Revolutions Study Group
50 Years of Anti-Imperialist Writing: Galeano, Rodney, and Ghosh
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA reading group to celebrate and reflect on two classic works of anti-imperialist writing first published fifty years ago but with an ongoing worldwide impact: Eduardo Galeano’s OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA (1971) and Walter Rodney’s HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA (1972). Extending our scope to Asia and bringing matters up to the present day, we will conclude by reading Amitav Ghosh’s just-published THE NUTMEG’S CURSE: PARABLES FOR A PLANET IN CRISIS.
Siegebreakers: A discussion of Justin Podur’s novel set in Gaza
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsUnder the crushing weight of the siege of Gaza, Laila and Nasser are members of the Palestinian resistance fighting desperately to free their people. Together, they learn of a plan to unite the disparate Palestinian factions and break Israel’s siege. Unknown to them, Ari, a brilliant Israeli spy, has decided that his conscience can no longer allow him to participate in the starvation of Gaza. A double agent whose every move is under mounting suspicion, Ari reaches out to the American contractors who trained him with a secret plan. As they all struggle to break the siege, they face the wrath of the Israeli military machine.
States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsSkocpol asserts that social revolutions are rapid and basic transformations of a society's state and class structures. She distinguishes this from mere rebellions, which involve a revolt of subordinate classes but may not create structural change, and from political revolutions that may change state structures but not social structures. What is unique about social revolutions, she argues, is that basic changes in social structure and political structure occur in a mutually reinforcing fashion and these changes occur through intense sociopolitical conflict. A convergence of peasant rebellion on one hand and international pressures causing state breakdown on the other hand cause revolutionary social movements.
50 Years of Anti-Imperialist Writing: Galeano, Rodney, and Ghosh
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA reading group to celebrate and reflect on two classic works of anti-imperialist writing first published fifty years ago but with an ongoing worldwide impact: Eduardo Galeano’s OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA (1971) and Walter Rodney’s HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA (1972). Extending our scope to Asia and bringing matters up to the present day, we will conclude by reading Amitav Ghosh’s just-published THE NUTMEG’S CURSE: PARABLES FOR A PLANET IN CRISIS.
50 Years of Anti-Imperialist Writing: Galeano, Rodney, and Ghosh
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA reading group to celebrate and reflect on two classic works of anti-imperialist writing first published fifty years ago but with an ongoing worldwide impact: Eduardo Galeano’s OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA (1971) and Walter Rodney’s HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA (1972). Extending our scope to Asia and bringing matters up to the present day, we will conclude by reading Amitav Ghosh’s just-published THE NUTMEG’S CURSE: PARABLES FOR A PLANET IN CRISIS.
The MEP Bookstore, Fall 2021/Winter 2022 (inclusive of shipping—US and Puerto Rico only)
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsBooks that will be used during the Winter of 2021 sessions—good for a lifetime of learning. There are Socialist Registers for 2020 and 2021, Pluto's Wildcat and FireWorks series. The any four, five or six books offers do include shipping.
The Necessity of Social Control by István Mészáros
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDuring these remaining eight sessions we will do an ongoing close reading of Mészáros’ The Necessity of Social Control (Monthly Review Press). This read in order to better understand the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, the forms of domination and exploitation inherent in its logic, historical efforts to develop an alternative economy and society, and the challenge of sustainable development and substantive equality. We aim to develop our own knowledge of the necessary conditions for emancipation and discuss the relevance of the text for our lives today.
The Necessity of Social Control by István Mészáros
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDuring these remaining eight sessions we will do an ongoing close reading of Mészáros’ The Necessity of Social Control (Monthly Review Press). This read in order to better understand the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, the forms of domination and exploitation inherent in its logic, historical efforts to develop an alternative economy and society, and the challenge of sustainable development and substantive equality. We aim to develop our own knowledge of the necessary conditions for emancipation and discuss the relevance of the text for our lives today.
A People’s History of Detroit and Detroit, I Do Mind Dying
In A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF DETROIT, Mark Jay and Philip Conklin use a class framework to tell a sweeping story of Detroit from 1913 to the present, embedding Motown’s history in a global economic context DETROITL I DO MIND DYING tracks the extraordinary development of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers
The Necessity of Social Control by István Mészáros
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDuring these remaining eight sessions we will do an ongoing close reading of Mészáros’ The Necessity of Social Control (Monthly Review Press). This read in order to better understand the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, the forms of domination and exploitation inherent in its logic, historical efforts to develop an alternative economy and society, and the challenge of sustainable development and substantive equality. We aim to develop our own knowledge of the necessary conditions for emancipation and discuss the relevance of the text for our lives today.
A People’s History of Detroit and Detroit, I Do Mind Dying
In A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF DETROIT, Mark Jay and Philip Conklin use a class framework to tell a sweeping story of Detroit from 1913 to the present, embedding Motown’s history in a global economic context DETROITL I DO MIND DYING tracks the extraordinary development of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers
The European Radical Left: Movements and Parties Since the 1960s
With a unique 'two-level' perspective, Giorgos Charalambous approaches the left through both social movements and party politics, looking at identities, rhetoric and organization, and bringing a fresh new approach to radical history, as well as assessing challenges for both activists and scholars.
The Invention of the White Race
In 1972, after over 30 years of activism in the labor and communist movements, Allen shared the following strategic insight with a new generation of revolutionaries: “The most vulnerable point at which a decisive blow can be struck against bourgeois rule in the United States is white supremacy. White supremacy is both the keystone (in the arch) and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy, the historic form of bourgeois rule in the US. It is a vulnerable point because it is a historically developed and unresolvable internal contradiction of US bourgeois democracy. It is the decisive vulnerable point because – as history has repeatedly proved – the basic class contradictions in bourgeois democracy can never fully mature until and unless the anti-proletarian nature of white supremacy has been completely established in the minds of the proletarian masses.”
Allen spent the next 20 years researching the primary sources and writing his magnum opus.
Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation: A discussion with Marcello Musto and Michael Hardt
The event marks the publication of “Karl Marx’s on Alienation,” edited by Marcello Musto. This is an essential volume. The introduction written by Marcello provides a guide to the concept of alienation prior to Marx, Marx's essential thought and writings over three periods of his working life. This brief quote from Volume Three of CAPITAL is one of many presented and discussed: “The realm of freedom really begins only where labor determined by necessity and external expediency ends; it lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper. Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his needs, to maintain and reproduce his life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production. This realm of natural necessity expands with his development, because his needs do too; but the productive forces to satisfy these expand at the same time. Freedom, in this sphere, can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. But this always remains a realm of necessity. The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it, though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis. The reduction of the working day is the basic prerequisite.” —Karl Marx
Come join Michael Hardt and Marcello Musto as they discuss with each other and those present from this essential volume for study—and practice.
The Invention of the White Race
In 1972, after over 30 years of activism in the labor and communist movements, Allen shared the following strategic insight with a new generation of revolutionaries: “The most vulnerable point at which a decisive blow can be struck against bourgeois rule in the United States is white supremacy. White supremacy is both the keystone (in the arch) and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy, the historic form of bourgeois rule in the US. It is a vulnerable point because it is a historically developed and unresolvable internal contradiction of US bourgeois democracy. It is the decisive vulnerable point because – as history has repeatedly proved – the basic class contradictions in bourgeois democracy can never fully mature until and unless the anti-proletarian nature of white supremacy has been completely established in the minds of the proletarian masses.”
Allen spent the next 20 years researching the primary sources and writing his magnum opus.