Radical Thought Books - Page 6

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Peter Kropotkin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Required bio reading 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 15 people found this review helpful.

This book, which appears to be about the only surviving scientific text from Kropotkin's work, is very interesting and insightful. The first two chapters which deal with animals I found most interesting, because they address the roots of the falsehood of social-darwinism. Kropotkin then proceeds to move through the different stages of human society and describes the mutual aid a compassion fetures therein. It is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it. It is a scientific text, but it has major political implications and is very accessible.

Editorial Review:

His most influential work. A challenge to classical Darwinism, Kropotkin argues that in nature, co-operation is as important as competition. "Kropotkin profoundly influenced human biology by his theory of Mutual Aid., propounded as a counter-blast to the social conclusions drawn from the Darwinian 'struggle for existence.' He was one of the first systematic students of animal communities, and may be regarded as the founder of modern social ecology." [Alex Comfort] "I would hold that Kropotkin's basic argument is correct." [Stephen Jay Gould]

Capital: An Abridged Edition (Oxford World's Classics)

Karl Marx

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Fascinating and frightening 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 18 people found this review helpful.

The book is fascinating because it has exerted so much influence. It is frightening because very few that acted on the theories presented in the book can have properly understood them. When they had understood them they would have found them to be useless. In order to arrive at this conclusion I have read the book thoroughly, which is hard work. The influence of the book derives from the dramatic but accurate description of the way capitalism functioned at the time Marx lived. Apart from a few responsible capitalists such as the Quakers, capitalists were only chasing profit without any consideration of the health of their employees and their families. Acts of parliament to reduce labour hours from 15 hours during six days as well as the extensive use of child labour were fiercely opposed by the capitalists referring to their certain ruin if these laws were passed. Marx writes: "capital never becomes reconciled to such changes". Marx does not point out that the exploitation of farm labourers was just as bad or even worse. Exploitation is as old as civilisation. That is however not a justification for the absence of moral standards.
The economic theory is presented as if it is scientific and that the laws will lead to a replacement of the capitalist system by a superior one. Unfortunately there is no science and the description of the superior system is extremely limited.
What Marx refers to, as laws are hypotheses and effects that are the result of the hypotheses. All examples are based on the idea that a worker works for six hours for a capitalist to earn enough to pay for his subsistence and works another six hours without being paid for by he capitalist. A typical example of a "law" derived from this hypothesis is that when the labour costs of a product declines profits decline. This strange idea is based on the idea that if the total cost of raw materials and machinery depreciation and labour costs are 100 and the labour cost thereof declines from 40 to 20 that the profit also declines from 40 to 20 as paid labour time is equal to unpaid labour time. This leads to the next "law". As the profit declines with increasing investment in equipment the capitalist increases sales more rapidly than the profit percentage declines so that his absolute profit increases. It is obvious that if the volume increases more in percentage than the price declines as a percentage that the absolute profit increases. Marx devotes many pages to explaining this "law". The sentences are however very cumbersome and loaded with emotions that make it very hard work to discover that the laws are mathematical necessities. Marx does not recognise any work having value other than that of manual labour, " only the labourer is productive". He does not consider selling, product development, accounting, figuring out in what to invest, analysing risk taking as work. He therefore considers that all "profit" made is theft from the worker. Marx specifically excludes competition from his theories "actual movement of competition belongs beyond our scope". He nevertheless makes some negative comments like referring to it as " capitalism begets by its anarchical system of competition, the most outrageous squandering of labour power".
As far as the new superior system Marx only writes: "But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation". "This does not re-establish private property for the worker but will be based on co-operation and the possession in common of land and of the means of production".
The conclusion "Marxist" countries logically drew from Marxists theories were, (1) the only owner of the means of production can be the state (2) there is no needs for marketing and sales (3) profit can never be justified (4) there is something wrong with competition and that can be avoided by central state planning and (5) our success is assured as our actions are based on scientific laws. In that way they did accept his hypothesis with disastrous effect.
Some examples of emotional language, that makes the book fascinating to read. "Capital pumps the surplus-labour (unpaid working hours) directly out of the labourers", on supervision, " The place of the slave-driver's lash is taken by the overlooker's book of penalties, on profit "the profit made in selling depends on cheating, deceit and inside knowledge" and finally "If money comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt".

It is fascinating that a book that describes real problems with powerful emotional language can make many intelligent people with good intentions believers without critically analysing the proposed theories. It is frightening that many powerful political leaders applied these theories (with or without good intentions).

Editorial Review:

A classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society. It has proved to be the most influential work in twentieth-century social science; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology.
This is the only abridged edition to take into account the whole of Capital. It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867; excerpts from a new translation of "The Result of the Immediate Process Production"; and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895.

Temple Bombing

Melissa Fay Greene

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

THE SHOCKING TRUE STORY OF A BRUTAL ACT OF HATE

"At 3:37 in the morning of Sunday, Oct. 12, 1958, a bundle of dynamite blew out the side wall of the Temple, Atlanta's oldest and richest synagogue. The devastation to the building was vast--but even greater were the changes those 50 sticks of dynamite made to Atlanta, the South and, ultimately, all of the United States. . . . The synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, had been preaching civil rights to his congregation for years. If the bombers thought the dynamite could silence Rothschild, they were sadly misinformed. . . . "  

"GREENE SKILLFULLY WEAVES THE TEMPLE BOMBING INTO THE HISTORY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. . . . A profound social context for her compelling portrait of its hero, Rabbi Rothschild."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"THIS BOOK IS ILLUMINATING AS IT IS SHOCKING. . . . The emotional power of the narrative is heightened by the author's gifts as a storyteller. . . . She has talent for bringing scenes vividly alive."
--The New York Times Book Review

"READS LIKE A GRIPPING, BESTSELLING NOVEL . . . How and why this horrific bombing transpired is the book's main subject. Unraveling who would do such a thing becomes a psychological thriller in Greene's hands. . . . The Temple Bombing culminates in the suspenseful trials following the crime."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"RICH WITH ARTFULLY DRAWN CHARACTERS . . . We can be grateful to Greene for re-creating the story of an unheralded hero of the civil rights movement."
--Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Red States rebellion is breaking out. It’s been going on for some time. The stakes are high and the odds are long and the battles are waged over the essentials of life: water, food, wilderness, and human liberty.

Out here there are no fixed blueprints for resistance. No organizational flow charts for how to plot a rebellion. No focus groups or pulse polls or field-tested PR strategies or genteel formalities for grant applications. Marx would be confused. The human spirit is the best guide. When Peabody Coal announces its intention to evict your grandmother, dynamite her hogan and strip-mine the family sheep pasture, you don’t have time to consult Weiden and Kennedy for how to spin it to your advantage or wait around for a year on the infinitesimal chance that Pew Charitable Trusts might drop you a few bucks. You must act. As a group if you can, unilaterally if necessary—militantly if you must. The resistance in these places isn’t always about revolution; it’s about maintaining a semblance of dignity in a world where such a thing is in short supply.

This book offers just a few snapshots of grassroots resistance that is taking place in the forgotten heartland of America. These are tales of rebellion and courage. Out here activism isn’t for the faint of heart. Be thankful someone is willing to do the dirty work.


“Thank you to all who contributed to this absolutely necessary book that tells too-often ignored stories of resistance and rebellion from real people—working class people, indigenous people, people with dirt under their fingernails and rage and sorrow in their hearts, as well as a deep and profound love for the land where they live—who are fighting for their lives, for their communities, and for their landbases against the grinding of the creeping fascism of the corporate state.” —Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame.

“The stakes are high, in the so-called ‘Red States,’ as corporate America, the defense establishment, and an array of minions battle against the biodiversity of "the heartland."  In this book, Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair skillfully present a diverse set of rebels who defy reckless policies and greedy profiteers. It's easy to feel enthusiastic gratitude for this collection of stories. Matching the principled stance of the narrators, however, presents a sharp challenge.” —Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

“Those of us who are tired of being laid claim to by right-wing politicians and tut-tutted over by coastal liberals can now brandish a copy of Red State Rebels and declare, ‘This is the real story out here!'” —Stan Cox author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine.

“No myth is more urgently in need of debunking than the notion that the ‘enlightened’ residents of so-called Blue states are inexorably pitted against the ‘backward’ masses of so-called Red states. Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair have woven together a collection of gripping stories of these struggles, large and small, that are transforming the political landscape from the bottom up.” —Sharon Smith, author of Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States.

Joshua Frank was born and raised in Montana. He is the author of Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush. His investigative reports and columns appear in CounterPunch, Chicago Sun-Times, CommonDreams.org, and the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Jeffrey St. Clair was born and raised in Indiana. He is co-editor of CounterPunch, and his latest book is Born Under a Bad Sky.

Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution

Ernesto Che Guevara

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A new, revised and expanded edition of an Ocean Press classic.

This reader is the bestselling, most comprehensive selection of Che Guevara's writings, letters and speeches available in English. This volume covers Che's writings on the Cuban revolutionary war, the first years of the revolution in Cuba and his vision for Latin America and the Third World. It includes such classic essays as "Socialism and Man in Cuba" and his call to create "Two, Three, Many Vietnams."

Among the features of this expanded edition are several unpublished articles, essays and letters, including a letter from Che to his children shortly before his death in Bolivia in 1967 and an essay, "Strategy and tactics for the Latin American revolution."

This new edition of a popular Ocean title is published in collaboration with the Che Guevara Archive in Havana. It includes:
a new 24-page selection of photos (many previously unpublished)
an expanded and revised chronology
complete bibliography of the works of Che Guevara
new, extensive annotation and index

"Deep inside the T-shirt where we have tried to trap him the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with im-patience."-Ariel Dorfman

Two new movies to be released in Fall 2003 confirm Che's enduring status as an "icon of the century."
Ocean Press is preparing a range of merchandise, including T-shirts, bookmarks and posters to promote our books on Che Guevara.

This new, expanded edition of an Ocean Press classic complements several bestselling biographies of Che Guevara.

Manifesto of the Communist Party

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

doesnt respond/listen to emails 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I wrote the seller an e-mail asking to cancel my order, and as far as I know I was still charged and I have yet to get the book. Plus they sent me an email saying the book was on the way 3 weeks ago. I hope it was just micommunication.

The Classics 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

One of the all time greatest books proclaiming the communist ideas though if you really want the greatest you have to read Das Kapital (Capital)!

A Classic 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

True, you can read this for free on the Internet (which Marx would encourage despite copyright laws), but who wouldn't want to have this as part of their personal collection? Yeah, so I read this on the Internet, but now I find myself buying a copy. It's about 40 pages of pure communist thinking . . . at times boring, but at other times quite incredible. If you're buying this book, I also suggest a book by Rius that is a cartoon all about understanding Marx. It'll help you understand the logic behind the Manifesto if you're reading it for the first time.

Whee! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I like this edition because it's actually in pamphlet form, as it was intented to be when it was first written. It's cheap, it's simple.. what more can you ask for?

Plus there is just a delighting little preface at the beginning!

Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society)

Mark Juergensmeyer

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Editorial Review:

Why has the turn of the twenty-first century been rocked by a new religious rebellion? From al Qaeda to Christian militias to insurgents in Iraq, a strident new religious activism has seized the imaginations of political rebels around the world. Building on his groundbreaking book, The New Cold War?: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, Mark Juergensmeyer here provides an up-to-date road map through this complex new religious terrain. Basing his discussion on interviews with militant activists and case studies of rebellious movements, Juergensmeyer puts a human face on conflicts that have become increasingly abstract. He revises our notions of religious revolution and offers positive proposals for responding to religious activism in ways that will diminish the violence and lead to an accommodation between radical religion and the secular world.

Propaganda & Control of the Public Mind

Noam Chomsky

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The best Chomsky lecture on CD 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I think I own all of the Chomsky lectures available on CD, and this is by far my favorite. Something about the topic or perhaps the audience he is speaking to results in this lecture being very easy to listen to. Noam starts his discussion off with some basics and cogently builds a tremendously infomative story of labor, public relations/propaganda, control of the masses, government in practice and theory, etc. Even though I've owned this CD for years, I am still learning from it. Truly bottled genius. This is Chomsky seeing the world clearly, and sharing his insight compellingly. If you happen to be new to Chomsky, this is a great place to start.

Editorial Review:

"There's no doubt that one of the major issues of twentieth century history, surely in the US, is corporate propaganda.... Its goal from the beginning, perfectly openly and consciously, was to control the public mind,' as they put it. The reason was that the public mind was seen as the greatest threat to the corporations."-Noam Chomsky

The Condition of the Working Class in England (World's Classics)

Friedrich Engels

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Awesome 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Fabuous book. Engels wrote this when he was only 24- and what a tour de force.

The work is detailed, beautifully observed and elegantly written. Despite the depressing nature of the subject matter, the tone is always possible about a better world beyond the evils of capitalism.

Unfortunately 150 years after this masterpiece was written things dont seen to have gotten better under capitalism. Rather, the old evils of poverty, infectious diseases, starvation have been replaced by the modern evils of capitalism: obesity, alienation, mass materialism, depression, plunging fertility and marriage rates and so on...

Editorial Review:

This, the first book written by Engels during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844, is the best known and in many ways the best study of the working class in Victorian England. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire combine to make Engels's account of the lives of the victims of early industrial change into a classic.

Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties

Peter Collier

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Must Read 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 24 people found this review helpful.

This is a superbly written history of American's 60's ordeal. It is a discussion from the inside of the movement and helps explain why we can't get over that decade. I'd rank it with Chamber's Witness as a must read for those who want to know the truth about what happened.

From one extreme to the other 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 20 people found this review helpful.

Beware the extremist who leaps to the other extreme. In the Sixties they now so eloquently trash, Peter Collier and David Horowitz were student radicals and publishers of Ramparts. Far left. Far out. They have since had second thoughts, though reading this book, you wonder how much they are thinking and how much they remain rebels, this time against themselves. Rather than offer any cogent analysis of the decade, Collier and Horowitz serve up mea culpas and wholesale attacks on its extremes. Did leftists say and do silly things in the Sixties? Or course. Was it a time of excess? Sure. Does that mean that every last Sixties hope, aspiration, dream, or sincere act on behalf of social justice was idiotic, or misguided. It's easy to think so if you just leap from far left to far right, as these extremists have done. Reading "Destructive Generation" you get a good look at why American political discussion is so screwed-up these days -- because there is no middle, no compromise, no mention of the excesses and errors of one's own side. There's just one bash after another.

Editorial Review:

The compelling story of an intellectual journey into and out of the radical trenches.