Blog

A reading list on working-class power, elections, and left-wing strategy.

"Those who speak a 'humanitarian' language, more than warning against what could happen, are anticipating a reality that they themselves are deeply invested in seeing materialise." Reinaldo Iturriza López examines the current situation in Venezuela, as the Bolivarian Revolution comes under attack from the same neoliberal forces that fuelled its rise.

Don't call it a romance: Laura Fernández Cordero considers the longstanding relationship between feminism and Marxism, and how fresh interpretations are vital in an uncertain world.

The global far-right is returning at an alarming rate, with the latest example being that of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (analysed by Perry Anderson in the latest LRB). But, is this fascism? The first thing we need to know before we can answer that is a full definition of fascism as an historical phenomena. In this extract from his republished classic Fascism and Dictatorship, Nicos Poulantzas explains the relationship between fascism and the dominant classes.

Sophie Lewis discusses her forthcoming book, 'Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family' with Alex Doherty on the Politics Theory Other podcast

What happens when the Anthropocene meets critical race studies? One answer might be that you get Kathryn Yusoff’s provocative small book A Billion Black Anthropocenes, (University of Minnesota Press, 2019). If geologists are going to name a geological epoch after ‘Anthropos,’ then it might be an idea to put that in contact with one of the deepest critiques of the whole category.

The eminent Marxist sociologist Erik Olin Wright was serious about understanding and changing the world — and was generous, curious, and kind while doing it.

Featuring works from distinguished intellectuals and key political leaders, Verso's Venezuela reading list provides the analytical insight and historical context necessary to understand the ongoing political crisis in the country 

On January 23, Juan Guaidó, who had recently been installed as president of the country’s opposition-led National Assembly, declared himself interim president of Venezuela in an attempt to oust the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro. But with Venezuelan society deeply divided, and the military continuing to support Maduro, it isn't clear how Guaidó can succeed. In this article, Marco Teruggi, who has spent the last six years observing first-hand this complexity as a participant in Venezuela’s communal project, reflects on the opposition’s attempt to form a parallel government and their failure to grasp the social reality of the Chavista base.

Erik Olin Wright died just after midnight on January 22. He was 71 years old. With his death, the world lost one of its great social scientists – practitioner as well as thinker.

Erik Olin Wright was radicalized in the 1960s and remained a Marxist because his moral compass simply wouldn't allow him to drift away. With his death, the Left has lost one of its most brilliant intellectuals.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, a day of commemoration dedicated to the remembrance of those who suffered in The Holocaust under Nazi persecution, and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and elsewhere. In this, an extract from Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?: The "Final Solution" in History, Arno J. Mayer analyses the structure of rememberence and the task of the historian in relation to the Nazi Judeocide.