There were several good articles in the November/December issue of New Left Review.1 Ho-fung Hung’s piece, “America’s Head Servant?”, contests glib claims that China will emerge out of the economic crisis as a serious challenger to US hegemony. The article… Continue Reading
William Hurst, The Chinese Worker After Socialism (Cambridge University Press, 2009), £55 In July 2009 a mass demonstration by steel workers, members of their families and other local inhabitants erupted in the north eastern Chinese city of Tonghua. They were… Continue Reading
Istvan Meszaros, The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time—Socialism in the Twenty First Century (Monthly Review Press, 2008), £16.95 Istvan Meszaros’s latest treatise is a mixture of extended essays, lectures and occasional pieces. The analysis ranges from structural unemployment and… Continue Reading
Charles Upchurch, Before Wilde: Sex Between Men in Britain’s Age of Reform (University of California Press, 2009), £30.95 This fascinating and important book focuses on the history of sex between men in the first half of the 19th century. Upchurch… Continue Reading
John Foran, David Lane, and Andreja Zivkovic (eds), Revolution in the Making of the Modern World (Routledge, 2008), £21.99 The idea of revolution today, whether it is possible and, if so, what forces can bring it about and with what… Continue Reading
John Bellamy Foster, The Ecological Revolution (Monthly Review Press, 2009), £13.95 The conclusion of John Bellamy Foster’s latest book is one that may not strike a chord with many traditional environmentalists—”today, the transition to socialism and the transition to an… Continue Reading
Talat Ahmed, Literature and politics in the Age of Nationalism, The Progressive Episode in South Asia, 1932–56 (Routledge, 2009), £50 Talat Ahmed has written a fine account of the All-India Progressive Writers Association which flourished between 1936 and 1956. In… Continue Reading
Lois Orr, Gerd–Rainer Horn (ed), Letters from Barcelona: An American Woman in Revolution and Civil War (Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2009), £45 Lois Orr, a 19 year old student and sympathiser of the American Socialist Party, arrived in Barcelona in September 1936.… Continue Reading
Louise Raw, Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in Labour History (Continuum, 2009), £70 In 1888 roughly 1,400 mainly young women match workers went on strike at the Bryant and May factories in east London.… Continue Reading
Dennis Broe, Film Noir, American Workers and Postwar Hollywood (University Press of Florida, 2009), £62.95 Film noir is a sub-genre that has attracted a lot of popular attention and commentary in the mainstream media. Although its classic black and white… Continue Reading