February 20, 2024
Giroux asserts that a fundamental attack on democracy is currently occurring in the US, and urgent action is needed to defend democratic values against this assault. His view is that an examination of the education system provides evidence for this attack, and that education is itself both a key battleground, and the crucible in which the defence of democracy can be formed.
February 20, 2024
Although Jean-Paul Sartre was a popular and influential philosopher, he has not become as common a topic for serious scholarship as some of his peers. While Husserl and Heidegger are engines of continental thought, and Merleau-Ponty has a sizable following, Sartre tends to be used in introductory courses more than dissertations. Nonetheless, many philosophers do consider his work important and look forward to new insights about his legacy. The Work of Sartre promises to be such a book.
February 20, 2024
Alan Wieder is the author of Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, recently released by Monthly Review Press. He is interviewed by Dr. Jared A. Ball for imiXwhatilike! Emancipatory Journalism & Broadcasting, about the lives of Ruth First and Joe Slovo, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and revolution.
February 20, 2024
Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates are the authors of A Freedom Budget for All Americans, recently published by Monthly Review Press. They discuss their book, the civil rights movement, and socialism with Chris Moore of CBS affiliate KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA.
February 20, 2024
Michael Heinrich is the author of An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Marx's Capital, published last year by Monthly Review Press. Here, he discusses his work and his interpretation of Capital with Xiaoping Wei, director of History of Marxism Philosophy in the Philosophy Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vice-director of History of Marxism Philosophy Society of China, and vice-director of Western Marxism Society of China.
February 20, 2024
In the period this book considered, Hell's Kitchen, or "Manhattan's Middle West Side" was considered by many commentators to be an area of poverty, corruption, crime and unsavoury types. In reality of course it was a home to thousands of working class people who carved their own lives out of the limited opportunities that they had ... Subtitled, Class Struggle and Progressive Reform in New York City, 1894-1914, Joseph J. Varga's new book is a detailed examination of the development of this district in New York, but more importantly, an attempt to understand, using the concept of the "production of space" how that urban space was shaped and, in turn, shaped those who inhabited it.
February 20, 2024
The Economic War against Cuba by Salim Lamrani was published earlier this year by Monthly Review Press. In his address to the United Nations on the U.S. blockade of Cuba, Cuban Secretary of State Bruno Rodriguez mentions the book as a valuable guide to understanding the blockade.
February 20, 2024
Ruth and Joe, white secular Jews in apartheid South Africa, did not have to fight against that society of skin-color privilege. Yet they did because that social system doomed scores of people to lives of misery and poverty. We discover the complexities of place, space, and time in Ruth and Joe's lives among those with and without name recognition to overthrow white-minority rule in South Africa.
February 20, 2024
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates explain the origins of the Freedom Budget, how it sought to achieve "freedom from want" for all people, and how it might be re-imagined for our current moment. Combining historical perspective with clear-sighted economic proposals, the authors make a concrete case for reviving the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and building the society of economic security and democratic control envisioned by the movement's leaders—a struggle that continues to this day.
February 20, 2024
Despite recent efforts to efface its history through the practice of renaming, the area of mid-west Manhattan that real estate agents now call the Clinton Historic District (or even 'Clinton Heights') remains – to many existing residents and to the popular imagination at large – Hell's Kitchen. Just how and why this moniker and all that it conjures have stuck is part of the story that Joseph Varga tells in Hell's Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space, a nuanced and theoretically-sophisticated history of the social relations and spatial imaginaries that produced this area in the turbulent decades from 1894 to 1914. Though this period of American urban history – the era of Progressive reform – has received considerable attention from historians, Varga adds a much-needed dimension to the discussion by engaging directly with critical spatial theory. The result is not just an eminently readable history of Hell's Kitchen, but a fascinating example of how 'taking space seriously' can alter our historical understandings and perspectives in powerful ways.
