Category: Monthly Review Press Blog

NEW! Radek: A Novel, by Stefan Heym (EXCERPTS)

NEW! Radek: A Novel, by Stefan Heym (EXCERPTS)

…Stalin asked, “So you think my truth needs improvement?”
“The truth,” Radek replied, “can’t be improved. The truth is true, or it is not. But a line of evidence can gain a great deal by new and better evidence…”

A 300-year excursion through the history of the global economy (‘International Affairs’ reviews the Patnaiks)

A 300-year excursion through the history of the global economy (‘International Affairs’ reviews the Patnaiks)

Patnaik and Patnaik unpick the realities of capitalism: First, as thriving on exogenous rather than endogenous stimuli––namely colonialism followed by state intervention after the Second World War––thus negating its capacity to be self-contained and perpetual; and second, leading to high unemployment through deindustrialization and land grabs for export crops and property accumulation which push petty producers and peasants into joblessness.

Sure to “inspire new directions in research and debate” (“Dissenting POWs” reviewed in H-Soz-Kult, H-NET)

Sure to “inspire new directions in research and debate” (“Dissenting POWs” reviewed in H-Soz-Kult, H-NET)

Without trivializing the hardships of often several years in jail, Wilber and Lembcke dissect personal accounts by former POWs. They point out contradictions, distinguish between physical punishment measures and deliberate violence, reconstruct different phases in the history of the prisons, and conclude that brutal treatment and torture were less common and systematic than purported.