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LIBBY: The library Reading App. Free access to a million books. HERE
E-Books from the University of California Press.
Hundreds of titles available free, Click here to access selections by topic.
Free Downloadable Featured Books:
Harry Haywood’s Black Bolshevik. ‘”The extreme importance of this book is that in one longish volume Haywood has given us an indispensable history, as reference and sum-up of practical struggles, of not only his particular thirty-six years in the Communist Party USA, including his road into and out of it, but equally has given us a good portion of political history.’ –Amiri Baraka… Essay on the debate in the 1960s by Harry Haywood and Harold Cruise, HERE
Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans This 2001 work by by Martha Menchaca, cover Mexico and Mexican Americans from the 1500ss to 1900, differs from previous histories on Mexican Americans and on the American Southwest because the central thread is race relations, including Blacks as important historical actors, rather than denying their presence in the history of the Mexican Americans.
Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity The classic work on globalization and transnational capital by William I Robinson.
The CLR James Reader. A good 400 page collection.
ESSENTIAL TO UNDERSTANDING THE TOPIC:
Also available from Verso in a single volume with a new foreword.
Ted Allen: The Invention of the White Race, Vol 1
Ted Allen: The Invention of the White Race, Vol 2
Lenin Rediscovered: Lars Linh. A re-examination of ‘What Is To Be Done?’
History of the Korean War by Bruce Cummings
Fascism and Dictatorship by Poulantzas: Important background in the rise of rightwing populism in the US and Europe.
BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. Here are more than 50 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators.
Political Economy of Stalinism. Based on evidence from the secret archive opened after the collapse of the USSR. Covers all the economic innovations and projects from the death of Lenin to the death of Stalin. By Paul R Gregory.
Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba. Edited by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker
Communism in the 21st Century (3 vols) Edited by Shannon Brincat, a Griffith University, Australia research fellow. His research is focused on the Frankfurt School and critical international relations theory. A compelling three-volume exploration of the philosophical, social, and political facets of the theory and practice of communism within the conditions of 21st-century world politics and late capitalism. It presents viewpoints from leading Marxist philosophers, economists, and historians alongside those from experts critical of communist ideas to provide a balanced, diverse collection on modern communism. It also re-examines established debates within communist and radical politics to show how these discussions have been reconfigured to how communism is currently situated in world politics and may develop in the future. Finally the nearly 880 pages explores Marx’s vision from various interpretive backgrounds, including the socialist, economic, humanist, cosmopolitan, post-modern, feminist, environmental, and cultural, to engage a wide readership: students, academics, activists, and laypersons
CHINA AND NEW LEFT VISIONS. This is the first book to take on the formidable rise of China’s New Left ‘School of Thought’ primarily from the point of view of artistic expression. Most existing treatments give the impression that the New Left is constituted entirely of cultural and economic theory, but Ban Wang and Jie Lu’s book dramatizes and illuminates the re-animation of popular culture, theater, and literature under New Left influence. The editors have assembled some of the most exciting commentators currently writing on the Chinese cultural scene. This book is a must read for the thoughtful China watcher. –Charles A. Laughlin, Weedon Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Virginia.
THE EAST IS BLACK is one of the most brilliant examinations of the possibilities and limits of the global radical imaginary to appear in the last quarter century. In charting the encounters of six black intellectuals/activists with Mao’s China, Frazier offers a sophisticated, sobering view of transnational solidarity. He skillfully peels back the romantic exterior of revolution, revealing a complex set of misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and political dissembling alongside powerful moments of recognition and revelation. If, as Stuart Hall famously wrote, ‘hegemony is hard work,’ then Frazier demonstrates that global counter-hegemony is even harder.” (Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times)
The Bending Cross. 500+ page biography of Eugene Debs. By Ray Ginger, with a new introduction by Mike Davis.
GRAMSCI, LENIN AND THE UNITED FRONT: The Prisms of Gramsci: The Political Formula of the United Front, by Marcos Del Roio.
Nicos Poulantzas: The Crisis of the Dictatorships
One of the first Marxist studies of democratization in modern Europe, the 1975 work deals with Spain, Portugal. Poulantzas argued that the rise of democracy in each country was the outcome of a political conflict between two key factions of the capitalist class, the domestic and comprador bourgeoisie. A good prologue to current battles.
Kevin Anderson’s Marx at the Margins“Anderson may just have provided the burgeoning Marx industry with another major focus for its research and debates. Marx at the Margins reveals a dimension of Marx that is very little known and even less understood. Anderson makes an overwhelming case for the importance of Marx’s views on non-Western societies, ethnicity, nationalism, and race to our interpretations of his thinking over a wide range of topics. This is an incredibly innovative, interesting, and terribly important book that will greatly benefit any of its readers.” –Bertell Ollman, New York University.
Mao Zedong and China in the 20th Century: A Concise History. From a Review by Tariq Ali: ‘Karl gives admirably succinct accounts of the main tensions and debates that ran through the Maoist period—the opposition between bureaucracy and revolution, disagreements over developmental paths, relations between Party, army and masses. ‘
Blues People (Negro Music in White America) is a seminal study of Afro-American music (and culture generally) by Amiri Baraka, who published it as LeRoi Jones in 1963.[1] In Blues People Baraka explores the possibility that the history of black Americans can be traced through the evolution of their music. It is considered a classic work on jazz and blues music in American culture. This book documents the effects jazz and blues had on America on an economic, musical, and social level.
William Z Foster: Two Classics.
‘Toward Soviet America‘, Foster’s campaign book for his 1932 election, reflects the Comintern ‘Third Period’ line in the U.S. Later, in 1952, Foster wrote his ‘History of the Communist Party USA‘ in an effort to correct a number of errors.
Duncan Foley’s ‘Understanding Capital’
In this brilliantly lucid introduction to Marxist economic theory, Duncan Foley builds an understanding of the theory systematically, from first principles through the definition of central concepts to the development of important applications. All of the topics in the three volumes of Capital are included, providing the reader with a complete view of Marxist economics. Foley begins with a helpful discussion of philosophical problems readers often encounter in tackling Marx.
How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism. Eric Hobsbawn’s 440 page masterwork, the book is divided into two sections.
Part 1 is entitled ‘Marx and Engels’ and consists of ‘Marx Today’, ‘Marx, Engels and pre-Marxian Socialism’, ‘Marx, Engels and Politics’, ‘On Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class’, ‘On the Communist Manifesto’, ‘Discovering the Grundrisse’, ‘Marx on pre-Capitalist Formations’ and ‘The Fortunes of Marx’s and Engels’ Writings’.
Part 2 – ‘Marxism’ – includes ‘Dr Marx and the Victorian Critics’, ‘The Influence of Marxism 1880-1914′, ‘In the Era of Anti-fascism 1929-45′, ‘Gramsci’, ‘The Reception of Gramsci’, ‘The Influence of Marxism 1945-83′, ‘Marxism in Recession 1983-2000′ and finally ‘Marx and Labour: the Long Century’.
The Making of Marx’s ‘Capital’. Roman Rosdolsky’s book is a major work of interpretation and criticism, written over fifteen years by one of the foremost representatives of the European Marxist tradition. Rosdolsky investigates the relationship between various versions of Capital and explains the reasons for Marx’s successive reworkings; he provides a textual exegesis of Marx’s Grundrisse, now widely available, and reveals its methodological riches.
PALESTINE: the largest online library of free ebooks on Palestine, the Palestinians, and Palestinian history available anywhere. Download and read a free ebook on Palestine now!
Capital in the 21st Century. Thomas Piketty’s controversial empirical study linking capital’s growth with growing inequality, and arguing for creating a new social-democratic political space.
Marx on Gender and the Family: A Critical Study by Heather Brown. This is the first book-length study devoted exclusively to Marx’s perspectives on gender and the family, offers a fresh look at this topic in light of twenty-first century concerns. Although Marx’s writings sometimes exhibit sexism his work often transcends these phrases. Brown studies his writings on gender, as well as his 1879-1882 notebooks on precapitalist societies and gender.
This Monstrous War. Wilfred G Burchett’s book on the history of the Korean War, based on his on-the-spot reporting. Excellent background for understanding the ongoing Korean crises today.
Economic Theory of the Leisure Class by Nicolai Bukharin. A classic 137-page work from the early 1900s offering a Marxist critique of the Austrian School, the forerunners of today’s neoliberals. Get an overview of Bukharin’s life in this one-hour lecture by Doug Enaa Green HERE
John Brown: A Biography, by WEB DuBois, 1909. A 400-page history of the man and the period, and an early work that took John Brown seriously as an American hero.
Downloadable Book: Antonio Gramsci by Steve Jones
Downloadable Book: Black Jacobins by CLR James
Downloadable Book: The Poulantzas Reader
Downloadable Book: Domhoff’s ‘The Power Elite and the State’
Downloadable Article: Anderson’s ‘Antinomies of Gramsci’