Monthly Review Press, and Michael Ratner and Karen Ranucci, invite you to a special event celebrating the publication of The People’s Lawyer: The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Fight for Social Justice, From Civil Rights to Guantánamo by Albert Ruben, in New York City, December 8.  | more…

In this definitive socio-political analysis of the Tea Party, Anthony DiMaggio examines the Tea Party phenomenon, using a vast array of primary and secondary sources as well as first-hand observation. He traces the history of the Tea Party and analyzes its organizational structure, membership, ideological coherence, and relationship to the mass media. And, perhaps most importantly, he asks: is it really a movement or just a form of “manufactured dissent” engineered by capital? DiMaggio’s conclusions are thoroughly documented, surprising, and bring much needed clarity to a highly controversial subject. | more…

The Occupy Wall Street uprising has taken the nation by storm, beginning in the Financial District in Manhattan and then spreading to cities and towns in every part of the country and around the world. The anger over growing inequality and the political power of the rich that has been bubbling under the surface for the past several years has finally burst into the open. Suddenly, everything seems different, and a political opening for more radical thinking and acting is certainly at hand. | more…

Join the author of Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care for a special talk in Washington DC. RSVP required.  | more…

Join Steve Early, labor journalist and author of Embedded With Organized Labor, for a discussion of “What Organized Labor Can Learn from the Occupy Movement,” at Liberty Plaza in New York City.  | more…

It is the erroneous idea that more university graduates will solve America’s economic and social woes with which Marsh has a problem. He dissects this idea so forensically, with the help of a range of data on poverty in the US, that his case becomes unanswerable. The research is rigorous and the author’s handling of it ensures the book never becomes dry. Marsh teaches English literature and has a non-specialist’s eye for the need to make economic data and analysis fresh and engaging. His lively writing style is a great strength, with an ability to interweave hard data with illuminating examples from his own life, others’ experiences and history. | more…

On October 30, Fred Magdoff spoke at Occupy Boston, as part of the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series. His talk draws on his new book What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism (written with John Bellamy Foster). Watch the video here  | more…

“Pessimism of the Reality, Optimism of the Ideal,” is excerpted from José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, edited and translated by Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker, and newly published by Monthly Review Press. Mariátegui is one of Latin America’s most profound and yet overlooked thinkers. A self-taught journalist, social scientist, and activist from Peru, he was the first to emphasize that those fighting for the revolutionary transformation of society must adapt classical Marxist theory to the particular conditions of Latin America. He also stressed that indigenous peoples must take an active role in any revolutionary struggle. | more…

The Occupy Wall Street movement arose in response to the economic crisis of capitalism, and the way in which the costs of this were imposed on the 99 percent rather than the 1 percent. But “the highest expression of the capitalist threat,” as Naomi Klein has said, is its destruction of the planetary environment. So it is imperative that we critique that as well. I would like to start by pointing to the seriousness of our current environmental problem and then turn to the question of how this relates to capitalism. Only then will we be in a position to talk realistically about what we need to do to stave off or lessen catastrophe. | more…

Why do we continue with business as usual when we know that it is leading us to disastrous climate change? According to the authors of The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth it is because our capitalist economic system is driven by forces which cannot stand back and weigh the consequences of their drive. The blind accumulation of private wealth at the expense of the environment has enormous momentum which the system is not geared to control. | more…

The Occupy Wall Street movement has transfixed the nation. In just a few weeks, it has spread from Manhattan to hundreds of towns and cities, and it has now taken root in other countries. It has focused the widespread anger that we feel toward a tiny group of extraordinarily rich individuals (the 1%) who have destroyed our communities, eliminated our jobs, taken control of our government, and done everything they can to make us (the 99%) as insecure as possible. Whatever we have, they want. Whatever we aspire to, they would deny us. | more…

Join Frank Bardacke, author of Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers (from Verso Books), and translator of and contributor to Shadows of Tender Fury: The Letters and Communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, for a discussion of his new book.  | more…