Monthly Review Press

“Dead Epidemiologists:” A personalized, enlivening take on Covid-19

“Dead Epidemiologists:” A personalized, enlivening take on Covid-19

Author Rob Wallace made a decision: His new book Dead Epidemiologists would take a personal approach. How could it not? While he introduces his work through this intimate lens, Wallace's perspective is global, tracking "the implications of capitalist agricultural production, distribution and consumption that is harming the web of life...."

Portrait of the philosopher as a young man: Michael Heinrich’s biography of Marx, Vol. I

Portrait of the philosopher as a young man: Michael Heinrich’s biography of Marx, Vol. I

Michael Heinrich’s projected biography of Marx that is supposed to consist of four volumes is an extraordinary ambitious undertaking. Only the first volume “Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society” has been published so far. It covers the years before Marx’s birth (because it deals with his parents) and goes up to his doctoral dissertation done in 1841, when he was 23. The biography is extraordinary ambitious for three reasons....

Engels on Ecology: Against the Grain talks to John Bellamy Foster

Engels on Ecology: Against the Grain talks to John Bellamy Foster

C. S. Soong, host of Against the Grain (KPFA/94.1 FM) talks with John Bellamy Foster, author, most recently, of The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology. To what extent did Frederick Engels engage with environmental and ecological issues? When Engels wrote about the dialectics of nature, what did he mean by “dialectics”? According to Foster, Engels’s insights into ecology, dialectics, and the environmental conditions of the working class were, and remain, critically important...

1919 Direct Power: Journal of Working Class Studies reviews “Radical Seattle”

1919 Direct Power: Journal of Working Class Studies reviews “Radical Seattle”

Since the Covid-19 pandemic pummeled the economy, millions of workers have been displaced, while others continue to work amid increasingly harsh, often hazardous working conditions. With Covid forcing millions to choose between a paycheck and their health, some labor activists have hoped for a wave of wildcat strikes, and in the wake of the election, perhaps even a ‘general strike’ if Trump refused to concede....

Spend February 14 with a book you’ll love: Socialist History Society launches “The Return of Nature” by John Bellamy Foster

Spend February 14 with a book you’ll love: Socialist History Society launches “The Return of Nature” by John Bellamy Foster

Twenty years ago, John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature introduced a new understanding of Karl Marx’s revolutionary ecological materialism. More than simply a study of Marx, it commenced an intellectual and social history, encompassing thinkers from Epicurus to Darwin, who developed materialist and ecological ideas. Now, with The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, Foster continues this narrative. In so doing, he uncovers a long history of efforts to unite issues of social justice and environmental sustainability that will help us comprehend and counter today’s unprecedented planetary emergencies….

SR 2021: Ursula Huws on “Reaping the Whirlwind,” via Marxist Education Project

SR 2021: Ursula Huws on “Reaping the Whirlwind,” via Marxist Education Project

Sunday, January 31 @ 1:30pm-4:00pm: Join this online reading group and discussion of the most recent issue of Socialist Register dedicated to Leo Panitch. This first session begins with Ursula Huws' essay, "Reaping the Whirlwind: Digitalization, Restructuring, and Mobilization in the Covid Crisis." This work addresses the changes currently sweeping through global labor markets during the coronavirus pandemic....