Monthly Review Press

E.P. Thompson and the Making of the New Left reviewed in New Politics

E.P. Thompson and the Making of the New Left reviewed in New Politics

E.P. Thompson (1924–1993) wore several hats during his life. His magnum opus as a historian was The Making of the English Working Class, one of the greatest history books written in the twentieth century in any language. He fought tirelessly for nuclear disarmament in the 1980s, which almost surely took years off his life. He may well be least remembered for being a founder of the British New Left. For this reason, Cal Winslow’s selection of Thompson’s writings from the late 1950s to the early 1960s is especially welcome and timely—though not surprising, since Winslow was a student of Thompson’s at the University of Warwick and is a longtime activist and writer.

“Ideas for the Struggle”: 12 essays by Marta Harnecker

“Ideas for the Struggle”: 12 essays by Marta Harnecker

Marta Harnecker, author of over eighty books and monographs in several languages, including A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism, wrote 12 articles on political activism and revolutionary vision, published in Venezuela in 2004. These articles were revised and updated this year, and now appear, translated by Federico Fuentes, on the Old and New Project website, with an introduction by the editors

The Politics of the Right reviewed in Race & Class

The Politics of the Right reviewed in Race & Class

When it was made, Socialist Register’s decision to devote its 2016 issue to the far Right was prescient; when published late last year it was more than timely. Now, both it and this review are in danger of being overtaken by the phenom- enon they’re describing. If the far Right was on the march in 2015, its progress is even more alarmingly visible now.

Alan Wieder talks to Rag Radio about Studs

Alan Wieder talks to Rag Radio about Studs

Alan Wieder, author of Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation, talks to Rag Radio‘s Thorne Dreyer about Studs Terkel, the great leftist broadcaster, author, and raconteur.

John Bellamy Foster on Why He and Paul Burkett Wrote Marx and the Earth: an interview with Junge Welt

John Bellamy Foster on Why He and Paul Burkett Wrote Marx and the Earth: an interview with Junge Welt

Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster, is the author of several books MRP books, including The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. Recently, with Paul Birkett, he wrote Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique (Brill Publishers), to be released in the U.S. December 13. John Bellamy Foster was interviewed by Christian Stache from the Berlin-based daily, Junge Welt.

New! The American War in Vietnam: Crime or Commemoration? by John Marciano

New! The American War in Vietnam: Crime or Commemoration? by John Marciano

On May 25, 2012, President Obama announced that the United States would spend the next thirteen years—through November 11, 2025—commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War, and the American soldiers, “more than 58,000 patriots,” who died in Vietnam. The fact that at least 3 million Vietnamese—soldiers, parents, grandparents, children—also died in that war will be largely unknown and entirely uncommemorated.

“Enormous Potential for Fresh Revolts”: Imperialism in the 21st Century reviewed by Counterfire

“Enormous Potential for Fresh Revolts”: Imperialism in the 21st Century reviewed by Counterfire

Over the last forty years, global capitalism has increasingly been shaped by the core tenets of neoliberalism. The neoliberal counter-revolution emerged as a response to the return of economic crisis in the 1970s, and to the power of working class and anti-colonial movements in the 1960s and 1970s. It was geared towards the interests of wealthy and corporate elites, at the expense of the vast majority of working class and oppressed people worldwide. The divisions between the 1% and the 99% have become ever more acute, with the most extraordinary and ostentatious wealth for a tiny elite alongside hardship, insecurity and poverty for many people.