Islam through the looking-glass
A review of Gilbert Achcar, Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror (Monthly Review, 2004), £12.99 Continue Reading
Author: ISJ
Hidden jewels from the Balkans
A review of Andreja Zivkovic and Dragan Plavsic (eds), The Balkan Socialist Tradition: Balkan Socialism and the Balkan Federation, 1871-1915 (Revolutionary History, vol 8, no 3, 2003), £12.95 Continue Reading
A truly human culture
A review of Al Richardson (ed), Victor Serge, Collected Writings on Literature and Revolution (Francis Boutle, 2004), £12.99 Continue Reading
Isaac Deutscher: the prophet, his biographer and the watchtower
The materialist conception of history was once described by a notable practitioner, the late Edward Thompson, as ‘perhaps the strongest discipline deriving from the Marxist tradition’.2 Of all the different modes available to that discipline, biography is the least commonly… Continue Reading
Venezuela: many steps to come
At 4am on Monday the Electoral Commission announced the results; 4,991,483 (58.25percent) voted no and 3,576,517 (41.74percent) voted yes. It was obvious where the votes had come from, even before the results were announced. You could measure it by skin… Continue Reading
NGOs: enemies or allies?
This article is an attempt to analyse the politics of the NGOs in Asia, using our experiences as socialists in Thailand as an example. Nearly 20 years have elapsed since the massive proliferation of NGOs in developing countries. The pre-1980s… Continue Reading
Spontaneity, strategy and politics
Sometimes the symbolism of events gives them an importance out of all proportion to the numbers of people directly involved in them. Such was the case with the protests outside the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organisation on 30… Continue Reading
Can capitalism go on forever?
A review of Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital (Routledge, 2003), £9.99 Continue Reading
Life after capitalism
A review of Hilary Wainwright, Reclaim the State (Verso, 2003), £15; George Monbiot, The Age of Consent (Flamingo, 2003), £13.99; Michael Albert, Parecon (Verso, 2003), £16; and Alex Callinicos, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (Polity, 2003), £12.50 Continue Reading
Revolutions in evolution: Stephen Jay Gould in perspective
‘Perhaps the most important advance in evolutionary theory since Darwin wrote The Origin of Species in 1859’.1 That assessment was given by the eminent, and left wing, biologist Steven Rose speaking at the Marxism 2003 event in London. The work… Continue Reading