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How the occupation of a watch factory became one of the iconic labour struggles after May 1968

A narrative history of the movement that turned "Orientals" into Asian Americans

A first-hand account of a Greek refugee camp - and the stories of the refugees staying there

The rise and fall of New York - a radical architect's view of the destruction of the city.

The first in-depth study of the long march of the US New Left after 1968

The secret life of the man who reshaped Russia

Set 16 of Verso's Radical Thinkers series.On the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, four titles that consider the life and works of Karl Marx.

What did Marx think that communism could be like?

One of the world's best-known radicals relives the early years of the protest movement

Against the centre groundSince 1989, politics has been a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market. In this urgent and wideranging case for the prosecution, Tariq Ali looks at the people and events that have informed this development across the world. It is an investigation that reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump, the success of En Marche! in France, and the dominance of Merkel's Germany throughout Europe.In this fully updated edition of The Extreme Centre, Ali considers recent events that suggest, despite everything, that there is room for hope. He finds promise in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties in Scotland, Greece, and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new promise for democracy. Even in the UK, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, there are indications that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.

A passionate attack on the tyranny of experts

In the aftermath of Brexit, it is time to call time on the EU? Updated and revised

"Poulantzas is a sophisticated Marxist theoretician who straddles the fields of sociology and political science. His book is one of the most thoughtful exercises in Marxist reinterpretation, and has justifiably won him widespread respect among many scholars. Recommended for all self-respecting college libraries as well as for seminars for graduate and more sophisticated seniors." Choice"This is a book which deserves a very wide audience. Of great interest for Americans is the fact that he bridges Marxist and 'Western' social science writings with remarkable acuity. The translation is an excellent job." Journal of Politics"It is Poulantzas' great virtue to have seen so clearly that an adequate Marxist theory of politics must be able to deal with just those phenomena which non-Marxists have regarded as decisive refutations of Marxism. His range of reference is impressive." Times Literary Supplement

No-one and nothing, not even the Congress of a Communist Party, can abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is the most important conclusion of this book by Étienne Balibar. Balibar spells out his reasoning against the background of the 22nd Congress of the French Communist Party, which decided to ‘drop’ the aim of the dictatorship of the proletariat and to substitute the objective of a ‘democratic’ road to socialism. His concrete references are therefore usually to arguments put forward within the French Party. But it is quite obvious that the significance of this book is much wider, not least because, in spite of the important political and economic differences separating the nations of western Europe, many of their Communist Parties are evolving in an apparently similar ideological direction, and indeed appear to be borrowing arguments from one another in support of their new positions.

The bicentenary of the French Revolution has been dominated by those who do not like the French Revolution or its heritage. This book deals with a surprisingly neglected subject: the history, not of the revolution itself, but of its reception and interpretation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.A Critical assumption of the book is that while it is necessary and inevitable that historians write out of the history of their own times, those who write only out of their own times cannot understand the past and what came out of it. The recent historiographical reaction against the centrality of the Revolution reflects the politics of those contemporary historians for whom progress and revolutionary democracy are dangerous concepts. Their reinterpretations, Hobsbawm argues, are misguided. The Revolution transformed the world permanently and, as recent events in Eastern Europe emphasize, introduced ideas that continue to transform it. ‘The French Revolution’, writes Hobsbawm, ‘ gave peoples the sense that history could be changed by their action ... [and] demonstrated the power of the common people in a manner which no subsequent government has ever allowed itself to forget.’Echoes of the Marseillaise is a stimulating mix of historiography and political analysis, a much-needed epilogue of clarity and reason to a muddled bicentenary.

Nicos Poulantzas’s third major work is a pioneering survey of some of the most fundamental, yet least studied, aspects of the class structure of advanced capitalist societies today. The book starts with a general theoretical essay that for the first time seriously explores the distinction between the “agents” and “positions” of capitalist relations of production, and seeks to avoid the typical errors of either functionalism or historicism. It also provides a polemical reconsideration of the problem of the “nation state” as a political unit today, and its relationship to the internationalization of capital.Finally, and most originally, Poulantzas develops a long and powerful analysis of the much-abused concept of the “petty-bourgeoisie.” In this, he scrupulously distinguishes between the “traditional” categories of petty-bourgeoisie—shopkeepers, artisans, small peasants—and the “new” categories of clerical workers, supervisors, and salaried personnel in modern industry and commerce. At the same time he demonstrates the reasons why a unitary conceptualization of their class position is possible. The difficult question of the definition of “productive” and “unproductive” labor within Marx’s own account of the capitalist mode of production is subjected to a novel and radical reinterpretation. The political oscillations peculiar to each form of petty-bourgeoisie and especially their characteristic reactions to the industrial proletariat, are cogently assessed.Poulantzas ends his work with a reminder that the actions and options of the petty-bourgeoisie are critical to any successful struggle by the working class, which must secure the alliance of important sections of the petty-bourgeoisie if the fateful experience of Chile is not to recur elsewhere tomorrow. Combining empirical and theoretical materials throughout, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism represents a notable achievement in the development of Marxist social science and political thought.

Carl Schmitt's thought serves as a warning against the dangers of complacency entailed by triumphant liberalism. His conception of politics is a challenge to those who believe that there is a third way between the left and right and that the increasing moralisation of political discourse constitutes an advance for democracy.

In the wide ranging arguments about the fundamental tenets of Marxism nothing has had greater political significance than the theoretical questioning of the central role assigned to class struggle in the process of social transformation.The Politics of Production demonstrates, brilliantly, the pivotal importance of working class struggles through a rejection of both economistic conceptions of class and notions of the working class as innately revolutionary. This opens the way for an investigation of the political conditions in production that shape the character of working class action. Burawoy theorizes political regimes within production and the way they relate to state politics and then uses this framework to make a comparative analysis of factory regimes under capitalism and socialism.

Focusing on Marx's private life as well as his public persona and work, this classic biography looks in detail at his relationship with his family, his early life and writings, and his intellectual development and political activity.

Reviewing the large, disparate, and often contradictory western discourse on gender and sexuality of the Other.

Considers Leon Trotsky's achievements both as a revolutionary and as a writer on politics, history, literature and philosophy. The book argues that Trotsky repeatedly produced convincing alternatives to the catastrophes of capitalism, Stalinism and fascism.

This defense of the concept of bourgeois revolution reasserts the importance of basic historical materialist precepts to an understanding of the rise of European capitalism. In a wide-ranging analysis of British, French and German history—from feudalism to the system of rival capitalist states that was consolidated in the second half of the nineteenth century—Colin Mooers challenges both Marxist and non-Marxist revisionist interpretations of European history. He argues for an alternative conception of capitalist transition and bourgeois revolution which distinguishes between the conscious aims of social classes and the consequences of their actions for the long-term development of capitalism.Situating the continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the wider context of capitalism’s ¿combined and uneven development,¿ the author shows how late-developing capitalist states like France and Germany were able to surpass British capitalism towards the end of the nineteenth century. The book concludes with a powerful critique of normative conceptions of bourgeois revolution which mistakenly counterpose the backwardness of English development to the supposedly more advanced bourgeois revolutions of the continent.

With racial justice struggles on the rise, a probing collection considers the past and future of Black radicalism

A radical anti-capitalist alternative to Eurozone austerity On the 25th January 2015 the Greek people voted in an election of historic importancenot just for Greece but potentially all of Europe. The radical party Syriza was elected and austerity and the neoliberal agenda is being challenged. Suddenly it seems as if there is an alternative. But what? The Eurozone is in a deep and prolonged crisis. It is now clear that monetary union is a historic failure, beyond repairand certainly not in the interests of Europe's working people. Building on the economic analysis of two of Europe's leading thinkers, Heiner Flassbeck and Costas Lapavitsas (a candidate standing for election on Syriza's list), Against the Troika is the first book to propose a strategic left-wing plan for how peripheral countries could exit the euro. With a change in government in Greece, and looming political transformations in countries such as Spain, this major intervention lays out a radical, anti-capitalist programme at a critical juncture for Europe. The final three chapters offer a detailed postmortem of the Greek catastrophe, explain what can be learned from itand provide a possible alternative. Against the Troika is a practical blueprint for real change in a continent wracked by crisis and austerity.

The Belgrade Circle was established as an intellectual forum to promote the establishment of a free, open, democratic and rational civil society around the world. This volume sets out to describe the political and philosophical underpinnings to the idea of human rights by bringing together a collection of original essays.

Addresses the challenges posed by a globally integrated economy and the economic roles played by information and motivation. The text argues for an egalitarian redistribution of assets - land, capital and housing - and the beneficial disciplining effects of competition.

This book which combines the methods and results of both Freud and Marx is by one of the leaders of the West German student left during its most militant phase in the late 1960s. For reasons the author makes clear, the anti-authoritarian movement took more thorough¬going and trenchant forms in West Germany than anywhere else. A new sexual morality was not only preached but practised.Is it possible, however – the author asks – that this new emphasis on sexual enlight¬enment and liberty can become merely a characteristic of Western capitalism, which serves to activate the market economy, deflect rebellion, and hence contribute to the preservation of the system? In answering this question Reiche explains and develops Marcuse’s widely misunderstood concept of ‘repressive desublimation’. He exposes the artificial and illusory nature of many attempts – in Germany and elsewhere – at ‘sexual liberation’, and shows why it is impossible to overcome sexual oppression and mystification in our society in isolation from the political struggle.