Samir Amin, who was a leading Marxist analyst of African underdevelopment, capitalism and globalisation, passed away in August 2018. The Long Revolution of the Global South is the second volume of his memoirs and was published in English in 2019. The book provides fascinating insight into Amin’s take on global events and the role he played in various initiatives to confront the grotesque levels of inequality engendered by global capitalism…. | more…
Saito exhaustively combs through Marx’s published works, as well as his excerpt notebooks. The book draws out the dialogue between Marx and natural scientists of his epoch. It successfully explains the influence of natural science on Marx, but also how Marx developed new innovations as a result of this reading. Saito convincingly demonstrates the origins of Marx’s metabolic theory… | more…
Walter Turner, host of Africa Today, broadcasting weekly from Berkeley radio station KPFA, recently talked with historian Gerald Horne about one of his latest books, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music. Please note that their conversation took place during a KPFA pledge drive, which is now over — although you’re more than welcome to support the station (and Africa Today) anytime… | more…
In this new edition, Franklin calls for persons to be a little more circumspect about the motivations for the ‘Cuban Thaw’, as it is known in the US. This is because Cuba-US relations are not simply a product of the Cold War, or a relict thereof; they are a barometer of American imperial politics since the 18th century. And as US imperialism continues to develop, attention to the rapprochement strategy is required, lest one overlook the changing social pacts and geo-political currents to which they are attuned…. | more…
Gerald Horne, noted historian and prolific author, discusses one of his recent books, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism with Jeff J. Brown on OpEdNews.com | more…
What is remarkable about China’s agrarian reforms is that, despite their pivotal role in ending socialist production, some on the left have offered quite positive evaluations. ¶ Zhun Xu is a skeptic of these accounts…. | more…
In a short appendix to this first of what is to be a multi-volume biography of Karl Marx — which is bound to become a referential touchstone for any subsequent treatment of his life and works — Michael Heinrich examines how biographical writing is possible today and the reader should start with this essay in order to recognise the intentions and detailed scope of his treatment of Marx through his childhood and youth from 1818 to 1841… | more…
Many people have always doubted the starkness of the good West, evil East narrative. Perhaps as a result, since the collapse of the Stalinist states of eastern Europe, a concerted effort has been made to reinforce the notion that the East German state, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), in particular, was a dystopian police state morally equivalent to the Nazi regime… | more…
Shell promised wonderful things…. But when the citizens of County Mayo realized what Shell actually intended to do, they rose up. Shamrocks & Oil Slicks tells the story of County Mayo—the fishermen, farmers, teachers, business people—who, motivated by love for their environment, their community, and their country, fought one of the planet’s most powerful destroyers to a standstill. | more…
Autobiographies are tricky things. The memoir can ground the writer in external events or situations and provide an objective rationale. The autobiography places oneself at the centre of the narrative and is an act of whopping self-regard that demands a weighty justification… | more…
‘The only conceivable answer today to cascading planetary catastrophe is a broad-based ecological and social revolution, in which the population mobilizes to protect the future of humanity: a revolutionary war for the planet’… | more…
Neoliberals love to quote the World Bank’s rosy statistics about capitalism lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Unfortunately, those statistics are skewed and manipulated to the point of outright prevarication, as Seth Donnelly demonstrates in his book, The Lie of Global Prosperity. He quotes a breathless World Bank press release, ‘soon 90 percent of the world’s population will live on $1.90 a day or more’… | more…
Samir Amin participated in many of the debates among Marxists about how to best understand capitalism that took place over the course of his lifetime. This book touches on many of those, including for example the issues of monopoly capitalism and finance capitalism…. | more…