Roland Boer, On Marxism and Theology Series I, II, III, and V

Roland Boer, On Marxism and Theology Series I, II, III, and V

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Series I (.PDF)Series II (.PDF)Series III (.PDF)Series V (.PDF)

Tristram Hunt, The Frock-coated Communist: The Life and Times of the Original Champagne Socialist

Tristram Hunt, The Frock-coated Communist: The Life and Times of the Original Champagne Socialist

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Goodreads:

"Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family in west Germany, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, and enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman. Yet Engels was also the co-founder of international communism - the philosophy which in the 20th century came to control one third of the human race. He was the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, a ruthless party tactician, and the man who sacrificed his best years so Karl Marx could write Das Kapital. Tristram Hunt relishes the diversity and exuberance of Engels's era: how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his raucous personal life with this uncompromising political philosophy." 

Leon Trotsky on China. Introduction by Peng Shuzi

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Part 1 (PDF)
Part 2 (PDF)  

Part 3 (PDF)

HTML (coming soon)

This volume contains a collection of Trotsky's writings on the Chinese revolution of 1925-27 and its aftermath.

This failed revolution ended with the deaths of tens of thousands of communist workers and the total destruction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an organised mass movement of the working class. One cannot understand the fundamental problems in modern Chinese history, in particular the nature of the Maoist regime that was established in 1949, without understanding the lessons of 1925-27.

The perspective for the Chinese revolution was at the heart of Trotsky's struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy. In this struggle, his theory of Permanent Revolution was put to a gigantic test—for the second time. With the support of the Soviet bureaucratic apparatus Stalin prevailed, leading to the betrayal of one of the most promising revolutionary opportunities since 1917. The defeat in China was a decisive blow to the Left Opposition. At the end of 1927, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and then from the USSR.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.

Andrew Collier, Marx: A Beginner's Guide

Andrew Collier, Marx: A Beginner's Guide

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Breathing new life into the achievements of Karl Marx, this accessible and jargon-free introduction is a timely reminder of his undiminished influence. Andrew Collier's engaging text not only introduces the reader to Marx the revolutionary, but also redefines him as one of the first truly democratic thinkers. In a concise yet searching manner, Collier covers all the elements of marxist thought, from the early writings to such major texts as 'Capital' and the key themes of labour and society. Punctuating his study with a wide range of examples, from Aristotelian thought to Thatcherite policy, he explores the traditional notion of Marx the activist, while probing the apparent inconsistencies in his work and reclaiming his place as a philosopher and political theorist. Concluding with a thought-provoking assessment of Marx's pervasive influence on the political landscape of the twenty-first century. Collier's study highlights our own global inequalities and will be warmly welcomed by students, scholars and activists from a variety of backgrounds.

Andrew Collier, On Christian Belief: A Defence of a Cognitive Conception of Religious Belief in a Christian Context

Andrew Collier, On Christian Belief: A Defence of a Cognitive Conception of Religious Belief in a Christian Context

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On Christian Belief offers a defence of realism in the philosophy of religion. It argues that religious belief - with particular reference to Christian belief - unlike any other kind of belief, is cognitive; making claims about what is real, and open to rational discussion between believers and non-believers. The author begins by providing a critique of several views which either try to describe a faith without cognitive context, or to justify believing on non-cognitive grounds. He then discusses what sense can be made of the phenomenon of religious conversion by realists and non-realists. After a chapter on knowledge in general, he defends the idea that religious knowledge is very like other knowledge, in being based on reliable testimony, sifted by reason and tested by experience. The logical status of the content of religious belief is then discussed, with reference to Christianity.

John Marsden, Marxian and Christian Utopianism: Toward a Socialist Political Theology

John Marsden, Marxian and Christian Utopianism: Toward a Socialist Political Theology

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.PDF

Slavoj Zizek, John Milbank, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?

Slavoj Zizek, John Milbank, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?

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"What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief."--John Milbank"To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank."--Slavoj ŽižekIn this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a militant atheist who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "Radical Orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed. Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event--God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others. Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with "paradox." The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation. Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT Press). John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and other books. Creston Davis, who conceived of this encounter, studied under both Žižek and Milbank.

Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Marxism and Christianity

Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Marxism and Christianity

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This volume explores the common ground between Marxism and Christianity. It argues that Marxism shares in good measure both the content and functions of Christianity and does so because it inherits it from Christianity. It details the religious attitudes and modes of belief that appear in Marxism as it developed historically from the philosophies of Hegel and Feuerbach, and as it has been carried on by its latter-day interpreters from Rosa Luxemberg and Trotsky to Kautsky and Lukacs. It sets out to show that Marxism, no less than Christianity, is subject to the historical relativity that affects all ideologies. This new edition has been updated to take account of the collapse of Communism in the former Eastern bloc and whether Marxism, in particular, is still relevant to those who seek a changed social order today.

Nicos Poulantzas, The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State

Nicos Poulantzas,  The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State

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First-ever collection of the key writings of one of the most influential political theorists of the postwar epoch. Nicos Poulantzas was one of the leading Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, developing seminal analyses of the state and social classes during the crisis of monopoly capitalism. This volume brings together a wide selection of Poulantzas’ key writings in legal philosophy and political sociology, including some important pieces translated here for the first time. Texts include his early analyses of law, his studies of hegemony, authoritarianism, and social classes, and his debate on the state with Ralph Miliband and Ernesto Laclau. An essential introduction for the scholar and the student to a body of work that continues to reverberate across the social sciences.

Stephen Resnick and Richard D. Wolff, Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy

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Intense debates in recent decades have provoked major new directions in Marxist theory.  Earlier reductionist notions of knowledge, dialectics, contradiction, class, and capitalism have been challenged and profoundly transformed.  Economic determinism has given way to new kinds of philosophic, social, and economic analysis such as the one Resnick and Wolff here develop around overdeterminism.  Showing that Lenin, Lukacs, Gramsci, Mao, and Althusser contributed concepts of knowledge, class, and society that can radically alter traditional dialectical materialism, the authors demonstrate how this alteration also transforms Marxist economic theory.  The dramatic result is a new Marxian theory, a new analysis of class, enterprise, and state.

Mike Wayne, Understanding Film: Marxist Perspectives

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 From International Socialism,

"Mike Wayne’s introduction is one of the highlights of the book. Wayne summarises many of the key Marxist debates but takes positions. He argues against the pessimism of even soft versions of postmodernism and challenges the once fashionable post-structuralists who argued that texts write themselves, that cultural products are shaped unconsciously by institutions, history, subconscious desires and so on. As he says, ‘While the dominant version of authorship had rightly been taken to task, we cannot do without some sense of agency, collective and individual… There is no reason to suppose that authors of cultural texts are any less able to consciously shape meaning than academics.’"

Rupert Woodfin and Oscar Zarate, Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide

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From Marx & Philosophy Society,

"Focusing on Marxist thought in particular, Introducing Marxism gives an overview of the historical development of Marxism, also using the words and ideas of important thinkers. To establish the importance of Marx, the book begins with the publication of one his most well-known works – The Communist Manifesto, stating that “the Manifesto left an indelible mark on human progress and still today forms the basis for a system of political beliefs that motivates millions.” (4) Following a brief account of Marx’s life, which highlights his early passion for philosophy, his life as a political agitator, and the importance of his friendship with Friedrich Engels, Introducing Marxism looks at Marx’s philosophical, economic, and political theories, including dialectical materialism, surplus value, and class struggle."

Alan Woods, The Class Struggle in the Roman Republic

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.PDF 

Marxist.com  

George Novack, An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism

 George Novack, An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism

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.HTML 

Marxism is dialectical, Novack explains. It considers all phenomena in their development, in their transition from one state to another. And it is materialist, explaining the world as matter in motion that exists prior to and independently of human consciousness.

Abram Leon, The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation (1942)

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Online (marxists.org)

 .PDF

"Traces the historical rationalizations of anti-Semitism to the fact that, in the centuries preceding the domination of industrial capitalism, Jews emerged as a "people-class" of merchants, moneylenders, and traders. Leon explains why the propertied rulers incite renewed Jew-hatred in the epoch of capitalism's decline." 

D.D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History

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Neutral Observer reviews Kosambi's book "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History."

Kosambi is a master of all he surveys in this book - his dexterity, scholarship and decisive judgments reminded me of Eric Hobsbawm. The book is fascinating in many respects - the choice of photographs, the detailed endnotes, the insistence on deducing historical information from observing ritual and practice among the various castes and tribes in India, the obvious comfort with the ancient history of Iran and the near east, the deep knowledge of Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature, Kosambi's scientific studies of coin hoards etc. His contempt for poor scholarship is expressed without reservation and with caustic precision. His writing is terse and elegant. It often rises to the eminently quotable.

Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714 (1982)

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.PDF

FULL 14 VOLUMES OF WRITINGS OF LEON TROTSKY 1929-1940

Fourteen volumes covering the period of Trotsky’s exile from the Soviet Union in 1929 until his assassination at Stalin’s orders in 1940.

Writings of Leon Trotsky (1929)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930-31)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932–33)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1933-34)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1934-35)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1935-36)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1936-37)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1937-38)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1938-39)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (1939-40)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (Supplement 1929–33)

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Writings of Leon Trotsky (Supplement 1934-40)

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R.C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin, Not In Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature

R.C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin, Not In Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature

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.PDF

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Not in Our Genes makes a strong statement about the entanglement of science and politics: "Science is the ultimate legitimator of bourgeois ideology", and makes the following comparison "If biological determinism is a weapon in the struggle between classes, then the universities are weapons factories, and their teaching and research faculties are the engineers, designers, and production workers. Not in Our Genes described Dawkins as "the most reductionist of sociobiologists".