Top Menu

A radical voice in a dispossessed land (Yates interviews the translator of Paraguayan Sorrow)

Barrett has always been close to the hearts of Paraguayan radicals, who, along with his progeny, have kept his memory alive. And he is known throughout the Southern Cone of South America, though his work has suffered long periods of relative neglect there. However, there has been a resurgence of interest in his life and work. We hope that with the publication of this first English translation of his major work, which includes his powerful set of essays The Truth of the Yerba Mate Forests, the life and works of Rafael Barrett will inspire readers in the English-speaking world. | more…

“They were careless people” (Author of A Rotten Crowd published in ‘LitHub’)

One of the titles Fitzgerald gave to his novel—he was never satisfied with any of them—was ‘Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires.’ The title juxtaposes landscape (ash heaps) and humans (millionaires), and its preposition, Among, implies a shared world, one that includes both setting and character. And so it is. Or was. Until the city turned to its master builder to clean up the mess—a master builder whose reading of ‘The Great Gatsby’ would inspire him to redeem the wasteland. | more…

“The only book in English devoted to the topic” of How the Workers’ Parliaments Saved the Cuban Revolution (‘International Journal of Cuban Studies’)

Faced with the implosion of the economy at the beginning of the 1990s and eschewing the neoliberal approach of placing the burden of social downturns on the poorest and weakest members of society, the Cuban government had to impose many restrictions on the consumption of all its citizens to distribute the hardships. How this was done is the heart of understanding the workers’ parliaments as a case study of workers exercising workers’ power, and hence as a case study of a particular dramatic and important event in Cuba’s 60-year effort to build socialism. | more…

WATCH: Commune or Nothing!

This virtual panel examined the commune and communal organizing as part of the project of revolutionary social transformation. The speakers addressed how socialist communes can be used to abolish capitalism’s logic, based on the exploitation of the human being and the expropriation of nature, along with the range of oppressions (including racial, gender, sexual, and colonial oppression) in capitalist society. The speakers – Kali Akuno, John Bellamy Foster, Chris Gilbert, and M.E. O’Brien – drew from various theoretical perspectives and practical experiences. | more…

An indomitable anti-Zionist Jewish feminist talks about the steadfastness (sumud) of Palestinians (A Land With A People coeditor interviewed for ‘The Famous Feminist’)

“…a woman in Gaza, her family had been bombed out of their home. But she was determined to make bread and she had found a hot plate. She was making these breads. She said you could get killed going to the bakery, you can’t go to the bakery. They’re bombing the bakeries. So I’m doing this. Her kids are in the street, sitting under a tarpaulin. And she’s making bread. That’s a form of heroism, you know?
…I asked them, “Do you ever feel like you should leave?” They replied, ‘We stay here. We’re not leaving. This is our home.’ That’s a form of resistance.” | more…

To re-create Marxism, but not repeat Marx (The Dialectics of Dependency reviewed in Journal of European Economic History)

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”… | more…

“A lasting tribute to meticulous journalism” (The Hidden History of the Korean War: New Edition reviewed in ‘Asian Affairs’)

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. | more…

This war is causing mass trauma. How we respond matters. (Contributor to A Land With A People featured in ‘The Nation’)

I was asked to write this essay in response to the plea for grief and recognition of Palestinian traumas in the pages of this magazine, beautifully written by the Palestinian journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish, who is now being personally targeted by the Israeli government, along with his family. I admittedly tremble at the responsibility involved in that request… | more…

If capitalism is ‘natural,’ why was so much force used to build it? (War Against the Commons reviewed in ‘Systemic Disorder’)

….devised two centuries before Marx’s concept of communism as “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,” Winstanley’s ideas bore significant resemblances to the latter’s ideas, although Marx could not have known of Winstanley as the Diggers’ ideas were ruthlessly stamped out and were only re-discovered late in the 19th century… | more…

Monthly Review | Tel: 212-691-2555
134 W 29th St Rm 706, New York, NY 10001