by Sam Friedman and Mary Jirmanus Saba Mike Haynes’s article “The Left, COVID, and the Roads Not Taken” aims to skewer the Left for its failures during the COVID pandemic.[1] In this article, we first go through his argument and show its weaknesses and one or two strengths. We end by suggesting paths the Left can
By Irina Herb, Dana Abdel-Fatah, Deborshi Chakraborty, and George Edwards Nancy Fraser begins her most recent book, Cannibal Capitalism, by noting that the ‘current boom in capitalism talk remains largely rhetorical’.[1] Against this backdrop, the book seeks to equip a wider audience with an accessible framework to analyse ‘all these horribles’.[2] To do so, she
By Marcus Bajema Marx was once described as having discovered the continent of history for science, previously occupied by philosophy.[1] However, the continent is even now far from fully explored and remains partly hidden from us by dense fogs generated by ideological discourse. What struck me most in The History of Work by Lucassen (hereafter abbreviated
By Stephen J. Miller Marxists have long debated how to conceptualise the absolutist states of early modern Europe. Absolutism calls to mind royal sovereignty, whereas feudalism indicates decentralised seigneurial authority. Absolutism thus gives the impression of opposing feudal authority. If absolutism militated against feudalism, did it therefore represent progress? Did it emerge along with, or
By Jacopo Galimberti In English-speaking scholarship, the last few years have witnessed a growing interest in the relationship between the visual arts and Italian politics from the onset of the ‘miracolo economico’ (the ‘economic miracle’ starting around 1958) to the oil crisis of the mid-1970s, or, to put it slightly differently, from the publication of
by Peter Kulchyski Men make their own history, but not of their own free will; not under circumstances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted. – Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte The publication of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of
by Demet Sahende Dinler The views are solely my own and do not represent the views of my branch. I appreciate the constructive criticisms and suggestions of UCU colleagues and friends who commented on the first version of this piece. Special thanks to the inspiring conversations I have had with Alice Corble, Arabella Stanger, Ben
Following a failed counterrevolutionary uprising in Budapest in June 1919, the Hungarian Bolsheviks captured a group of young cadets from the Ludovica Military Academy who had participated in the revolt. The young men must have been horrified. They had no idea what fate lay in store for them, but they were sure it would
By Mike Haynes Mike Haynes is a former Professor of International Political Economy who has written widely on the social history of death and disease. Accused by some of being a lockdown sceptic (he supported the first UK lockdown), he would describe himself as an evidence-based covid centrist. He blogs as theJobbing Leftie Historian: https://leftiehistorian.wordpress.com/
By Daniel Gaido Matías J. Rubio, a historian from the National University of Luján, Argentina, as well as a Trotskyist militant, has recently published a book entitled ¡Abrir los cuarteles! Una historia de la Tendencia Revolucionaria de las Fuerzas Armadas – Vivo Rojo (Bolivia – 1980–2001).[1] This work analyses the history of the Revolutionary Tendency
By Daniel Gaido This monumental collection gathers the main documents of the Workers’ Opposition, a tendency within the Bolshevik Party that emerged in December 1920 against the background of the crisis in War Communism, i.e., the economic collapse resulting from grain requisitions and the prohibition of trade between the city and the countryside, which became
By David Schwartzman The emphasis in Matt Huber’s Climate Change is Class War on the critical role of the working class for achieving climate security and just future, both in the US and globally is very welcome. But I am compelled to respond to what I disagree with in his book, recognizing its valuable contribution to
