I have finally taken the time to read Robin D.G. Kelley’s Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. The book was written twenty years ago, but it is still widely read and its subject matter is of such importance that it warrants a brief review here. Kelley is a professor of American Studies […]
The Marxists Internet Archive has made available a 1958 column by Raya Dunayevskaya on A.J. Muste’s American Workers Party, a short-lived but important political grouping of the Great Depression (“Unemployment and Organizations to Fight It“). She had firsthand knowledge of the topic, as she was a member of the the Workers Party of the U.S., […]
The fever pitch of commentary on the racist and reactionary political phenomenon that goes by the name “Tea Party” since the recent primary elections necessitates at least an attempt at a class analysis of this movement. The often-used term “populist” is an inadequate description, as there have been strong movements in U.S. history with what […]
I recently had the opportunity to examine the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition of André Breton’s Œuvres Complètes, as well as the rare illustrated Album André Breton volume. The first volume came out in 1988 and the fourth, and final one, just appeared in 2008. The Pléiade editions are beautifully produced books, although one wishes […]
The Marxists Internet Archive has made available a 1957 critique by Raya Dunayevskaya of The New Class by Milovan Djilas. Djilas was one of the leaders of Yugoslavian Communism until he broke with Tito in 1954. Dunayevskaya’s critique is interesting for its focus on Djilas’s interpretation of Marxism rather than on the political ramifications of […]
I’m adding a new category of recommendations of books that I feel merit the effort to seek them out and read them. The first selection in this category is an intellectual biography of Marx by Jerrold Seigel, a professor of history at New York University, now retired. Marx’s Fate: The Shape of a Life was […]
I have just discovered a fascinating book (originally published in Quebec as Les Écrivains Noir et le Surréalisme) titled The Black Surrealists by Jean-Claude Michel, a teacher in Miami. I don’t recall this book being cited in Robin Kelley’s Black Brown and Beige (reviewed earlier on this blog), which is a shame because it contains […]
Jennifer Schuessler has a fascinating essay on the forgotten history of Friedrich von Hayek’s American enthusiasts (“Hayek: The Back Story”) in the July 11 The New York Times Book Review. She details a cartoon version of The Road To Serfdom based on a condensed version of the text published in a mass edition by Reader’s […]
Today marks the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima, which resulted in at least 70,000 immediate and direct fatalities (an additional 40,000 were killed outright in the bombing of the historic city of Nagasaki three days later—40,000 more died there in the following months from injuries). To commemorate this occasion, […]
The recent verdict and sentence announced in the trial of Khmer Rouge prison warden Kaing Guek Eav calls the world’s attention, however fleetingly, to the experience of Cambodia in the Pol Pot years. The Khmer Rouge seized complete control of Cambodia in April 1975 and embarked upon a methodical four-year attempt at a reconstruction of […]
Criticism &c. 