What Are You Reading? IV

[x359594]

Let us continue anew...

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Camus' The Rebel, which I've only just started. I'm also casually reading through a textbook on philosophy. If anyone can recommend other good introductions to philosophy and philosophers, it would be appreciated.

[Le Socialiste]

Close to finishing "Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice" by Rudolf Rocker...then it's on to "China's Economy and the Maoist Strategy" by Gurley.

[bcbm]

"on blue's waters" by gene wolfe

recently finished "snow crash" by some guy and also a book about darby crash and the germs, finished up the "song of ice and fire" books before that

[Per Levy]

"nikolai bukharin - abc of communism" - interesting read so far.

also a short story collection of algernon blackwood, good stories really good creepy atmosphere, just what i like about horror stories, just his stories tend to end really abruptly.

classstruggle and resistance in africa - also a good book.

sometimes i reread some stories from lovecraft just for fun.

[graymouser]

Currently on Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. I'm about 110 pages in, and it's stomach-turning stuff, and makes the case that the drug war has essentially created a racial caste system not dissimilar from old Jim Crow. Should be read widely.

In terms of reading that isn't directly political, I recently finished George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones and have moved on to A Clash of Kings. It's solid political fantasy, very good and heady stuff. The last sustained fantasy reading I did was the Wheel of Time series, but after 5 1/2 books, I realized I couldn't sit there reading this crap.

[Public Domain]

'The Character of Class Struggle', a book on Canadian class struggle from 1850 to 1985. It's a collection of essays.

Found it in Value Village for $4 yesterday. I just started it, I hope it's good.

[-marx-]

Yesterday I read "Pyongyang - A Journey in North Korea" By Guy Delisle.
It's written in the form of a newspaper type comic strip. Its a brilliant insight into what it's like to visit the DPRK....very totalitarian, Grey, bland, fake-orchestrated, expensive and just a bloody horrible, albeit interesting, place.
A very interesting read.

I got it online in PDF so if anyone is interested PM me and I'll upload it for you.
:D

[Niall]

Guerilla Warfare

[Revmind84]

Walter Rodney's "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa".

[TheLeftStar]

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

[Hit The North]

William Blum's 'Rogue State', documenting the disgusting nature of US imperialism.

[graymouser]

William Blum's 'Rogue State', documenting the disgusting nature of US imperialism.
Bill's a great guy, he's more or less a Trot although his main activity is putting forward the anti-empire report. I was introduced to him after my first protest. Rogue State and Killing Hope are both must-reads. It's a shame he didn't have time to do another book when Osama bin Laden mentioned Rogue State in a message he put out about 5 years ago.

[RedZezz]

The Mass Strike - Rosa Luxemburg

[graymouser]

Just finished The New Jim Crow. It makes a very strong case, although Alexander doesn't call for the end of capitalism or anything she comes to a very strong position against gradualism and partial moves, and for the total end of the War on Drugs. It's an important book and should be read because it makes the complete case, that it's not just some individual racists or what have you, but a system that is inevitably racist.

Moving on to a short collection by Lenin that I picked up a while back, Letters on Tactics. It's a number of writings from 1917.

[Madvillainy]

hungary '56 by andy anderson, pretty good so far. just ordered strike! - jeremy brecher as well.

[Android]

hungary '56 by andy anderson, pretty good so far. just ordered strike! - jeremy brecher as well.

By all accounts Strike is meant to be a classic.

You probably know this if you have read any of the various threads on libcom.org that touch on this but the earlier and especially the original version is a lot better politically then the current edition.

Jeremy Brecher was a member of the council communist group Root & Branch in the 70s when the original version was published. He is now part of the ParEcon current around Albert and Co.

The difference in the content between original / earlier and the latest edition is that the council communist influenced stuff on autonomous class struggle in the conclusion is gone and I think I remember someone saying that his critique of the unions was watered down as well.

[HEAD ICE]

Bill's a great guy, he's more or less a Trot although his main activity is putting forward the anti-empire report. I was introduced to him after my first protest. Rogue State and Killing Hope are both must-reads. It's a shame he didn't have time to do another book when Osama bin Laden mentioned Rogue State in a message he put out about 5 years ago.

Killing Hope is a great book and I highly recommend it, but some of what he writes in his anti-Empire report makes my eyes shifty a little bit, especially his fascination with the Israel lobby.

[Madvillainy]

By all accounts Strike is meant to be a classic.

You probably know this if you have read any of the various threads on libcom.org that touch on this but the earlier and especially the original version is a lot better politically then the current edition.

Jeremy Brecher was a member of the council communist group Root & Branch in the 70s when the original version was published. He is now part of the ParEcon current around Albert and Co.

The difference in the content between original / earlier and the latest edition is that the council communist influenced stuff on autonomous class struggle in the conclusion is gone and I think I remember someone saying that his critique of the unions was watered down as well.

damn i bought the updated version.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You Are Going To Prison by Jim Hogshire

I read a fair deal of this kind of on a whim, mostly because I'm interested in different cultures, and prison to most is definitely an alien culture, although I've known a good number of people who've served significant amounts of time there. It's kind of an interesting book...it kind of positions itself as a "how to" guide to navigating the legal system and surviving jail, although this really isn't accurate, as 1) all jails and legal scenarios are different in their own ways, and 2) the book mostly is just a bunch of horror stories regarding the legal system and prison, combined with a coal-black sense of humor. I don't know much about the author, but rumors are that the name "Jim Hogshire" was just used as a pseudonym for a group of actual inmates who worked on the book, which would certainly explain the hatred for law enforcement expressed in the book.

The descriptions in the book are pretty graphic and disturbing, but it doesn't sugercoat anything. America has one of the worst prison systems in the developed world, and I don't think it's changed that much since the mid-90's, when the book was written. And when you stand for the overthrow of existing power relationships, as all people on this site do, chances are you'll probably see the inside of a prison cell at least once. Especially if left-wing ideas are seen as being a threat to power again.

[Os Cangaceiros]

damn i bought the updated version.

The accounts in it are really good, regardless. A lot of history that's unfortunately been lost in the collective memory, including some incredible stories about the general strike in 1877 that almost broke into open war & had to be crushed by the US Army, and a general strike in Minneapolis-St. Paul that featured a battle between some 30,000 workers and thousands of cops (the workers won).

[Die Rote Fahne]

Leninism or Marxism? and the Russian Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Just Finished: "Gaza in Crisis" - Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappe

Currently Reading: "First as Tragedy, Then a Farce" - Slavoj Zizek

Next Up: "Roots of Revolution: A History of Populist and Socialist Movements in 19th Century Russia" - Franco Venturi (as thick as Capital vol 1, found it at Half-Price Books for only 7 bucks!)

[Old Mole]

Books for burning by Antonio Negri

[-marx-]

Next (just bought it): V.I.Lenin - Selected Works in 12 Volumes. :D

[charley63]

I don't own the kindle hardware, but use the app on my pc and smartphone.

Essential Marcuse ed. by Feenberg
Remembering Tomorrow by Michael Albert
Where We Stand by bell hooks
Cosmonaut Keep by Ken Macleod
Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor

[Sixiang]

I just finished The Condition of the Working Class in England, by Friedrich Engels. Next up is What is to be Done?, by V.I. Lenin.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I decided to skip the epic book I had mentioned in my previous post and read something lighter: "Homage to Catalonia" by Orwell. I just about lost it when he mentioned the communists yelling about buttered toast.

[Smyg]

Currently reading Anthony Beevor's book on the Spanish civil war and Parliament of the street about Swedish political extremism.

[graymouser]

My focus is kind of shot right now, so I'm sort of meandering through a couple of books. I've been reading Griftopia by Matt Taibbi, Victor Serge's From Lenin to Stalin, and going slowly back through vol 1 of Capital.

[Tommy4ever]

I'm now about half way throug Volume 1 of Capital having started reading it around the start of the month.

I just have to say, I am quite stunned at how relevant so much of it feels. Taking into consideration how long ago it was written, how much capitalism has developed and how young capitalism was at the time it is quite amazing.

Great book!

Is it wrong that I rarely read the footnotes though? :blushing:

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Beginning: Everybody Talks About The Weather... We Don't - Ulrike Meinhof

The majority of the analysis of the RAF seems rather Liberal in outlook in this book especially a sort of prejudice towards Baader in its analysis.

[Sixiang]

Finished What is to be Done? yesterday. Now I'm on to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Oh, and Capital Volume III arrived in the mail yesterday. I ordered that sucker online and rejoiced when it came. Volume II is on its way now.


I'm now about half way throug Volume 1 of Capital having started reading it around the start of the month.

I just have to say, I am quite stunned at how relevant so much of it feels. Taking into consideration how long ago it was written, how much capitalism has developed and how young capitalism was at the time it is quite amazing.

Great book!

Is it wrong that I rarely read the footnotes though? :blushing:
I find myself constantly thinking how relevant Marx's economic works are when I read them. That's because they are still relevant. Especially if you're a capitalist nation like America, as I am. I always "read" the footnotes, but if they don't contain some information I'm interested in, I just gloss over them. If it's just a citation, I just glance over it.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I thought about reading some Ayn Rand, but I'd like to keep my blood pressure down...

[Sixiang]

Finished Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. I'm on a Lenin kick at the moment. Next up is The State. Not to be confused with the famous The State and Revolution. This one that I am reading is a lecture Lenin gave in 1919 at a university on the state.

[Ele'ill]

Reading R.R. Martin's third book in the 'Ice and Fire' series, 'A Storm Of Swords'

[Red Commissar]

I was given a copy of Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here" by a friend and am currently reading it now. Have not gotten far though, just the first chapter. Still, interesting premise, considering the political climate at the time- though a populist strongman ranting about socialists, welfare, taxes, "big business", and so on still has some presence these days.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I got stoned last night and started to read "The Gay Science", by Nietzsche. It had sat on my shelf for a while, but was never read. Until last night.

I was actually really impressed. I like Nietzsche as a writer. I think that some of his ideas are b.s. obviously (especially his whole bit about "nobility"), but I think that he's still a rather compelling intellectual figure, IMO.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I just finished Homage to Catalonia. I think I'm gonna thumb through some sections/chapters of Black Flame (love the book) while I wait for a few books/pamphlets in the mails I'm planning on ordering/reading:

- "Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 20th century" - Vadim Damier
- "Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism" - G.P. Maximoff
- "The Essential Rosa Luxemburg"

I've read 7 books the last 3 weeks, so I should probably buy more than that (I have a huge list, but money is a factor)

[Die Rote Fahne]

Taking a break from my political readings. Just finishing up "The National Question" and moving on to a novel.

Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. Starting with, of course, book 1 The Gunslinger.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Black Flame was a good one. It influenced me quite a bit when I first read it.

Who the hell knows when Global Fire will come out.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

It'll never come out. AK is teasing us. They manage to put out a good amount, but they say they often put good stuff on the back-burner due to limited funds.
It's that great of a book that whenever I have something on my mind, I look up a certain topic or person, or just thumb through it. It influenced me greatly as well.

[Rusty Shackleford]

im hung up on 2 books and right now i dont want to do anything but read short and to the point articles on theory and organization.

well, Stalin is a fucking EXCELLENT source for that.

3 cheers for stalin!

just the stuff i was looking for. and to think, all this time i had an aversion to reading stalin because of pointless shit on Revleft about stalinism. sure, i always held him in pretty good regard but i had no real basis of criticism. just second hand crap about the 30s.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1905/01/01.htm

http://gurdjieffbooks.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/stalin_exile_1915.gif

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Beginning: The Collected Works of V. I Lenin; The Development of Capitalism in Russia.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Development of Capitalism in Russia is too specific to Russia, i would suggest starting with Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

[Sixiang]

Finished The State today. Next up is Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.

[tbasherizer]

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. It's essentially a liberal-bourgeois confirmation of historical materialism. I would highly reccomend it, as it's essentially an intellectual antifa beat-down as well as a subliminal nod to Marx.

[x359594]

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. It's essentially a liberal-bourgeois confirmation of historical materialism...

That's a good way to describe this book. Diamond does a very good job of countering the strain of imperialist ideology that claims the inherent inferiority of the peoples subjugated by the capitalist West; that's its most useful aspect.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Delhi: A Novel by Shushwant Singh.

And have just started Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung vol. I:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/index.htm

[Le Socialiste]

"Ward No. 6 and Other Stories" by Anton Chekhov. Really loving it so far.

[-marx-]

Delhi: A Novel by Shushwant Singh.

And have just started Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung vol. I:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/index.htm

Do you know about this site? You can download all his selected works in PDF.

http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html

[Tommy4ever]

I just finished Capital Volume 1. :)

I'm now going to take a break from Marx and read Paul Frolich's Biography of Rosa Luxemburg.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Do you know about this site? You can download all his selected works in PDF.

http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html

No, I did not, many thanks comrade. :)

[Minima]

Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Piercing the human psyche deeper then Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents, and a scathing critique of capitalism and other vices of humanity to boot, while being perfectly accessible to a five year old.

[the Leftâ„¢]

The Very Best Men. Its a book about the nascent years of the CIA and the unique circumstances around its creation/leadership. Very interesting. I highly recommend it

[-marx-]

No, I did not, many thanks comrade. :)
Glad to help! :cool:

[Rudi]

Currently really enjoying The idea of communism and Lenin reloaded: Awesome essays in both!

I'm also reading Socialist planning by Michael Ellman and Mouther courage and her children by Brecht

Has anyone here read anything by Nordahl Grieg? He was a norwegian communist and writer.

[Fawkes]

Just finished The Wall and The Room by Sartre, both really awesome. Currently reading Les Chants de Maldoror

[Decolonize The Left]

I'm reading Journey to the End of the Night by Celine, and What is the What by Eggers.

[Rudi]

Just finished The Wall and The Room by Sartre, both really awesome. Currently reading Les Chants de Maldoror

I would definetly recommend the next two short stories: Herostratus and Intimacy; the latter expresses Sartrean philosophical concepts brilliantly.

[~Spectre]

V for Vendetta - Alan Moore.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Soviet Administrative Law: Theory and Policy (http://books.google.ca/books?id=TT4jrxORoXIC) by George Ginsburgs, Gianmaria Ajani, and Gerard Pieter van den Berg

[Tommy4ever]

Just finished Paul Frolich's biography of Rosa Luxemburg.

Great book! Mostly focusses on Rosa's ideas rather than the events in her life (although the section on the German Revolution is fantastic!). Perhaps a little too much hero worship from author blights the book a bit.

But it gave me a much better grip of Luxemburg's ideas. Turns out I'm even more closely aligned with her ideologically than I had previously thought. Shame there are essentially no modern day organisations that follow her thoughts closely. :/

After a hard decision of what to move onto next (I kinda want to go read a selection of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks I bought) I've decided to read a book I have of Peter Kropotkin's writings ''Anarchism: a Collection of Revolutionary Writings''.

Onwards with the Anarchism! :D

[AmericanCommie421]

Im working on The Rise And Fall OF Communism by Archie Brown

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Just finished Paul Frolich's biography of Rosa Luxemburg.

Great book! Mostly focusses on Rosa's ideas rather than the events in her life (although the section on the German Revolution is fantastic!). Perhaps a little too much hero worship from author blights the book a bit.

But it gave me a much better grip of Luxemburg's ideas. Turns out I'm even more closely aligned with her ideologically than I had previously thought. Shame there are essentially no modern day organisations that follow her thoughts closely. :/

After a hard decision of what to move onto next (I kinda want to go read a selection of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks I bought) I've decided to read a book I have of Peter Kropotkin's writings ''Anarchism: a Collection of Revolutionary Writings''.

Onwards with the Anarchism! :D
Yes, that book was good. I'm planning on reading some of her work (The Mass Strike, Reform or Revolution, etc.) sometime this year. I've heard reading The Accumulation of Capital is difficult to grasp unless you understood Capital well :( (or even bothered to read it, lol)

Kropotkin is good. I re-familiarized myself with a few of his books recently. I've been meaning to order the book you mentioned, I've only bothered with The Conquest of Bread, Fields Factories and Workshops, and Mututal Aid.

[Sixiang]

I finished "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder today. Next up is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. It's a summer reading assignment for school. Honestly, after reading nothing but Marx, Engels, and Lenin for the past 3 months, I'm ready for a nonpolitical easy read novel I can blow through and not have to take tons of notes on. And it sounds like an interesting story.

[Magón]

Jackpot: High Times, High Seas, and the Sting That Launched the War on Drugs by Jason Ryans. It's pretty good so far. I never really knew much about the early days of drug smuggling, back when it was Weed, not Cocaine, and this book gives a pretty nice picture of it.

[Hebrew Hammer]

The Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory by Trent Schroyer.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Manifeste de l'Anarchie by Anselme Bellegarrigue. It's interesting, but as you can see it's in french so I don't understand everything, though.

Just finished On the Road and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The latter was written almost childishly at first glance, but it was actually quite good. Kerouac's book is of course a masterpiece. I now have a few Cormac McCarthy-books waiting for me; The Border Trilogy and The Blood Meridian.

[x359594]

...Kerouac's book [On the Road] is of course a masterpiece...

It's superseded by the unexpurgated On the Road: the Original Scroll published in 2007. In addition to restored passages, the "Scroll" is stylistically innovative in a way that the 1957 version isn't; Kerouac was forced to shorten long sentences into shorter ones so that the rhythm of the prose didn't flow like the road the way he wanted it to.

[Tommy4ever]

Just finished ''Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings'' which is a selection of short works by Kropotkin (the longest is just 50 pages).

I did really enjoy it. I found Kropotkin easy and pleasant to read and not so difficult to understand - quite a contrast with reading something like Capital which can often be quite difficult to read. I'm not sure if this was due to the translation, Kropotkin's style, or, most likely, the short length of the pieces.

I thought the pamphlet called ''Anarchist Morality'' was brilliant, by far the most useful thing in the book - it contained important ideas for all communists.

The passages dealing with the central ideas of Anarchist-Communism were very informative and I liked the way in which he brought ideas from his scientific background into the study of human society.

That all said, I think Kropotkin does come off very idealistic at times. He makes too many assumptions about people for my taste and has too much confidence in spontaneous organisation and people's inate goodness. His criticisms of prisons were all very valid, yet he failed to come up with a good alternative to dealing with violent crime that would occur even with improved social conditions. He just sort of danced around the issue, claiming it would be lessened by failing to give an idea about how to deal with even these smaller number of cases.

I've not been converted to Anarchism, although I now have greater sympathies for it.

I'm now going to read ''Selection from the Prison Notebooks'' by Gramsci. :D

[-marx-]

Just got a bunch of books (got 'em cheap..secondhand originals) and now I have a long read ahead of me.
Lenin-Selected Works, 12 Volumes.
Stalin-Works, 13 Volumes.

:lol:

[TheGodlessUtopian]

In terms of reading that isn't directly political, I recently finished George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones and have moved on to A Clash of Kings. It's solid political fantasy, very good and heady stuff. The last sustained fantasy reading I did was the Wheel of Time series, but after 5 1/2 books, I realized I couldn't sit there reading this crap.

What was wrong with the Wheel of Time books? I have them but have yet to get to reading them.I have heard some sexist things concerning the author's style of magic use among his characters, but I wouldn't imagine that this would be the cause for quitting after 5 1/2 books.Repugnant yes, but I would be interested in knowing the end.
__________________________________________________ _________

My reading list:

Das Kapital by Karl Marx: Using the online video series by David Harvey along with the companion book. I have to say, it's been a headache and a half and I'm barely on the second chapter.

The Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams: Very good book so far. It's the second in his Memory,Sorrow,and Thorn trilogy and while rather plodding and slow, it is solid high fantasy/adventure.

[DiaMat86]

"Khrushchev Lied" by Grover Furr

Erythros Press 2011

[Red Phalanx]

Class in the Classless Society by Warren Briartash
The Origins of the Friekorps by Glade Hall
Alger Hiss, Hero of the Red Star by Ivalo Maxan

[Zukunftsmusik]

It's superseded by the unexpurgated On the Road: the Original Scroll published in 2007. In addition to restored passages, the "Scroll" is stylistically innovative in a way that the 1957 version isn't; Kerouac was forced to shorten long sentences into shorter ones so that the rhythm of the prose didn't flow like the road the way he wanted it to.

Yes, I've read about that. As far as I know, it's called the Original Scroll because Kerouac taped together several pieces of paper into a scroll, so that he could just continue writing and didn't have to stop for putting a new paper into the typewriter. He felt that he could let the words flow, literally, this way. I guess I'll have to check out that version some time.

[tbasherizer]

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. I also just finished The Selfish Gene before my Britain trip. They're good books for, if anything, brushing up on my biology and getting new arguments against creationists.

[Commie73]

Currently reading:

Lenin as Philosopher by Anton Pannekoek.
Knowledge and Class a Marxian Critique of Political Economy by Resnick and Wolff.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Not long ago, I finished Kanikosen, or The Crab Canning Ship, by Takiji Kobayashi. I recommend it. Not only does it explain the alienation of the workers both simply and well, it's also quite a good read, and there's something more to it than just a 'school book' for communists. At least I enjoyed it a lot.

[Sixiang]

I finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks today. It was a fascinating read.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Yom Kippur A Go-Go by Matthue Roth.

[Tommy4ever]

Just started reading ''Black Flame''. The book comes highly rated by anarchists here on revleft, looking forward to it. :)

[coda]

"In Retrospect: the Tragedies and lessons of Vietnam " by Robert S. McNamara; former secretary of defense Kennedy and Johnson administrations, first 7 years of Vietnam War.

And

"Argument without End: In search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy." by Robert McNamara, et al

(transcript of discussions of six meetings held between 1995-1998 with former US administrators during Vietnam war, past and present Vietnamese leaders and scholars)

both I highly recommend, especially the latter..

[SHORAS]

About to start Origins of Christianity by Kautsky.

[Sixiang]

Just finished Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., by J.V. Stalin. A good short read. Sort of a refresher on some Marxist economic concepts that I already knew. And had some interesting information on the peasantry and agricultural collectivization policy in the USSR. I'm a bit of a noob on Soviet Union history. I'm just getting into it so it's new to me.

[La Comédie Noire]

Das kapital (Second time reading it all the way through) and The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould.

[HEAD ICE]

can anyone recommend a modern history of the middle east?

[MarxSchmarx]

can anyone recommend a modern history of the middle east?

Looming Towers by Lawrence Wright. More 9/11 and Afghanistan than mid-east but it's worth your time.

[Old Mole]

Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. Quite interesting book...

[Cork Socialist]

Ernest Mandel- An introduction to Marxist Economic Theory :D

[OhYesIdid]

Ten Days that Shook the World.
Shocking, I know.

[-marx-]

Still reading Lenin's "Selected Works", 12 volumes, this will take some time. :D
But I got hold of a nice 1st edition of Orwell's "1984" recently and I have been casually reading that, for the first time. I'm glad I have seen the two films prior to reading it as it gives it a familiarity not usually found in reading a new book, it's interesting.

[Mettalian]

Re-re-reading the ASOIAF series in anticipation for A Dance With Dragons. And I've got The Enigma of Capital And The Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey up after that.

[Vendetta]

Hayduke Lives!

Because that and The Monkeywrench Gang are probably the only 2 books to ever get me to care about the environment.

[miltonwasfried...man]

No Gods, No Masters - Daniel Guerin

[The Young Pioneer]

Marx and Engels Collected Works Volume I

French Grammar by Andre Beziat

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Should be titled, "The Unbearable Torture of Reading This Book")

Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipović (for about the fifth time)

and

Duddington's Intermediate Russian Reader

[Aurorus Ruber]

Working my way slowly through Capital, still struggling with those first three chapters.

[∞]

Everyone Poops by Minna Unchi, pretty remarkable read.

[∞]

One book I'm glad I got around reading was QED by Richard Feynman. It was never pretentious or condescending, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in particle-physics.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I decided to reread "Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa"
Need to reacquaint myself with that area of that world.

[Sixiang]

I finished Five Essays on Philosophy, by Mao Tse-Tung today. There's some really interesting stuff on dialectical materialism in there that I didn't think about before.

[-marx-]

That was one of the first little books by Mao I ever got. You should go onto his "Selected Works", 5 volumes now. :)
I have almost everything Mao ever had published.:D

[Metacomet]

I just finished
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I enjoyed it. I am going to start the second book in series ASAP.

[Tommy4ever]

I just finished ''Black Flame'' its a really, really great book. My political views haven't been quite so influenced by a single book probably since I read the Communist Manifesto itself. I still don't think of myself as an Anarchist, but I feel I've moved in that direction.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Reading:

Ho Chi Minh's Collected Works (Re-Reading)
Thomas Sankara Speaks (Re-Reading)
Mad Bomber Melville

[OhYesIdid]

Rabindranath Tagore's The New Moon, The King's Postman and Selected Short Stories collected in a book with the same names

[Sixiang]

That was one of the first little books by Mao I ever got. You should go onto his "Selected Works", 5 volumes now. :)
I have almost everything Mao ever had published.:D

I would like to get the selected works if I can ever find them all in one piece for cheap. I also just finished On Protracted War today.

[∞]

A Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Its basically about how we try to blame things an make patterns of particular occurrences, but in actuality nature is so intricate we cannot foresee it. Essentially making it almost completely random. Its a great read and written practically without annoying amounts of jargon.

[Tommy4ever]

Just about to embark on Capital Volume 2.

Bring on the Marx!

[-marx-]

I would like to get the selected works if I can ever find them all in one piece for cheap. I also just finished On Protracted War today.

One thing about buying all the little books by Mao is that you will find they are all in the Selected works. So, it's best to just buy the selected works in the beginning and not double up and you'll also save money. I done it backwards though.:rolleyes:

A 4 volume set (the 5th volume didn't come out till much later and you can buy it separately) will fetch around $100, that is hardcover, dust jackets and slip cases. There's a set on ebay right now IIRC. This is about what I payed for all 5 volumes of mine (and seems to be average for the four but you can find them as low as $40) and mine are in mint condition, never been read by the look of them.

You can D/L them for free from here in the meantime:LINK. (http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html)


Also "selected readings" is another good book to get.

:D

[Sixiang]

One thing about buying all the little books by Mao is that you will find they are all in the Selected works. So, it's best to just buy the selected works in the beginning and not double up and you'll also save money. I done it backwards though.:rolleyes:

A 4 volume set (the 5th volume didn't come out till much later and you can buy it separately) will fetch around $100, that is hardcover, dust jackets and slip cases. There's a set on ebay right now IIRC. This is about what I payed for all 5 volumes of mine (and seems to be average for the four but you can find them as low as $40) and mine are in mint condition, never been read by the look of them.

You can D/L them for free from here in the meantime:LINK. (http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html)


Also "selected readings" is another good book to get.

:D
I know, I just have already bought a few of his works when I was at one of the RCP's book stores a few months ago (I have just finally reached Mao after months of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin). I snatched up a bunch of copies from the 60's and earlier of stuff by Lenin and Mao. I guess I'm kind of an amateur book collector. If I happen to come across older copies of books by writers I like, I'll jump on them even if I already have copies or whatever. First editions are exciting. Anything from the 30's and 40's is cool to find in my opinion.

[-marx-]

HAHA, same here, I'm a bibliophile on the verge of bibliomania! Love the smell of old books...I rarely buy new books, unless its not available in an edition from the 20's-60's then I will.:thumbup1:

[Mr. Cervantes]

The Twilight of Capitalism

by Michael Harrington

[Le Socialiste]

Just began "Nestor Makhno, Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921", by Alexandre Skirda.

[x359594]

For Workers' Power by Maurice Brinton, edited by David Goodway. The book is a collection of articles that were issued as pamphlets by Solidarity over the years as well as the complete texts of The Irrational in Politics and The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control. Brinton writes from the perspective of a council communist/libertarian socialist.

[∞]

Just began "Nestor Makhno, Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921", by Alexandre Skirda.

That title bothers me, considering how many cossacks are Nazi sympathizers.

[Tommy4ever]

That title bothers me, considering how many cossacks are Nazi sympathizers.

:p

I'm pretty sure its in reference to the Cossack military heritage.

As I believe you are noting the Cossacks have a history of being politically linked to the right. They were a close ally of the Tsarist government and for many years its crack troops, as well as being vital for the colonisation eastward. Then they largely fought on the side of the Whites in the Civil War. During Soviet rule they subsiquently faced quite some oppression (in large part due to their constant fighting against the Soviet state) and were thus quite pleased when some army came along that was fighting that state and many joined the Nazis.

I'm almost certain it is the first rather than the second part the title is refering to. :p

[Red Commissar]

I was given a copy of Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here" by a friend and am currently reading it now. Have not gotten far though, just the first chapter. Still, interesting premise, considering the political climate at the time- though a populist strongman ranting about socialists, welfare, taxes, "big business", and so on still has some presence these days.

Finished this novel. I found a lot of the way Sinclair rooted the book in the political climate of the 1930s interesting- in particular he even mentions the fighting between the CPUSA and SPUSA, and the factional fights within. Quite amusing.

[Blake's Baby]

'Q' by Luther Blisset. Reminds me I really should get round to readin 'The Peasant War in Germany' and some general histories - shockingly ill-informed as to the period, even if I did study it 25 years ago.

[Sixiang]

I finished On New Democracy, by Mao Tse-Tung today. Truly a stimulating read for me.

[Tommy4ever]

I tend to hold a very negative view of Maoism - strongly reinforced by users who refer to themselves as Maoists here on revleft. :p But I'm now going to read a copy of the Little Red Book that my brother brought me back from China. Give the ideology a fair hearing. I'm sure there are some aspects of Maoist thought that will be positive. :)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Have put Capital temporarily aside and have in its place started reading Grudrisse.

[Johnny Kerosene]

I just finished Freakonomics. It was interesting.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

http://www.versobooks.com/system/images/1145/original/An-Unfinished-Revolution-frontcover.jpg
I'm really excited to read this.

Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters at the end of the Civil War. Although they were divided by far more than the Atlantic Ocean, they agreed on the cause of “free labor” and the urgent need to end slavery. In his introduction, Robin Blackburn argues that Lincoln’s response signaled the importance of the German American community and the role of the international communists in opposing European recognition of the Confederacy.

The ideals of communism, voiced through the International Working Men’s Association, attracted many thousands of supporters throughout the US, and helped spread the demand for an eight-hour day. Blackburn shows how the IWA in America—born out of the Civil War—sought to radicalize Lincoln’s unfinished revolution and to advance the rights of labor, uniting black and white, men and women, native and foreign-born. The International contributed to a profound critique of the capitalist robber barons who enriched themselves during and after the war, and it inspired an extraordinary series of strikes and class struggles in the postwar decades.

In addition to a range of key texts and letters by both Lincoln and Marx, this book includes articles from the radical New York-based journal Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, an extract from Thomas Fortune’s classic work on racism Black and White, Frederick Engels on the progress of US labor in the 1880s, and Lucy Parson’s speech at the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World.

[Red Commissar]

I am nearly finished with Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Nice read, I like the style.

[scarletghoul]

Almost finished Lacan's Ecrits. About a third of the way through Hegel's Encylcopedia. Yeah,, deep end of the dialectical swimming pool, it's awesome.

[∞]

I'm really excited to read this.

Holy fuck thats amazing.

[bcbm]

reading "the zanzibar chest" by aidan hartley and the "unknown soldier" "preacher" and "the killer" graphic novel series

[Nikolay]

Starting the Grundrisse soon as I get copy, and then will read it with a study group. After that I will read The State and Revolution - V.I. Lenin, thereafter I will read Capital V. 1, 2 & 3. :thumbup1:

[ColonelCossack]

reminiscences of the cuban revolutionary war... by che guevara...

[∞]

http://www.ebooksdownloadfree.com/ups/162/40451.jpg


Elementary particle physics has made enormous progress in the past 50 years. Protons and mesons are no longer considered as the most elementary of particles; the quark has taken their place. Furthermore, there is the possibility of unifying the various forces of nature previously thought to be unrelated. More astonishingly still, the history of the universe itself, the largest conceivable object, has become intertwined with the problems affecting the smallest constituents of matter.
This book explains in a precise and complete manner how elementary particle physics has evolved over the past 50 years into what it is today.
Prof. Nambu traces the historical development of the ideas that have shaped our thinking about the ultimate constituents of matter.
Prof. Nambu has been associated with some of the origanators of elementary particle theory and has, himself, made significant contributions to the field.
In many parts of the book he gives a rust-person description of some of the main developments leading to our present view of the universe.

[Tommy4ever]

Well, I finally finish Capital Volume 2. It was not a process I enjoyed in the least. I definately read it way too fast and this contributed to very little of it sinking into my mind. By the end it was an utter slog, I'm now quite glad to be done with it. It is much harder to read than Volume 1 and I got considerably more out of the first Volume (that said, I read Volume 1 at a much more leisurely pace).

I also finished the Little Red Book a couple days ago. Some interesting ideas and even quite a few that I agreed with. It was rather sad to see how totally estranged the current CCP is from the ideas of Mao, and a very large amount of the book warns against the sort of problems that did eventually send the Party on the road to its current capitalist position. I still don't think Maoism is Marxist and my opinion remains negative though. :p

I'm now going to read ''Revolutionaries'' by Eric Hobsbawm. :)

[Ele'ill]

Studs Terkel's 'Working' and Rudolph Rocker's 'Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice'

[Sixiang]

http://www.versobooks.com/system/images/1145/original/An-Unfinished-Revolution-frontcover.jpg
I'm really excited to read this.
I've had my eye on that one myself. It looks very interesting.


I am nearly finished with Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Nice read, I like the style.
Vonnegut is one of my favorite novelists. Might I recommend Cat's Cradle as well? I probably liked that one better than S5.


Well, I finally finish Capital Volume 2. It was not a process I enjoyed in the least. I definately read it way too fast and this contributed to very little of it sinking into my mind. By the end it was an utter slog, I'm now quite glad to be done with it. It is much harder to read than Volume 1 and I got considerably more out of the first Volume (that said, I read Volume 1 at a much more leisurely pace).
That's how I felt about volume 1. I just wanted to be done with that thing. I do regret not reading it more thoroughly, though, and I will read it again some day in a much better fashion. I also have volumes 2 and 3 sitting on my bookshelf.


I also finished the Little Red Book a couple days ago. Some interesting ideas and even quite a few that I agreed with. It was rather sad to see how totally estranged the current CCP is from the ideas of Mao, and a very large amount of the book warns against the sort of problems that did eventually send the Party on the road to its current capitalist position. I still don't think Maoism is Marxist and my opinion remains negative though. :p

I also just finished that book today. I had already read a few of Mao's "essential" works by then and so was already familiar with a fair amount of it. And yes, it is an absolute shame how the CCP diverged so much from Mao's thought and how it fell exactly into the traps that Mao warned of. That is something that you and MLM's hold in common.

I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. I'm either going to get into Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, or one of the other lesser known parts of ML history or I'm going to take a little breather from non-fiction and read some novels, poetry, or dramas.

[Red Commissar]

Vonnegut is one of my favorite novelists. Might I recommend Cat's Cradle as well? I probably liked that one better than S5.

I read Cat's Cradle maybe three months ago and I agree, it's a great one.

[Sixiang]

Anyone here a fan of David Sedaris? I have copies of four of his books and have not read a single word the man has written. I have copies of When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, and Barrel Fever. Does anyone have any recommendations for which one to start with first? I'm looking for a good laugh.

[Tommy4ever]

Finished ''Revolutionaries'' by Hobsbawm earlier today. Some of it was really very good. Shame that is was almost exclusively from the 60s, I would have prefered a more modern view. His talk about the early Communist (with a big C) movement in the 20s was very interesting as were the short histories of the British, French, Italian and German CPs (each was about 20 pages or so).

I've now started ''Villa and Zapata: A Biography of the Mexican Revolution'' - cause not all social revolutions are Marxist. :p

[OhYesIdid]

I'm almost finished with Liam O'Flaherty's Insurrection. Love it.

SUPER IMPORTANT UPDATE: I'm all done.

[Rusiakid]

Just Finished Mein Kampf Really Interesting but really messed up (Dont ask me why)

Now reading

Patriot Games by Tom Clancy

[Volcanicity]

I've just started Eric Hobsbawm's latest book:"How to change the world:Tales of Marx and Marxism"which is basically a collection of essays most of which are previously unpublished.I bought it mainly for the two chapters devoted to Gramsci but I've been impressed with what I've read so far.

I've also begun reading Lenin's: "The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky".As well as re-reading some of the speeches Che Guevara made the two I'm currently on are:"The budgetary finance system" and "Colonialism is doomed"I always enjoy going back to reading Che and consider him extremely underrated as a theorist as well as a writer.

[bcbm]

"blood meridian" by cormac mccarthy

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Malachi Hacohen, Karl Popper. The Formative Years 1902-1945.

Superbly researched, clear, detailed; an excellent resource to understand the political and ideological origins of that reactionary inductivism that passes for "leftist" "philosophy" among certain folks I shall not bother to mention.

[bcbm]

man y'all read some serious books

[Tommy4ever]

Just finished my book about the Mexican Revolution (Viva Zapata!), now moving on to John Reed's famous ''Ten Days That Shook the World''.

[Red Commissar]

Currently reading China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" after it being recommend it to me many times.

[Ilyich]

I am reading Capital, Volume I with Professor David Harvey's A Companion to Marx's Capital.

[Tommy4ever]

Just finished John Reed's ''Ten Days that Shook the World'' - brilliant account of the October Revolution. The strange thing about this book is the fact that last year I studied the Revolution in some decent detail and this book (which is well known in its own right) wasn't so much as mentioned. Odd, considering how invaluable it is for students of that Revolution.

I'm now moving on to the ever praised classic ''The Ragged Trousered Phillanthropists'' which I've been looking forward to for a while. :D

[Zugunruhe]

Currently reading China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" after it being recommend it to me many times.I've heard a lot about that book, I just haven't yet gotten around to it. I need to!

For me: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez: I began reading it for fun, because Márquez is one of my favorite authors, but he does present some interesting commentary on socialism.

[Sixiang]

I just finished reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying, by George Orwell. Even though I hold some quite different views than Orwell, I still regard him as one of my favorite writers and a major reason why I became a socialist. I've read most of his works at this point.

[Prometheus Unbound]

can anyone recommend a modern history of the middle east?
Get A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani and History of the Arabs by Phillip Hitti. Both use primary Arabic sources. These two are probably the best books out there on this topic.

[AnonymousOne]

Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revoluton by Glyn Moody

[TelevisionIncarnate]

Last and the First Men by Olaf Stapledon :)

[Tommy4ever]

Well, I finished ''The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'' by Robert Tressell, and wow! What a magnificant book! I heartily recommend it to anyone and everyone. It may well be able to convert people to the ideas of socialism, as it has famously done for so many thousands in the past.

The worst failings of the book come in the chapter called ''The Great Oration'' in which Tressell unashamedly describes his idea of what socialism means. And it ain't pretty. He basically has the idea that the state should own everything and everything and everyone should be employed by the state, he has a strange idea of a sort of peaceful and gradual social revolution without violence, fails to consider the reaction to such a revolution and has a generally highly idealistic vision. It might be easy for me to sit back with the hindsight of the past century to realise that his idea of socialism is no good, but it does hamper an otherwise great novel.

As a story it is extremely good and sucked me in right away, many of the characters are interesting although a few are rather one sided (the capitalists are definately too similar to dark lords from doom and the socialist characters are too perfect).

As a polemic against capitalism it is again very good, although in many cases the past century has left it slightly dated. Considering how much capitalism has changed during that time it is impressive how relevant its arguments remain.

Its attack on religion, or rather the religious, is very well done if rather harsh (perhaps rightly so). I do think that in a mood of bravado I might use one of the books' arguments: all of those people who call themselves Christians are either ignorant fools or hypocrits and liars, if they have not read the words of Christ but yet claim to follow them they are ignorant fools, if they have read them yet continue to contradict them in their actions then they are hypocrits and liars. :D

Finally, I have to commend Tressell for what is perhaps the central theme of the book - the political absurdities within the working class itself. The manner in which the class acts against its own interests and damns any who question a system that clearly opresses it is more relevant in our world today than in any period since the book's publication. Never have these ideas been more potent.

So bravo to Tressell! And read this book! :star2:

I'm no going on the Hobsbawm's ''Age of Revolutions'', moving back to history books. :cool:

[bcbm]

"planet of slums" by mike davis
"the shadow of the sun" by ryszard kapuscinski

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Holmes, Deborah. "The Feuilleton of the Viennese 'Arbeiter-Zeitung' 1918-1934: Production Parameters and Personality Problems." Austrian Studies v. 14 (2006) p. 99-117. It's about the cultural policies of the Austrian socialists who ran Red Vienna - in particular David Josef Bach, the man who brought Schoenberg and Webern to "the masses."

[Sixiang]

I just finished Coming Up for Air, by George Orwell. It was one of his better fictional works, in my opinion.

[Lenin☭]

At the moment, im reading Mein Kampf. Nonono, i know what youre all thinking now. No, im not a nazi, i just believe in that, you need to know what you hate. Because hating something you dont know what is, is kinda stupid.

[maylocnuocnano]

I just finished L'Amour by Marguerite Duras. This was translated to my mother tongue. maybe I'm too young to understand the book :(

[OhYesIdid]

I just finished "Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man" by some guy.

[Sixiang]

Finished A Collection of Essays, by George Orwell. There was quite a bit of annoying literary criticism and theory which frustrates me for reasons I don't want to get into here. But there were some good ones in there. Definitely makes me certain that he was a social dem and not a communist at all. Though he did see violent uprising as possibly necessary in some circumstances.

[∞]

Exploring Kim Jong Il's rectum

by Tyr Lop

[Tommy4ever]

Exploring Kim Jong Il's rectum

by Tyr Lop


What's it like?

[Zav]

Walden, currently.

[Sensible Socialist]

Almost done with "The Corrections," by Franzen. It's not as good as "Freedom," although I still like it. I've taken a break from non-fiction (after discovering I hadn't read a novel in months, while I'd read dozens of non-fiction). I'll probably move on to "Ecology and Socialism" next, though. Has anyone read it?

[cu247]

I just finished "The stranger" and "The Plague" by Camus and now I'm reading Sartre's "The wall"

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I'll probably move on to "Ecology and Socialism" next, though. Has anyone read it?
REALLY fucking good. Best book on global warming and the environment, and probably one of the most informing books I read in 2010. You won't hear a lot of these facts from Al Gore or others. Seriously, read it.

[bcbm]

the soccer war and shah of shahs by ryszard kapuscinski
a grain of wheat by ngugi wa thiong'o
things fall apart by chinua achebe

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Finished A Collection of Essays, by George Orwell. There was quite a bit of annoying literary criticism and theory which frustrates me for reasons I don't want to get into here. But there were some good ones in there. Definitely makes me certain that he was a social dem and not a communist at all. Though he did see violent uprising as possibly necessary in some circumstances.

I read through most - probably all - of his collected reviews last year. Far more political than the essays and definitely worth your while if you're after his political side. Definitely not a Communist.

[Smyg]

Don't got it yet, but in a day or so I'll be reading Metro 2034. The previous book was orgasmically good, so I'm expecting a lot. :D

[Princess Luna]

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n610/Karmorda/IMG_0638.jpg?t=1312159097

[∞]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41T5t2WN3-L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[AnonymousOne]

What is Property? by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

[Manifesto]

Catcher in the Rye, what a shitty book! Just some spoiled brat complaining about everything for an entire book with no plot might I add! :sneaky::cursing::bored::thumbdown:

[Sixiang]

I just finished My Life, by Fidel Castro and Ignacio Ramonet. It was the longest book I have ever read in my life. Overall immensely fascinating and full of helpful information. It also acted as an ideological test to argue against and for, furthering my ideological footing.

[Tommy4ever]

I finished reading the Marx-Engels Reader today. :marx::engles:

Marxismus! :star2:

[OhYesIdid]

I just finished reading Embassytown, by China Miéville. Loved it.

[North Star]

I just got the Critical Lives Lenin bio by Lars Lih as well as Lih's Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done in Context as well as Lenin's Political Thought by Neil Harding.
I've almost finished the Lenin bio. It's quite amazing and Lih demolishes many myths of both left and right about Lenin. I think it's particularly strong at countering anarchist critiques of the Bolsheviks. That being said with only a few pages to go, Lih hasn't discussed the ban on factions at the Xth Congress. I would have figured he could have shed some more light on the context of it. Given what I've read thus far however, even though it was not clearly stated that this was to be a temporary measure, I think it was or was at least going to last until both the war ended and the economy stabilized. Lih does show that Lenin's decisions to use terror and forcibly take grain were obviously due to the severity of the Bolshevik's position in the Russian Civil War. He also gives us great passages of Lenin arguing against going to far in force and repression as well. So unless I find something else written by Lenin's I don't think of the ban on factions as being some grand goal of "Leninist" despotism.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I ordered some pamphlets from AK's distro and have been waiting for them to arrive. I ordered:

"Syndicalism" - Ford & Foster
"Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism" - G.P. Maximoff
"British Syndicalism" - Tom Brown

Not too keen on the first, because some of Foster's syndicalism was more British and French influenced (see: right-wing, bore from within, etc.), but I've still seen some good gems and classic ideas first placed in this book, so i figured I check it out in full detail.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.

[BE_]

I am currently reading 1984 by George Orwell. I think it is quite a good book. I also finished the diary of Anne Frank and a book called Marx By Peter Singer about a week ago, both were good books. The Marx book is a quite good introduction to Karl Marx. It is very short, but gets to the point on some of his ideas.

[Lunatic Concept]

Just finished the count of monte cristo, great book. Not exactly the most socialist book but good nonetheless.

[RedSonRising]

Just finished "Wobblies & Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism, and Radical History", and am starting "An Unfinished Revolution", which is about Lincoln's political views on slavery and labor relations, how they related to Marx and his opinions on the Civil War, and how the migrant German population (who were widely influenced by Marx's writing) sought to radicalize the anti-slavery movement of the North. Good read so far.

http://www.versobooks.com/system/images/1145/original/An-Unfinished-Revolution-frontcover.jpg

[Metacomet]

Just started

Homage to Catalonia.

[Caj]

If anyone can recommend other good introductions to philosophy and philosophers, it would be appreciated.

I'm currently reading Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy. It's not a bad introduction to philosophy, and it has a lot of history in it. I'm sure most of the people on revleft woudn't appreciate the chapter on Marx though.

[smellincoffee]

About to finish Alistair Horne's Seven Ages of Paris, which is a history of Paris that favors 'enlightened despots' over revolutions and communes. I'm also close to finished Unfamilar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, which isn't as sharply critical of American imperialism as I expected -- possibly because the Hawaiian kings were wretches themselves, and the takeover is something of a Hitler vs. Stalin scenario

[L.A.P.]

I just finished the first chapter of The Republic by Plato, and I like how after reading a whole chapter of Socrates and the guard arguing about justice, Socrates basically says at the end "jk guys, I don't know shit." I just got trolled ancient greek style.:lol:

[x359594]

The Man Who Never Died by Bill Adler, a new biography of Joe Hill. So far very good.

[Sensible Socialist]

Deciding between "American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation" or "Ecology and Socialism."

[deadsmooth]

'Long to Reign? The Survival of Monarchies in the Modern World' by A.W. Purdue, Sutton Publishing, Limited, 2005, U.K.

Useful thumbnail sketches of current monarchies by an English Imperialist.

[socialistjustin]

I am trying to read a few books at a time.

Towards a New Socialism By Paul Cockshott and Allin Contrell

The Age of Extremes by Eric Hobsbawm


The odds of me finishing either is unlikely because I get burnt out pretty quick. I usually skim through areas of interest and skip the rest.

[Sixiang]

Since my last post, I've finished First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, by Slavoj Zizek. It was an interesting, short, easy philosophical read.

[∞]

Didn't finish "Quarks" but left off at a chapter.
These were on sale at the Borders that was closing, 30% off.

http://images.betterworldbooks.com/048/Understanding-Thermodynamics-9780486632773.jpg

http://images.betterworldbooks.com/048/Set-Theory-and-the-Continuum-Problem-9780486474847.jpg

AWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAH

[Os Cangaceiros]

"The Triumph of Conservatism" by Gabriel Kolko

might make a thread about it later. It has a pretty interesting critique of Marxism.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I actually just recently finished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin.

Even though I am not an anarchist I have to say that this was a good read.Just refreshing to read some literature set in a better,more leftist world.

Other than that I am also reading Mass Effect:Retribution by Drew Karpyshyn as well as Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson.Both are entertaining reads.

[Paul Cockshott]

I am reading 'The Man who was Thursday'.

[Paul Cockshott]

Just finished "Wobblies & Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism, and Radical History", and am starting "An Unfinished Revolution", which is about Lincoln's political views on slavery and labor relations, how they related to Marx and his opinions on the Civil War, and how the migrant German population (who were widely influenced by Marx's writing) sought to radicalize the anti-slavery movement of the North. Good read so far.

This was a big theme of Turtledove's novel 'How few Remain'.



http://www.versobooks.com/system/images/1145/original/An-Unfinished-Revolution-frontcover.jpg

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

I'm so fucking pumped for this book, I've waited forever to get it.

Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire by Caroline Finkel.

http://i43.tower.com/images/mm100349799/osmans-dream-history-ottoman-empire-caroline-finkel-paperback-cover-art.jpg

[Tommy4ever]

Just read Frank Jellenik's book about the Paris Commune.

[bietan jarrai]

Starting "The Necessity of Art: a Marxist Approach" by Ernst Fischer.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Currently started reading "Why Marx Was Right" by Terry Eagleton

[pastradamus]

Reading HOTEL K by Kathryn Boniella. Good read!

[TelevisionIncarnate]

The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson

[coda]

Girls like us

[Revolutionary_Change]

I recently read, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution by Abel Paz, The Shock doctrine by Naomi Klein, the dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, and what is to be done by lenin.

The Durruti books was quite good, and well written considering the complex array of characters, events, and then research involved. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the CNT-FAI, Durruti, or the Spanish revolution in general.

the Shock doctrine was good, liberal but good. It does a fantastic job debunking the myth of neoliberalist success. She covers basically every major "success story" of the past 40 years and just obliterates the Friedman narrative.

The dispossessed was fantastic. Ursula Le Guin is an amazing writer. Its a Sci-Fi story of the representative of an anarchist moon returning to a planet very much like earth. A great lighter read that still has a bit of theoretical weight

finally I just finished "what is to be done?"
It was interesting from within the context of the Russian revolution, but many of the main arguments seem to be tailored to the russian situation rather than universal absolutes about how to create a party. I think the most useful lesson it offers it that marxism should be adapted to the context of the revolution and not blindly administered.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Finished reading "The Day Before Revolution" by Ursula K Le Gruin.

I found it to be a rather sad tale of age and dedication,of someone coming to terms with their mortality,but most of all what one gives up when they truly dedicate their life to the revolution.

Very good little short story.

[tom1992]

I am reading a collection of Max Weber´s work.

[thesadmafioso]

I'm currently working my way through Trotsky's autobiography, "My Life".

Thus far I have found it to be quite insightful politically as well as being beautifully written.

[Mark V.]

Just finished Howard Zinn's You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. Now working on Kroptkin's The Conquest of Bread.

[Tommy4ever]

Just read ''The Defense of Madrid'' by Geofrey Cox. It is a personal account by a journalist who spent October and November, 1936, in the Spanish capital. He witnessed the desperate defense of the city from militias against Franco's assault and its eventual survival thanks to the timely arrival of the International Brigades and Soviet aid. A very interesting book, but rather tragic considering the later fate of Spain. It was clearly written long before the end of the war and has a very optimistic tone to it.

I've also had a bid of a Trotsky binge of late having read the Permanent Revolution, Results and Prospects, Revolution Betrayed and Fascism: What it is and How to Fight It. I read Hal Draper's Two Souls of Socialism (very interesting!) and Neo-Stalinism too.

[Red And Black Sabot]

Currently reading Introduction to Civil War from Tiqqun.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson and Night of Knives by Ian C. Esslemont.

Both are rather good high fantasy books set in an interesting universe.

[TheGeekySocialist]

Failed States by Noam Chomsky, fifth book of his I am reading this summer, finished the other four.

[Le Socialiste]

"The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution and The Mass Strike"

"The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933"

"Mademoiselle do Maupin"

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

"Wittgenstein's Vienna," by Janik and Toulmin. Light on the social background, heavy on the philosophy, subtly brilliant in its argument that, face it, if you're some positivist wienie-whiner ackie YOU JUST DON'T GET WHAT WITTGENSTEIN IS ABOUT.


Starting "The Necessity of Art: a Marxist Approach" by Ernst Fischer.
I copied Fischer's 1930 review of Freud's Civilization and its Discontents out of the Austrian National Library a month back, but I've barely gone through it. An interesting guy before and after he went all Stalinist. (He got over it, eventually.)

[Spets]

The S Word - John Nichols. It's about socialist ideas that have helped shape America, I guess, only read 1 chapter so far.

[Arm Cathartha na hÉireann]

flicking between 'John MacLean' by Nan Milton (his daughter) and 'Rise of the Irish Working class' by Dermot Keogh

[Die Rote Fahne]

XMen Noir. They are quite a cool take on the comics.

[Lobotomy]

Just finishing The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

[bcbm]

the dirt: confessions of the world's most notorious rock band by motley crue w/ neill strauss
the london hanged: crime and civil society in the eighteenth century by peter linebaugh
100 bullets by brian azzarello and eduardo risso

[Mark V.]

The Bending Cross by Ray Ginger. A great biography on Eugene Debs.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Aristotles Metaphysics, mixing it up with Kafka's short stories to stave off the crippling boredom of reading Aristotle.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Man fuuuuuck Aristotle fuuuuuuck Kafka

I found this book
ATTA
It's a fictionalized account of Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 bombers, based on his masters thesis on Urban Planning and the need for the return to "Islamic Orientalist" city. It's pretty much about the relation of western modernist architecture to imperialism, and city planning in social control.

[BE_]

I got these two books recently:

-Socialism: A Very Short Introduction

-The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking

I've read about 60 pages of Socialism: A Very Short Introduction. It is mainly meant for people who know nothing about socialism, but it is still an interesting book even though i already know mostly everything in the book.

I've only read 1 chapter of The Grand Design. It seems quite good, but I will finish it after I read Socialism: A Very Short Introduction.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Am reading about four different books right now but with classes starting up around the same time the fire department gets busy I have decided to cut my reading down to two choices.

The first book is Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson while the second is called Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory.

Both are as different as can be;the former a high fantasy book while the latter is a challenging read involving queer leftists. Needless to say I have my hands full.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Xmen Noir....

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Xmen Noir....

What on earth is that? :confused:

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

mostly harmless. and apperently its black xmen. what a racist topic

[TheGodlessUtopian]

mostly harmless. and apperently its black xmen. what a racist topic

Ah,the X-Men....I thought it was some-sort of Lovecraft type of book since my mind was trying to decipher what "xmen" was without the capitalization and dash.It looked like something else.

[Die Rote Fahne]

What on earth is that? :confused:
XMen Noir is an XMen comic/graphic short novel, done in a pulp-fiction/film noir style.

[Paul Cockshott]

Diary of a submarine commander,
Also
Anything but the Dog

[Smyg]

Just bought Anarchism and the city: Revolution and counter-revolution in Barcelona 1898-1937 by Chris Ealham, seems really good. Anyone read it?

Also got At the Mountains of Madness and other weird tales by H.P. Lovecraft and The Communist Manifesto and other revolutionary writings, an anthology containing works of pretty much all revolutionary or semi-revolutionary leader since the 18th century, including Rousseu, Marat, Lenin, Trotsky, Guevara, Goldman, Kropotkin, Gandhi, Mao, Voltaire, Paine and many others.´

The best part: It was all dirt cheap. :D

[x359594]

Just bought Anarchism and the city: Revolution and counter-revolution in Barcelona 1898-1937 by Chris Ealham, seems really good. Anyone read it?...

It was excellent and timely in as much as it can be read for lessons learned as well as the history of a particular movement in a particular time and place.

Here in Los Angeles we have overlapping and parallel organizations that organize in our low income neighborhoods, outfits like Food Not Bombs, Cop Watch L.A., the Bus Riders Union, Revolutionary Autonomous Communities, the Korean Immigrant Workers Association, the Black Riders to name a few. Anarchism and the City shows us some things we should be doing and some mistakes that we should avoid.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Just bought Anarchism and the city: Revolution and counter-revolution in Barcelona 1898-1937 by Chris Ealham, seems really good. Anyone read it?
I have read it as well. One of the best books I've read the past year.

[Smyg]

Looks like I'll be enjoying this, then. Awesome.

[xub3rn00dlex]

I picked up Mein Kampf to try to maybe understand a little better the reasons people turn to fascism, has anyone read it before?

[Smyg]

I tried. It's awful.

[Per Levy]

Jack London - The Iron Heel, not that far but good book so far, well written and im interested how it moves forward.

Henri Barbusse - Briefe von der Front/Letters form the Front, letters from barbusse to his wife during his time in the ww1. interesting and a good read.

[∞]

In english class we read 'Inherit the Wind', not bad.

[Princess Luna]

The Sexual Behavior of the Human Female by Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, and Paul H. Gebhard, for the record i am not reading it just to be a pervert.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Epictetus's Discourses

Why do people act like they've had some sort of reawakening or moral regeneration when they start reading about stoicism
this
is
just
bullshit

Actually he is not that bad of a guy and with consideration to the philosophies and philosophers before him I can't help but feel a fair bit of respect for the guy.
But then he talks about providence
and
like
it's
.________________.

[Smyg]

Just bought four editions of the very heavy Brand, a classical Swedish anarchist publication, a book on the Swedish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, and a guidebook to surviving the legal problems one might enter as a political activist, so to speak. Also a comic book about zombies, but let's ignore that.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The Roots of American Communism by Theodore Draper

Am only into the introduction so far but it looks like a great book.I have heard good things about it so hopefully I learn a thing or two.

[vivaEZLN]

Just finished Jeff Lindsay's "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" yesterday. Started the next book, "Dearly Devoted Dexter" today. Seven chapters in.

I needed some Dexter in my life while waiting for the next season to air.

[Dimmu]

Revolt and Crisis in Greece.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione.

[champagne anarchist]

William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. Anyone ever attempts this bad boy?

[Mr. Natural]

I've developed a popularly accessible red-green synthesis that models the organization of life, communism, and revolution. The "red" of this synthesis refers to Marxism: I'm a deeply committed Marxist. The "green" of this synthesis, though, is really, really new to the left. It applies the new sciences of the organization, patterns, and processes of life to human social formations and has the potential to bring our moribund left to life.

Does this sound grandiose? (I know it does). Well, check out the books I'm introducing to this thread. There have been extraordinary scientific developments that almost all have missed; the esteemed Marxist scientists Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, and John Maynard Smith manifest this myopia. These worthies employ the new science(s) to survey life, but not to organize society in life's pattern.

Marx and Engels were heavily invested in the science of their day. Marx's numerous scientific notebooks have yet to be published, but Engels' Dialectics of Nature and Anti-Duhring (read as it was being written to Marx, who contributed Chapter 10), are well-known. It is also well-known that the founders of Marxism embraced Darwin's theory of evolution, which is the first of what I refer to as the "new sciences of organization." Marx read The Origin of Species in 1860 and wrote to Engels, "This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views."

There are many such quotations, but current Marxists, who desperately need to learn to organize, have shunned the sciences of organization. And this comes in the face of the many looming social and ecological catastrophes!

I find Fritjof Capra's Web of Life (1996) to be the most comprehensive work on the new green science of organization. Capra, a theoretical physicist, has written this masterwork for a popular readership, and he successfully brings the profundities of evolution, cybernetics, chaos theory, and systems-complexity science down to Earth for all to see and use. Capra writes that Web presents an "emerging theory of living systems that offers a unified view of mind, matter, and life," and I apply its revelations to human social systems as I read. This works. Well, are not people self-organizing material systems? Are we not life?

The other two green books I find most valuable are Complexity; Life at the Edge of Chaos (1999), by Roger Lewin, and Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992), by M. Mitchell Waldrop. These highly accessible, fun-to-read books explore the amazing minds and revelations of the characters who inhabited the Santa Fe Institute towards the end of the twentieth century.

The importance of these three books and others are that they show that the various "things" of life have an organization, and that this organization is "communist." Communism is natural. The self-organizing systems of the process of life are "association(s), in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (Manifesto) Marx: This communism, as fully-developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully-developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man." (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844)

Continuing this emphasis on Marxism's natural roots, I highly recommend Bertell Ollman's works on the Marxist materialist dialectic, especially his Dance of the Dialectic (2003). Ollman conclusively establishes the radical importance of the dialectic to Marx's understanding of life and society as organic, systemic process, and that Marx derived and internalized this dialectical worldview from Hegel's philosophy of internal relations. Rosa Lichtenstein, who was perhaps unfortunately banned just as I joined Revleft, ignores this crucial underpinning to Marxist philosophy, science, and revolutionary theory, and therefore is wrong, wrong, wrong.

As for the "red" of the synthesis, I find it is best expressed in Joel Kovel's Enemy of Nature (2002). This ecosocialist work thoroughly examines capitalism and determines it to be an unredeemable assault on life and society. Kovel, now the leading American ecosocialist and the editor of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, then proposes a grassroots, "ecosystemic" revolutionary organizing strategy to oppose capitalism.

I just ordered Ecology and Socialism, by Chris Williams, which others at Revleft have recommended. Kovel also endorses it.

Here are other books I've found that illuminate red-green paths to communism:
Marx's Ecology (2000), by John Bellamy Foster (editor of Monthly Review). This book proves Marx's materialism was a natural materialism

Marxism and the Philosophy of Science (1995), by Helena Sheehan. This is a sometimes groundbreaking survey of Marx's and Engels' relationship, their concept of the materialist dialectic (which they referred to as the "new" or "modern" materialism), and the personages and development of early Marxism.

More Capra: his Tao of Physics (1975), Turning Point (1982), Uncommon Wisdom (1988), and Hidden Connections (2002).

In summary, Marxism is stuck in a somewhat glorious past that has become a sterile, stagnant present without a future. We must return revolutionary thought, spirit and practice to Marxism, and I am convinced the new sciences of the organizational relations of life (thus society) are key to such efforts.

My red-green best.

[Ele'ill]

Uh, A Dance With Dragons

[Le Socialiste]

Just started Kronstadt 1921 by Paul Avrich. So far its just been him saying "The uprisings against bolshevik policies were understandable, but ultimately the bolsheviks were right in crushing them." :rolleyes:

[SHORAS]

I'm about to read a load of Trotsky for better or worse as they say, or don't say...

Has anyone read History of the Civil War...(in two volumes) by Gorky?
I'm tempted to buy it from a local bookshop who have a very good second hand copy but my question is...is it a load of Stalinist nonsense? I am capable of making my own mind up but don't really want to fork out decent money for it if it is total rubbish!