In the public eye: Helena Sheehan
December 22, 2025
Socialist History: Issue 67, by Dianne Kirby “The cover of part two of Helena Sheehan’s autobiography, Until We Fall: Long Distance Life on the Left, is inspired by Geliy Korzhev’s... READ MOREMonthly Review Press
George McCarthy’s “Shadows of the Enlightenment”
December 1, 2025
Journal of Economic Literature, December 2025 (Volume 63, no. 4): “Examines the hidden metaphysics and politics of the modern natural and social sciences, focusing on their implications for diagnosing and... READ MORE
WATCH: The Korean Policy Institute on Izzy Stone’s classic, MRP’s first-ever book
February 25, 2024
At first no one would touch Stone’s findings – they were too hot. But Stone got in touch with Monthly Review -- and this was the first book we published. Courageously written at the height of the McCarthy era, officials never refuted nor denied the book’s claims, but Stone’s book still got a real audience due to the durable reputation of the journalist himself. Christine Hong, MR author Marty Hart-Landsberg, and Gregory Elich (each of the Korea Policy Institute) and Time Beal discuss...
Venezuelan migrants “destroying New York”? (David Wilson featured on NYU Press blog)
February 24, 2024
So why not just end the U.S. embargo on Venezuela? If Venezuelans are coming here just to escape economic problems at home, reducing the embargo should bring about a major decline in Venezuelan asylum seekers.
Send MR books to a library in Texas: On the ‘Counterpunch’ “Best of” List
February 23, 2024
Here are the books published last year that taught me the most about the world we’re now living in, how it came to be this way and how we might, against all odds, go about changing it. So buy copies to help feed some starving writers, read them and then send them to a library in Texas....
Steve Batterson’s “The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis”
February 22, 2024
'The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis' provides the historical insight that I associate with the best accounts of this kind: motives are complex, power a critical variable, timing an unpredictable factor, and rational argument not necessarily a winning strategy...
Offering hope to the left (Until We Fall reviewed in ‘Morning Star’)
February 20, 2024
Already in the early 1980s if not before: “It was clear to most of us that socialism couldn’t survive without radical democratisation ... it had to be based on consent.” Nevertheless, for Sheehan as for many of us on the left, the demise of the socialist bloc represented a defeat and the restoration of capitalism. It was “the most dramatic upheaval, politically and psychologically,” Sheehan says.
UAW fails to win back pensions for newer workers
February 20, 2024
The UAW strike against Big Auto succeeded in winning impressive wage gains, but it failed to obtain a little-reported demand: that the auto companies reinstate defined benefit pension plans for new employees...
“A lasting tribute to meticulous journalism” (The Hidden History of the Korean War: New Edition reviewed in ‘Asian Affairs’)
February 20, 2024
Stone, as always working from open-source materials, condemned the continuation of the bombing of the north even though there were no viable military targets left...These days, the Stone’s 'Hidden History,' while still viewed with hostility in certain quarters, is regarded as one of his best works. But given that it appeared long before the archives were open and while the conflict in Korea continued, is there merit in republishing it? The answer is yes. Stone may not have got everything right, and occasionally lapses into conspiracy theories, but his broad picture was accurate enough at the time and remains so. It is a lasting tribute to meticulous journalism.
To re-create Marxism, but not repeat Marx (The Dialectics of Dependency reviewed in Journal of European Economic History)
February 20, 2024
At the end of the postscript, Marini again emphasises the central concept of his work, namely that “dependent economy – and therefore the super-exploitation of labour – appears as a necessary condition of world capitalism” and that therefore “capitalist production, by developing labour’s productive powers, does not eliminate but rather accentuates the greater exploitation of the worker”...