The Umbrella Movement, which involves every walk of life in Hong Kong, is entirely different from Hong Kong’s previous mass protests in the past few decades. This is due to its unprecedented methods of struggle, massive disruption of public order,… Continue Reading
The most recent issue of Socialism and Democracy celebrates the 150th anniversary of The First International. Marcello Musto recalls the history of the International and Patrick Bond traces the history of and barriers to working class internationalism in South Africa… Continue Reading
A W Zurbrugg (ed) Not Our War: Writings against the First World War (Merlin, 2014), £12.95 Not our War is the perfect antidote to renewed attempts by the spokespersons of the ruling class such as Michael Gove and Jeremy Paxman… Continue Reading
Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (Verso, 2014), £7.99 Touted as a short, sharp polemic on the expansion of capital into every waking minute, 24/7 is a curiosity that promises much but delivers little. The main… Continue Reading
Daniel Bensaïd, An Impatient Life: A Political Memoir (Verso, 2013), £24.99 Daniel Bensaïd was, as Tariq Ali says in his foreword to this autobiography, “France’s leading Marxist public intellectual” until he died at the age of 63 in 2010. For… Continue Reading
Nathan Lean, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims (Pluto Press, 2012), £12.50 Nathan Lean’s book is a most welcome riposte to the Muslim scare stories that saturate our media, firstly by uncovering the falsity behind these… Continue Reading
Dave Zirin, Brazil’s Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, the Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy (Haymarket, 2014), £11.99 Dave Zirin is a left wing sports writer from the United States who has written extensively on the Olympics, including… Continue Reading
Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: the Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), £65, and Paul Kelemen, The British Left and Zionism: History of a Divorce (Manchester University Press, 2012), £15.99 These two books, one concentrating… Continue Reading
Leo Panitch, Greg Albo and Vivek Chibber (eds), Socialist Register 2014: Registering Class (Merlin Press, 2013), £16.95 Discussion of classes, how they form, their composition and how they can act consciously have featured on the left since the time of… Continue Reading
Andro Linklater, Owning the Earth: The Transforming History of Land Ownership (Bloomsbury, 2014), £20 Throughout our history humans have had many different ways of using land. Alongside this, the question of ownership has also changed dramatically. For the vast majority… Continue Reading