Blog

  • Weekend Read | General Propositions on Fascism and the Dominant Classes

    Weekend Read | General Propositions on Fascism and the Dominant Classes

    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 DictatorshipNicos Poulantzas explains the relationship between fascism and the dominant classes.

  • A small-scale miner illegally digs coal from an abandoned, former Anker Coal operation just outside Ermelo, Mpumalanga. Image by Mark Olalde. South Africa, 2017.

    A Billion Black Anthropocenes

    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.
  • A Model for Us All

    A Model for Us All

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

  • Venezuela: A Reading List

    Venezuela: A Reading List

    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 

  • The Social Fabric of Chavismo

    The Social Fabric of Chavismo

    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 (1947–2019)

    Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019)

    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.

  • Memory and History: On the Poverty of Remembering and Forgetting the Judeocide

    Memory and History: On the Poverty of Remembering and Forgetting the Judeocide

    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 HistoryArno J. Mayer analyses the structure of rememberence and the task of the historian in relation to the Nazi Judeocide.

  • The Extradition of Cesare Battisti: Bolivia’s “Gift” to Italian Neofascism and “Brother” Bolsonaro

    The Extradition of Cesare Battisti: Bolivia’s “Gift” to Italian Neofascism and “Brother” Bolsonaro

    The extradition of Cesare Battisti, crime novelist and former Italian leftwing militant who had been living in exile in France and Brazil since the late 1970s, demonstrates a worrying new level of collusion between right-wing governments in Europe and Latin America. However, Battisti's arrest occured in Bolivia and with the approval of the country's left-wing leader Evo Morales. In this article, Pablo Stefanoni argues that Bolivia's president has found himself tangled up in an operation that goes to the heart of an emerging new extreme-right international.

  • Rudolf Diesel’s failed utopia

    Rudolf Diesel’s failed utopia

    The German engineer invented the engine that would bear his name to contribute to the development of agriculture. The success of this technology has made it the fuel of economic globalization, with peak oil and tens of thousands of premature deaths.