Category: Monthly Review Press Blog

How Slavery, Capitalism, and White Supremacy gave rise to the West: Counterfire reviews Gerald Horne’s The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism

How Slavery, Capitalism, and White Supremacy gave rise to the West: Counterfire reviews Gerald Horne’s The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism

In a recent appearance on Nick Ferrari’s LBS show, Jacob Rees-Mogg defended the UK’s colonial past, saying that it was ‘not wholly a bad thing’ with ‘bad bits’ and ‘good bits’ such as Britain’s role in ending the slave trade which he describes as ‘really wonderful’. He has this Great White Man view of history, talking of noble ‘heroes’ such as General Gordon at Khartoum, as well as ‘rogues’. It is this sort of history that Gerald Horne eviscerates in this scholarly, brutal and powerful book….

Gerald Horne discusses Race to Revolution on C-SPAN’s BookTV

Gerald Horne discusses Race to Revolution on C-SPAN’s BookTV

Gerald Horne discusses his two books, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America (published by New York University Press) and Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow (published by Monthly Review Press), at Eso Won Books in Los Angeles, California.

Not “Can” but “MUST”: novelist Eve Ottenberg reviews Can the Working Class Change the World?

Not “Can” but “MUST”: novelist Eve Ottenberg reviews Can the Working Class Change the World?

If the working class doesn’t save our vastly unequal and dying world, it’s difficult to see who will. Certainly not the billionaire class, which has the money to put the brakes on climate change by investing in renewables but has not yet seemed inclined to do so. They don’t seem particularly interested in eliminating inequality either. As for the better-off middle classes, they ‘are more likely to support fascism than profound social change,’ according to Michael Yates in his new book. So that leaves the working class….

Durban Social Forum Declaration

This declaration was adopted at a mass meeting of the Durban Social Forum held in the township of Mpumalanga on August 28, 2001. The DSF was created to organize a response to South Africa’s hosting the UN World Conference Against Racism. Its declaration is a message of solidarity with oppressed people around the world. The original declaration was drafted and adopted in isiZulu, and translated into English.

New! Sensing Injustice, by Michael Tigar (Plus FREE eBook!)

New! Sensing Injustice, by Michael Tigar (Plus FREE eBook!)

New from Monthly Review Press! Sensing Injustice: A Lawyer’s Life in the Battle for Change is a vibrant literary and legal feat! Essential reading for lawyers, for law students, for anyone who aspires to bend the law toward change.

Blowing the Roof Off the 21st Century “Prophetic”: International Journal of Communication

Blowing the Roof Off the 21st Century “Prophetic”: International Journal of Communication

Renowned communications scholar and media activist Robert W. McChesney’s most recent work interrogates the state of U.S. politics, mass media, and social reform. Those already familiar with McChesney’s work gain greater insight into his experiences as an activist and his distinctive form of political, economic, and historical analysis beyond communication research. Blowing the Roof is expansive and thematic in organization…

Counterfire reviews “The Dawning of the Apocalypse” by Gerald Horne

Counterfire reviews “The Dawning of the Apocalypse” by Gerald Horne

The disease of racism continues to cause suffering and misery across the globe. The eruption of the Black Lives Matter protests this year has exposed the extent to which systematic racism continues to oppress and demonise black and minority ethnic communities, particularly in the US and Britain. This racism in many ways stems from colonialism and imperialism, and therefore capitalism, particularly through the devastating trans-Atlantic slave trade…

Steve Brouwer in NYC, Dec 14

Join the author of Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care at Word Up Community Bookshop in NYC, December 14, at 6 pm. Also featuring a screening of “Cancion de Esteli” by Cuban poet and filmmaker Victor Casaus.

Hungry for change in our food system? Truthout turns to A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism

Hungry for change in our food system? Truthout turns to A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism

The centenary of the Russian Revolution has no doubt produced a cascade of lugubrious foodistas, made melancholy by the moribund march past 100. There is widespread disaffection with the fact that ‘capitalism is … assumed to be immutable and [is] rarely questioned’ according to Holt-Gimenez—and rightly so. But the solemnity of the centenary was made much less draining by the availability of Eric Holt-Gimenez’s A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism. Beneath the cringe-worthy title is a serious attempt to reintroduce the ‘C-word’ into the food discourse…