Come to the 2016 Left Forum!
Friday, May 20 – Sunday, May 22
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 W 59th St., NYC 10019
Drop by the Monthly Review book tables!
Pick up discounts on new books, classics, the Monthly Review magazine, the Socialist Register, and Merlin Press books! | more…
May 13, Sydney, Australia: Christopher Wright, Professor of Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, spoke at the international launch of Ian Angus‘s book, Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. The transcript of his address follows.
“Spoiler – I really liked this book! …
When Ian contacted me late last year and asked if I’d be interested in reading his manuscript, I have to say I was somewhat wary. As many of you probably know the term ‘Anthropocene’ has become something of a buzzword de jeure in academic circles. Every day it seems there is a new
April 15, Baltimore, at Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse: Gerald Horne discusses his latest two books: Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary and Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic. | more…
Americans live in a historical moment that annihilates thought. Ignorance now provides a sense of community; the brain has migrated to the dark pit of the spectacle; the only discourse that matters is about business; poverty is now viewed as a technical problem; thought chases after an emotion that can obliterate it. The presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, Donald Trump, declares he likes “the uneducated”—implying that it is better that they stay ignorant than be critically engaged agents—and boasts that he doesn’t read books. Fox News offers no apologies for suggesting that thinking is an act of stupidity…. | more…
Jeb Sprague-Silgado, is the author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. His article, “Polyarchy in the Dominican Republic: The Elite versus the Elite,” appeared in NACLA, May 6, 2016:
“In the Dominican Republic, as in many other countries around the Caribbean, the political strategy of leading dominant groups in recent decades has been one of polyarchy—that is to say, the options in democratic elections have been limited to voters selecting between different factions of elites. Since the 1970s, U.S. foreign policymakers, along with an increasingly wide array of UN, EU and other international agency officials have come to promote this approach. If
Saturday, 14 May, 8:45 PM EDT & Sunday, 15 May, 1:30PM EDT
C-SPAN will present a talk by Gerald Horne, author of Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic and Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary taped April 15 at Baltimore’s Red Emma’s Bookstore | more…
Bill Fletcher (Longtime labor and social justice activist, host of The Global African TV show author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor
and Chip Berlet (Award-winning investigative journalist, author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort will discuss the rise of the right | more…
Ian Angus, author of Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System, answers questions from London’s Socialist Review on why and how human activity has transformed the Earth:
SR: Can you explain the concept of the Anthropocene and its importance for understanding the current climate crisis?
IA: Anthropocene is the proposed name for the present stage of Earth history: a time in which human activity is transforming the entire planet in unprecedented and dangerous ways. Scientists divide Earth’s 4.5 billion year history into time intervals that correspond to major changes in the conditions and forms of life on Earth….
Read the
Please come hear John Bellamy Foster deliver Burns Sisters Public Lecture at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, on “The anthropocene and the crisis of civilization: climate change and capitalism” | more…
On April 27, MRP author Jane Franklin, aided by Sandra Levinson, discussed her new book, Cuba and the U.S. Empire: A Chronological History at the Center for Cuban Studies in New York City. | more…
Author of The Economic War Against Cuba and Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality, Salim Lamrani is a university professor who specializes in relations between Cuba and the United States. In this interview, he turns to the issue of human rights, a point of divergence between the two countries. The United States accuses Cuba of not respecting human rights, while Cuba demands a change in the criteria. | more…
In this updated edition of her classic, Cuba and the United States, Jane Franklin chronicles U.S.-Cuba relations from the time both were colonies, through each country’s revolution, to the present. Since its first edition in 1992, published with the Center, Jane’s book has been an essential resource for all trying to understand the fraught relationship between the island and the U.S. For the traveler to Cuba. | more…
“This romantic tale of individuals, seized on by the media and by several films glorifying the guerrillas, completely ignores the towns and the role played by the powerful working class that lived in them. The organised workers — over 1.25 million of them out of a population of just 6 million at the time were in unions — are commonly seen as being, for the most part, politically inactive throughout the period of the insurrection. Nothing, in fact could be further from the truth, as Steve Cushion demonstrates in his new book. | more…