Category: Monthly Review Press Blog

The Work of Sartre reviewed in Science & Society

February 20, 2024

István Mészáros had been a friend and student of Georg Lukács in Hungary. He continues to be an important Marxist philosopher. The Work of Sartre is a carefully argued analysis of Sartre’s writings and political commitments, from the 1930s to his death in 1980. Mészáros’ position on Sartre is balanced and carefully thought through. He analyzes Sartre’s novels, plays, political essays, and biographies as well as his major philosophical works. He also treats Sartre’s political activities during the Cold War.

5/7: "Organizing and Winning for Twenty-First Century Movements" Event in Portland, OR

February 20, 2024

Join Johanna Brenner, author of Women and the Politics of Class; Steve Early, author of Save Our Unions; and Arun Gupta, contributor to Socialist Register 2014: Registering Class, for a discussion of “Organizing and Winning for Twenty-First Century Movements” on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 7:15pm-9:30pm, Portland State University, Smith 238, Portland Oregon.

NEW! The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition) by John Bellamy Foster

February 20, 2024

John Bellamy Foster is a leading exponent of the theoretical perspective that continues in the tradition of Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital. This new edition of his essential work, The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism, is a clear and accessible explication of this outlook, brought up to the present, and incorporating an analysis of recently discovered “lost” chapters from Monopoly Capital and correspondence between Baran and Sweezy. It also discusses Magdoff and Sweezy’s analysis of the financialization of the economy in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, leading up to the Great Financial Crisis of the opening decade of this century.

Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid reviewed in Review of African Political Economy

February 20, 2024

Alan Wieder has done a wonderful service in researching and writing such a detailed, well constructed narrative, setting the intertwined personal histories in the context of the long and difficult struggle against apartheid. Based on extensive reading of relevant literature, much enriched by interviews, as befits an oral historian, this book provides many new insights to those of us who only knew a part of the lives of Ruth First and Joe Slovo.

One Day in December reviewed in Socialism & Democracy

February 20, 2024

Long overdue in the catalog of books on the Cuban Revolution, Nancy Stout’s One Day in December has made an important contribution to the study of the guerrilla insurrection and Fidel’s Cuba by presenting Celia Sánchez Manduley as one of the Revolution’s key players. Stout sheds light on and pays well deserved homage to this valiant and fiercely strong-minded Cuban female revolutionary, who remains hardly known outside of Cuba.

Monthly Review at the Left Forum: NYC, May 30 to June 1

February 20, 2024

Join Monthly Review and many others from around the world at this year’s Left Forum conference at John Jay College, the City University of New York, May 30 to June 1. Left Forum is the largest annual gathering of left activists and scholars in the United States. This year’s theme is “Reform and/or Revolution: Imagine a World of Transformative Justice.” Please click here for more information on MR-sponsored and related panels, and don’t forget to visit the Monthly Review Press table for discounts on a wide range of MR Press titles, new and old!

"Bold New Era or Hard Times for Organized Labor?" Steve Early & Manny Ness in NYC

February 20, 2024

Join us for a discussion of workers’ movements in the U.S. and abroad with Steve Early and Manny Ness on Wednesday, June 4, 6:30 to 8 P.M. at the NWU/UAW Hall in New York City. Former CWA organizer Steve Early is the author of Save Our Unions: Dispatches From A Movement in Distress and Manny Ness, professor of political science at Brooklyn College/CUNY is the editor of New Forms of Worker Organization.

An Important Appeal from Robert W. McChesney

February 20, 2024

Dear Friend of Monthly Review: In the past few years world conditions have changed far more than most people realize. Since the financial collapse of 2007–2008, capitalism has entered a period of pronounced stagnation. The dismal recovery of the past six years is no longer to be regarded as a temporary adjustment; it is the new normal. What this means for the great mass of people in the United States and the globe is also clear: increasing poverty and unemployment; gaping increases in inequality; tremendous downward pressure on wages and benefits; collapsing infrastructure and decline in public services; systematic political corruption; environmental degradation in the pursuit of profit; and endless militarism. Capitalism is a system that gives every sign of being on its last legs. It is eating the future to stay alive today.

Henry Giroux interviewed in CounterPunch

February 20, 2024

Henry Giroux is the author of America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth, published by Monthly Review Press. He is interviewed by C. J. Polychroniou, who writes for Eleftherotypia in Greece. “What we have seen in the United States and a number of other countries since the 1970s is the emergence of a savage form of free market fundamentalism, often called neoliberalism, in which there is not only a deep distrust of public values, public goods and public institutions but the embrace of a market ideology that accelerates the power of the financial elite and big business while gutting those formative cultures and institutions necessary for a democracy to survive.”

Listen to the NYC Book Launch for Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement

February 20, 2024

The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung–New York Office recently hosted a book launch for Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement, with author Ralf Dose. Dose was joined by Steven Thrasher, a Contributing Editor at BuzzFeed. Thrasher was named Journalist of the Year 2012 by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his investigative feature writing in the New York Times, Village Voice and Out magazine. Click here for audio and photos of the event, courtesy of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.