Type: New Book

The Politics of Style: Towards a Marxist Poetics Daniel Hartley, University of Leeds This book develops a Marxist theory of literary style. The first part explains why Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson came to see style as central to political criticism. It delineates the historical and conceptual preconditions for the emergence of a ‘politics

NEW FROM PLUTO PRESS: For Humanism: Explorations in Theory and Politics Edited by David Alderson and Robert Spencer —————–   ‘A major intervention into contemporary discussions about the resources of political hope, this volume insists upon the continuing indispensability and, indeed, radicalness of humanism as both a critical philosophy and a moral-political template. Each of

Finance Capital Today: Corporations and Banks in the Lasting Global Slump François Chesnais, Université-Paris Nord Finance Capital Today presents a rich new analysis of the specific features of contemporary capitalism, notably its truly global nature and its financialisation, calling on Marxist analyses of the concentration, centralisation and globalisation of capital and Marx’s theory of interest-bearing and fictitious

The Rhythm of Thought in Gramsci: A Diachronic Interpretation of Prison Notebooks Giuseppe Cospito, University of Pavia. Translated by Arianna Ponzini Many scholars have recently shown great interest in a diachronic re-examination of Antonio Gramsci’s main theoretical-political categories in the Prison Notebooks. This method would uncover the origins and development of Gramsci’s concepts using the same method that

NEW FROM PLUTO PRESS: Revolutionary Learning: Marxism, Feminism and Knowledge By Sara Carpenter and Shahrzad Mojab —————–   ‘”What is critical about critical education?” ask Carpenter and Mojab in this tremendously insightful, compelling book which promises to revolutionise thinking around adult learning and education. But more than this, it offers readers carefully-crafted, sharpened tools of

Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography Alastair Davidson, Monash University, Australia Many large Italian cities have a main thoroughfare ‘via Gramsci’, showing that the Communist leader has become part of Italy’s ‘national patrimony’, while internationally, the interest in Gramsci’s writings is second to none. As a consequence of this fame, Gramsci’s heritage is claimed by rival

Communards and Other Cultural Histories Essays by Adrian Rifkin Adrian Rifkin. Edited by Steve Edwards This collection of some 32 articles and essays by Adrian Rifkin were written over a period of forty years. It contains innovative and influential studies of the archives of art, urbanism, music and popular life in France and Britain during

The Conspiracy of Modern Art Luiz Renato Martins. Edited and Introduced by Steve Edwards In The Conspiracy of Modern Art the Brazilian critic and art-historian Luiz Renato Martins presents a new account of modern art from David to Abstract Expressionism. The once vibrant debate on these touchstones of modernism has gone stale. Viewed from the Sao Paulo

NEW SERIES FROM VERSO:  CHRISTOPHER HILL CLASSICS   Christopher Hill was the preeminent figure of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English history, and one of the most distinguished historians of recent times. Fellow historian E.P. Thompson once referred to him as the dean and paragon of English historians. This new series makes available key books from his

What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis Dan La Botz, Murphy Institute – City University of New York (CUNY) This volume is a valuable re-assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution by a Marxist historian of Latin American political history. It shows that the FSLN (‘the Sandinistas’), with politics principally shaped by Soviet and Cuban Communism,

Communism for Kids By Bini Adamczak Translated by Jacob Blumenfeld and Sophie Lewis Overview Once upon a time, people yearned to be free of the misery of capitalism. How could their dreams come true? This little book proposes a different kind of communism, one that is true to its ideals and free from authoritarianism. Offering relief for many who

NEW FROM PLUTO PRESS: The Profit Doctrine: Economists of the Neoliberal Era By Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson —————–   ‘The financial crisis alerted the public to what some insiders have known for decades: mainstream economic ideas are seriously flawed. Chernomas and Hudson lay bare both the ideas and the equally flawed individuals behind them,