Book Reviews

The Conquest of the Observing Machines

Tobias Ertl

For anyone interested in the study of left-wing culture in the Weimar Republic – and indeed the communist workers’ movement of the interwar years more generally – 'La Révolution suspendue' by Christian Joschke offers a rich, thoroughly researched, and exceptionally well-written study.

Right-Hand Man or Biggest Mistake? Åsmund Egge’s Grigory Zinoviev

Reviewed by Clayton Black

Egge’s monograph advances our understanding of a key figure of the Bolshevik revolution well beyond the caricatures that have too long dominated the historiography. It also makes clear that much work remains.

Re-enchanting the Moving Image: On Julia Alekseyeva’s Antifascism and the Avant-Garde

Alexander Billet

There was a time when the works of Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, and Matsumoto Toshio were lauded as innovative and revelatory well outside the ranks of film school aesthetes and underground video stores, when they reached into at least the fringes of mainstream discourse.

Revolution and the Modern State: A Review of Eren Duzgun, Capitalism, Jacobinism and International Relations: Revisiting Turkish Modernity

Stephen Miller

'Capitalism, Jacobinism, and International Relations' amounts to a brilliant book, showing that, in France and the Ottoman Empire, universal citizenship, equality before the law, and mass conscription did not represent components of nascent capitalism but of an alternative Jacobin form of strengthening the state.

Response to Peter Lamb

Matt McManus

I wanted to express appreciation for Peter Lamb’s generous review of The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism. Lamb’s review stresses the book’s scholarly merits and suggests it will be “very resourceful” for critical theorists interested in “immanent critique”. Lamb emphasises the “untapped potential” of the argument for liberal socialism and my failure to push it into a “new dimension”. I will respond two of Lamb’s major objections. Firstly, I will clarify liberal socialism’s commitment to normative individualism and methodological collectivism. Secondly, I will respond to Lamb’s concerns about the relationship between liberal socialism and Marxism.