Jeb Sprague, author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti is interviewed by Kim Brown of The Real News Network about Haiti, based on his earlier research on paramilitarism in the context of economic restructuring, social conflict, and political tensions in the country.
(In two parts; be sure and stay tuned for the 2nd half.) | more…

Come to the Athens Book Launch of The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left
Wednesday, April 5, 7:30-9pm
University of Athens
School of Education
Navarinou 13A, Lecture room AA
Athens, Greece 10680
Author Helena Sheehan will discuss her book, along with event coordinator Kostas Skordoulis, and speakers Michalis Spourdalakis, Costas Isychos, Stathis Kouvelakis, and Aris Chatzistefanou | more…

The appointment of Betty DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education aroused considerable opposition. Many of those challenging her were acting on the subtitle of Howard Ryan’s book, ‘organizing against the corporate juggernaut.’ ¶ Educational Justice is a rewarding mix of political analysis about the corporate forces pushing U.S. education in one direction and examples of grassroots union and classroom organizing as a way of challenging that direction. ¶ Ryan places the corporate program in the neoliberal context of what he calls a ‘bosses revolt.’ It includes transferring public funding for education to private education, limits on the union rights of teachers, control through testing and a dual expectations of schools—high quality education for the children of the well off and training for obedience for those on the bottom. | more…

Book Launch for Union Power: The United Electrical Workers in Erie, Pennsylvania
Barnes & Noble
Friday March 24, 2017 6:00 PM
5909 Peach St., Erie, PA 16509
814-864-6300
Author James Young will discuss his book Union Power—the history of two Erie labor unions that helped to save us from ourselves and gain decent living standards for area working people. Copies of the book will be available at the signing. | more…

So much of a sense of union history is in danger of disappearance with the downward slide of organized labor, we need a refresher—not just a big sweep but the saga in a microcosm. Union Power supplies a lucid case study in the key developments from the 1930s breakthrough of industrial unionism through the grim counterattack by capitalism to the struggle for survival. Whoever is old enough to remember the many campus peace events of the later 1960s with only one speaker from organized labor on hand—that is, from the United Electrical Workers—will have an insight already. ¶ Author James Young, longtime activist, academic historian and now retiree still on the (radical) job, is well suited for the task, and so is the location, Erie, PA. | more…

Recently, John Smith, author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, was asked by Mark Karlin of Truthout / Buzzflash to describe the new, improved state-of-the-art version of imperialism. Same old neocolonialism, updated?
“Mark Karlin: Why did you begin your book with the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, which killed more than one thousand exploited garment workers in Bangladesh?
John Smith: Three reasons… | more…

The collapse of Rana Plaza, an eight-story building housing several textile factories, a bank, and some shops in an industrial district north of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, on 24th April 2013 killing 1,133 garment workers and wounding 2,500, was one of the worst workplace disasters in recorded history…. ¶ The screams of thousands trapped and crushed as concrete and machinery cascaded down upon them unleashed a full-spectrum shockwave, amplified by the anguished howl of millions around the world. The calamity made instant headline news. Consumers of clothes made in Bangladesh’s garment factories were confronted by their palpable connection to the people whose hands made their clothes, and about their miserable existence on this earth. | more…

To celebrate Red Rosa’s March 5 birthday, to mark the inarguable fact that, even in death, Rosa Luxemburg is the antithesis of Donald Trump, and to lament the injustice that, while she went to prison, nobody in the Trump administration is there yet…

Monthly Review Press is proud to offer a 50% discount on all our books
—both print and electronic—
Starting midnight, March 5 and ending midnight, March 10
Just enter the coupon code: 50OFFMAY510 to receive 50% off at checkout | more…

Come hear author and historian Jane Franklin present her recently updated book: Cuba and the U.S. Empire: A Chronological History
Discussion, Q & A, and book signing to follow
Richmond Public Library, Madeline F. Whittlesey Community Room
325 Civic Center Plaza
Richmond, CA 9430 | more…

Helena Sheehan did not become a friend of Greece only because of the crisis. She begins her new book The Syriza Wave writing, “Greece lived in my imagination long before I set foot in it….” Sheehan studied philosophy, became a philosopher, a professor at Dublin University, and wrote important books like Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History. For 25 years, she monitored the political situation in Greece. At the start of the crisis, she was one of the first in Europe to highlight the rise of the left in the south and to play a part in the creation of a dynamic pan-European solidarity movement. | more…

In light of Mexican President Nieto’s cancellation of his White House visit, James D. Cockroft, author of Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now, discusses with Brian Becker, host of Loud & Clear, what it means that two Trump cabinet members—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly—have gone to Mexico to meet with the president. Is there any chance for badly damaged Mexican/American relations to improve? Meanwhile, Mexican people are in the streets. They’re angry not just at Trump but at their own government. Might there a massive, cross-border protest and resistance? | more…

The “Black Jacobins” referenced in this book’s title will be familiar to readers of eighteenth-century Atlantic and Caribbean history, in addition to those who study slavery, antislavery, and abolition, and of course to students of the Haitian Revolution. C. L. R. James’s The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, first published in 1938 and then reissued in 1963, rang (indeed, rings) with an urgent and eloquent Pan-African politics, often openly tied to contemporary issues, | more…