Marxism Books - Page 12

Marx: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Philosophers)

Andrew Collier

Amazon Price: $14.62 List Price: $14.62 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Oneworld Publications Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $3.91

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Theory
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Collier provides a full examination of both the young and mature Marx, as well as all of his major works. He also analyzes the apparent contradictions within Marx's theory, concluding with a discussion of how Marxism has changed since its founder's death.

The Man Who Stayed Behind

Sidney Rittenberg, Amanda Bennett, Sidney Rittenberg

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Duke University Press Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $3.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Hero by Failure 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

Anyone who has made seeking truth his or her quest should read this book. With a painful honesty, Rittenberg accounts a sincere believer's failed efforts in pursuing idealism. He does not shun away from the truth that idealism and stupidity were often twins in human history. In fact, "faith" can make one blind and an involuntarily contributor to harm. It took the author a lifetime - including 16 years in the prisons of the system he believed in - to realize this simple truth. An ordinary person might have woken up a lot earlier, but not a believer. Is this faith or stupidity? The reader should draw his or her own conclusion. Nonetheless, what I really want to say is: although his effort in pursing ideals has failed, his life experience is not a waste; we can all learn from his lessons. In this sense he is still a hero, or in classic Chinese terms, a "hero by failure". To the reviewer below who called Rittenberg a "coward" with the "integrity of a worm" I want to ask, could you do better than him in those circumstances - in the bombing and in the prisons? That is a very pointed question.

Rittenberg's Chinese name Li Dunbai has been known to me since my childhood during the Cultural Revolution in China, though I never knew him personally, and still don't know him now. In this book it is his candid and thorough accounts of the personal experiences of the familiar history that grab me, from the opening page to the last. Unlike some other bestseller memoirs on the same period of China, such as "Wild Swans," which emphasize the virtue while downplaying the deficits of the protagonists, Rittenberg hides nothing about his own personal weakness and mistakes. Anyone who has gone through the same period knows that we were all participants, no matter how noble or gaudy our motives were, no matter you admit it or not. To deny this and dress up as a pure victim or even a hero is truly a shame. Only by facing our mistakes and failures honestly we can help ourselves.

Editorial Review:

The Man Who Stayed Behind is the remarkable account of Sidney Rittenberg, an American who was sent to China by the U.S. military in the 1940s. A student activist and labor organizer who was fluent in Chinese, Rittenberg became caught up in the turbulence that engulfed China and remained there until the late 1970s. Even with access to China’s highest leaders as an American communist, however, he was twice imprisoned for a total of sixteen years.

Both a memoir and a documentary history of the Chinese revolution from 1949 through the Cultural Revolution, The Man Who Stayed Behind provides a human perspective on China’s efforts to build a new society. Critical of both his own mistakes and those of the Communist leadership, Rittenberg nevertheless gives an even-handed account of a country that is now free of internal war for the first time in a hundred years.

A Place in the Sun: Marxism and Fascism in China's Long Revolution

A. James Gregor

Amazon Price: $37.00 List Price: $37.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Westview Press Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $4.60

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

China has endured a century of turmoil, beginning with the anti-dynastic revolution associated with Sun Yat-Sen, through the military and tutelary rule of Chiang Kai-shek, the revolutionary regime of Mao Zedong, and the radical reforms of Deng Xiaoping. China has had little respite. Historians and social scientists have attempted to understand some of this history as being the consequence of the impact of European ideologies-including Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, and Fascism. Rarely instructive or persuasive, the discussions regarding this issue have, more often than not, led to puzzlement, rather than enlightenment.In A Place in the Sun, A. James Gregor offers an interpretation of the role of European Marxist and Fascist ideas on China's revolutionaries that is both original, and based on a lifetime of scholarship devoted to revolutionary ideologies. Gregor renders a detailed analysis of their respective influence on major protagonists. In the exposition, Gregor reveals an unsuspected and complex set of relationships between the Chinese revolution and essentially European ideologies. His discussion concludes with a number of estimations that suggest implications for the future of modern China, and its relationship with the advanced industrial democracies. How post-Dengist China-the world's most populous nation-is to be understood remains uncertain to most comparativists and historians. Gregor provides one well supported alternative, and he is carefully attentive to the implications of this alternative.

Lenin to Gorbachev: Three Generations of Soviet Communists

Joan Frances Crowley, Dan Vaillancourt

Amazon Price: $9.87 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harlan Davidson Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $4.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good book 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Excellent book about the leaders of the Soviet Union. This book traces the history of this important social experiment through the various party leaders. The authors seem to favor the communist philosophy so much that they ignore some important points about the weakness within the system that eventually led to it's collapse. Still, the book presents a ton of information in an easy to read format.

Editorial Review:

This brief work examines Marx's ideas and the three generations of Soviet communists that followed him: the revolutionaries, the social architects, and the businessmen. In Lenin to Gorbachev the authors provide an introduction to communism through a focus on the turbulent history of the USSR and its leaders. Since the book was first published in 1987, the world has witnessed the end of the Soviet Union and the continuing power struggle between hard-line communists and reformers. In a special supplement added in 1994, the authors provide a postmortem of the Gorbachev administration and an introduction to Yeltsin, the reformer, and the uncertain future of the independent Russian states.

An Anthology of Western Marxism: From Lukacs and Gramsci to Socialist-Feminism

Amazon Price: $35.95 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $23.51

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Political
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> Ideologies -> Communism & Socialism
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General

Editorial Review:

This unique anthology brings together readings from the works of the most significant post-Leninist Marxist thinkers. The selections reflect the diversity and high intellectual accomplishment of twentieth-century Marxism and show how these theorists have transformed traditional Marxism's general philosophical orientation, interpretation of historical materialism, models of socialist political practice, and conception of human liberation. The writings reveal the evolution of a sophisticated and democratic Marxism with a theoretical emphasis on class consciousness and subjectivity, a resistance to all forms of domination--including sexism--and a belief in the political power of consciousness-raising.

The selections include the work of forerunners Karl Korsch, George Lukacs, and Antonio Gramsci; figures from the 1930s, including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Wilhelm Reich; post-war and New Left thinkers Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Gorz, Herbert Marcuse, and Jurgen Habermas; and contemporary socialist-feminists Sheila Rowbotham, Juliet Mitchell, Barbara Ehrenreich, Heidi Hartmann, and Ann Ferguson. Gottlieb places the readings in historical and theoretical context, providing a clear and insightful account of the intellectual problems and historical events that gave rise to the Western Marxism, and describing how it both anticipated and influenced contemporary radical movements. Each selection is prefaced by a biographical sketch and the book concludes with a bibliography suggesting further research.

A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev

Amazon Price: $19.80 List Price: $30.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vermont Amazon Marketplace: 20 new & used starting at $5.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Eastern
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

I expected more 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

While the book itself is of course in perfect shape, I had thought it would be more comprehensive and would also carry complete documents. Instead it is a selection of fragments. Obviously I misunderstood what it was about. The author does state in the foreword that it is intended for readers not specialised in the area, but I was looking for something more like a "white book"...

To sum up, while I can say nothing "against" the book, which might well be worth a reading for beginners, I would not recommend it to those in search of much specific detail.

Editorial Review:

An extensive revision of the valued but unobtainable 1960 edition. Nearly 300 key documents are now readily available in translation.

Throwing The Emperor From His Horse: Portrait Of A Village Leader In China, 1923-1995

Peter J Seybolt

Amazon Price: $37.00 List Price: $37.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Westview Press Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $3.30

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Some problems of this book 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I can hardly say this is not a good book. Actually I have used this book in my modern China course and my students love it! However, I gradually found its problems: the book is based on the interviews Professor Seybolt gave to Wang Fucheng, an illiterate village leader and CCP party member about his life experience over the years. I understand the reason why an illiterate farmer Wang Fucheng was chosen was becuase the author wants to avoid the overconcentration on the social elite's response to China's social upheaval, as many works tend to do. However, the price the author pays is that the narrator in this book basically lacks a critical and analytical ability to explain the rural life after 1949. During the Great Leap Forward, he simply let villagers grow turnip so they escaped famine; during the cultural revolution, he soon restored his leardership after several struggle sessions; In the "Criticize Lin Biao and criticize Confucius Campaign", Wang went as far as to think that Confucius was a big landlord in a nearby village! after the Cultural Revolution, he loves Deng's reform policy...It seems that Wang Fucheng so easily survived all turmoils and he never questions anything but just happily adapts himself to any situation and felt complacent---this reminds people of Zhang Yimou's To Live---yes just live on without reflection.

The author's limitation of access to true feeling of the people is obvious---as a party member and rural cadre, Wang Fucheng would never tell an American interviewer his suspision of Mao or distaste of the government, even if there is any. He must use self-censorship to ensure that whatever he tells an American is politically correct. Thus, what he tells in the book might all be true, but not all truths have been told. The question of authenticity should be considered when reading this type of books that are based on interviews between Americans and Chinese citizens who know too well what they can say while what not!

A much better work about rural Chinese feelings is "Chen Village under Mao and Deng", I think. Only in the latter can you find the diverse and rich inner world of Chinese peasants. They are not just "living" in a rosy picture but also think, criticize, hate and doubt...

Editorial Review:

This engaging book sketches an intimate portrait of the life of Wang Fucheng, an illiterate peasant who served for thirty years as Communist party secretary of an impoverished village on the north China plain. Born in 1923, Wang Fucheng rose under the Communists from extreme poverty to a position of power and prestige in his village. His account provides a fascinating illustration of the process of social mobility during the Maoist era, the interaction between central and local leaders, and the way central policies were adapted at the village level.

The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy

J. K. Gibson-Graham

List Price: $32.95 By: Blackwell Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $6.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Free Enterprise
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Theory
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> Policy & Current Events

Editorial Review:

In the mid-1990s, at the height of academic discussion about the inevitability of capitalist globalization, J. K. Gibson-Graham presented a groundbreaking and controversial argument for envisioning alternative economies. This new edition includes an introduction in which the authors address critical responses to The End of Capitalism and outline the economic research and activism they have been engaged in since the book was first published.

“Paralyzing problems are banished by this dazzlingly lucid, creative, and practical rethinking of class and economic transformation.” —Meaghan Morris, Lingnan University, Hong Kong

“Profoundly imaginative.” —Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, City University of New York “Filled with insights, it is clearly written and well supported with good examples of actual, deconstructive practices.” —International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

J. K. Gibson-Graham is the pen name of Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, feminist economic geographers who work, respectively, at the Australian National University in Canberra and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993-1998

Murray Bookchin

Amazon Price: $15.56 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 11 to 13 days By: AK Press Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $2.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> Ideologies -> Communism & Socialism
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> Ideologies -> Radical Thought
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Murray Bookchin has been a dynamic revolutionary propagandist since the 1930s when, as a teenager, he orated before socialist crowds in New York City and engaged in support work for those fighting Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
Now, for the first time in book form, this volume presents a series of exciting and engaged interviews with, and essays from, the founder of social ecology.
This expansive collection ranges over, amongst others, Bookchin's account of his teenage years as a young Communist during the Great Depression, his experiences of the 1960s and reflections on that decade's lessons, his vision of a libertarian communist society, libertarian politics, the future of anarchism, and the unity of theory and practice. He goes on to assess the crisis of radicalism today and defends the need for a revolutionary Left. Finally, he states what is to be valued in both anarchism and Marxism in building such a Left and offers guidelines for forming a new revolutionary social movement.

Fascism and Big Business

Daniel Guerin, Francis Merrill, Mason Merrill

Amazon Price: $23.00 List Price: $23.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pathfinder Press (NY) Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $23.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Theory
Subjects -> History -> Historical Study -> Revolutionary
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General

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

A CLASSIC ON THE REAL TIES BETWEEN FASCISM AND BIG BUSINESS 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

A comprehensive study of fascism as it evolved in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

Daniel Guerin's classic work, first published in French in 1936, shows how fascism, far from being an aberration of mass psychology, arose from the specific conditions of a social system in crisis. At first covertly, then increasingly openly, layers of big business financed and promoted the fascist movements in Italy and Germany.

Guerin contrasts the fascists' initially radical anticapitalist demagogy with their moves to shore up the capitalist profit system once they form the government.

"The profound causes that drove the Italian and German industrialists to bring fascism to power may produce the same effects elsewhere," Guerin concludes. (from the back cover)

Editorial Review:

Examines the development of fascism in Germany and Italy and its relationship with the ruling capitalist families there.