The best thing to appear in recent issues of New Left Review is the article “Obama At Manassas”, which was in issue 56 (March-April). In it Mike Davis gives an analysis of the outcome of the US presidential election. This… Continue Reading
Richard Seymour, The Liberal Defence of Murder (Verso, 2008), £16.99 As I write this review, Gaza lies in ruins after the Israeli government’s most recent exercise in collective punishment. This latest atrocity has excited massive opposition in Britain (not least… Continue Reading
Ethan Pollock, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars (Princeton, 2009), £17.95 The post-war period was a time of rapid reconstruction and modernisation in the Soviet Union, and science and technology were expected to play a huge part in the process.… Continue Reading
Antonio Negri, Goodbye Mr Socialism: Radical Politics in the 21st Century (Serpent’s Tail, 2008), £8_._99 This collection of interviews with Antonio Negri provides some insights into one of the most important thinkers on the anti-capitalist left. Negri is the co_author,… Continue Reading
Conor Kostick, The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Brill, 2008), £93.99 In 1095 Pope Urban II called on the faithful to retake the Holy Land for Christianity. This unleashed a crusading movement which saw hundreds of thousands of Europeans… Continue Reading
Emanuele Saccarelli, Gramsci and Trotsky in the Shadow of Stalinism (Routledge, 2008), £60 Books culled from doctoral theses are rarely page-turners but this work by unashamed Trotskyist Emanuele Saccarelli is better than most. Saccarelli attempts to rescue Antonio Gramsci and… Continue Reading
Mark Zeitoun, Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics of the Palestinian–Israeli Water Conflict (IB Tauris, 2008), £47.50 Water is one of the most obvious symbols of the injustice of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. In Israeli… Continue Reading
Francisco Boldizzoni, Means and Ends: The Idea of Capital in the West, 1500–1970 (Palgrave, 2008), £45 Francesco Boldizzoni sets out in this short book (169 pages plus notes) to write the history of capital or rather “the evolution of the… Continue Reading
Kate Crehan, Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology (Pluto, 2002), £18.99 Gramsci, Culture, and Anthropology is a welcome contribution to the revival of interest in the work of Antonio Gramsci. Kate Crehan’s clear and succinct book begins with a brief biographical summary,… Continue Reading
Alan B Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (Princeton University, 2007), £17.95 Explaining terrorism is a difficult and controversial business. Witness George Bush’s perplexed response to the 9/11 attacks: “I’m amazed that there’s such misunderstanding… Continue Reading