Monthly Review Press

“Good ancestors” must be red and green: a colorful review of A Redder Shade of Green by Green Left Weekly

February 20, 2024

Two decades ago, barely anyone called themselves an ecosocialist. Yet today the term is widespread on the left. ¶ This comes from an awareness that any viable alternative to capitalism must do away with the current destructive relationship between human society and the wider natural world. It also stems from a recognition that too many socialists in the 20th century failed to take environmental issues seriously. ¶ Climate and Capitalism editor and ecosocialist activist Ian Angus’s latest book, A Redder Shade of Green, is an impressive contribution to this vibrant trend in radical politics...

“Gangster capitalism & nostalgic authoritarianism in Trump’s America”: Henry Giroux via Salon

“Gangster capitalism & nostalgic authoritarianism in Trump’s America”: Henry Giroux via Salon

February 20, 2024

Henry A. Giroux, founding figure in the movement for critical pedagogy and author of more than sixty books, including America’s Addiction to Terrorism and America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth, is one of North America’s most influential public intellectuals. He writes in Salon about the grotesqueries of Trump–and our need for a vocabulary that sees us as agents, not victims...

Calling out the corporate program to deform schools: Educational Justice reviewed by Counterfire

Calling out the corporate program to deform schools: Educational Justice reviewed by Counterfire

February 20, 2024

Howard Ryan is an educationalist and journalist, who has written a handbook that offers ‘theory, strategy and organizing case studies to inform and inspire those who are working to rebuild public education and put an end to the corporate occupation of our schools’. The book can be read as a whole, or can be used as a reference guide to explore some key ideas, as the book is neatly divided up into sections...

Super-Size that Commodity: A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism reviewed by Resilience

Super-Size that Commodity: A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism reviewed by Resilience

February 20, 2024

Don’t expect a whole lot of taste when you sit down to a plateful of commodities. That might be a fitting but unintended lesson for foodies who work through the new book by Eric Holt-Giménez. A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism will reward a careful reader with lots of insights—but it won’t do much for the taste buds. While A Foodie’s Guide is lacking in recipes or menu ideas, it shines in helping us to understand the struggles of the men and women who work in the farms and packing plants...

Is Capitalism a Barrier to Food Justice? Author Eric Holt-Giménez interviewed by Civil Eats

Is Capitalism a Barrier to Food Justice? Author Eric Holt-Giménez interviewed by Civil Eats

February 20, 2024

No consumer, farmer, or activist participates in the food system without also participating in capitalism. To Eric Holt-Giménez, the director of Food First, this is a basic truth that’s too often overlooked in the struggle to change our broken food system. In his new book, A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism, Holt-Giménez delineates the basic truths of capitalism and how they are connected to the history of our food system. Part history book, part practical guide, the book links many of the injustices associated with food to other inequities, arguing that capitalism fuels and is fueled by oppression. If we better understand “the rudiments of how capitalism operates,” he explains, ‘we can better grasp why our food system is the way it is, and how we can change it

ResoluteReader reviews A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism

ResoluteReader reviews A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism

February 20, 2024

There is a growing movement of people thinking about how their food is grown, what it contains and its impact on their health and the environment. Often this is tied up with an individualistic view of improving the world – the idea that you can save the world by simply choosing the best food with the least impact on the planet. Eric Holt-Giménez explains he wrote "A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism" precisely to argue that this approach is inadequate...

Ecosocialism or planetary barbarism: International Socialist Review considers Facing the Anthropocene

Ecosocialism or planetary barbarism: International Socialist Review considers Facing the Anthropocene

February 20, 2024

According to Stephen Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, poor little America got hoodwinked by devious Asians, signing a deal that would wreck the economy and throw millions of people out of work, especially (white) coal miners in Appalachia, whom the president loves dearly. Climate change is an insignificant issue compared to these hardships and injustices. Coal is a fantastic fuel that will return America to greatness. ¶ Contrast this with the closing of Ian Angus’s Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System...

New! Rethinking Democracy: Socialist Register 2018

New! Rethinking Democracy: Socialist Register 2018

February 20, 2024

For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached “the end of history.” Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy?

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