Monthly Review Press

Marx & Philosophy reviews “From Commune to Capitalism”

Marx & Philosophy reviews “From Commune to Capitalism”

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….

KPFA: Africa Today talks to Gerald Horne about “Jazz and Justice”

KPFA: Africa Today talks to Gerald Horne about “Jazz and Justice”

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…

Author Eve Ottenberg reviews Seth Donnelly’s “The Lie of Global Prosperity”

Author Eve Ottenberg reviews Seth Donnelly’s “The Lie of Global Prosperity”

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’…

Caribbean Quarterly reviews Jane Franklin’s “Cuba and the U.S. Empire”

Caribbean Quarterly reviews Jane Franklin’s “Cuba and the U.S. Empire”

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....

How Jazz Survived White Supremacy: Gerald Horne talks to Truthout about “Jazz and Justice”

How Jazz Survived White Supremacy: Gerald Horne talks to Truthout about “Jazz and Justice”

Certainly, being a ‘jazz’ musician in the first decades of the 20th century was probably the most dangerous profession in the arts and, along with coal mining, one of the most dangerous jobs of all. Inhaling cigarette smoke in dank clubs, being plied with alcohol and other controlled substances by unscrupulous bosses of clubs and record labels alike, being attacked violently by racist ‘fans’

Ian Angus on the Politics of Ecosocialism, via REBEL

Ian Angus on the Politics of Ecosocialism, via REBEL

Marx and Engels were deeply concerned about capitalism’s destruction of the natural world, including river and urban pollution, and the degradation of the soil that all life depends on. For them, the word ‘socialism’ included those concerns and the need to overcome them. But in the 20th Century, most socialist organisations treated such matters as secondary...