A huge thanks to all the participants in the 2026 Historical Materialism London conference. The biggest so far with:
Four full days of panels
Around 1,600 participants in total
317 panels
22 parallel sessions at peak times
40 participants for the PGR conference on 4 November
We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who attended the conference and brought theoretical and political work to share and debate. Together, we have sought collective ways of thinking and acting as Marxists in the broadest sense of the term in this world and conjuncture..
We would like to thank you for this huge commitment to travel (some of you from very far, at great expense, negotiating highly punitive border regimes), to take time off work, interrupt organising work, write papers whilst juggling a million other demands, in order to come here to London for these 4 very intense days.
So many of you already shared with us how you gained a lot of hope, inspiration and energy from the rich and diverse presentations and the conversations you had – and how this conference serves as an anchor that reminds us that we’re not alone with the convictions from which we think and act, even if it can easily feel like that in our everyday lives and work environments.
The death of our comrade, friend and co-editor Peter D. Thomas four weeks ago was a huge blow to us, but it’s a testament to our collective that we found a way to go through this and it is hugely important to carry on this work that was so central to Peter’s theoretical and political commitment. In the months that come, we will honour his legacy in many ways, up to and including organising a series of sessions on his work during next year’s conference.
The success of this conference is an expression of the continuous pertinence of critical Marxist theory in these times of reaction, genocide, impending extinction, but also of resistance movements and shows that it continues to create new resources of hope. It also underlines the importance of trenchant, insightful and comradely debate among Marxists as the indispensable condition for the urgently needed new emancipatory projects.
Moreover, this attendance was yet another demonstration of support and solidarity for the broader HM project, and, from our part we reiterate our commitment to improving and expanding it.
There is no better proof of the growing importance of the HM project than the increasing number of HM conferences internationally.
Historical Materialism SYDNEY 11-12 February 2027
Radical Assembly / Historical Materialism 22-24 New York April 2027
Historical Materialism Athens 6-9 May 2027
The Great Transition/La Grande Transition HM Montreal 27-30 May 2027
https://thegreattransition.net/
Historical Materialism Seoul 28-30 June 2027
Historical Materialism Paris 1-3 July 2027
Historical Materialism London 4-7 November 2027
https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/
Mexico April 2028
Brazil July 2028
At the same time, we know that the conference wasn’t perfect, so we warmly welcome comradely and constructive feedback and concrete suggestions for improvements which can be sent to conference@historicalmaterialism.org
For those who require receipts and/or certificates of attendance, these will be issued in the coming week or so. Please be patient with us while we attend to this but feel free to chase us over the coming fortnight.
The conference and the broader HM project cannot continue to thrive unless you help us materially, and this involves three things:
- Subscribing as an individual to the journal or encouraging your university libraries to take out subscriptions. For attendees of the conference, you can take advantage of a 35% discount on individual subscriptions to Historical Materialism, and gain access to 1,500 pages of cutting-edge Marxist theory each year. To subscribe, email customerservices@brill.com and mention the discount code: 71697
- Buying the books in the HM Book Series, either by getting your library to buy the Brill editions (www.brill.com/hm) or by buying the Haymarket paperbacks (https://www.haymarketbooks.org/series_collections/1-historical-materialism). Particularly for those based in North America, it is worth taking a look at the Haymarket Historical Materialism book club: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/894-haymarket-book-club-historical-materialism-series. See also the attached discount form for Brill editions and the form for libraries.
- And helping us with our current crowdfunding translation projects:
https://www.toledotranslationfund.org/alfred_sohn_rethel
https://www.toledotranslationfund.org/niccolomachiavelli
https://www.toledotranslationfund.org/german_october_bayerlein
https://www.toledotranslationfund.org/raniero_panzieri_works
(We are also very happy to accept donations, bequests etc – please contact us if you want information about that.)
If you gave a paper at the conference, we also encourage you to submit an article to the journal at https://www.editorialmanager.com/hima and to submit book projects to info@historicalmaterialism.org. Further details about the journal submission process can be found here: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/instructions-for-authors.
Our website https://www.historicalmaterialism.org has been upgraded and is constantly updated with new material. We welcome book reviews and other interventions for it!
Do not forget to subscribe to our Newsletter which has replaced our e-mail list: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/newsletter/
Do not forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@historical_materialism_journal
And make sure you follow us on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/historicalmaterialism
https://www.instagram.com/historical_materialism_journal/
https://bsky.app/profile/histmat.bsky.social
