Two issues of New Left Review have appeared since our last issue. In a very timely lead article to NLR 69, Isidro López and Emmanuel Rodriguez scrutinise the variant of capitalism that has come to dominate in Spain. They argue… Continue Reading
David Horspool, The English Rebel: One Thousand Years of Troublemaking, from the Normans to the Nineties (Penguin, 2010), £12.99 Edward Vallance, A Radical History of Britain (Abacus, 2010), £12.99 Both these books provide extensive evidence to counter the historically illiterate… Continue Reading
Robin Derricourt, Inventing Africa: History, Archaeology and Ideas (Pluto, 2011), £17.99 This book questions the assumptions and prejudices that appear as soon as Africa is considered. It opens with three geographical ways of defining Africa, then critiques assumptions made by… Continue Reading
Antony Polonsky, The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 1: 1350–1881 (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010), £39.50 It was Abram Leon who pioneered Marxist writing about the economic role of Jewish communities in medieval Europe. (He wrote the… Continue Reading
Jairus Banaji, Theory as History: Essays on Modes of Production and Exploitation (Brill, 2010), €99 The concept of “modes of production” plays an important but problematic role in Marxist historiography. For mainstream historians, the concept (wilfully presented in its most… Continue Reading
Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, The Crisis of Neoliberalism (Harvard University, 2011), £36.95 Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy have made significant contributions to the understanding of Marxist economics over the years. Their new book focuses on neoliberalism and the most… Continue Reading
I am a West Indian, a lover of liberty, and would dishonour human nature if I did not shew myself a friend to the liberty of others.1 The story of Robert Wedderburn (1762-1835/6) is rightly becoming better known. As a… Continue Reading
Two reviews of Ian Birchall, Tony Cliff: A Marxist For His Time (Bookmarks, 2011), £15 What a remarkable man Tony Cliff was. Readers of this journal may find this hardly worth saying, even a slight, but for someone outside that… Continue Reading
A review of David McNally, Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance (Spectre, 2011), £12.95; and Leo Panich, Greg Albo and Vivek Chibber (eds), Socialist Register 2011: The Crisis This Time (Merlin, 2011), £25 David McNally’s Global… Continue Reading
The 2007 financial crisis has reignited the discussion on crises, their origin and possible remedies.1 At present the most influential thesis on the left sees the crisis as caused by underconsumption and recommends Keynesian policies as a solution. This paper… Continue Reading