Oil is the key feature of imperialism in the Middle East. Middle East oil exploitation is fantastically profitable. The cost of producing one barrel of crude oil in the Middle East is only 15 cents, as against $1.63 in the… Continue Reading
Pick of the quarter The US-British occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has led to a convergence between different sections of the anti-imperialist left internationally. While there are still those who believe they can somehow claim to be principled socialists without… Continue Reading
A review of Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (Verso, 2005), £16.99 My advanced computer’s software does not seem to recognise the word Islamophobia. Each time I try to key in the… Continue Reading
A review of Stephen G Rabe, US Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (University of North Carolina Press, 2005), £14.50 In the early 1960s both Conservative and Labour governments in Britain were complicit in CIA efforts to destabilise… Continue Reading
A reviw of Donny Gluckstein, The Paris Commune: A Revolution in Democracy (Bookmarks, 2006), £14.99 At a time when issues of political power and democracy are widely debated in the movement, a new study of the Par is Commune is… Continue Reading
A review of Carl R Weinberg, Labor, Loyalty, Rebellion: Southwestern IllinoisCoal Miners and World War I (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), £20.95 On 15 April 1918 a ‘patriotic’ lynching took place near Collinsville, Illinois. Robert Prager, a 30 year old… Continue Reading
A review of Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (Verso, 2006), £15.99 Soon there will be more people living in the city of Mumbai than in the continent of Australia. Like Mexico City or Seoul- Injon it is set to become… Continue Reading
A review of Bill Dunn and Hugo Radice (eds), 100 years of Permanent Revolution: Results and Prospects (Pluto Press, 2006), £18.99 Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution was, as Michael Lowy writes in this volume, ‘one of the most astonishing political… Continue Reading
Spain, July 1936, has a double historical significance for the left internationally. There was Franco’s militarycoup which began the civil war and 40 years of fascist rule. And there were the counter-uprisings of workers,which overturned the coup in most of… Continue Reading
The origins of capitalism This is the transcript of the discussion which took place between Chris Harman and Robert Brenner at a school in London in November 2004 organised jointly by the journals International Socialism and Historical Materialism.1 Chris Harman… Continue Reading