One of my frustrations with contemporary Marxist philosophy is the way in which the word ‘dialectical’ is often employed like a magical wand to sanctify various relational phenomena.
Archive | Review
Reviews of books, films, etc.
No Platform by Evan Smith
Smith’s book demonstrates that the far-right has always played the victim card when it comes to free-speech, writes Houman Barekat.
Eric Hobsbawm’s dialectical materialism in the postwar period 1946-56
Hobsbawm’s thinking was guided by dialectical materialism, which was a scientific outlook based on analysis. It always accounted for unpredictable human agency and, though economic factors played the principal role in the development of history, this study rejects the claim that Hobsbawm was a mechanical determinist.
A restless thinker
In the millions of pages written about Karl Marx, his final years have been somewhat neglected.
The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology
John Bellamy Foster’s brilliant recovery of a century of ecological and socialist thought will inform, enable, and inspire a new generation of reds and greens.
Silvia Federici: The exploitation of women and the development of capitalism
Federici demonstrates that unpaid labor–especially that of women confined to the domestic sphere and of enslaved workers–is a necessary support for waged labor.
The Living Flame: The Revolutionary Passion of Rosa Luxemburg by Paul Le Blanc reviewed by Kaitlin Peters
The collection begins with the essay, ‘Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919)’, that more broadly reviews Luxemburg’s theoretical contributions and political interventions from 1871 to 1919.
Setting our sights low
It is from the latter source (also entitled “David Harvey’s Anti-Capitalist Chronicles”) that much of this present volume has been drawn, or adapted into book form, covering a range of topics, from surplus value, the history of neoliberal capitalism, alienation and climate change to political responses to the covid-19 pandemic.
Five Centuries of Pillage and Resistance: Latin America and Africa
The tragedy being the suffering Latin America has borne, the optimism being in the recognition that this is not the region’s natural or inevitable destiny, but has been imposed on it through its subjugation to the capitalist system, and is therefore capable of being changed.
The Past as Prologue: Caliban & the Witch – a Review
Alexandra Day reviews Silvia Federici’s seminal work, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.
‘Symbolic Violence: Conversations with Bourdieu’ by Michael Burawoy reviewed by Paul Leduc Browne
Michael Burawoy’s Symbolic Violence is a Marxist critique of the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. This fascinating book explores some of Bourdieu’s contradictions by staging a series of ‘conversations’ between the French sociologist and a range of important, mostly Marxist, thinkers whose writings Bourdieu ignored or dismissed in footnotes, even though he ought to have engaged […]
The Social (Relations) Dilemma
The Social Dilemma that is currently streaming on Netflix has garnered much attention by raising a single question–how have we come to accept as normal the fact that a few hundred tech-enthusiasts in Silicon Valley has had an unprecedented impact on billions of lives around the world? Directed by Jeff Orlowski, the Social Dilemma features […]
Whose crisis is it anyway? The problem with the shock doctrine
The ruling class is ruthless in trying to exploit crises, but we shouldn’t underestimate the turmoil it’s in and the opportunities to advance the struggle, argues Chris Nineham
Book Review: Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency
Gradual reforms can’t do the job: only profoundly radical measures can ensure human survival in an epoch of global sickening.
Isabel Wilkerson’s Book “Caste” and the Discontent of a Ruling Class in Crisis
Oprah gushes that this book by the latest darling of the ruling classes might “save us,” but all it’s really trying to save is capitalism.
Review of Jairus Banaji A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism
For Jairus Banaji, theory and history are tightly interwoven: without history, theory ends up ‘bad abstraction’; without theory, the intelligibility of history is doomed to fail.
Review of Alice Proctor The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in Our Museums and Why We Need to Talk About It
Shortly before reopening their doors on 27 August 2020, the British Museum removed a bust of its slave-owning founding father, Sir Hans Sloane, from a pedestal to a glass cabinet.
On Contact: Teaching of history as indoctrination
On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the teaching of history as a form of indoctrination with Professor James W. Loewen.
Review of My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics
My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics is a document of the filmmaker’s darkly humorous journey through the mind-boggling constructs of mainstream economics.
A review of Andreas Malm’s Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century
What can a virus tell us about climate breakdown, in its causation and in humanity’s response?
