Announcing upcoming events with Steve Brouwer, author of Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care, in Boston and Maine.  | more…

This book describes a new approach to medical education and practice that was originally developed in Cuba. This novel, Marxist approach to a worldwide problem is a striking example of the inventiveness of the Cubans to the development of socialism in their country. Socialists say that they want to replace the contemporary system of political economy, based on the profit motive, by one in which production and exchange are predicated on the necessary and sensible needs of the population. But a critical question is: how do we get from a capitalist system to a socialist system? This book describes relevant, empirical data derived from the Cuban experience of health assistance to their South American neighbours. | more…

Pity the US proletariat? Not author, editor and labor educator Michael D. Yates and fellow scribes in Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back (Monthly Review Press). In 16 essays, they lay out forceful portraits of last year’s political conflict in or that relate to the Badger State. | more…

When prices for many basic foods spiked in 2007 and 2008, thousands rioted in more than 30 countries from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso. In Haiti the riots drove President Réné Préval from office; in Egypt they were a key act in the prologue to the current revolution. It took the world’s intellectual establishment by surprise. By 2009 Scientific American was running articles with titles such as “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” After all, there can be few more serious failures of any social order than an inability to feed the population—as the Bolsheviks knew when they made the demand for “peace, bread and land” one of their main slogans in the Russian Revolution of 1917. This collection of essays is a serious attempt to theorise the crisis in the global food economy for the left. | more…

As a lifelong Wisconsin resident and union thug, almost every aspect of my life has been changed by the series of events that began with the election of Scott Walker. Everyone around me has felt the impact of his regime, personally and at work. We’ve seen a long list of losses: wages, benefits, clean government, environmental protections, collective bargaining rights, and more. But we also gained a collective voice, evidenced by the mass rallies and a million signatures on petitions aimed at recalling Walker. | more…

Writing as en engaged public intellectual, Marsh (English, Pennsylvania State Univ.) argues that education, from preschool through graduate school, should not be viewed as a panacea for America’s economic and social ills. Instead, he calls for a drastic decrease in poverty and inequality as a more potent elixir. Marsh marshals ample historical and empirical evidence to bolster his case. | more…