Category: Monthly Review Press Blog

Portrait of the philosopher as a young man: Michael Heinrich’s biography of Marx, Vol. I

February 20, 2024

Michael Heinrich’s projected biography of Marx that is supposed to consist of four volumes is an extraordinary ambitious undertaking. Only the first volume “Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society” has been published so far. It covers the years before Marx’s birth (because it deals with his parents) and goes up to his doctoral dissertation done in 1841, when he was 23. The biography is extraordinary ambitious for three reasons….

Still “a communist”–good man! Weekly ☭ Worker reviews Grossman’s memoir of socialist defection

February 20, 2024

He hoped that, if he kept his head down and his mouth shut, then he could live out his military career in peace and quiet. Conscription had been renewed for Korea, but he was fortunate enough to be sent to Germany. This was also the time of peak McCarthyism….

New! “Value and Crisis: Essays on Marxian Economics in Japan” (2nd ed.)

February 20, 2024

About the time of the First World War, when interest in Marxist theory was virtually nonexistent in the United States, rival schools of thought in Japan emerged, and brilliant debates took place on Marx’s Capital and on capitalism as it was developing in Japan. Forty years ago, Makoto Itoh’s Value and Crisis began to chronicle these Japanese contributions to Marxist theory. Now, in a second edition of Value and Crisis, Itoh deepens his study of Marx’s theories. The promise of these theories has not waned. If anything—considering the failure of Soviet-style socialism and the catastrophe of neoliberalism—it grows daily.

Washington’s lethal war against the world: UK’s Morning Star reviews Prashad’s “Washington Bullets”

February 20, 2024

In Guatemala, Congo, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Haiti, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Yemen, Sudan, Grenada, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Angola and so many other countries, Washington’s bullets have been deployed in the pursuance of regime change, the protection of US hegemony and opposition to the emergence of truly sovereign post-colonial nations, all in flagrant violation of international law….

Meticulous study of ecological scholarship: ISA reviews “The Return of Nature”

February 20, 2024

John Bellamy Foster’s ground-breaking Marx’s Ecology in 2000 demonstrated that Marxism, from the beginning, dealt with ecological questions. Its long-awaited sequel, The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, developed these ideas from the deaths of Marx and Darwin to the 1960s, tracing a continuous thread of dialectical thinking about the environment. It is a meticulous study of the co-evolution of socialism and ecology citing a huge wealth of sources, including the significant contributions of Engels, the ‘Left Darwinist’ Ray Lankester, and the Romantic Marxist, William Morris…

Time Talks–so does Gerald Horne: about “The Dawning of the Apocalypse”

February 20, 2024

Chris Time Steele, host of Channel Zero‘s podcast Time Talks, and Gerald Horne, author of dozens of histories of white supremacy–most recently The Bittersweet Science: racism, racketeering and the political economy of boxing, discuss Dr. Horne’s The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century…

Biden’s COVID Plan Is Better Than Trump’s, But Still Far From Sufficient: Rob Wallace via Truthout…

February 20, 2024

Presuming Donald Trump’s electoral defeat will lead to little more than some revenge firings, a parade of pardons for any Trump fixers still standing, and a practice run at the mechanics of a rightist coup for next time, what does a Biden administration promise us come January 2021?…

Eric Chester & Mitch Jeserich on the Suppression of Speech in WWI, with Implications for a Biden Presidency

February 20, 2024

Eric T. Chester, author of the recently released Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent During World War I, talked to Mitch Jeserich, host of KPFA’s Letters and Politics, about the legacy of dissent, what happens when the United States works to suppress it, and how this might play out in light of the oncoming Biden administration…

Gerald Horne & Margaret Prescod on Ethiopia, via Sojourner Truth Radio

February 20, 2024

Gerald Horne, author of The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century, talked with Margaret Prescod of Sojourner Truth Radio about the current Ethiopia / Tigray conflict, its history, and its implications for the region…

“Global ecologically sensitive socialism”: Left Unity reviews John Bellamy Foster’s “The Return of Nature”

February 20, 2024

“This brilliant book—which traces and establishes the link between socialism and ecology—couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time, given the ever-worsening Climate and Ecological Crises, and the mounting health and economic impacts of the closely-linked Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of these combined crises, more people than ever are accepting the need for some fundamental ‘System Change’…”