Joe Slovo and Ruth First were South Africans who spent their lives (and in Ruth’s case gave her life) in the struggle against apartheid. They were also members of the South African Communist Party (SACP) for most of their adult lives. They married in the late 1940s and despite a stormy relationship remained together until Ruth First was murdered in Mozambique’s capital Maputo in 1982. Their lives are worthy of celebration (and study) and Alan Wieder has written the first thorough account of their lives. The book details the struggle in South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s and their life in exile in Britain, and across sub-Saharan Africa. Wieder presents the politics of this revolutionary couple with the sympathetic though critical attention they deserve. | more…

Bruce Neuburger dedicated five years to write about his life as a farmworker in the fields of the rich Salinas Valley, California in his new book, Lettuce Wars, which takes readers on a unique voyage written by an activist who worked 10 years as a farmworker between 1970 and 1980… Lettuce Wars is one of the very few well-documented books recently published dealing with the farmworkers’ movement from a different perspective other than the “official story” published by the UFW, giving voice to the many anonymous workers and activists who fought for their dignity and a better life for them and their families.

It should be a mandatory reference for those who want to know more about those turbulent years and the life of farmworkers. | more…

Join Monthly Review Press author, philosopher, and veteran activist Grace Lee Boggs for two special events in New York City: a conversation with Professor Melissa Harris-Perry and other guests at New York University and a screening of the film American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs at Barnard College. | more…

We’re pleased to announce that An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital by Michael Heinrich and Race in Cuba by Esteban Morales Domínguez have been named Outstanding Academic Titles by CHOICE, the magazine of academic libraries.  | more…

When Marx took up a comprehensive critique of political economy at the end of the 1850s, he also intended to write a book on the state. Marx planned a total of six books: on capital, landed property, wage-labor, the state, foreign trade, and the world market. In terms of range of content, the three volumes of Capital approximately comprise the first three books. The planned book on the state was never written; in Capital there are only isolated references to the state. | more…

As the world was saying goodbye to Nelson Mandela in early December, I had my nose in Alan Wieder’s well-researched new biography Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid (Monthly Review, 2013). First, Slovo and Mandela were part of an ensemble of revolutionary comrades who together reshaped South Africa from the 1950s to the end of apartheid in 1991. The book is full of these and other familiar characters in a level of detail that would impress the most ardent Talmudic scholar. Wieder’s research involved hours and hours of interviews and immersing himself in court records, other documents and the personal papers of Slovo, First and others from the apartheid era. | more…

Reading Save our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress is like sitting in on a seminar on the modern labor movement—with Steve Early playing the role of opinionated professor. Research has confirmed that we learn best when we are hearing stories. So the prolific Professor Early wisely builds his Save Our Unions seminar around case studies of labor’s triumphs and tragedies, past and present. | more…

Henry Giroux is the author of America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth, published recently by Monthly Review Press. He is interviewed by Walid Darab for the Greed For Ilm podcast, discussing his book, “casino capitalism,” three examples of the war on youth, his recent appearance on Bill Moyers, and more.  | more…

There is still time during the holidays to purchase labor journalist Steve Early’s very readable and quite reflective latest book, Save Our Unions, published by Monthly Review Press. But books on labor are notoriously misunderstood and conspicuously undersold. This is really too bad. Like other books describing how people live and what they struggle for, Save Our Union records a very human story – a running narrative from an author who was directly reporting, and often directly participating, in the unfolding human drama as it occurred. | more…

At the beginning of 2013, American workers were reeling from body blows — in Michigan among other places. How does that state transmogrify from being the heart of the labor movement to a “right-to-work (for less)” locale, taking its place alongside the Deep South? This anti-worker plague swept through surrounding states. Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio, in that order, took away workers’ right to negotiate their conditions, even though this tack was defeated by a vote of the public in Ohio in November 2011. Indiana enacted a right-to-work law affecting private sector employees. A year after the Ohio vote, workers in Michigan were defeated on two referenda concerning government workers’ ability to negotiate. At that stage, what happened in the latter state shouldn’t have shocked anyone. | more…

Save Our Unions: Dispatches From A Movement in Distress brings together recent essays and reporting by labor journalist Steve Early. The author illuminates the challenges facing U.S. workers, whether they’re trying to democratize their union, win a strike, defend past contract gains, or bargain with management for the first time. Save Our Unions contains vivid portraits of rank-and-file heroes and heroines, both well-known and unsung. It takes readers to union conventions and funerals, strikes and picket-lines, celebrations of labor’s past and struggles to insure that unions still have a future in the 21st century. The book’s insight, analysis and advocacy make this an important contribution to the project of labor revitalization and reform. | more…

A remarkable political biography of two activists who devoted their lives to the struggle for equality in South Africa… Given its wealth of detail, the wide range of interviews that Weider has conducted, and the letters to which he has been granted access, it deserves to remain the definitive biography of First and Slovo for a long time… This timely book should be read by all who seek to understand the remarkable couple and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa in depth. | more…

Henry Giroux is the author of America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth, published this year by Monthly Review Press. He was interviewed on Background Briefing with Ian Masters, discussing his recent appearance on Bill Moyers, “zombie politics,” student activism, and more. Background Briefing is broadcast by KPFK in Los Angeles and syndicated around the United States.  | more…