Book Review

The Worker Bees of the Comintern
The Communist International was not only a revolutionary organization, but also an employer. Brigitte Studer's global history of the Comintern, “Travelers of World Revolution,” was just published in English by Verso Books.
Nathaniel Flakin
July 20, 2023The Communist Women’s International, in English for the First Time
An Interview with historians Daria Dyakovona and Mike Taber about their new book with documents from the Communist Women’s International
Josefina L. Martínez
July 11, 2023Does the Revolution Eat Its Children?
An interview with historian Doug Greene about his new book on Stalinism, The Dialectics of Saturn.
Nathaniel Flakin
July 11, 2023What Will Communism Look Like in New York City?
The new novel Everything for Everyone tells the story of a global insurrection against capitalism starting in 2052. It's not only entertaining — it's a good opportunity to think about revolutionary strategy.
Nathaniel Flakin
November 23, 2022Germany Is Still Run by Nazi Billionaires
Nazi Billionaires, a new book by Bloomberg journalist David de Jong reminds us who runs Germany: the grandchildren of war criminals.
Nathaniel Flakin
August 20, 2022Ruth Fischer: The Ongoing Fascination of the Ultra-left
Ruth Fischer was the chairwoman of the Communist Party of Germany in the mid-1920s, before she became a supporter of McCarthy. Her ultra-left policies continue to provoke discussions among socialists. A massive biography by Mario Keßler offers some lessons for revolutionary strategy today.
Nathaniel Flakin
July 3, 2022The Strange Story of Trotskyism in the Alps
A new book in German tells the story of the Trotskyist movement in Switzerland from 1945 to 1968. It includes the strangest case of infiltration since the founding of the Fourth International.
Nathaniel Flakin
June 23, 2022A Welcome and Necessary Encounter Between Trotsky and Gramsci
The following is Warren Montag's foreword to the new book by Argentinian Marxist Juan Dal Maso entitled "Hegemony and Class Struggle. Trotsky, Gramsci and Marxism" released by Palgrave Publishing House on July 28th.
Warren Montag
July 30, 2021Left Populism Is a Dead End
Marina Prentoulis's new book is intended to show left populism in a favorable light. Her examples, however, actually serve as a warning of what awaits the working class when parties influenced by left populism come to power.
Eddie Doveton
July 2, 2021Marxism and the Origins of the Ecological Critique
John Bellamy Foster’s The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology (Monthly Review Press, 2020) shows the role played by biologists and other scientists with a nonmechanistic, materialist outlook, alongside various Marxists, in laying the foundations of ecology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Esteban Mercatante
June 1, 2021