with highly relevant material for anyone concerned about our planet and our species’ future…. | more…