Reading list

Christianity and Anti-Capitalism

Key books for understanding Christianity's radical legacy.

Verso Books20 November 2022

Jesus Expels the Moneylenders from the Temple by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, 1750

Christianity has for centuries been the dominant religion in Europe and in much of the world beyond. How has it moulded social and economic practice? What is its role in the marketplace? 

While the religious far-right often seek to influence politics and public policy towards social conservatism, there is also a long legacy of Christian socialism that seeks the universal emancipation of oppressed people. 

Until January 2, 2023 at 11:59PM EST, we have 40% off all print books and 60% off all ebooks (see full details here)!

See our Gift Guide and all our reading lists, including The Year in 10 BooksRadicalize Your NiblingsRadical HappinessTis the Season to Abolish the FamilyUnderstanding the Cost of Living CrisisChristianity and Anticapitalism.
 

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Argues that the subversive core of the Christian legacy forms the foundation of a politics of universal emancipation.

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How can we reinvent religion so that it liberates us instead of consoling us? This is a new philosophy of religion for a secular world.

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A classic of political economy that traces the influence of religious thought on capitalism.

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How liberation theology has brought politics and religion together in Latin America.

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A sustained and fascinating reflection on the place of religion in political discourse.

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Ernst Bloch examines the origins of Christianity in an attempt to find its social roots, pursuing a detailed study of the Bible and its fascination for 'ordinary and unimportant' people.

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In the centuries following the Reformation, the Antichrist was an intensely real figure. The debate raged as to who this Antichrist might be. Was he the Pope? Bishops? A state church? The monarchy? Or was it just a term of abuse to be hurled at anybody one disliked?

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Christianity has for centuries been the dominant religion in Europe and in much of the world beyond. Marxism has inspried the widest and deepest social movements of modern times. The encounters between the two have been correspondingly arduous and complex, ranging from drawn combat to dialogue.

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In this presentation of the Gospels, renowned thinker Terry Eagleton asks: was Jesus a revolutionary?

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Thomas Müntzer was a radical pastor frustrated by the Reformation. Gathered here are his key rousing sermons attacking the princes and preaching an early form of communism.

The Fragile Absolute
One of the signal features of our era is the re-emergence of the ‘sacred’ in all its different guises, from New Age paganism to the emerging religious sensitivity within cultural and political theo...
The Religion of the Future
How can we live in such a way that we die only once? How can we organise a society that gives us a better chance to be fully alive? How can we reinvent religion so that it liberates us instead of c...
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
In one of the true classics of twentieth-century political economy, R. H. Tawney investigates the way religion has moulded social and economic practice. He tracks the influence of religious thought...
The War of Gods
The War of Gods traces the intimate relationship between religion, politics and social issues in Latin America over the last three decades, as liberation theology has reinterpreted the vocation of ...
The Faith of the Faithless
The return to religion has perhaps become the dominant cliché of contemporary theory, which rarely offers anything more than an exaggerated echo of a political reality dominated by religious war. S...
Atheism in Christianity

Atheism in Christianity

In the twenty-first century, religion has come under determined attack from secular progressives in documentaries, opinion pieces and international bestsellers. Combative atheists have denounced fa...
Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England
In the centuries following the Reformation, Antichrist—the biblical Beast, whose coming was to precede the end of the world and the coming of Christ’s kingdom—was an intensely real figure. The deba...
The Gospels

The Gospels

In this new presentation of the Gospels, Terry Eagleton makes a powerful and provocative argument for Jesus Christ as a social, political and moral radical, a friend of anti-imperialists, outcasts ...
Paperback
Sermon to the Princes
Thomas Müntzer was a radical pastor frustrated by the Reformation. He believed that Martin Luther's stand against the Church did not go far enough and demanded the realization of the Kingdom of Hea...
Paperback

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