Monthly Review Press

Samir Amin’s Swansong Does Not Disappoint: Marx & Philosophy on “Only People Make Their Own History”

February 20, 2024

For many of us the later writings of a great thinker offer a particular allure—the mature reflections on a life’s work, the winnowing of major themes and long-term passions, the admissions of mistakes or the elation of being proved right all along. Sometimes these swansongs disappoint, but not this one! For those of us who have studied and gained much from Amin’s many writings over the years, the opportunity to have in one relatively compact volume some final thoughts on the key arguments advanced and elaborated over a long and productive career is extremely valuable....

This Is Revolution podcast: Gerald Horne discusses uprisings “From Watts to George Floyd”

February 20, 2024

Jason Myles, host of the podcast This Is Revolution, talks to Dr. Gerald Horne, author of, most recently, The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century about this time of massive uprisings, not just in the United States, but all over the world, and the possibility of actually pushing for real systemic change--especially regarding the police...

Marx indeed lives, Saito says–but whose Marx? Houston Review on “Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism”

February 20, 2024

Every revolutionary struggle must fight not just for the future but also for the past. Marx’s work has been foreclosed by its detractors as backwards and naive; if Walter Benjamin was right that even the dead shall not be safe if the enemy is victorious, then Marxists today must accept their defeat.... However, what is always obscured in this move to foreclose the past is the dynamism and constant change in Marx’s thought and the scope of his life’s work.... Just as Juliet Mitchell returned to Freud to correct and expand feminist analysis of patriarchy and psychic development for women, ecosocialists have increasingly returned to Marx to carve out a new path to the future by returning to the past....

THIS IS HELL! Brings you “Apocalypse dawning: Slavery & capital across the transatlantic 16th century”

February 20, 2024

Chuck Mertz, host of This Is Hell (broadcast across Chicago on WNUR since 1996), talks with historian Gerald Horne about his latest book, The Dawning of the Apocalypse. Horne explores the terrains of race, religion, capital and slavery across the 16th century trans-Atlantic world. As European powers pillaged Africa and the Americas of people and resources, their destruction created the enduring formations of life in the 21st century--white supremacy and rapacious capitalism...

The War on Black Dissent, Part I: Black Lives, Red Scares featuring Gerald Horne

February 20, 2024

Chip Gibbons, host of the podcast Still Spying | Presented by Defending Rights & Dissent interviews author and historian Gerald Horne about Black Lives/Red Scares: the history of the FBI's war on Black dissent. This is part I of a multi-episode series. Listen, below, or at Still Spying

Gerald Horne on “Who Belongs?” podcast: EP 28 – Settler colonialism, the insurrections of the 1960s, and today

February 20, 2024

Listen to Professor Gerald Horne, author, most recently, of The Dawning of the Apocalypse, talk with Marc Abizeid and Erfan Morandi, hosts of the podcast Who Belongs? A Podcast on Othering & Belonging. Professor Horne has written on a spectrum of issues and events including the early settler colonial period of the US, the Haitian and Mexican revolutions, labor politics, civil rights, profiles of WEB Du Bois and revolutionary artist Paul Robeson, to name just a few. The interview focuses on the uprisings of the 1960s, structural racism, and the transformative currents of today. Listen, below, or at Who Belongs?/SoundCloud

“Monumental”: Le Monde diplomatique on John Bellamy Foster’s “The Return of Nature”

February 20, 2024

Editor of Monthly Review and one of the main thinkers of the North American ecological left, John Bellamy Foster offers in this monumental book a fascinating genealogy of ecosocialism, via a synthesis of scientific and artistic critiques of capitalism, developed in United Kingdom between the end of the 19th century and the 1960s....

Seattle’s General Strike 100 Years Ago Shows Us Hope for Today: Labor Notes reviews Cal Winslow’s book

February 20, 2024

For five days in 1919, union members took control of the city of Seattle. They arguably ran it better, and certainly more justly, than it had ever been run before. ¶ Thousands of workers volunteered to keep Seattle’s essential services operating. People were fed at 21 different locations; on February 9, volunteers served more than 30,000 meals. Milk distribution was organized at 35 locations. Garbage was picked up. No crime was reported during these five days.... ¶ Contrast Seattle 1919 with today’s unfolding horror. We’re all witnessing what it looks like when a shutdown and the provision of essential services are administered by capital and a pro-corporate government. ¶ The Seattle General Strike was not just an event in labor history. It was a testament to what workers can achieve when they organize, and it has sharp lessons for today....

Las Vegas Democratic Socialists of America review “What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism”

February 20, 2024

Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster’s excellent 2011 book, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism, is essential reading for ecosocialists and environmentalists of any political tendency. At 160 pages, the book does an exceptional job of describing how capitalism is directly connected to ecological degradation and why its abolition is necessary in preventing ecological catastrophe. This review will attempt to summarize the fundamental arguments of the book and its case for ecosocialism. The book goes over more than discussed below, so make sure to read the whole thing for more useful information and details....

Senior Women Web reviews “Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power” by Michael E. Tigar

February 20, 2024

This is a law book written for a general audience. Tigar has been a law professor most of his life; in these pages one can learn much from his vast legal and historical knowledge. ¶ Multiple chapters are spread out over five "mythologies": Racism, Criminal Justice, Free Expression, Worker Rights and International Human Rights. ¶ His discussion of these mythologies is not neutral; he has a point of view and it's generally from the left....