Alan Wieder has done a wonderful service in researching and writing such a detailed, well constructed narrative, setting the intertwined personal histories in the context of the long and difficult struggle against apartheid. Based on extensive reading of relevant literature, much enriched by interviews, as befits an oral historian, this book provides many new insights to those of us who only knew a part of the lives of Ruth First and Joe Slovo. | more…

John Bellamy Foster is a leading exponent of the theoretical perspective that continues in the tradition of Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital. This new edition of his essential work, The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism, is a clear and accessible explication of this outlook, brought up to the present, and incorporating an analysis of recently discovered “lost” chapters from Monopoly Capital and correspondence between Baran and Sweezy. It also discusses Magdoff and Sweezy’s analysis of the financialization of the economy in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, leading up to the Great Financial Crisis of the opening decade of this century. | more…

Join Johanna Brenner, author of Women and the Politics of Class; Steve Early, author of Save Our Unions; and Arun Gupta, contributor to Socialist Register 2014: Registering Class, for a discussion of “Organizing and Winning for Twenty-First Century Movements” on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 7:15pm-9:30pm, Portland State University, Smith 238, Portland Oregon.  | more…

István Mészáros had been a friend and student of Georg Lukács in Hungary. He continues to be an important Marxist philosopher. The Work of Sartre is a carefully argued analysis of Sartre’s writings and political commitments, from the 1930s to his death in 1980. Mészáros’ position on Sartre is balanced and carefully thought through. He analyzes Sartre’s novels, plays, political essays, and biographies as well as his major philosophical works. He also treats Sartre’s political activities during the Cold War. | more…

Steve Early, author of Save Our Unions, is interviewed by Andrew Sernatinger and Tessa Echeverria for the Black Sheep Podcast. He discusses his new book, the state of the U.S. labor movement today, prospects for progressive organizing, and more. Click here for a transcript of the interview or follow the link and listen to the entire podcast.  | more…

Walter Rodney was born in 1942 in colonial Guyana (then called British Guiana) and died in 1980 in postcolonial Guyana, almost certainly assassinated by the government of Guyana. In a short thirty-eight years, Rodney lived an amazing life, becoming at once a renowned scholar and a brave political activist. After finishing high school in Guyana, Rodney attended the Jamaica campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI). He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. | more…

These essays by the author of The Political Economy of Growth and co-author of Monopoly Capital cover the working range of a strong and original mind. They are as diverse as his well-known discussion of Marxism and psychoanalysis, and his expert handling of the politics and economics of development. The themes of Baran’s major works were expressed in these shorter essays with a vigor and personal style that preserves much of the flavor of Baran’s day-to-day reflections. They display, as John O’Neill says in his introduction, “a breadth of sociological and economic analysis which represents a unique conquest of mind in its ability to situate itself in an environment where disorientation and abdication threaten many social thinkers.” Edited with an introduction by John O’Neill and with a preface by Paul M. Sweezy. | more…

Bruce Neuburger is the author of Lettuce Wars: Ten Years of Work and Struggle in the Fields of California, a memoir of the decade he spent as a farmworker and radical organizer. He was interviewed on Flashpoints, the investigative news program broadcast by KPFA, about the conditions of farmworkers today.  | more…

This history of the Freedom Budget offers a challenge to the mainstream retelling of the story of the Civil Rights movement as well as the neoliberal economic agenda. It does this by being an inspiring history of the movement itself and its key characters in their aim to link ‘racial justice for African Americans with the goal of economic justice for all Americans’ (p.9). By understanding the movement without the diluting and sanitizing effects of mainstream historians, it offers an insight into victories, defeats and individuals, altogether acting as a siren song to call activists to action. At the same time, the authors offer a concrete vision of what a ‘different, more egalitarian and humane society’ would look like (p.241). As such, this is a book not just for the historian but for the activist as well. It would make excellent reading for a study or book group, especially the final chapter that suggests a framework for a new Freedom Budget for the neoliberal world. | more…

Join Alan Wieder, author of Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid, for two upcoming events in London, UK. He will be discussing the book at Housmans Bookshop and presenting at the launch of a special issue of the Review of African Political Economy dedicated to Ruth First.  | more…

In this review I discuss one particular chapter of the book, entitled ‘Dialectics and systems theory’. Though prolific writers, these two famous research biologists and evolutionists, Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, are mostly known for their classic, ‘The dialectical biologist’, a gem more relevant today than when written in 1985. The chapter I am investigating here was written by Levins. When Hegel, Marx or Engels wrote of ‘things’, they were commenting on the dynamics of everything: all things (matter-energy) are born or emerge (from other things); they live or exist, then decay and die. These things are all that exist – everything is in permanent flux and “all that is solid melts into air” (Communist manifesto). | more…

The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung–New York Office recently hosted a book launch for Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement, with author Ralf Dose. Dose was joined by Steven Thrasher, a Contributing Editor at BuzzFeed. Thrasher was named Journalist of the Year 2012 by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his investigative feature writing in the New York Times, Village Voice and Out magazine. Click here for audio and photos of the event, courtesy of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. | more…

by Valeria Bruschi, Antonella Muzzupappa, Sabine Nuss, Anne Stecklner and Ingo Stützle; translated by Alexander Locascio. Reading Capital can be a daunting endeavor and most readers need guidance when tackling this complex work. PolyluxMarx provides such guidance. Developed by scholars and political activists associated with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Foundation), one of the leading political education institutions in Germany, this book has been field tested with groups studying Marx’s masterpiece over several years. It consists of a large set of PowerPoint presentations, combined with detailed annotations and suggestions for ways to discuss the material. | more…