Radicalism Books - Page 5

Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-Century China: The Search for an Ideal Development Model

Suzanne Pepper

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Editorial Review:

In 1976, China's "education revolution" was being hailed by foreign observers as an inspiration for all low-income countries. By 1980, the Chinese themselves had disavowed the experience, declaring it devoid of even a single redeeming virtue. This is the first comprehensive book to cover the whole sweep of twentieth-century Chinese education, and in particular to provide a detailed study of what occurred in the countryside under the radical Maoist education experiments of the Cultural Revolution.

Guy Debord

Anselm Jappe

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This is the first serious intellectual biography of Guy Debord, prime mover of the Situationist International (1957-1972) and author of The Society of the Spectacle, perhaps the seminal book of May 1968 in France. Anselm Jappe rejects recent attempts to set Debord up as a "postmodern" icon, arguing that he was a social theorist in the Hegelian-Marxist tradition--not a precursor of Jean Baudrillard but an heir of the young Georg Lukács of History and Class Consciousness (1923). Neither hagiographical nor sectarian, Guy Debord places its subject squarely in his historical context: the politicizing Letterist and Situationist "anti-artists" who, in the European aftermath of World War II, sought to criticize and transcend the Surrealist legacy. The book offers a lively, critical, and unusually reliable account of Debord's "last avant-garde" on its way from radical bohemianism to revolutionary theory. Jappe also discusses Debord's films, which are largely inaccessible at present. This English language edition of the book has been revised by the author and features an updated critical bibliography of Debord and the Situationists.

Geographies of Resistance

Steve Pile

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Protest Isn't Confined to the American '60s 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

While many are discontent with current affairs, few are anxious for action. Perhaps the climate of the 1960s has left a sour taste in the mouths of many Americans, but Pile & Keith's anthology represents strategies for resistance for the new millenium. Crossing transglobal boundaries, this book points to empirical examples of successful protests, and it suggests methods of future resistance for numerous situations. Grounded in the geographical perspective of power, Pile & Keith's book offers a positive and optimistic lens for seeing how territorial and spatial relations can provide grounds for negotiating resistance in contemporary cultural relations.

Editorial Review:

Drawing on material from around the world, this book examines how new geographies of resistance emerge and are articulated. Radical cultural politics, exemplified by the black, feminist and gay liberation, has developed struggles to turn sites of oppression and discrimination into spaces of resistance. Post-colonial and queer theory has opened up new political spaces. Whether resistance is an act of transgression (crossing borders), opposition (such as constructing barricades), or everyday endurance (staying in place), these are geographies where space is constitutive of the social.

The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future

David Horowitz

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The Left and Historical Astigmatism 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

In POLITICS OF BAD FAITH, David Horowitz considers the current plight of the liberal Left of the United States and concludes that it has failed to learn the inevitable lesson that socialism is a defunct system that has never worked at any time or in any place in recorded history. The "Bad Faith" of his title suggests that for the current crop of socialists to insist that the failure of socialism was due more to a betrayal of its guiding principles than to its inner value clearly posits a misplaced historical astigmatism that is bad faith personified.

In Chapter One ("The Left After Communism"), Horowitz identifies Eric Hobsbawm's AGE OF EXTREMES as typical of the left's turning a blind eye toward the source of the suffering and deaths of millions of those who endured the failings of a political theory in each country that chose to live under its red banner. When Horowitz sums up Hobsbawm's central thesis that even when socialist leaders were wrong, they were still right, he zeroes in on the Left's inner blind spot, namely that "the response of the Left to the disasters that its political ideas have produced is the response of nihilism and bad faith." (Page 31) Horowitz then shifts to the pervasiveness of Marxist ideology in America's colleges and universities. It was with no small sorrow that he lists the required readings for Columbia's Contemporary Civilization course that include only Marxist or socialist writers (with Max Weber and Charles Darwin as the only exceptions). Where, asks Horowitz, are the leading non-socialist thinkers of the last two centuries? The answer is that they have been relegated to the unwanted dustbins of history and in their place are legions of second-raters, has-beens, and never-wases.

In Chapter Two ("The Fate of the Marxist Idea"), Horowitz directly addresses what ought to have been adroit foresight in 1872 when he quotes Mikhail Bakunin, Marx's rival in the First International, who sets forth what to him was the inevitable future of Russia under socialism: "the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones." (Page 109) One might think that this eloquent warning coupled with the ubiquitous failures of every socialist state since 1872 might give the lie to the claims of Hobsbawm and others of his ilk. The tragedy, of course, is that it does not and this is why David Horowitz has written THE POLITICS OF BAD FAITH.

Editorial Review:

The Left in America did not disappear with the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor have those who supported the Soviet future learned the lessons of this tragic past. Behind the facade of liberalism, David Horowitz shows, the Left has continued to advance its schemes: to redistribute resources according to race, sex, and class; to make Americans wards of the state; and to turn Big Government into Big Brother. Defying laws of nature and morality in the name of revolutionary principle, the Left has even subverted the public health system, allowing AIDS to flourish and to kill hundreds of thousands of young men and women.

Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician, 1902-1954 (Suny Series in American Labor History)

Gerald Meyer

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Vito Marcantonio and the Inherent Compromises of American Radicalism 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Congressman Vito Marcantonio was once one of the most famous and most infamous political figures in America. Richard Nixon won a Senate seat in 1950 by linking his Democratic opponent's record to that of Marcantonio, and Marcantonio was harassed by fellow members of Congress and the media alike. He is likely the only member of Congress who ever served as a lawyer for the Communist Party, and the only member of Congress who relied on the Communist Party as a key component of his political machine.

Yet the Communist Party was only one element of his electoral coalition. The Republican Party was the party that got him started (he was a protege of Republican Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who set an example for Marcantonio by once winning election to Congress on the
Socialist Party ticket when the Republicans would not back him), and the Republican Party nominated Marcantonio in 1934, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1942, and 1944.

Marcantonio only lost the Republican Party nomination narrowly in 1946 at the beginning of the Cold War when he was elected to Congress on the Democratic and American Labor Party tickets. By 1948, the law had been changed to make it impossible for him to seek the Republican and Democratic nominations while serving as the leader of the American Labor Party, but he won a plurality on the American Labor Party ticket standing alone. In 1950, the Democratic, Republican, and Liberal parties all nominated the same candidate, James Donovan, who defeated Marcantonio by a 4 to 3 margin, 49,448 to 36,095.

As the statewide leader of the American Labor Party from 1941 on, and as an active leader of the American Labor Party from 1937 on, Marcantonio gained the power to cross-endorse Democratic and Republican candidates. He used this power to get Republicans elected in otherwise unfriendly districts, giving the Republican Party extra state legislative power in return for giving his own American Labor Party--and the Communists who somewhat influenced it--a national spokesman.

The author presents exhaustive evidence of Marcantonio's deep passion for the welfare of his poverty stricken Italian-American, Puerto Rican, and African American constituents, a concern which made his office a model of constituent service and advocacy for the poor and discriminated against. Income from Marcantonio's law practice went to both supplementing his constituent service and his political campaigns. He died at age 52 in 1954 with less than $10,000 in assets.

The author discusses at length the symbiotic relationship between Marcantonio and the Republican Party--and to a lesser degree, Marcantonio and the Democratic Party--but does not fully investigate the full implications of that alliance. We do not learn for instance how American Labor Party Republicans elected to the New York legislature used their power to advance or to thwart the public policy goals that Marcantonio pushed in Washington.

This is a book that should be read for historical perspective by anyone pondering the past and potential future role of the Green Party in American politics, or third party politics in general. This book also sheds valuable light on the generally underreported story of the rise of Americans of Italian descent from poverty to solid middle class status, the early and since abandoned efforts to classify them as a racial minority analagous to African Americans, the development of bilingual education and other educational innovations of Marcantonio's friend, neighbor, and mentor Leonard Covello, the struggles for civil rights before Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Montgomery Bus Boycott a year and a few months after Marcantonio's death, and the role and limitations of political machines as social and political forces in New York City history.

At a time in which Joe Lieberman has won election to the Senate as a third-party Republican-backed candidate, when former New York Mayor Rudolph Giulani--Marcantonio's polar opposite in many ways-- appears appears poised to be the first major American Presidential candidate of Italian descent, when the Green Party struggles against constant allegations that it's operational goals are to elect Republicans, the story of Vito Marcantonio and his long-dead allies and opponents has a surprising and growing continuing relevance.

The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical

Hosea Hudson, Neil Irvin Painter

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Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution

Hue-Tam Ho Tai

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Impressive review 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book deals with the origins of the revolutionary movement in Vietnam (1920-1930).

Although the topic is dry, this in-depth, well-referenced review of this complex problem makes it more interesting. It suggests that the Vietnamese revolution started with various nationalist groups before being displaced by the communists. The role of women is also acknowledged.

Studies by McHale also suggested similar conclusions.

This is an interesting book reserved for a selected group of people interested in the study of Vietnamese revolution. I have learned a lot from it although it took me my trials to grasp its significance and finish it.

Editorial Review:

This work looks at the influence of radicalism on a crucial point in Vietnamese history. It reveals an era of student strikes, debates on women's emancipation, revolt against the patriarchal family and intellectual explorations of French and Chinese politics and thought.

Radical Mass Media Criticism: A Cultural Genealogy

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Editorial Review:

Since the beginning of the media age, there have been thinkers who have reacted against the increasing power of the mass media and perceived its ever-more-pervasive role in historical development. This book examines those early mass media critics and their controversial writings, and it links them with their contemporaries to demonstrate the relevance of their legacy for today's debates on media power and media ethics.

Included in this book is a look at the work of Karl Kraus and his devastating critiques of the role of corrupt journalism in the First World War; at Ferdinand Tönnies' provocative analysis of the relationship between public opinion and propaganda; and at the "Frankfurt School," especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, in the shadow of the experience of Nazism.

The Glasgow Media Group unmasks ideological bias in apparently objective news. The importance and influence of the much-contested figure of Marshall McLuhan is analyzed, as is the work of Robert McChesney and the United States' tradition from which his own writing and collaboration with fellow critical intellectuals Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman emerged. From Jesús Martín-Barbero in Colombia and Nestor Garcia Canclini in Mexico, comes a perspective on globalizing mass communications practice.

The media-critical work of Harold Innis, Northrop Frye, David Suzuki, Maude Barlow and the black American feminist writer, bell hooks, make this book truly one of the first full historical surveys of radical mass media criticism.

Anthology contributors are a team of leading international experts in the field and, apart from the editors, include: Slavko Splichal, Hanno Hardt, Joost van Loon, Stuart Allen, Jason Barker, John Eldridge, Robert McChesney, James Winter and Cynthia Carter.

David Berry is senior lecturer in journalism, culture and mass communications and John Theobald is associate professor in modern languages, both at the Southampton Institute, U.K.

IF I HAD A HAMMER: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left

Maurice Isserman

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Provocative And Diverting History Of American Socialism! 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

In this wonderful history of how the ghost of the old American Communist movement informed and influenced the birthing and early history of the so-called New Left of the late 1960s and beyond, scholar Maurice Isserman shows how the contradictions and themes motivating the socialist of the late 1940s and 1950s profoundly affected the birth and growth of the new cultural critique emanating from the several leftist movements of the turbulent 1960s. Is so tracing the social history of the leftist movements within the domestic political scene. Isserman helps to make greater sense of many of the predominating themes of later domestic radicalism, as with the notorious rise of the Students For A Democratic Society (or SDS) movement, one that transpired largely on large, metropolitan college campuses.

Indeed, several of the founders of the SDS organization such as sociologist Todd Gitlin and California politician/social activist Tom Hayden were sons of socialist radicals themselves, raised in middle class households in which spirited intellectual discussions centering round the plight of the ordinary working man and his or her exploitation at the hand of capitalism was `de rigueur' for dinnertime conversation. We are treated to an inside look at how the wartime pacifism of Gandhi-like non-violent opposition played out over several decades to become the largely non-violent protests of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements of the sixties. Isserman has also authored other interesting tomes about the times, including both "Which Side Were You On", a study of the American Communist Party, and the provocative "America Divided", a study of the rise of the American Counterculture of the later sixties.

Here Isserman shows how the personalities of several key participants in the avant-garde urban socialist scene such as Michael Harrington (noted author of "The Other America"), Max Shachtman, and Irving Howe (author of several noted tomes on the rise of an urban and mainly Jewish intellectual class in America such as "World Of Our Fathers") and how they transformed the collapse of the American Communist Party in the 1950s into a nascent socialist movement that was more consonant with the needs and characteristics of the contemporary American social scene. Isserman is most interesting when tracing how individual beliefs become transformed into social policy, and he does this here with these several personalities quite well. For me, this was a memorable journey back into the intellectual and social heritage and the political genesis of the 1960s protest movements, and a reading experience I thoroughly enjoyed.

Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of an American Radical

Janice R. MacKinnon, Stephen R. MacKinnon

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Comprehensive biography that will stand the test of time. 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

The Mackinnons have done a great service in writing this book about a great American, as shown by their interviews which started on June 10, 1974 and ended on July 25, 1985. They also covered the world, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Calcutta, Zurich and in all parts of the U.S. Their knowledge and fluency in Chinese contributed to their research in ways that other biographers will have difficult in overcoming. Their devotion and sacrifice to their subject is amply demonstrated.

It seems to this reviewer that two themes came together in Agnes Smedly's life and in the interests of the biographers, the feminist movement and China's attaining its status on the world political stage. Unfortunately during the time that it took to gather the material and write the book, both of the movements have changed substantially and the people interested in them have moved to other concepts and ideas. Another cross lays over the book- is it to be an academic treatise or a popular biography? The academic treatise seems to have won out and in large sections become a rote laying out of dates, times and movements.

Not coming from the academic world, I have to assume that in order to have a proper foundation and references, this is the way it has to be done. Unfortunately, Smedly does not come to life. I had no feeling of the person involved. The parts that have fire and verve are those quotations from Smedley's own writings. Nothing is presented that contradicts her own analysis of herself and her point of view, whether from her novelized form, her personal correspondence or her other writings. I got the feeling that more of her own writings would have given a better picture than what was written.

The book is well worth reading, but its greatest value may be in bringing together the material about Smedly in an organized form and its whereabouts for either the MacKinnons or others to write the biography that will bring her to life.

(The MacKinnons were the principle organizers of the US/China Peoples Friendship Association of Phoenix in 1975).

This review was written on August 15, 1988 by Frank Kadish. Jan MacKinnon died on Sunday, September 26, 1999 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Editorial Review:

Country school teacher, birth control pioneer, socialist journalist, freedom fighter, writer--Agnes Smedley (1892-1950) was on the battlefront of American politics, the Indian struggle for independence, and the Chinese Communist revolution. In this coherent, intelligible, and engaging book, the MacKinnons offer us a superb portrayal of one of the most significant female political figures in recent American history.