# *The Great U75 Politics Reading List Thread.



## Idris2002 (Jul 23, 2003)

*The Great U75 Politics Reading List Thread.*

OK, this is the thread where recommend any politics-related books you fell you've benefitted from reading and which you think might benefit others.

I mean politics-related in the broadest sense - not just psephological studies of local elections, or statesman's memoirs, or "The Complete Idiot's guide to World Revolution", but also anything that touches on the political questions that come up or should come up on these boards. 

So that could  mean not just politics, but also history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, science, hell maybe even religion. And not just UK politics either. Irish politics keep coming up on this board, so we may as well open this thread to non-UK related texts in general.

But let's be careful about fiction - unless we're talking about a novel/book of short stories/epic poem that gives real insight into a political problem or movement (rather than being just a good read), save it for the books forum. Nothing wrong with good reads, they're just better off in the books forum, that's all.

And if comments by posters rile or inspire you - start a new thread, and keep this one for the purpose for which it was intended.

(thanks for doing the needful on the sticky front, mods).


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## jimmer (Jul 23, 2003)

ABC of Anarchism by Alexander Berkman
Malatesta, Life & Ideas edited by Vernon Richards
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell


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## rednblack (Jul 23, 2003)

> _Originally posted by japoulte _
> *
> Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell *



cue ernie starting a thread about that choice  


workers councils-anton pannekoek

anarchism, marxism and the future of the left-murray bookchin(entertaining i like his mattheuesque attitude if not all his ideas, but he does explain how anrchos can sometimes contest bourgois elections.)

anarchy-maletesta

the ragged trousered philanthropists- robert tressel (fiction, but...)


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## Dr. Christmas (Jul 23, 2003)

Ernest Gellner, _Nationalism_ (believe it or not this is a very cogent and stinging critique of nationalism)

Tommy Sheridan & Alan Coombes, _Imagine_

Paul Flynn,  _Dragons Led by Poodles_ 

Alan Clark _Diaries_ (Highly entertaining as a personal history of Thatcher but prepare to be offended)

Laura McAllister, _Plaid Cymru: The Emergence of a Political Party_ 

E.F. Schumacher _Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered_

Any of Peter Taylor's books on NI- _Provos: The IRA & Sinn Fein, Loyalists, Brits_ 

Chris Harvie & Peter Jones, _The Road to Home Rule: Images of Scotland's cause_


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## jimmer (Jul 23, 2003)

The I.R.A. by Tim Pat Coogan


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## Belushi (Jul 23, 2003)

'From the Diary of a Snail' - Gunter Grass 

'On Liberty' - John Stuart Mill

'Negative Dialectics' - Theodore Adorno

'One Dimensional Man' - Herbert Marcuse

'Soviet Marxism' - Herbert Marcuse

'Ten Days that Shook the World' - John Reed

'Civilisation and Its Discontents' - Sigmund Freud

'The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich' - William Shirer

'Age of Extremes' etc - Eric Hobsbawm

'Guns, Germs and Steel' - Jared Diamond

'History of the English Working Class' - EP Thompson

'The Trial of Henry Kissinger' - Christopher Hitchens

'Heroes' - John Pilger


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## belboid (Jul 23, 2003)

a few key ones for the moment I think:

Out of the Ghetto - Joe Jacobs

Our Flag Stays Red - Phil Piratin

The 43 Group - Morris Beckman (with intro by Vidal Sassoon!!)

Fascism, Stalinism, and the United Frobt - Leon Trotsky


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## Fledgling (Jul 23, 2003)

The World at 2000- Fred Halliday 

2hrs That Shook the World-Fred Halliday 

Last of the Empires (history of USSR)-John Keep. This one is truly excellent and teaches you a lot about the USSR, a great starting book for those interested.


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## nomoney (Jul 23, 2003)

William Morris:
News from Nowhere
How we live and how we might live
some free/discunted books and pamphlets on socialism from here


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## nomoney (Jul 23, 2003)

on line - free to download 

Socialist Principles Explained 2000 (52KB) 

The Market System Must Go! 1997 (118KB) 

Socialism as a Practical Alternative 1994 (107KB) 

Ecology and Socialism 1990 (407KB) 

Women and Socialism 1986 (361KB) 

Marxian Economics: An Introduction 1978 (214KB) 

Historical Materialism 1975 (234KB) 

Socialist Principles Explained 1975 (194KB) 

Family Allowances: A Socialist Analysis 1943 (143KB) 

Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse 1932 (187KB) 

Socialism and Religion 1911 (261KB) 

Overview (Link to selected articles from the Socialist Standard on socialist theory) 

Centenary (Link to selected articles from the Socialist Standard, monthly journal of the Socialist Party, since it was first published in 1904)


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## Termite (Jul 23, 2003)

Tanya Reinhart - Israel/Palestine - How To End the 1948 War 

Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens - Spurious Scholarship

Edward Said - The End of the Peace Process

More for later...


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## ernestolynch (Jul 23, 2003)

*Michael Parenti - Blackshirts and Reds* (http://www.michaelparenti.org/BlackShirts.html)

Extracts here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Parenti/BlackshirtsReds_Parenti.html

A fascinating book which must be read by all anti-fascists everywhere, young and old.

*Denver Walker - Quite Right, Mister Trotsky*

A long-time Bristolian trades unionists disassembles the Trot myths and exposes Trots as pseudo-leftists.

Another View of Stalin by Ludo Martens - online free here.

Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union by Paolo Sousa - if you want to be a McCarthyite, fine, but read this first.


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## belboid (Jul 23, 2003)

> _Originally posted by nomoney _
> *some free/discunted books and pamphlets on socialism from here *


fighting the temptation.......nope, no comments to be made here at all.....


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## sleaterkinney (Jul 23, 2003)

Can't believe nobodies mentioned 

Greg Palast: The Best Democracy Money can Buy


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## oi2002 (Jul 23, 2003)

Just to throw something different into the mix:

Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy

The thinking mans total bastard. The 1st 3/4s of his book changed my view of European history.  It also gives a horrorshow view of a would be 20th century Richelieu.

And of course everything from Machiaveli, but espeacially the Discources.

Sun Tzu (Mao just did a Cut N Paste) on War.  Clausewitz still relevant as well.

For a lengthy giggle: Gibbon's, Decline and Fall.  Eric Honecker joins me in this recomondation.

Always useful to read against your prejuidices.


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## Hawkeye Pearce (Jul 23, 2003)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzche.

You might not agree with quite a bit of whats in it but its a fascinating book that encourages us to reject universalist concepts of morality and deal with problems in human terms.  

The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli 

Possibly the ultimate theorist of the modern state.  

Loyalists - Peter Taylor

Great book and helped me understand the N.I situation a hell of a lot better.

Hawk


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## technocat (Jul 24, 2003)

Adrian Peacock "5 Billion Slaves 200 Phaoroahs" (my new bible!!)

Tom Segev "One Palestine Complete"

Anthony Giddens "Beyond Left And Right"

Anthony Giddens "Runaway World"

"Globalization-and the challenges of a new century" edited by Patrick O'Meara, Howard D. Mehlinger and Matthew Krain

Chris Harman "The Lost Revolution"

Paul Frolich "Rosa Luxembourg"

Michael Moore "Stupid White Men" (of course!)

Will Hutton "The State we're in"

Man, theres so many good ones these days


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## Pickman's model (Jul 24, 2003)

unfinished business: the politics of class war, class war
bandit country: the ira and south armagh, toby harnden
ballymurphy and the irish war, ciaran de baroid
rebels, peter de rosa
ireland's civil war, calton younger
guerrilla days in ireland, tom barry
web of deceit, mark curtis
the antichrist, nietzsche
ten men dead, david beresford
de profundis & the soul of man under socialism, wilde
making of the english working class, thompson
friends in high places, paxman
the discourses, machiavelli
rogue state, blum
the return of grand theory in the human sciences, skinner (ed)
class, (oxford reader) joyce (ed)
[/list=a] oops! forgot discipline and punish, foucault; mutual aid, kropotkin; bakunin on anarchism, dolgoff (ed); anarchy in action, ward.

should be enough to be going on with!


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## pilchardman (Jul 24, 2003)

Teresa Hayter, (2000), _Open Borders, the case against immigration controls._ London: Pluto Press.

Mark Curtis, (2003), _Web of Deceit, Britain's real role in the world._ London: Vintage.

Peter Marshall (1993), _Demanding the Impossible, a history of anarchism_. London: Fontana Press.

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, (1994), _Manufacturing Consent, the political economy of the mass media_. London: Vintage. 

Mary Wollstonecraft, (1792), _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_. (Available in Penguin edition).


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## jkmarx (Jul 24, 2003)

_Power without Responsibility_ by James Curran and Jean Seaton. Quite a dry academic text, but very useful in illustarting how the media in this country have been taken over by capital.


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## rebel warrior (Jul 24, 2003)

John Pilger - Hidden Agendas

Marx and Engels- The Communist Manifesto

Vladimir Lenin - The State and Revolution

Leon Trotsky - History of the Russian Revolution

Tariq Ali - 1968: Marching in the Streets

Chris Harman - The Fire Last Time: 1968 and after
                     - A Peoples History of the World

Anti-Imperialism - A guide for the movement (Bookmarks, 2003)

CLR James - The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution 1791-1803

Lewis Grassic Gibbon - Spartacus

{Btw - I have also just finished reading Tariq Alis first novel, Redemption, which I picked up second hand for 39p (good value but that it was so cheap is not surprising as the book will only really appeal to cynical ex-Trotskyists, as it is about the Trotskyist movement and the events during the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91).  Nethertheless some on here would probably find it of interest now, as it has a thinly disguised Ernest Mandel arguing that Marxists should make a turn towards religion to stay relevant in the modern world.  Tariq Ali has the SWP alone in the Trotskyist movement really arguing against this nonsense.  Redemption though has to be remembered is a novel, and would certainly not make any essential political reading list of any description.}


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## Belushi (Jul 24, 2003)

For the Conservatives out there

'The Road to Serfdom' - F Hayek

'The Wealth of Nations' - Adam Smith

'Reflections on the Revolution in France' - Edmund Burke

'Whatever happened to the Tories' - Ian Gilmour


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## Belushi (Jul 24, 2003)

How could I forget?

'The Rights of Man' - Tom Paine

'The Social Contract' - Rousseau

'Leviathan' - Thomas Hobbes


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## cutandsplice (Jul 24, 2003)

I can't resist book lists.


Capital vol 1 KM
Georg Lukacs - History and class consciousness
Antonio Gramsci - Selection from the prison notebooks

EP Thompson - Making of the English working class
Laurence McKeown - Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners 1972-2000. 
Bob Holton - British syndicalism


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## Pickman's model (Jul 24, 2003)

David Cannadine: Class In Britain

edited to add: for ernestolynch:- witold s sworakowski, "world communism, 1918-1965: a handbook"


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## Idris2002 (Jul 24, 2003)

All these sound good, folks, keep 'em coming - just one thing: don't just tease us with a title, give summary/reasons why your choice is good as well (could be one line or a whole essay)


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## Sorry. (Jul 24, 2003)

Noam Chomsky: Latin America - From Colonization from Globalization.

The book that banged the last nails into the coffin of the idea that the Americans are basically a force for good in the world.


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## freethepeeps (Jul 24, 2003)

> _Originally posted by japoulte _
> *ABC of Anarchism by Alexander Berkman
> Malatesta, Life & Ideas edited by Vernon Richards
> Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
> *


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## Dickie Dadd (Jul 24, 2003)

Despite flagrant egotism and his best efforts to establish himself as Oxbridge's answer to Noam Chomsky... How about George Monbiot's 'Age Of Consent'? I say this, not because I'm drawn to the naive jump from Shit Street to a revolutionary world parliament, but because the analyses of the existing economic and corporate global bodies are pretty incisive. But more so, generally speaking, the stuff pertaining to electoral duty and accountability is apt, right down to the immediate, local level. I don't need Monbiot to tell me that, and it may not orbit much further than the Guardian readership, but if you can steal it from Waterstone's then it's worth a read!


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## Kaka Tim (Jul 25, 2003)

no one has suggested this one yet - 

'the communist manifesto'
 - by some german bloke writing in the 1840s.
Very readable and full of fantastic phrases and surprsingly contempoary in much of its analysis.

'the rise and fall of the great powers'
paul kennedy - 1987ish.

excellent overview of great power politics over the past 500 years. Hes writing from a r/wingish POV but its excellent history thats strips away all the layers of myth, religion, propagandor and ideology to reveal the economic imperatives and 'real politic' behind interanational relations.

'the chatto book of dissent'  - probably out of print now, my edition was published in 1991.
a collection of dissenting voices ranging from ancient rome to situationist graffiti to IRA comuniques.  Great to dip into and can lead you into much wider reading based on the selected highlights here. Perfect for political dillitantes like yours truly.

'the english rebels' - not sure about the author. Published in 1981 it charts the history of english rebellions from the 1381 peseants revolt to the sufferagettes. Some bastard borrowed my copy and then left for mongolia. 

Mike Davies - City of Quartz.
City planning as 'urban apartheid' in late 80s LA. Foretells the LA riots that erupted a few months after its publication. 
The chapter on survilance is particularly precisent.


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## Idris2002 (Jul 25, 2003)

Yes Mike Davis.

I heard him speak last year (his wife's in the yank SWP, and they brought him over).

His Ecology of Fear is also very good.

Basically it's about how the introduction of a high-consumption capitalist social model into the environment of southern California invites environmental disaster, and how the consequent feelings of fear are manifested in social policy, popular culture etc.

It's one of those books that could easily have been expanded into five different volumes, and apparently some more fact-checking would have been in order, but overall it's well worth reading.


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## the scouser (Jul 25, 2003)

Mr Murder  by Dean Koontz

 No - not a strictly political book - but it is in a way cos it uses a lot of facts about surveilence techniques, although the book is, horror and murder.

 You'll meet a genetically altered bloke - Mr Murder - a government killing machine - theres a movie out also - but its a pile of absolute shite - ignore that .

Mr Murder works for the USA govt - he;'s a baddie in every sense of the word - the opening chapter will shock you by its brutality - but this isn't a gore festival - its a clever story of good vs evil.

If your looking for something with more entertainment value that the collected works of what Marx said in his sleep - Mr Murder will have you gripped - a book you won't be able to put down if you get past the first chapter -


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## Rich Lyon (Jul 25, 2003)

F.A. Hayek, *"The Road To Serfdom"* [link to condensed version] 

An extraordinarily clear dissection of why any society constructed around Collective principles is bound to fail and inevitably lead its citizens down the road to Serfdom. 





> Many socialists have the tragic illusion that by depriving private individuals of the power they possess in an individualist system, and transferring this power to society, they thereby extinguish power. What they overlook is that, by concentrating power so that it can be used in the service of a single plan, it is not merely transformed but infinitely heightened. ...
> 
> Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work?


If you rise from your bed every morning and give thanks that you are free to live that day in a manner of your own choosing, read this book to understand how that can be taken away from you. 

If, on the other hand, you rise from your bed imagining your lot could be a better one if the tall ears of corn in society were chopped down to size, read the book and at least ensure your arguments survive the challenges he poses to your philosophy.


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## sleaterkinney (Jul 25, 2003)

From the other side ish:

Francis Fukuyama - The End of History and the Last Man


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## technocat (Jul 26, 2003)

New book I got today from Books Etc if anyone is in there sometime, read the first couple of chapters, excellent so far (and it's American which is encouraging!!!)

"Weapons Of Mass Deception" by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (Robinson)


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## fela fan (Jul 27, 2003)

"Priests and Politicians - The Mafia of the Soul" by Osho.

He blames them, in that order, for all the ills of the world.

I agree. A world without politics and religions disguised as doctrines, would be a far saner place.

People would be better off without all this divisiveness. Ban isms i say.


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## sipriano (Jul 28, 2003)

Eclipse and re-emergence of the communist movement, by barrot and martin.

The militant attitude is indeed counter-revolutionary, in so far as it splits the
individual into two, seperating his needs, his real individual and social needs,
the reasons why he cannot stand the present world, from his action, his attempt to change this world. The militant refuses to admit that he is in fact 
revolutionary because he needs to change his own life as well as society in general. He represses the impulse which made him turn against society.
He submits to revolutionary action as if it was external to him: it is fairly easy
to see the moral character of this attitude. This was already wrong and conservative in the past, today it becomes increasingly reactionary.   

An influential book.


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## Ground Elder (Jul 28, 2003)

> 'the english rebels' - not sure about the author.


Charles Poulson.


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## rebel warrior (Jul 28, 2003)

Mike Davis - Late Victorian Holocausts - facinating history of the man made famines in the late 19th century which Davis holds the weather, British imperialism and economic depression to blame for.  

Also Kaka Tim was surprised that 'no one has suggested this one yet - 'the communist manifesto'
- by some german bloke writing in the 1840s.
Very readable and full of fantastic phrases and surprsingly contempoary in much of its analysis.' Er, True but I did note it earlier.


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## The Black Hand (Jul 28, 2003)

Try Customs In Common by EP Thompson.
Domination and the arts of resistance by James C. SCott,
The London Hanged by Peter Linebaugh. Reprinted this year by Verso.

I'll put up more later.....


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## ebony4 (Jul 29, 2003)

Antjie Krog: Country of my skull; Guilt, sorrow and the limits of forgiveness in the new South Africa, (three rivers press 2000)

Edwars Said, Covering Islam

Nelson Mandela, Long walk to freedom

Terry Bell & Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza, Unfinnished Buisness.


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## nomoney (Jul 30, 2003)

not forgetting about the free monthly 'Socialist Standard' from 
52 clapham high st, SW4 7UN
or full version online 

it's a rather theorethical magazine - so even the archives are interesting to read


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## ewok (Jul 30, 2003)

ragged trousered philantropist - robert tressell.


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## eskimo (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by sleaterkinney _
> *From the other side ish:
> 
> Francis Fukuyama - The End of History and the Last Man *



yes, very interesting


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## mears (Jul 30, 2003)

Ayn Rand
Fiction: Atlas Shrugged
Non-fiction: The Virtue of Selfishness


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## butchersapron (Jul 30, 2003)

Correction - both are works of fiction.


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## Pickman's model (Jul 30, 2003)

a history of the twentieth century, martin gilbert (3 vols).

or _a_ history of the twentieth century.

helps for knowing what happened when, and hopefully why.


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## pilchardman (Jul 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by mears _
> *Ayn Rand
> Fiction: Atlas Shrugged
> *


 I know I'm not supposed to do this, but, even though I think people should be aware of Objectivism, I wouldn't recommend this piss-poor murder mystery on anyone.  It is one of the most badly written books I have ever read.

(And I'm not just saying that because I disagree with the philosophy; good writing can be achieved regardless of philosophy).


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## Gumbert (Jul 31, 2003)

The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany : Leon Trotsky (pathfinder)

The Nazis, Capitalism and the Working Class : Donny Gluckstein (bookmarks)

Both are very apt reading for today. Showing the diabolical stalinist zigzag policies of the KPD (listening to Moscow) and the nullifying effects of the SPDs reformism under pressure.

Both the KPD and SPD missing historic opportunities to smash the Nazis via the united front that both above books reiterate.


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## mears (Jul 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by pilchardman _
> *I know I'm not supposed to do this, but, even though I think people should be aware of Objectivism, I wouldn't recommend this piss-poor murder mystery on anyone.  It is one of the most badly written books I have ever read.
> 
> (And I'm not just saying that because I disagree with the philosophy; good writing can be achieved regardless of philosophy). *



Than why do it?

Everyone should read Atlas Shrugged. One of the best books ever written. Besides her philosophy is better than the Marxist, socialist drivel that has been practiced with dismal results in so many countries.


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## butchersapron (Jul 31, 2003)

No one should read Atlas shrugged - it's shit. I can smell it from here.

If that makes me a commie/nazi then i just guess i am.

And if you want to discuss it, you've got to do a new thread.

See them stampede to discuss...


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## mears (Jul 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by butchersapron _
> *No one should read Atlas shrugged - it's shit. I can smell it from here.
> 
> If that makes me a commie/nazi then i just guess i am.
> ...



Why the hostility? I just posted a couple of writings from an author I admire. And your list?

www.aynrand.org


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## butchersapron (Jul 31, 2003)

'Cos you can't spell Marx.

And for this lazy shit:

"Besides her philosophy is better than the Marxist, socialist drivel that has been practiced with dismal results in so many countries."

Now, another thread if you want to discuss your choices.

I'll not post in reply to you here.


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## mears (Jul 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by butchersapron _
> *'Cos you can't spell Marx.
> 
> And for this lazy shit:
> ...



Like your list Einstein, very comprehensive. You have been doing some very good reading and DEEP thinking. An intellectual giant


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## butchersapron (Jul 31, 2003)

I think my list _still_ beats yours.


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## mears (Jul 31, 2003)

> _Originally posted by butchersapron _
> *I think my list still beats yours. *



Yes deep thinker, it is a long, interesting list...


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## Hollis (Aug 1, 2003)

And may I recommend:

John Major:  'The Autobiography'

A compelling account of how Major's principles & vision transformed society during the first half of the 90s.


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## Gumbert (Aug 1, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Hollis _
> *And may I recommend:
> 
> John Major:  'The Autobiography'
> ...



This reminds me of a books from the other side:

Alan Clark's Diaries. 

Shows just what  sexist bigotted hatefilled scumbags inhabit the rich and powerful


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## WasGeri (Aug 1, 2003)

A book I can highly recommend, is called 'With Extreme Prejudice' by Martin Walker - it's the true story of Steven Shaw, a student at Machester University, and his experiences of police brutality/corruption in the 1980s. Absolutely shocking.


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## PearlySpencer (Aug 1, 2003)

In no particular order:

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
_Alexander Berkman_

Bakunin on anarchism
_Sam Dolgoff(ed)_

Leaving the 20th Century - The incomplete work of the situationist international.
_Chris Gray(ed)_

Mutual Aid
_Peter Kropotkin_

The Conquest of Bread
_Peter Kropotkin_

The Revolution of Everyday Life
_Raoul Vaneigem_

The Book of Pleasures
_Raoul Vaneigem_

Moving Forward - Program for a participatory economy.
_Michael Albert_

Lessons of the Spanish Revolution
_Vernon Richards_

Malatesta - Life and Ideas
_Vernon Richards(ed)_

The Russian Tragedy
_Alexander Berkman_

The Ego and its Own
_Max Stirner_


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## ernestolynch (Aug 1, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ewok _
> *ragged trousered philantropist - robert tressell. *



Repeated in case it was lost in the post.

For Americans, a book at the same time:

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 
plus The Iron Heel by Jack London


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## A. Spies (Aug 3, 2003)

Mutual Aid - Kropotkin
Ace book, points out the positive side of animal and human nature. All too often often when people talk about human nature they've spent their lives thinking and reading that all animals/people are shits, and touched nothing that might counteract this theory.
Good book and a nice one to read.

No Logo - naomi klein
Even though she's got her head so far up her arse she'd need a miners lamp to find out where she's going. This is a good book and a scary book and to me it illustrates the nature of capitalism and just how far it'd go given half a chance. It also put me off buying nike for life.


Moving forward, particapatory economics - Can't remember his name and I've lost the sodding book. 
It spells out a lot of alternative ideas to capitalism and it gives you somewhere to start thinking for yourself from. It's not some blueprint for an anarchist soceity, but it helps kick start your brain so you can come up with your own. Some nice quotes too.

The spanish civil war - Anthony beevor
An honest (I would say that cos its favourable to the CNT and anarchists) account of the spanish civil war. It dispels some of the myths put about in many of the more popular books and it also gives a really good account of ordinary life in radicalised citys like Madrid. Beevor gives a pretty concise account of the war and considering he's a fairly un-political person and he's won awards for books like Stalingrad you can trust his account more than some others.
(I sound biased as fuck now  )

...As far as books that don't fit my political spectrum, The politics of hope is interesting and humane even if I don't agree with a lot of it. The republic's interesting n' all. I think that everyone should try and read Mein Kampf at least once although I admit that I made 3 pages then got so fucked off I put it down and made excuses not to go back to it.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 3, 2003)

ten days that shook the world: john reed
fascinating first hand account of revolutionary russia.

elements of refusal: john zerzan
especially the bits where he examines how people are ordered and dominated by language and time.

the abolition of work: bob black
does what it says on the cover! anti-work classic.

marx and engels on religion - perhaps the swp cc might read - or reread - this.


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## Nigel Irritable (Aug 3, 2003)

1) Karl Marx "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte"

Marx is justifiably famous for his theories of political economy but this is an example of him writing a history book, in fact one of the greatest history books ever written.

It's illuminating, penetrating and concise. It's also beautifully written and contains some of the most memorable turns of phrase and aphorisms ever printed.

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce"

...and...

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"

...both appear on the first page! I can't recommend it highly enough.

2) David Harvey "Social Justice and the City"

Harvey was the pre-eminent liberal urban geographer in the world. In the first half of this book he took his liberal conceptual tool kit and stretched it to its limits in trying to make sense of the city.

In the second half of the book he broke with his liberal ideas and came at the subject from a Marxist perspective. The result was a book which completely reshaped his discipline. Without this book you have no Mike Davis and little other radical urban theory. As well as carrying a huge influence, "Social Justice and the City" is insightful and fascinating.

While I'm on the subject of Harvey, his "The Condition of Postmodernity" is one of the best attacks on postmodernism you will ever read.

3) Leon Trotsky "The Revolution Betrayed"

Trotsky was a superbly gifted writer. He also has an advantage over the other "canonical" Marxist figures in that while the Stalinists murdered him, they didn't butcher his writings in the kind of leaden, cack-handed translations they inflicted on Marx, Engels and Lenin.

In any case, Trotsky is by some distance the most pleasurable Marxist writer to read at least in terms of style. "The Revolution Betrayed" is no exception. It's a quite brilliant, if depressing, history of the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution. This one is particulary recommended for members of the SWP.

4) Paul Cardan "Modern Capitalism and Revolution"

Here's one from an anarchist (or maybe "anarchoid") perspective. Paul Cardan was a psuedonym used by Cornelius Castoriadis, one of the main figures around the journal "Socialisme ou Barbarie".

This book is probably the most complete statement of his political views as he completed his evolution from Trotskyism to Anarchism. There is an element of the period piece in its attraction, with the central social role it gives to an ever growing bureaucracy and its post-war boom conditioned view that capitalism had overcome its fundamental economic contradictions, but the attraction is no less strong for that.

A coherent and interesting challenge to Marxism from another left wing perspective.

5) Karl Marx "Capital"

I know that it has already been mentioned on somebody else's list, but this one bears repetition. "Capital" is basic to the Marxist understanding of the capitalist system. Regardless of your political persuasion you can only gain by wrestling with the ideas in this book.


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## butchersapron (Aug 3, 2003)

Some very good picks there n/b. The Harvey book is a classic, as is his book on pomo you mentioned. Castoriadis' most important works from his time with S ou B and after were published in a 3 volume edition of his 'Social and Political Writings: 1946-1979' and is one of the best collections out there. Very influential for me personally. There is a collection of the rest of Soub's works (Lefort, Mothe, Simon etc) is in the pipeworks as well.


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## Richard Brenner (Aug 4, 2003)

The Friends of Durruti by Agustin Guillermon (AK Press)

This is a really thought-provoking and quite detailed examination of the development of a left-wing anarchist group during the Spanish revolution. Though it is published by anarchists and has an anarchist introduction, the author shows very clearly how the unfloding takss of the revolution and the betrayal of the mainstream anarchists forced the FoD towards a programme much closer to revolutionary Marxism than to anarchism.


Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain by Felix Morrow (Pathfinder)

A thorough and well written examination of the Spanish Revolution and the policy of the main working class organisations - Communist Party, Socialist Party, Anarchists, POUM and Trotskyists.


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## Idris2002 (Aug 4, 2003)

My wee thread is all grown up . . . 

About Harvey's Condition of Postmodernity.

It's really as good as everyone says it is - and the value is that not only does it slag off postmodernism, it connects the rise of postmodernism to the changes in the capitalist core countries that began with the end of the post-war boom in the early 70s.

Capitalist restructuring - e.g. the move from Fordism to Japanese style Just-in-Time production - had a domino effect throughout society and culture.

I've just finished Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: but as  my brother (it was his copy) told me, you'd better have a burger before you read it (if that's your bag) because you'll never want another one after it.


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## Kaka Tim (Aug 4, 2003)

One I forgot earlier - 

'War and an Irish Town' - Eamon Mc Cann.
Excellent first hand accounts of the defining years of the troubles - the civil rights marches, bloody sunday etc. 

Mc Cann was  a leading figure in the civil rights movement in Derry and longtime socialist who has (according to Ms Kak) being doing the political Hokey Cokey with the Irish SWP for the past 30 years. 


One not to bother with - Orgasms of History by Yves Fremion. Billed as an account of '3000 years of spontaneous insurrection' it is a massive dissapointment - indecipherable prose, terrible translation and a gurantee that you will be none the wiser about any of the events described.

One not to bother with from the other side - 
The Downing Street Years - Margeret Thatcher. Relentless, hectoring self justification expressed through turgid, repetitive prose. Available for 50p from most charity shops.


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## anti-capitalist (Aug 5, 2003)

Anyone said _Ten Days That Shook the World_ by John Reed? Brilliant first-hand account of the Russian revolution. Incredibly honest, detailed and fast paced.


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## MarkCyclist (Aug 6, 2003)

Andre Gorz - Farewell to the Working Class.

I read this years ago and liked it at the time!
Practical description of post-revolution in practice if I remember correctly.
Would like to know if anyone else has an opinion and whether I'm over-rating through nostalgia.

Victor Papenek (?) - Design for the real world (?) 
Not sure about the author or title. How's that for research.
But it's a political look a design and still relevant.


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## DrRingDing (Aug 10, 2003)

The Selfish Gene- Richard Dawkins, WHAT!?!....ah! but you see you need to understand the basics fully before ranting.

Manufacturing Consent - Naom Chomsky, cos this grandad knows his shit even if it's a gruelling academic read.


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## Dickie Dadd (Aug 10, 2003)

Roddy Doyle's 'A star called Henry'.

A brilliant historical novel about an impoverished kid growing up in Dublin, who goes on to take part in the Easter Rising.

I believe there's a film in the pipeline?


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## Wowbagger (Aug 11, 2003)

Things Can Only Get Better
_John O'Farrell_ 

Account of the 1979-97 period from one of those wishy-washy yoghurt-knitting principleless liberals that everyone hates.

edited to add: Just realised: this is my 1,000th post.

A lot of time, very well wasted, I think.


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## SteinieM (Aug 11, 2003)

*WOT NO SERGE?*

Ok my two top books would be Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge and for a bit of light relief The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslv Hasek


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## the scouser (Aug 16, 2003)

The Autobiography of Mrs Thatcher

 The Downing Street Years

 Yes  - we all know the security services proof read it first - followed by some spin doctor - but its still a good book to read about how the countrys run - and how Thatcher was Blairs fucking blueprint for political vision.

 I got it at Oxfam - ten bob! (50p) 

 Also got an autographed copy of Derek Hattons autobiography 'Inside Left' - an interesting account of Hatton who stated off his career working as a youth worker in my town! - never lived here but was well liked by those who worked with him - even a tory caretaker. He also smashed 2 buses into low brideges - in the days before mass claims for whiplash. 

 Interesting book and hatton admits he would have sooner been an actor - his ego is apparent - but its a decent read anyways. 

the redundenct notices in taxis? - it happened! - but it was only a tactic for the budget - no worker was actually made redundent - BUT - it was a fucking daft tactic to pull - they (militant) thought it was smart and clever - it worked - but backfired as the media made hay - plus there was dark goings on up here anyway.


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## WasGeri (Aug 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by the scouser _
> * Also got an autographed copy of Derek Hattons autobiography 'Inside Left' - an interesting account of Hatton who stated off his career working as a youth worker in my town! - never lived here but was well liked by those who worked with him - even a tory caretaker. He also smashed 2 buses into low brideges - in the days before mass claims for whiplash.
> 
> Interesting book and hatton admits he would have sooner been an actor - his ego is apparent - but its a decent read anyways.
> ...



I got him to sign my copy of that book when he spoke in Bristol - a lot of the 'trendy left' were giving him a hard time, and I asked him a question which made it clear I was fairly sympathetic, so he came over at the end and had a chat with me and my ex-boyfriend. Very nice bloke.


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## rebel warrior (Aug 20, 2003)

Rosa Luxemburg - the biography by Paul Frolich.  

Just finished reading it - truly a socialist classic which gives not only a moving and inspiring portrait of a great revolutionary, but also an important insight into the German working class movement, particularly the political debates inside the SPD, at the start of the 20th century.


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## butchersapron (Aug 20, 2003)

Tbh, you'd be better off with JP Nettls 2 volume Rosa Luxemburg (or one volume abridgement) - Frolich makes a lot of mistakes and simply didn't have access to the sources that Nettl did.


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## belboid (Aug 20, 2003)

not got an intro by cliff tho has it!

you might very well be right about its shortcomings ba, but its still a very fine and inspiring book

unlike inside left, which i picked up for 25p from a remainders shop years back.  and paid at least 24p too much for it, fucking dire (and, i suspect, dishonest) book


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## butchersapron (Aug 20, 2003)

Yeah you're right, it's a very good and worthwhile book in its own right - as is Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution by Raya Dunayevskaya.


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## DaveCinzano (Aug 20, 2003)

on the more mainstream political autobiogs, i remember ian gilmour (tory wet) had a bit of a corker. crossman and crosland, and barbara castle, and tony benn's earlier diaries, all well worth a shufty for the inside dope on the wilson/heath era.

robin ramsay's 'smear!' about clockwork orange/wilson is a rollicking read, lots of sources so you check out the theories for yourself. linked in to that: 'spycatcher' (peter wright's self-serving autobiog), 'the big breach' (richard tomlinson's post-bunk hatchet job on mi6... or is it?).

brian glick's 'war at home', jim vander wall & ward churchill's 'cointelpro papers' and 'agents of repression' very good on the political backbone to the fbi, and the counter intelligence programs run against leftist dissidents. south end press rocks for this sort of thing, check out their books on cispes and the sanctuary movement, can't remember the names, google it...

david caute (he of '68' fame, itself a good primer if not terribly detailed or critical) did an excellent 2-essay book on censorship/suppression of dissent, contrasting an african journalist (can't for the life of me remember the details) who picked up major shit, with sarah tisdall, the former civil servant (and now working not a million miles away from this area, trivia fans!) who got landed in the shit by arsehole former guardian editor peter 'i watch me own back, me' preston when she leaked evidence of the thatcher government's lies.

erm, gordon carr's 'the angry brigade' (gollancz, 1975) is pretty durn good. lots of the communiques and ting. 

peter hain (yes, that peter hain) wrote an actually rather decent overview on political trials in britain. it may or may not have been called 'political trials in britain'. 

the scarman report is always a good read, in a peculiar sort of way.

erm... brain is dissolving, will try and remember more...


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## Idris2002 (Aug 29, 2003)

The thread hasn't been added to in a while, so I thought I'd add a new one.

_An Accidental Diplomat_, Eamon Delaney.

This is a memoir by a member of Irish diplomatic corps, who was Irish consul in New York for a while.

There's quite a bit on Irish-America, and the competing propaganda the Irish and British embassies in the US would put out, but it's interesting because he also worked at the Irish office in the UN during the run up to the first Gulf War. There's a passage where he describes the voting on the resultion for war, and how "if you were the person you once were, or thought you were", you'd stand up and shout stop.

It's more of a library book than anything else (i.e. worth reading if you can get if for free out of a library) but still worth a look.


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## JoMo1953 (Aug 31, 2003)

And on the lighter side "Abuse Your Illusions, the disinformations guide to media mirages and establishment lies"

just started reading it....funny stuff and scary


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## pema (Sep 2, 2003)

Other interesting stuff:

Bobby Seale: Seize the Time
 Its a fascinating book about the Black Panthers and where they were coming from.

Eldridge Cleaver: Soul on Ice
 Extraordiarily powerful book that I read in the early 70s also about black power.

Please note that these books tend to be sexist!   Despite that, they deserve reading for an understanding of black power in the USA.


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## our-streets (Sep 2, 2003)

I fancied brushing up on my English history... so I just bought the Morton book -  'People's History of England'. 

I understand its indispensible?


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## SJPurcell (Sep 3, 2003)

*Politics of union organising*

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

Matawan - also made into a film

Teamster Rebellion - who did this it was very good?


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## adc069975 (Sep 9, 2003)

*Some which haven't yet been mentioned*

1) George Orwell - Down and Out in London and Paris

George Orwell wrote this in 1933. It paints a very bleak portrait of what happens when the state no longer protects those who are weaker in society, making this book essential reading.

2) Bertell Ollman - Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in a Capitalist society

To date, the most thorough account of Marx's concept of Alienation.

3) Jean Baudrillard - The Gulf War Did Not Take Place

In my opinion, "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" is as important as Manufacturing Consent concerning the modern media.  Relevant to today.

4) Slavoj Zisek - Welcome to The Desert of the Real

Slavoj Zisek applies a revised theory of ideology to the events of September 11. In a similar vain to Jean Baudrillard's "The Spirit of Terrorism".

This is quite a random list. If I have the time I'll post a larger one some other time.


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## Fuascailt (Sep 19, 2003)

> _Originally posted by japoulte _
> *The I.R.A. by Tim Pat Coogan *



Excellent book.  Also 'On the Blanket' and 'De Valera - Long Man, Long Shadow' by Tim Pat Coogan, 'Ten Men Dead' by David Beresford, 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' by Robert Tressell and 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee', by Dee Brown.

Writing this had made me want to read them all again.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 19, 2003)

Brown's book is very good indeed. If you haven't read it, make sure you do so in the very near future.

If you're interested in Irish issues, at some point you're going to have to read Roy Foster's _Modern Ireland 1600-1972_. It's the single best single volume history of Ireland, doing exactly what it says on the tin.

There's passages where he makes some peculiar choices in my opinion - e.g. the pages where he gushes over the architecture of Georgian Dublin - but he's probably the best of the revisionist generation in Irish history who worked to overturn the received wisdom of previous generations of nationalist historians.


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## nino_savatte (Sep 21, 2003)

I found  _Fianna Fail and Irish Labour _ by Kieran Allen a particularly good read.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 21, 2003)

Allen also has a good chapter in _The End of Irish History: Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger_, which has just come out.

He also had a good book on the Celtic Tiger out previously, the name of which presently escapes me.

Denis O'Hearn (who also has a chapter in TEOIH:CRONTCT) meanwhile has _Inside the Celtic Tiger_.

Well worth reading. Allen and O'Hearn were among the first to puncture the hype about the so-called boom, and they have been amply justified by subsequent events.

Pity that Kieran Allen's in the Irish SWP though - I saw him speak once, and he came across as a bit of a ranter.


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## nino_savatte (Sep 21, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Idris2002 _
> *Allen also has a good chapter in The End of Irish History: Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger, which has just come out.
> 
> He also had a good book on the Celtic Tiger out previously, the name of which presently escapes me.
> ...



I'll check those out. Having seen it at first hand, the Celtic Tiger is just a Paper Tiger. I knew about Allen being SWP, I guess ranting is just par for the course.


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## newharper (Sep 22, 2003)

*Literate smitterate*

Hunter S Thomson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas'.

Seriously political.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 22, 2003)

Pretty juvenile, IMO.

The sort of thing you read as a 17 year old and think is brilliant, then reread later on and realise is pretty peurile.

However, HST's _Fear and Loathing in America_ - his collected letters from the late 60s to mid 70s - does give seem good insights into US politics and society in those years. From a "freak power" perspective, obviously.


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## STFC (Sep 24, 2003)

Recently read Northern Protestants - An Unsettled People, by Susan McKay. Essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about the problems in Northern Ireland, as it gives an insight into the many different attitudes and views held by people across the whole spectrum of the Protestant community.

Currently reading Ten Days That Shook The World by John Reed.


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## adc069975 (Sep 24, 2003)

Has anyone mentioned the Churchill Volumes?


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## Fledgling (Sep 26, 2003)

*Literate smitterate*



> _Originally posted by newharper _
> *Hunter S Thomson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas'.
> 
> Seriously political. *



Good choice!


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## selamlar (Sep 26, 2003)

So many books!

Various Marx, but especially Capital 1 and the Manifesto
Engels, Condition of Working Class in Britain, Anti-Duhring
Trotsky, My Life, Art and Revolution, Literature and Revolution, History of Russian Revolution, Their Morals and Ours.
Lenin, esp. State and Revoltuion, What is to be done, Imperialism, Left Wing Communism
Bukharin Imperialism and the World Economy
Lukacs History and Class Consciousness (and Defence), Historical Novel
Raskolnikov Krondstadt and Petrograd
Gramsci bits of the Prison Notebooks, for gods sake don't try to read the whole thing!
Volosinov Marxism and Philosophy of Language
Ngugi I will marry when I want
Hegel Phenomonology of Spirit
Sartre Nausea, Mains Salles etc
Carson Silent Spring
Luxemburg Reform or revolution, Mass Strike
Kolonti (spelling?) Love of Worker Bees
Newton Revolutionary Suicide
Levi If this is a man
Rees Algebra of Revolution

now brain overheating!


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## Idris2002 (Sep 26, 2003)

*full marks for enthusiasm, but. . .*

ulyanov, could you pick a few of those (maybe the ones that most people won't have heard of) and tell us in a few words why you rate them so much?


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## Fuascailt (Sep 26, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ulyanov _
> *So many books!
> 
> Various Marx, but especially Capital 1 and the Manifesto
> ...



Is this just your course reading list?!


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## adc069975 (Sep 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ulyanov _
> *
> 
> Lenin, esp. State and Revoltuion, What is to be done,..
> ...



Wasn't "What is to be done" also the title of a book Lenin read which he said changed his life? Or was that: "What is there to do"?


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## pilchardman (Sep 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by adc069975 _
> *Wasn't "What is to be done" also the title of a book Lenin read which he said changed his life? Or was that: "What is there to do"? *


 You'd be better off with "What is to be undone?" by Michael Albert


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## Unseen_Unheard (Sep 28, 2003)

> You'd be better off with "What is to be undone?" by Michael Albert



Which is another interesting read. I'm currently half way through this, it can be found on-line here.

Click


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## selamlar (Sep 28, 2003)

Sorry, get a bit over excited by book lusts!

Not going to go into real detail, but basicayl split into:

1)Theory and the way it applies to the world today.. The situation in the world at the moment is such that reading various authors on imperialism etc can make a real difference to your understanding.  The similarities between 'State and revolution' circa !917ish and today are really striking

2) Personal accounts of actaul revolutions.  The love of Worker Bees is a stunning book.  Oddly depressing for the way in which the main protagonist is treated but also really shows the possabilities. 

Carson, because its frightening and true, and because she was slated for being a woman and not a biologist, 

Levi, so we remember what we are fighting for


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## selamlar (Sep 28, 2003)

> get a bit over excited by book lusts


Ok, comedy freudian slip


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## durruti02 (Oct 8, 2003)

ok heres some

ragged troused philanthropists..

The Miners Next step...from my carmarthernshire coal field c.1919 britains finest anarcho syndicalist manifesto..(influenced by spainish migrants themselves influenced by malatesta!)

homage to catalonia..

memoirs of a revolutionary..

war in an irish town...this i think is one of the most important political books ever written!praise indeed,,in its down to earth ness 

anarchy in action ..colin ward...this is so good..about the simplicity and practicality of real anarchism

and for the academics out there!  The Economic and Philospophical Manuscripts of our Lord K.Marx...this is where it is comes frfom and goes back to ...alienation...we are alienated from the soil, by work from each other etc etc..and the point is to change it all!


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## KingArthur (Oct 9, 2003)

_"Many Shades of Black - Despatches from Britain's Far Right"_ by John Bean 
Autobiography of a man who was instrumental in the setting up of the National Front. Excellent, reasoned argument for the motivation of nationalist movements. Past mistakes are examined, as is the problem of neo-Nazis attaching themselves to such outfits. An insiders view of Britain's fledgling Radical Right in the 1950s and 60s plus comment and analysis on the failure of the NF to make a lasting mark despite its impact on 1970s politics. In particular, the lesson of the original (no relation to today's party) BNP's minor election success in Southall in the 60's (Bean earned 9% of the vote in a Westminster election - a huge amount for a fourth party candidate then). Achieved by ditching extremism and focussing on strong local campaigning, it was forgotten by the right for 30 years!


Two other rather obvious choices, but both provide food for thought:

_"Camp of the Saints"_ (novel) by Jean Raspail
_"Death of the West"_  by Patrick Buchanan


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## past caring (Oct 9, 2003)

What, no "Mein Kampf"? What about "Leather shorts I have worn?"


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## Idris2002 (Oct 10, 2003)

Not to mention Von Scheisskopf's account of the infamous "Night of Long Trousers".

Fuck off Nazi.


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## butchersapron (Oct 10, 2003)

Right, i finally get around to my contribution to this thread:

Marx Beyond Marx - Toni Negri, a key book in the development of what became known as autonomism (in Anglophone countries anyway). In this detailed look at the _Grundrisse_ Negri (working from the foundations built by Tronti, Panzieri and others) blew apart orthodox objectivist interpretations of  ‘Marxism’ - introducing concepts that  are still of direct relevance to communists (not so much ‘Marxists’ though).

The Invention of Capitalism: Classical political economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation - Michael Perelman, an exhaustive study that demonstrates that  the original ‘classical political economists’ far from following their own publicly stated principles (capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrives without government intervention) engaged in practical activity that directly contradicted them - namely the encouragement through the state of ‘primitve accumulation’ - the use of violence, the law, coercion etc to put in place the basis that their economics could then start from. An important book that attacks the very basis of ‘economics’ at its roots.

Strike! - Jeremy Brecher, a book that brings to life the ‘hidden history’ of the US w/c to light - and destroys the still powerful myth of the US working class as apathetic pampered and un-open to radical politics - in fact it shows that they were often _ahead_ of the European proletariat that was supposed to save everyone - and that the heights the normal, regular conflicts reached were of a level of violence only very rarely reached in Europe - from the Commune in St Louis to the invention of new forms of class struggle , from mass wildcats to sabotage to sit-ins etc. 

Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class / Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class and the ‘National Community’ - both by Tim Mason - one book and one collection of articles that managed to turn much of the previous discussion in this area on its head - Mason shows that the Nazis failed to integrate the w/c into their vision of a a _volksgemenschaft_ and that much of the seeming irrationality of the policies followed stemmed from this - and this led to what Mason calls a ‘flight-forward’ that eventually led to the war.


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## Gumbert (Oct 14, 2003)

For a post that appears above...

Taduesz Borrowski(sp?) : Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the Gas.

A harrowing account of Auschwitz and Birkenau from a polish jew who's life was spared by being given the job of de-clothing people before they were led off to the gas chambers. His lover was also in the death camp, whom he used to see (but could'nt talk to) risking his life by sneaking on to the roof of the huts. 

He gives acccounts of the heroic acts of resistance that went on within the camps. Such as the killing of a horrendous SS commander, who had a penchance for raping women before they were gassed. Killed I'll add by a women. There are moments of beautiful humanity though.

Be warned its a very dark book that left me sad but very angry. Its a must read for keeping the memories of the millions of generations 
_murdered_ at the hands of the Nazis alive.


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## KingArthur (Oct 16, 2003)

<DELETE>


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## Spud Murphy III (Oct 16, 2003)

LOL at Nervous Norvus above


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## Gwyn ha Du (Nov 13, 2003)

Phillip Payton- The Making of Modern Cornwall. Hard to find outside university libraries as its now out of print, but a really interesting and thought provoking look at Cornish history and politics and where it might go in the future. Interesting not just for Cornish Studies people but to anyone with an interest in Liberal politics and 'peripheral' British regions too.

Jeremy Paxman- The Political Animal  Read this in about a day and a half- a real insight into the towering egomania and borderline madness of some elected politicians. For those interested in standing for something in an election, a sober warning that political careers almost always end in bitterness and disappointment, and that well laid career paths can be undone by complete chance (see also Heseltine, Michael and Eden, Anthony)

Piers Brendon- The Dark Valley Cultural political narrative of the 1930s and the road to WW2. Indictment of appeasement and the best political history of the 30s since AJP taylor's  _The origins of the Second World War_ 

Plenty more to add but maybe I'll come back to this one later. Some very interesting choices by others. (Fascists excepted)


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 13, 2003)

*"On the Paris Commune" by Friedrich Engels & Karl Marx.* An interesting analysis of the events that led to the establishment of the commune, and it's suppression by the state.
*"The Beast Reawakens" by Martin Lee.* Good all-rounder on Fascism, it's "New Right" descendants and the various ideologues who inhabit the "scene".
*"Citizen Ken" by John Carvel.* A likeable  (and non-hagiographic) personal and political biography of Ken Livingstone, covering from his birth to the dissolving of the GLC.
*"Biopiracy" by Vandana Shiva.* An aggressive critique of the corporate patenting of indigenous organisms and knowledge. A book every "anti-capitalist" should read alongside *"No Logo" by Naomi Klein.*.


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## rasrave (Nov 22, 2003)

For a fairly comprehensive history of the oil industry and its effect on world business and politics, you could do worse than "The Prize", a book by Daniel Yergin. PBS (in the US) did a series based on the book, it gives great insight into some world events during the last 100 years or so, in particular in the Middle east.Original print was in 1991 I believe, published by Touchstone.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 23, 2003)

*A People's History of the United States* by Howard Zinn.


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## nightowl (Dec 9, 2003)

ABC of Anarchism by Alexander Berkman

was flipping through the McDonalization of Society at Freedom Press the other day which looks quite promising but around £20


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## billysprint (Dec 12, 2003)

Guerilla Days in Ireland-Tom Barry

Red Spanish Note Book-Juan Brea and Mary Low


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## Good Intentions (Dec 16, 2003)

*PJ Proudhon - The Principle of Federalism*

"Solicit men's views in the mass, and they will return stupid, fickle and violent answers; solicit their views as members of definite groups with real solidarity and a distinctive character, and their answers will be responsible and wise.  _Expose them to the political language of mass democracy, which represents the people as unitary and minorities as traitors, and they will give birth to tyranny; expose them to the political language of federalism, in which the people figures as a diversified aggregate of real associations, and they will resist tyranny in the end_."

There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't read it immidiately - Part 1, which is all that is relevant today, weighs in at about a hundred pages and is utterly illuminating (even if Proudhon's attempts to argue from a priori principles is tiring).  

I'll second Foucault's _Discipline and Punish_, _Kapital_ is utterly necessary (though I utterly disliked the Manifesto).  _Mutual Aid_ is magnificent as long as you don't fall into some hippy clusterfuck - Kropotkin didn't - the point is that competition exists absolutely, but that mutual aid among a species/group is perhaps the greatest weapon we have in this competition.  Few writings have impressed me as much as the Anarchist FAQ , but that is because I like my texts exhaustive.


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## Red Faction (Dec 24, 2003)

The Trouble With Guns- Malachi O'Docherty (i think its o'docherty)

Its about the IRA + PIRA + the long war employed by Gerry Adams.

Big Fellow Long Fellow - T. Ryle O'Dwyer (spelling?)

Micheal Collins and Eamonn De Valera.
Its like its written by 2 people - each biased towards one or other
but its historically accurate + a good account of the creation of the Irish Free State.

Captive State- George Monbiot (is that how its spelt?)

About privitisation in the UK.
How New Labour's PFI scam means disaster for us all- with good examples - like the Skye Bridge fiasco.


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## oi2002 (Jan 4, 2004)

Read "After The Ball" by Fintan O'Toole waiting for my plane in Aldegrove last night.

A bleak analysis of the post boom Southern Irish Economy.  Much loved by Yankee Neo-Cons, O'Toole has it as corrupt, inequitable, inefficient, sexist etc.  Sorry I did really, one of my main grounds for optimism in Ireland was a rich South makes a reconcilliation with the Six Counties more likely.

I'd recommend 'A Traitor's Kiss' by the same author, on Sheridan.


----------



## stereotypical (Jan 9, 2004)

"Swastika night" by Katharine Burdekin (Murray Constantine) is well worth a read.


----------



## davgraham (Jan 10, 2004)

Just joined  . . . 

and saw butchers apron recommend Negri's Marx before Marx, which I would also recommend but I'm not sure it would tell you that much about Autonomism. Negri [along with Hardt] also wrote Empire which lots of people are raving about but I can't seem to get into.

A better introduction to autonomism [which no longer exists as a movment] would be Revolution Retrieved by Red Notes IF you can get hold of it.

An  overview just recently done is Steve Wright's Storming Heaven.

Lastly 'autonomy' wasn't one tendency so you might want to look at other contributors  eg Sergio Bologna, Mario Tronti 

Hope I've done this right

Gra


----------



## davgraham (Jan 10, 2004)

. . . and

I forgot Harry Cleaver's 'Reading Capital Politically' which shows there is no such as thing as 'Marxist Economics'

Just been reprinted apparently

Gra


----------



## Hooly Martins (Jan 10, 2004)

Hello Gra - welcome to U75 - i presume you're the same gra as is on the aut-op-sy list?


----------



## davgraham (Jan 10, 2004)

Yes indeed

Gra


----------



## Idris2002 (Jan 11, 2004)

> _Originally posted by sleaterkinney _
> *Can't believe nobodies mentioned
> 
> Greg Palast: The Best Democracy Money can Buy *



I was looking at Palast's book again this morning, and it is very good indeed (I've just got it back from a friend I leant it to, y'see).

Palast is basically Michael Moore with a brain, and the investigative journalism skills to go with it. You name the ruling class crime - from Bush's theft of the 2000 election to the IMF's shafting of developing countries - and Palast has the documentation to nail them.

He's also got a website - http://www.gregpalast.com

Also worth reading is Mark Curtis' _Web of Deceit - Britain's Real Role in the World_. Basically an account of British imperialism since 1945, I wouldn't agree with all of its analysis, but it's well worth a look.


----------



## Sorry. (Jan 26, 2004)

S.A.Smith, Red Petrograd. A fairly comprehensive examination of Russian workers radicalisation from February 1917. Interesting and well researched, sadly his conclusion in the end comes down to 'the workers voted for Bolsheviks, ergo they were Bolsheviks', the research is also very much centred on resolutions by the larger factory committees (principally the metalworks in the Vyborg district) and the Petrograd CCFC, rather than rank and file workers.


----------



## stephenminyaeva (Jan 29, 2004)

*Bloody good reads*

The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich - A History Of Nazi Germany.

W. Shirer


Dangerous Sexualities

Frank Mort


----------



## Barking_Mad (Feb 6, 2004)

Economic Democracy by J.W. Smith.

Just found it on line and having a read it seems to me (as a newcomer to this kind of stuff) fairly interesting. It talks about how nations have gained their wealth and how the protect it through military power. It also speaks about what can be done to alter this and his preferred system to replace capitalism.

Link here to all of his book online: http://www.ied.info/books/ed/intro.html


----------



## umi (Mar 3, 2004)

Dr Seuss Green Eggs and Ham


----------



## nino_savatte (Mar 3, 2004)

umi said:
			
		

> Dr Seuss Green Eggs and Ham



An absolute classic! Essential reading too!


----------



## K'sandra (Mar 4, 2004)

God - you all make me feel so dim! 

I've actually got many of the books listed here - but due to work constraints just haven't got around to reading them. I have about 4 on the go at the moment including the Palast one.

Have read 3 of Moore's and have read Pilger's New Rulers of the World.

One I am looking forward to is The Crisis of Islam (can't remember who it is by - I'll have to dig it out of the pile!)


----------



## Idris2002 (Mar 7, 2004)

umi said:
			
		

> Dr Seuss Green Eggs and Ham



I'll do the jokes.


----------



## oi2002 (Mar 27, 2004)

Stasiland, Anna Funder:

Thriller like piece of Journalism on the the former GDR.  A necessary corrective to sentimental Ostalgia.  A state were grassing up your friends and neighbours was a routine of citizenship does not deserve much affection.  

I hope there isn't a braile version, might give David Blunkett rather too many ideas.


----------



## Matt S (May 6, 2004)

'Green Alternatives to Globalisation' - Mike Woodin and Caroline Lucas. Just
been published, and is very interesting and incisive. Don't agree with everything in it, but certainly a thoughtful read.

'Obsolete Communism: A Left-Wing Alternative' - Danny Cohn-Bendit. Absolutely brilliant book; shame he's a total cock now.

'The New Buddhism' - David Brazier.

Matt


----------



## butchersapron (May 6, 2004)

Cohn-bendit 'wrote' that with his anarchist brother Gabriel, and the story goes that Gabriel actually wrote most of it - Danny was just stuck on for his 'brand-name'.


----------



## Matt S (May 6, 2004)

Wouldn't be surprised. I cannot stand the man. 

Matt


----------



## butchersapron (May 6, 2004)

Time to update my suggestions as well:

Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everday Life - Detlev Peukert - great example of politicised 'social history' and the history of 'everyday life', concentrating on oppostion (and sometimes outright resistance) amongst Youth, Foreign Labour and the different classes - an absolute masterwork.

The Warsaw Commune: Betrayed by Stalin, Massacred by Hitler - 63 days fighting with 200 000 dead whilst the Red Army stood in view...

Reluctant Revolutionary: Memoirs of A Trotskyist 1936-1960 - Harry Ratner - excellent on wartime activity and industrial work just afterwards.


----------



## General Ludd (May 6, 2004)

The Anatomy Of Fascism - Robert O Praxton. Got it in response to an argument with garf about what fascism was and so far it's a really excellent book, very illuminating.


----------



## butchersapron (May 6, 2004)

Two excellent books in the same vein:

An Essay on the Interpretations of National Socialism (1922-75): The Nazi Question - Pierre Aycorberry

The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems of Perspectives and Interpretation  - Ian Kershaw


----------



## davgraham (May 7, 2004)

Seeing butchers has mentioned the social history group and Peukert, it may be worth while checking out the work of Tim Mason [now dead] who translated a lot of the German material and was an accomplihsed historian in his own [w]rite.

and

John Merrington [of Red Notes] also now dead, both of whom attempted to popularise a 'history from below' especially translating stuff from Italy - his expertise is now sadly missed.

on a quite different note, since I pormised the author I would try to get this one better known

Storming Heaven by Steve Wright

'Class Composition and the struggle of Italian Autonomist Marxism'

does justice to a very complex trend within the Italian workers movement, has a huge bibliography [better tho' if you can read Italain] and demonstrates that Negri was not the guru of the movement and that today he is a long way from the kind of politics he was advocating then. I vastly prefer the Negri of 'Marx oltre Marx' to this multitude crap that he now does with Hardt - must be getting old I suppose.

Gra


----------



## Bernie Gunther (May 8, 2004)

To understand anything that complicated: ecologies: economies, societies, wars, and not get confused by limitations of the models in traditional kinds of thought on these subjects, I think it helps to see how complex systems work.

So although it's not strictly politics, my choice if I were recommending just one book on how to think about this kind of stuff, would be W Ross Ashby's: 

Introduction to Cybernetics 



> It is the author's belief that if the subject is founded in the commonplace and well understood, and is then built up carefully, step by step,  there is no reason why the worker with only elementary mathematical knowledge should not achieve a complete understanding of its basic principles. With such an understanding he will then be able to see exactly what further techniques he will have to learn if  he is to proceed further; and, what is particularly useful, he will be able to see what techniques he can safely ignore as being irrelevant to his purpose.



Or if you really don't fancy tackling Ashby, there's always The Macroscope  linked from the same site, which contains a more popular and less rigourous treatment, with lots of concrete examples from the real world of ecologies, economies etc.


----------



## Sorry. (May 10, 2004)

talking of Italian workers. I'd recommend Tom Behan's _The Long Awaited Moment: The Working Class and the Italian Communist Party in Milan, 1943-48_. It's about the PCI's drift toward parliamentarianism and the disarming of the partisans after World War One.


----------



## In Bloom (May 18, 2004)

Aldous Huxley - _Brave New World_, excellent analysis of the concept of soft coercion and propaganda as a means of ideological control, much more relevant to today's world than 1984, IMO (if not as well written) [text online here]

Colin Ward - _Anarchy in Action_, this might have been mentioned above, but it is well worth mentioning again, a brilliant book if you want to research non-hierarchical organisation in modern society


----------



## technopete (May 19, 2004)

The Great Deception by Richard North and Christopher Booker.

The secret history of the european union.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0826471056/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-9945228-1744424


----------



## Ryazan (May 27, 2004)

Slobodan Milosovic & The Destruction Of Yugoslavia- Louis Sell.

How We Survived Communism & Even Managed To Laugh- Slavenka Drakulic.


Does any body know of any decent books about Volislav Seselj?  Might seem a bit obscure and pointless to some, but I want to find out more about Serbian nationlism.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2004)

The Mass Psychology Of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich

Listen Little Man by Wilhelm Reich (an amazing rant with amazing illustrations)

Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson

1984 by George Orwell (esp the book within the book, wish there was more of it)

50 Orwell Essays (A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook)

The Culture of Contentment by John Kenneth Galbraith


----------



## Sorry. (May 27, 2004)

Is Wilhelm Reich the one with the theory of "negative democratisation"? Cause that's bollocks that is ...


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2004)

No I think that was Karl Mannheim.  Reich did start talking some bollox later in life, when he got carried away investigating Orgone energy without the necessary scientific knowledge, and then thought his Orgone energy gun was doing stuff to aliens in the sky etc.  But ealier on when he focussed on human Psychology and politics etc, he was rather amazing IMHO.


----------



## Idris2002 (May 27, 2004)

If you want more Goldsteinisms, try the book that inspired Orwell's The Book -

Burnhams _The Managerial State_, if memory serves.


----------



## Idris2002 (May 27, 2004)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> Is Wilhelm Reich the one with the theory of "negative democratisation"? Cause that's bollocks that is ...



Wtf is 'negative democratisation'.

Is Reich's early work OK, then? 'cause I'd always associated him with the nutjobbery of his later years.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2004)

Well the 2 Reich works I mentioned are all Ive read from him, but I loved them.  I dont agree with 100% of what he said in the early days, but I found myself to be pretty amazed by a lot of his insights. Mass Psychology Of Fascism is rather long, Listen Little Man might be a better place to start, I believe there are some sample pages available on Amazon which should give a good idea. 

Actually just found this page which has loads of the illustrations - lol Im in love with it all over again... 

http://www.hermes-press.com/reich.htm

Cheers for the Managerial State tipoff Idris2002, a friend has told me about it but Ive not had the opportunity to read it yet.


----------



## butchersapron (May 27, 2004)

I wouldn't bother wasting your time (no offence Idris) - early Reich is well worth chasing up, the ideas are well summed up in  The Irrational in Politics: Sexual Repression and Authoritarian Conditioning, by Maurice Brinton, which i'm sure is online somewhere.


----------



## Idris2002 (May 27, 2004)

Just thought he might find it interesting as background to Goldstein's magnum opus.

There's a school of post-Soviet East European studies which puts Burnham's book in a long line of New Class thinkers which they think might be (partially) applicable to post-1989 eastern E.

Love this;



> In 1940 Reich spent five hours with Einstein. When Reich left, he said to Einstein, "You understand now why everyone thinks I'm mad." Einstein replied: "And how."


----------



## butchersapron (May 27, 2004)

He did i end up being forcibly locked up if remember rightly...


----------



## General Ludd (May 27, 2004)

Summary of Mass Pyschology Of Fascism by the Surveillance Camera Players


----------



## In Bloom (May 27, 2004)

Idris2002 said:
			
		

> If you want more Goldsteinisms, try the book that inspired Orwell's The Book -
> 
> Burnhams _The Managerial State_, if memory serves.


I always thought it was meant to be Capital


----------



## Sorry. (May 28, 2004)

Idris2002 said:
			
		

> Wtf is 'negative democratisation'.



As far as I recall, it's the psychological process which citizens in democratic states go through that brings them to endorse authoritarianism. Something like democracy frustrates people because they are at once empowered (by choosing their government) but at the same time crushed by the weight of other people's empowerment. 

But it's a long time since I read [whatever the relevant text is], so that could be inaccurate...


----------



## sponge (Jun 4, 2004)

"The Fear of Freedom" - Erich Fromm. The forgotten man of psychoanalysis.

"The Growth of (so-called*) Democracy in Britain" - Annette Mayer. Brilliant summary of UK politics and the history of the struggle for universal suffrage.

"The Poverty of Historicism" - Karl Popper. A philosopher that even I can understand!!

"Propaganda" - Edward Bernays. http://a-albionic.com/pages/Propaganda_by_Edward_Bernays.htm
"The invisible government tends to be concentrated in the hands of the few because of the expense of manipulating the social machinery which controls the opinions and habits of the masses." Maybe that's what Popper imagined what the social sciences should be for ...  Never read it but it is meant to be THE book for 20th century liberalism.

"The Money Machine" - Philip Coggan. "As I hope the previous chapters illustrate, the workings of the financial system are not another branch of sub-nuclear physics. They can, and should, be understood by the layman". And this comes from a journalist of the Financial Times.


----------



## Sorry. (Jun 7, 2004)

I bought Chris Hill's "The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714" for £2.50 today


----------



## pema (Jun 17, 2004)

May I suggest Noam Chomsky's latest book: "Hegemony or Survivial: America's Quest for Global Dominance".   It tells you a lot of things you possibly already knew, but draws them together into something that makes sense.   It is also excellent on the history of the US in discussing Woodrow Wilson's policies and how they have affected ALL successive presidents.   Clearly they were all shit when it came to foreign policy, no matter how they dressed it up.   It can be depressing in places, no doubt.

But do read it!

And anything by Christopher Hill is well worth the money.


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Jun 20, 2004)

rebel warrior said:
			
		

> Tariq Alis first novel, Redemption, -- 39p (good value but that it was so cheap is not surprising as the book will only really appeal to cynical ex-Trotskyists.
> 
> -- as it has a thinly disguised Ernest Mandel arguing that Marxists should make a turn towards religion to stay relevant in the modern world.
> 
> Tariq Ali has the SWP alone in the Trotskyist movement really arguing against this nonsense.  Redemption though has to be remembered is a novel,



For fiction it'll def' be a laugh, though not as much as the respect fiasco ! ! 
How much did the funeral cost, 250,000, - 330,000, ?. cheap at the price.

for a book to read - try Marx and Engles on Religion.
(for full text of quote - see above.)


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Jun 20, 2004)

Kaka Tim said:
			
		

> no one has suggested this one yet -
> 'the communist manifesto'  - by some german bloke writing in the 1840s.
> Very readable and full of fantastic phrases and surprsingly contempoary in much of its analysis.
> .



Two German blokes actually, bear in mind if you do read it that it's been abrogated - no longer applicable, read the 1873 intro'/forword for details, the Stalinist's in third world countries don't mention this to their members.

Try also Life and times of Lord Palmerston by K Marx, bearing in mind there is also a collection, poss' 12 volumes by Pamerston of the same name. Their worth the read also.


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Jun 20, 2004)

ulyanov said:
			
		

> Kolonti (spelling?) Love of Worker Bees
> now brain overheating!


Kolontai.
Only one of the Bolshevik central commitee of '17 to outlive Stalin, as to which was the worst, is debatable, 
For three years after Stalin died nothing changed, except to note he was dead.


----------



## ernestolynch (Jun 21, 2004)

You still 'ere, sacred spirit?


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Jun 21, 2004)

ernestolynch said:
			
		

> You still 'ere, sacred spirit?


Why Stalinist, do you feel haunted ? I'v more to come for you, Hows your theory progressing, are you ready to share your secret ?
or is the schoolyard mouthpiece unable to translate it into written form ?

Everyone should read - The secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century by K Marx, the newspapers he mention are still in existence if any wish to check, Russia the greatest christian empire, interesting where stalin got his help from.


----------



## flimsier (Jun 22, 2004)

Why is this twat still posting here?


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Jun 22, 2004)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Why is this twat still posting here?


olynch, don't know, not a lot else to do I suppose.


----------



## chilango (Jul 3, 2004)

*The Monkeywrench Gang - Edward Abbey*
In case y'all get bored want a bit of inspiration. Not PC I know, but pretty damn cool. His other books are actually better. *Desert Solitaire* being my favorite.

*Lasagna: The Man Behind the Mask - Ronald Cross, Helene Sevigny * 
Canada's own Marcos?

*Stone Age Economics - Marshall Sahlins*
The science of primitivism...nasty, brutish and short? na uh.

*Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord*
Can't beleive no one's mentioned this

*To Dream of Freedom - Roy Clews* (   I think?) 
Guerilla war in Wales? Hell yeah! (well kinda...)

*Against His-Story, Against Leviathan - Fredy Perlman*
A Primmy history of the world

*Just William - Richmal Compton*
Anarchy in action!!

There's plenty more , but they can wait till next time i'm stuck in front of a computor screen, no?


----------



## Sorry. (Jul 11, 2004)

Just went through some my degree notes and thought I'd stick some books on here, in no particular order:

*Gerd Rainer Horn* _ European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s _ A few interesting chapters on how French workers created the united front rather than their politicians.

* Ilona Duczynska * _ Workers in Arms: The Austrian Schutzbund and the Civil War of 1934 _, About the SPOe's militia, demonstrates how mobilisation not unity is the key to effective antifascism. 

* Mark Mazower * _ Inside Hitler's Greece _, Account of resistance in Greece (against both the puppet government, the Nazis and the British sponsored government in exile), the struggle for Laokratia (people's democracy), the back tracking of the KKE and atrocities by the post-war government and the British Army.

* Roger Magraw * _ A History of the French Working Class Volume II: Workers and the Bourgeois Republic _, exhaustive account of French working class struggle in the 20th Century.

* L.Berlanstein (ed.)* _ Re-Thinking Labor History: Essays on Discourse and Class Analysis_, really interesing discussion by several authors of what labour history should do about the challenge from post-structuralism, post-marxism and the emergence of the radical democratic anti-globalization movement. 

* Barbara Mitchell*, _The Practical Revolutionaries: A New Interpretation of French Revolutionary Syndicalism _, functioning as a retort to Peter Stearns _Revolutionary Syndicalism and Labor: A Cause without Rebels _, it asserts the importance of federalism and direct action in the CGT before WW1 against accuasations that it was essentially a reformist movement led by a minority of militants.

* Chris Read *, _ From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and their Revolution _, 1917 as a people's revolution stifled by the Bolsheviks. 

* M.Nolan*, _ Social Democracy and Society: Working-Class Radicalism in Dusseldorf 1890-1920_

* C.Patton * _ Flammable Material! : German Chemical Workers 1914-24 _, Chemical workers were among Germany's most radical during this period, in spite of non-existent unionisation.

* A.Papayanis*, _ Alphonse Merrheim: The Emergence of Reformism in Revolutionary Syndicalism _, How the CGT turned yella'

*D.Goodway(ed*, _ For Anarchism_, Couple of excellent contributions - Carl Levy's on Italian Anarchism and Nick Rider on the 1931 Barcelona tenant's strike

*Martin Clark*, _ Antonio Gramsci and the Revolution that Failed _, Gramsci's former incarnation as council communist and Ordinivisti. Emphasis on the division between Torinese workers' control movement and the CGL bureaucracy.

*Paolo Spriano*, _The Occupation of the Factories_, an account of the Autumn 1920 factory occupation in Italy, particularly interesting is the implication that the CGL and PSI backed off because it felt that popular mobilisation was being controlled by Ordinovisti and the USI (Italian branch of the IWA)

* Eve Rosenhaft*, _ Beating the Fascists_, brilliant work on physical resistance to fascism in Germany.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 11, 2004)

Just two quick points on the Gramsci and Spriano books - Gramsci was never a Council Communist in the commonly accepted sense - (despite what Gwyn A Williams has argued at length elsewhere) he _always_ put 'The Party' at the centre of his thought, even when he was at his most councilist when involved with NO - he saw the party as the central directive force, and criticised 'the party' (was still the PSI then i think) during the occupations for failing to act in this manner, and this was a factor in his later stalinism (purging the bordigists etc). I really think it's innaccurate to call him a Council communist and have been perplexed as to why Williams and others have sought to portray him as one - unless their understanding of that term is very limited and not in line with that of most other people. (Williams seems also to have taken his info direct from Spriano).

It pays to be very carfeul with the Stalinist Spriano - he was a typical party historian, ready to write in or out people/groups/events at the drop of a hat and always prepared to twist the 'facts' to support the parties position.


----------



## Sorry. (Jul 11, 2004)

I wasn't aware he was a Stalinist. Strange because the book I mentioned above rather painted the picture that it was the USI and the Ordine Nuovo that drove/began to control the factory occupations (although I read it for an essay that was arguing that the post-ww1 workers' mobilisation was largely indepedent of the left wing of the 2nd international/ the emergent 3rd international - so perhaps I just read it in a way that produced the argument I was looking for ...).

Apologies for using the "council communist" - I couldn't find a snappy way to say workers' controlist ...


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 11, 2004)

Nah, it's not you i was having a pop at, just the certain historians who very deliberately, at height of euro-communism (should read euro-stalinism really in the 1970s, attempted to re-ivnent Gramsci as a 'Counil Communist' - Gwyn A Williams specifically using that term over and over. As for Spriano, well, he was a party member for a long long time - though i'm told by Italians mates that his early stuff was better - if still trapped in the partyist worldview. But they really really dislike most of his work.


----------



## danno_at_work (Aug 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Just two quick points on the Gramsci and Spriano books - Gramsci was never a Council Communist in the commonly accepted sense - (despite what Gwyn A Williams has argued at length elsewhere) he _always_ put 'The Party' at the centre of his thought, even when he was at his most councilist when involved with NO - he saw the party as the central directive force, and criticised 'the party' (was still the PSI then i think) during the occupations for failing to act in this manner, and this was a factor in his later stalinism (purging the bordigists etc). I really think it's innaccurate to call him a Council communist and have been perplexed as to why Williams and others have sought to portray him as one - unless their understanding of that term is very limited and not in line with that of most other people. (Williams seems also to have taken his info direct from Spriano).
> 
> It pays to be very carfeul with the Stalinist Spriano - he was a typical party historian, ready to write in or out people/groups/events at the drop of a hat and always prepared to twist the 'facts' to support the parties position.



do you regard any emphasis as a failure to tell the truth?


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 9, 2004)

danno_at_work said:
			
		

> do you regard any emphasis as a failure to tell the truth?


 Like to show me where i've argued that?


----------



## brasicritique (Aug 10, 2004)

MALCOM X= Topnotch nuff said. 

Raggerd trousered wasit = WMCKXS turn up at the end,save the day with a promise of funds for new banners.yawn


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 11, 2004)

care to say why?


----------



## The Black Hand (Aug 13, 2004)

By Flash and Scare: Arson, Animal maiming and poaching in east Anglia 1815-70 by J. Archer... How the poor protested and fed themselves, very interesting... of course, the animal maiming is not for the faint hearted...

By Rite: ceremony and community in england 1700-1880 by R. Bushaway...
If you want to know the poors radical traditions you should read this (and E.P. Thompsons work)

The Culture of Control by David garland, still writing brit Criminologist, excellent update of his previous work about the penal and welfare systems as a means of social control...

Albion's fatal tree by Hay, Thompson et al, The classic book about the poor, crime, protest and society in the 18th and 19th centuries - very influential...

Liberty against the law by Christopher Hill, one of the masters later works, very good.

professional criminals edited by Dick hobbs - it's ALL here...

Rebecca's Children: A study of rural society, crime and protest by David Jones - you cannot fail to be moved by this book... the social conditions that provoked what became known as the rebecca riots in South Wales

Race rebels: culture, politics, and the black working class by R. Kelley - working in america, this guy is in E.P. thompsons tradition... excellent...

The jerilderie letter by ned kelly - an awesome read, this book is legendary.

The many headed hydra - the hidden history of the revolutionary atlantic by peter Linebaugh and marcus rediker... it says it all in the title. fantastic book about the creation of the Atlantic proletariat...

bandits by Hobsbawm - a key text of an important issue with global and political implications... even looks at Anarchists and Sabate in a reasonable manner...

Cultural criminology and the carnival of crime by Mike Presdee - a good and interesting slant

A history of the Highland clearances: Agrarian transformation and the evictions 1746-1886 by E, Richards. A key text about an important issue.

Crime and markets - essays in anti Criminology by Vincenzo Ruggiero - what can i say? Excellent material, this and his other work is under utilised by our movements...

global women: nannies, maids and sex workers in the new economy by Ehrenreich and Hochschild, very good stuff about the experience of the exploited in the new economy... includes much on resistance too.

The State of the Police by Phil Scraton - published in the wake of the miners strike, loads of interesting material and critical  history of the police...

A right to roam by Shoard - excellent history of the struggles for land

The art of War by Sun Tzu - the classic book about the strategy of war

Free markets and food riots by Walton and Seddon - how the economic power of the IMF, World bank etc forces 'structural adjustments' on poor economies provoking riots analogous to bread riots in British history, so ably documented by EP Thompson...

More later


----------



## brasicritique (Aug 13, 2004)

Care to say why what, mr cook?


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 13, 2004)

Er why Malcolm X is good.
Mr Cook?


----------



## brasicritique (Aug 16, 2004)

why is Malcom X good? i'm sorry but i cant explain. partly because i dont have the volcabulary but more importantly because sometimes when somthing works on so many levels  to try to put it into words would not be doing it justice [ i dont mean that in the usuall WMCKXS pc sense]

NO

over the years i have read a lot of the books posted on this thread, some are tools, some are self indulgent and some sadly are arguably idealogically obsolete in the sense that as time technology and society move on new challenges present themselves and followers of said ideologies as demonstrated by the state of so called radical reactionary revolutionary political parties in this country become out of touch, insular, unable to adapt, lack vision and end up arguing while the system marches on grinding the havenots down even more, as such any book that demonsatrates the triumph of humanity over inhumanity is i belive very important. Which is probably why not many people on these boards have read it or some did but maybe didnt get it.

If however Redsquiral you meant care to say why as in from a racial political gender type perspective then sorry if the above disapoints you. and as for the Mr cook thing well i saw your name redsquiral and for some a reason an image of robin cook poped into my head he had an affair an i thought  you know how sometimes stupid lovers give each other nick names i had an image of robin cook on his mobile ringing his mistress saying in that voice of his 'its your red squiral... and i want to share my nuts with you'  

No offence meant Redsquiral thats just the way my mind works


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 16, 2004)

brasicattack said:
			
		

> for some a reason an image of robin cook poped into my head he had an affair an i thought  you know how sometimes stupid lovers give each other nick names i had an image of robin cook on his mobile ringing his mistress saying in that voice of his 'its your red squiral... and i want to share my nuts with you'
> 
> No offence meant Redsquiral thats just the way my mind works


Thats a frightening image


----------



## Gumbert (Aug 21, 2004)

so, is not malcolm x good? redsquirrel.

explain yourself man....


----------



## catch (Aug 23, 2004)

Listen Marxist!, Murray Bookchin

Written in 1971 in the USA, so needs to be read with that in mind, but anyone who calls themself a Marxist should read it. As should anyone who argues with Marxists on a regular basis.

Lots of Bookchin available on-line:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/Bookchinarchive.html


http://anarchism.jesusradicals.com/library/bookchin.php

http://www.social-ecology.org/staticpages/index.php?page=library&topic=online_library


----------



## Samson (Aug 23, 2004)

The Republic by Plato

Noticed a lot of books on this thread about Nazism, communism and the rest of recent history, but surely there is a lot more to politics than that.
The Republic is tens of hundreds of years old and still the basis of modern society, what other excuse do you need to read it.


----------



## The Black Hand (Oct 12, 2004)

Here's some really great stuff about Foxhunting, landownership and the Countryside Alliance

"The Rich at Play" edited by Mark Metcalf, published by RPM in 2002.
http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/rpm/rpm.html

"Racism and the Countryside Alliance" by  Trevor Bark; 
http://www.labouranimalwelfaresociety.org/gary/New articles/Racism and the Countryside Alliance.htm

"Foxhunting and the Landed Class" by Mark Metcalf and Trevor Bark;
Morning Star, Tuesday October 12th 2004, page 7.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 12, 2004)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> Here's some really great stuff about Foxhunting, landownership and the Countryside Alliance
> 
> "The Rich at Play" edited by Mark Metcalf, published by RPM in 2002.
> http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/rpm/rpm.html


hmmm...

d'you know where i could get hold of a signed copy?


----------



## The Black Hand (Oct 12, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> hmmm...
> 
> d'you know where i could get hold of a signed copy?



I'd have to ask.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 12, 2004)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> I'd have to ask.


----------



## The Black Hand (Oct 12, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

>


Keep your pecker up


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 12, 2004)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> Keep your pecker up


eh? 

if y'r concerned about that, perhaps you should take a trip to knobbing, sobbing and dobbing.


----------



## The Black Hand (Oct 12, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> eh?
> 
> if y'r concerned about that, perhaps you should take a trip to knobbing, sobbing and dobbing.



Well I don't understand what you've just put... but anyway I fear it was mistaken anyway... where I come from 'keep your pecker up' as I used it means 'keep your chin up'... You posted you were 'sad'... Oh well, just shows you can't trust this damn internet


----------



## gawkrodger (Oct 26, 2004)

i've recently been reading the Harry Potter books. not the most political books around, but still, they're pretty decent!


----------



## rednblack (Nov 3, 2004)

started reading malatesta life and ideas, edited by vernon richards, it's hard going but i'm doing it


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 3, 2004)

Ta for reminding me to update mine:

*States Of Emergnecy: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968-78* by Robert Lumley. Very informative book that covers the whole period from the Hot Autumn of 69 to the autnomists of 77 - chapters on the students protests, Red Brigades, Factory Workers, autonomia, operaismo etc - ideal to read with Storming Heaven: Class composition and struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism by Steve Wright and A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943-1988 by Paul Ginsborg.

*Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation* by Silvia Federici - stunning book that comes from the same line as Linebaugh/rediker etc - an investigation into 'the capitalist rationalisation of social reproduction' - but with emphasis on the effects of this on women, and on the consequent womens struggles as part of the class struggle, not as 'womens stuff' - from the enclosures, to the great heresies, the witch hunts and the New World. Recommended. (In a similar vein see Women, Development and Labour of Reproduction - Struggles and Movements - ed. by Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Giovanni E. Dalla Costa).

*Re-enchanting Humanity* - Murray Bookchin vicious book length polemic against the mistanthropic nature of primitivism, new age mysticism, anti-humanism and personal withdrawl that seems to have afflicted large segments of the radical milieu by the grumpy old man of social anarchism. Hits every target.


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 3, 2004)

Dunno if anybodys put this up already but;
*T[*B]he Friends of Durruti Group 1937-1939 [/B] by Agustin Guillamon, pub. AK Press

Is a fascinating history of class war anarchists 'on a move' during the Spanish cIvil war...

*The Long affray: The poaching wars in britain by Hopkins*, H. Papermac. 1986. 

Great social history of the central role of poaching in the survival stragegies of the poor and as a means of protest and resistance to the enclosures...


----------



## soulfish (Nov 4, 2004)

Blood in my eye is the best read I know of.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 8, 2004)

Places to Intervene in a System


> So one day I was sitting in a meeting about the new global trade regime, NAFTA and GATT and the World Trade Organization. The more I listened, the more I began to simmer inside. "This is a HUGE NEW SYSTEM people are inventing!" I said to myself. "They haven't the slightest idea how it will behave," myself said back to me. "It's cranking the system in the wrong direction, growth, growth at any price!! And the control measures these nice folks are talking about, small parameter adjustments, weak negative feedback loops, are puny!" Suddenly, without quite knowing what was happening, I got up, marched to the flip chart, tossed over a clean page, and wrote: " Places to Intervene in a System ," followed by nine items:
> 
> 9. Numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).
> 8. Material stocks and flows.
> ...


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 10, 2004)

Bernie Gunther said:
			
		

> Places to Intervene in a System


I is sorry Bernie, but i don't apreciate this writing... it could be ok, but it is far from great,,,


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 10, 2004)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> I is sorry Bernie, but i don't apreciate this writing... it could be ok, but it is far from great,,,


 Hey no problem. I don't claim that she's a good writer, but it is a very accessible intro to systems thinking.

If you want the real stuff it's here but the difference in effort required is about like that between Marx for Dummies and Capital. 

It just occured to me that it'd be interesting to drop some systems thinking into a discussion of politics, because I do think it's pretty relevant to intervening in a big complex system like global capitalism, assuming that's what you want to do.


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 11, 2004)

Bernie Gunther said:
			
		

> Hey no problem. I don't claim that she's a good writer, but it is a very accessible intro to systems thinking.
> 
> If you want the real stuff it's here but the difference in effort required is about like that between Marx for Dummies and Capital.
> 
> It just occured to me that it'd be interesting to drop some systems thinking into a discussion of politics, because I do think it's pretty relevant to intervening in a big complex system like global capitalism, assuming that's what you want to do.



Fair enough. I have my own pet subjects too, which I'll share for the persistent among us  

Try The art of War by Sun Tzu, and if you have read that (which is just possible), Try A Book of five Rings: The classic guide to strategy by Miyamoto Mushshi, or even The Lost art of War, the companion to the previous book by Sun Tzu [and read at Sandhurst] Martial arts and fighting philosophy should have greater purchase within the class struggle movement, for a number of reasons, and not only for fighting/military praxis...


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 11, 2004)

I'm familiar with both of those, especially Musashi (I did a lot of Ju Jitsu)

Have you seen this? 

36 Strategies


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 11, 2004)

*Ohhhh a soulmate*




			
				Bernie Gunther said:
			
		

> I'm familiar with both of those, especially Musashi (I did a lot of Ju Jitsu)
> 
> Have you seen this?
> 
> 36 Strategies



Thanks for the tip, and no I wasn't familiar with it... have you seen the Journal of Martial arts? It's American but I did see it in Chinatown (London).
I've got some other stuff too I'll have to dig out - some of the stuff advertised in the old magazine, Fighting Arts, that Terry O'neill used to put together, was very interesting...


----------



## Ozymandias (Nov 12, 2004)

*Alan Clark interviewed.*




			
				Gumbert said:
			
		

> This reminds me of a books from the other side:
> 
> Alan Clark's Diaries.
> 
> Shows just what  sexist bigotted hatefilled scumbags inhabit the rich and powerful




Alan Clarke is a vegetarian who cares about animal rights but is strangely indifferent to the plight of PEOPLE, especially those killed by bombs dropped by british aircraft sold to indonesia.

http://multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke2.ram

See also http://multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke1.ram

What a nice guy.


----------



## Ozymandias (Nov 12, 2004)

The links appear to have been cut short.  

http:   and it goes like this  //multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke2.ram

and http:   and then this  //multimedia.carlton.com/ram/pilger/timor/alan_clarke1.ram



Or just go to http://pilger.carlton.com/timor/film  and select the appropriate thingies there.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 12, 2004)

He's also dead.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 13, 2004)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> Thanks for the tip, and no I wasn't familiar with it... have you seen the Journal of Martial arts? It's American but I did see it in Chinatown (London).
> I've got some other stuff too I'll have to dig out - some of the stuff advertised in the old magazine, Fighting Arts, that Terry O'neill used to put together, was very interesting...


 Terry O'Neill's magazine was great I'm not quite sure what its political implications were though. 

The Gary Spiers articles in Fighting Arts are classics. May he rest in peace.

edited to add: I found most of the interviews online and linked them here


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 14, 2004)

Bernie Gunther said:
			
		

> Terry O'Neill's magazine was great I'm not quite sure what its political implications were though.
> 
> The Gary Spiers articles in Fighting Arts are classics. May he rest in peace.
> 
> edited to add: I found most of the interviews online and linked them here



Politically it was all over the place, and Terry seemed to forward a survivalist line, not disimilar in places to some right wing stuff coming out of the states.
BUT, we can of course use stuff and impose our own ends... Karate in theory has no first strike... Yeah, right....


----------



## Giles (Nov 14, 2004)

The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars 1760-1914 (Papermac)  

by Harry Hopkins


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 16, 2004)

Giles said:
			
		

> The Long Affray: The Poaching Wars 1760-1914 (Papermac)
> 
> by Harry Hopkins



Thanks for that, I think I have already mentioned it though. I would appreciate your description of why you like it though.


----------



## In Bloom (Nov 29, 2004)

_The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870-2033_ by Micheal Young

Absolutely essential and prescient satire, not to mention compelling reading.  Its written in the form of a sociological essay written in 2034 (actually written in late 1950s) set in a future society where individuals are judged from birth based on the formula "I(ntelligence)+E(ffort)=M(erit)".


----------



## rednblack (Nov 29, 2004)

"the breakdown of nations" by leopold kohr a non anarchist look at creating smaller political and economic  units as the solution to a lot of our problems


----------



## Gumbert (Dec 1, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> He's also dead.


this is true and good riddance too..

Currently reading Marx's economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 (again). 

Absolutely essential for understanding the alienating effects that private property has on human labour. And you get the added bonus of Marx showing up the weaknesses of Adam Smith, David Ricardo et al and the way they put the economics of the market before humankind. Plus some insights into his developing of theory of dialectical materialism...


----------



## sihhi (Dec 3, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> started reading malatesta life and ideas, edited by vernon richards, it's hard going but i'm doing it


Blimey rednblack    

I'd big up:

George Rude's Europe in the eighteenth century.

He's was friend of tankie Eric Hobsbawm, but writes very well and is very convincing in explaining why revolution happened in France and not elsewhere.
And it's so clear to understand bar a few terms like corvee labour that I'd recommend it to anyone.


----------



## Giles (Dec 3, 2004)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> Thanks for that, I think I have already mentioned it though. I would appreciate your description of why you like it though.



I liked it because it opened my eyes to what life was like for rural poor people and how vicious and savage were the punishments for poaching.

I'd never understood the sheer desperation that drove people to poach, and the amount of effort and resource spent my the landowners to prevent it.

Giles..


----------



## Hawkeye Pearce (Dec 7, 2004)

Don't know if its already been mentioned but Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man is very interesting.  
Also Wilhelm Reich's mass psychology of fascism has some challenging concepts regarding why people support fascist movements.


----------



## cogg (Dec 11, 2004)

From a completely different angle, most of Paul Mattick's writings are worth looking at.
Some of them are here:
www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/
Just edited to say that Mattick was an anti-bolshevik communist who published a magazine called "Living Marxism" that had no relation to anything by the same name published in the 1980s in Britain. 

Edited again to correct my appalling spelling...


----------



## dogroughzine (Dec 11, 2004)

i havent read all the posts so not sure if these have been mentioned...

Communist Manifesto - marx and engels
Introducing Trotsky and Marxism (library )
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser

Could anyone recommend some more anarchist based stuff of interest?


----------



## General Ludd (Dec 24, 2004)

> Also Wilhelm Reich's mass psychology of fascism has some challenging concepts regarding why people support fascist movements.


Have you seen http://www.notbored.org/reich.html


> Could anyone recommend some more anarchist based stuff of interest?


Maybe you should read all the posts on this thread then...


Just finishing Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992 published by Midnight Notes which is very good. Although I would like an updated postscript, especially about the wildcats in Appalachian coalfields.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jan 9, 2005)

I spent the last couple of months reading Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. both here and I'm incredibly impressed at how relevant his thinking is to the present day. I'd read Mutual Aid decades ago, but hadn't really understood him until I read the works cited above.


----------



## The Black Hand (Jan 15, 2005)

#


----------



## pilchardman (Jan 15, 2005)

Bernie Gunther said:
			
		

> I spent the last couple of months reading Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. both here and I'm incredibly impressed at how relevant his thinking is to the present day. I'd read Mutual Aid decades ago, but hadn't really understood him until I read the works cited above.


I'd say Fields, Factories and Workshops most influenced my anarchism.  I have three different editions, with notes by different people.  These can be useful, but the original stands alone pretty well even today.  (He revised it himself, and in my view his unrevised version is better).


----------



## rednblack (Jan 17, 2005)

started on guns germs and steel by jared diamond about why different continents have developed at different speeds

good stuff


----------



## catch (Jan 23, 2005)

just finished P. Arshinov's History of the Makhnovist Movement (Freedom Press).

Written in 1921 covering events from 1918-1921, the author was part of the movement itself. Not much about the Makhnovschina elsewhere and it's a well written account that doesn't stop short of criticising mistakes and failures.


----------



## The Black Hand (Jan 24, 2005)

Well to be honest my perseption of most of the books on this thread are shite with a capital S,so mundane &  sad,why bother reading anything at all if that the books on this thread is all that people can come up with.

       A loud of four eyed spotty so called @ists reading big books doesnt really impress me in the slightest


----------



## parallelepipete (Jan 26, 2005)

Russell, Bertrand. The scientific outlook. London: Routledge, 2001
Originally published in 1931, a brilliant dissection of the nature and the benefits and problems of scientific progress.

Dobson, Andrew. Green political thought [3rd ed.]. London: Routledge, 2000
Quite simply the best-constructed book on Green politics around, by an academic at the OU (formerly Keele).

Bakan, Joel. The corporation. London: Constable and Robinson, 2004
The corporation is a legally-sanctioned psychopath... no, really.


----------



## treelover (Feb 28, 2005)

The London Hanged: Peter Linebaugh'

an excellent academic book on the how for many centuries, the gallows were an indispensable tool in inculcating the primary lesson-"Respect Private Property"-of a modern capitalist economy 

much more interesting that that though

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521457580/002-5950313-2764022


----------



## cfz (Mar 26, 2005)

Enoch Powell by Paul Foot

I think it's out of print. 
It illustrates how Powell - a once-firm believer in UK citizenship for all members of the empire suddenly flipped 180 degrees from saying:  *'I have set and always will set my face like flint against making any difference between one citizen of this country and another on grounds of his origin' * to his speech about foreseeing *rivers of blood* as a result of immigration

interesting link:
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr217/foot.htm


----------



## 1minutesilence (Apr 7, 2005)

Lots to list so i'll put five I really like:

Shibboleth: My Revolting Life-   a bio by Crass's ex-drummer with some of his stories in it.

We are Everywhere- a great, big, collection of stories, images, journalist features on anti-capitalism since 1994.

The fear of Freedom- a great book by Fromm on why people fear politics of liberation.

The Pianist- good film to!

Understanding Power: The Indespensible Chomsky- a great collection of interviews, short writings from one of the most influential modern political thinkers.

And most of the stuff of marxists.org  , one of the best net sites ever!!

And a book that isn't in any way my fav but one that is very influential and dangerous is Mein Kempf, read it (or sections of it) if only to see how much influence a man with such distorted views can have.

Thats about it, I have lots more I like, but their all textbook type studies of countries or anarchy (bloody students!).


----------



## Raisin D'etre (Apr 30, 2005)

Who Owns Britain - Kevin Cahill:  Eye-opening book on the land-owning aristocracy, traces the history of land-ownership from Roman times through the land enclosures act to the present and argues for land reform - particularly relevant as we approach another housing crash.


----------



## Raisin D'etre (Apr 30, 2005)

And "If Women Counted - a new feminist economics" by Marilyn Waring.  Top book.


----------



## undesirable (Jun 16, 2005)

Vaneigem-the revolution of everyday life
-because its very quotable

Mark Steel-Reasons to be cheerful
-he's a comic genius and actually makes the lefty milieu a funny read

George Orwell-1984
-great beginners lesson in the means of public manipulation

Ken Knabb-The Situationist Anthology
-pretty much the complete works of debord et al, starts off  with some very well written and seminal texts, wains towards the end

Harry Cleaver-Reading capital politically
-brilliant, makes capital easily understandable and relates it to everyday struggle, makes dialectics relevant, its a must read


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 16, 2005)

Ah, good wo/man, reminded me to do an update. The Knabb anthology is nothing like complete though - there is just as much still untranslated...people are at work atm though...Good choices as well...


----------



## Stavrogin (Jun 16, 2005)

Black Garden by Thomas de Waal

A good book in but you should read it with one eye on the context in which is was written and consider what this means for 'international' (cross-cultural/cross continental) scholarship and why the book is almost useless by itself.


----------



## Cook1e (Jul 14, 2005)

Point of departure - Robin Cook
Only just got round to reading this one. Apart from painting Prescot et al. as nice people, he does seem to have got a way of letting you into the workings (or non workings) of parliament. He predicted the state the Iraq war would be in now and DOES clearly state that Blair lied to him about the 45 min claim.


----------



## Batley (Jul 24, 2005)

The Black Hand said:
			
		

> Well to be honest my perseption of most of the books on this thread are shite with a capital S,so mundane &  sad,why bother reading anything at all if that the books on this thread is all that people can come up with.
> 
> A loud of four eyed spotty so called @ists reading big books doesnt really impress me in the slightest



Fuck off and watch Trisha then.


----------



## Batley (Jul 24, 2005)

Francis wheen - 'How Mumbo-Jumbo came to rule the world' is brilliant in destroying all the pre-enlightenment pseudo-shite that people are so fascinated by nowadays - hororscopes, crystals, fundamentalist religious thinking etc etc - all the absolute mince that the world seems to prefer to hard science. A great laugh as well.


----------



## dirtycrustie (Jul 26, 2005)

Chrisso and Odeteo's BARBARIANS -availiable online at the killing king abacus website, an excellent critique of Negri's EMPIRE.

Nihilist Communism by Monsieur Dupont -an interesting critique of class consiousness available from AK press.

also most texts on anti-politics.net are worth a read.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 2, 2005)

1)Nestor Makhno-Anarchys Cossack availiable from AK Press

2)Ackelsburg-Free Women of Spain availiable from AK Press.


1)Swash buckling commie killing, no masters no gods and no commisars

2)Anarcho Femme orgainisation in spanish civil war good insightful read.


----------



## darren redparty (Aug 15, 2005)

Having quickly skimmed through postings to date here are some from me;

CLR James The Black Jacobins, Fantastic, showed me what marxist writing SHOULD be like.

 Maurice Brinton, for workers Power, showed me what I'd been doing wrong.

 finally, for both political and pleasural reasons everything by Terry Pratchett,
 Pratchett writes so wittily, so wisely and with such Humanity, that it seems that whenever we are discussing some political point or other we always seem to be able to draw a comparison with something in one of terry's books.
    When political discussions often stray into arcane and exclusive language, to be able to say 'just like in INteresting Times' or whatever.


----------



## Raisin D'etre (Aug 16, 2005)

darren redparty said:
			
		

> Having quickly skimmed through postings to date here are some from me;
> 
> CLR James The Black Jacobins, Fantastic, showed me what marxist writing SHOULD be like.


Agreed.


----------



## Sorry. (Aug 16, 2005)

Piven & Cloward, _Poor People's Movements; How they succeed, why they fail._ Abysmal title (sounds like a book about bowels...) but some insightful writing about the dynamics of protest, spontaneity, organisation, defiance and incorporation.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 17, 2005)

Bash the Fash Anti Fascist recollections 1984-1993. K.Bullstreet. 

Pamphelt availiable from antifa or Class War well worth a read


----------



## catnip (Aug 21, 2005)

*reading material*

I also like 'The New Nuclear Danger' by Helen Caldicott. 
All time favourite however, is 'The Poetical Works of Shelley', by, em, Shelley (Percy Byshe), but currently keen on A Tale of 2 Cities (Dickens).


----------



## Ryazan (Sep 29, 2005)

Batley said:
			
		

> Fuck off and watch Trisha then.



What?  And have to put with watching the nobhead middle class students being "ironic" by sitting in the audience.


----------



## cathal marcs (Oct 11, 2005)

E.L.  Voynich - The gadfly a great novel

Robert Tressell - The ragged Trousered philanphropists. This booked shaed my olitical views when I first read it when I was 15.

V.I. Lenin - Imperialism The Highest Stage of Capitalism

K Marx - Capital Volume One. Marxs classic needs no explanation

Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth. A book I really found fascinating as is most of Fanons work im suprised no one else mentioned it to be honest.

J.P. Sartre - nausea also Colonialism/neo colonalism and The espectfull prostitute. Sartre is one of my heroes and like fanon suprised no oter sartre fans on the board

Plato - Republic


----------



## Ryazan (Oct 11, 2005)

Wasn't Satre fond of Maoism for a bit?


----------



## cathal marcs (Oct 11, 2005)

Ryazan said:
			
		

> Wasn't Satre fond of Maoism for a bit?




He was during the late 60s and 70s and to  so called Stalinism also although he was often denounced by the PCF for his existentialism. Although Sartre was often contradictory in his beliefs and there has ben so much historical revisionism from groups claiming Sartre to be their own.


----------



## Ryazan (Oct 12, 2005)

The French communist party was staunchly Stalinist in the 50's.


----------



## cathal marcs (Oct 12, 2005)

Ryazan said:
			
		

> The French communist party was staunchly Stalinist in the 50's.



And that was when he was a member but again he was often at polemics as I say he was a rather contradictory/complex fella and had his own views rather than a dogmatic follower of other people.

Any other sartre admirers here? Or am I the only one?


----------



## gilhyle (Oct 14, 2005)

Sartre remained close to the Maoists to the end - to the point that they provided the stewards for his funeral.

Even if half of Jung Chang & Jon Halliday's Mao; The Unknown Story is true, it is a portrait of the moral abyss for any Marxist. Not since reading the multi-volume Gulag Archipeligo ( for all its flaws), have I read more depressing stuff about the sad, tragic history of our socialism. 

1937: Stalin's Year of Terror by Vadim Z. Rogovin is a great book on the nadir of the Russian Revolution. (meant to be part of a series but I don't know if the rest ever came out)

Socialism Pat and Future by Michael Harrington is an odly original book which tries to use the history of socialism to look into its future


----------



## cathal marcs (Oct 14, 2005)

gilhyle said:
			
		

> . Not since reading the multi-volume Gulag Archipeligo ( for all its flaws), have I read more depressing stuff about the sad, tragic history of our socialism.




The author was a fascist cunt FACT!


----------



## gilhyle (Oct 14, 2005)

cathal marcs said:
			
		

> The author was a fascist cunt FACT!



True - or at least nearly true, he was (is?) actually an anti-semite, pro-tsarist, Russian Orthodox fundamentalist, last time I looked, who, unfortunately, still wrote great novels and also wrote the most detailed account of the Gulag (though no longer the most up-to-date or authoritative). It was full of distortions, that is also true (including misrepresenting and understating the extraordinary resistance of trotskyists in the camps), but is still a heart-rending testament about a key part of the story of how a revolution got destroyed. 

Actually the full 4 volumes I read also becomes incredibly boring, kinda like de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom.

The three books I recommend are none of these things. Harrington is also some sort of left winger (I think a break-away from the Schachtmanites who broke away from the party which broke away from the American SWP in 1940, which of course broke away from the American CP. THe other authors, I don't know - but I doubt any of them are either fascists or even Russian Orthodox, if that helps.  They are all just a good, challenging or disturbing read.

A book should make you think, not agree.


----------



## cathal marcs (Oct 16, 2005)

gilhyle said:
			
		

> True - or at least nearly true, .



he was. Have you read about his exploits on Spanish TV after Francos death?Makes the blood boil


----------



## Fledgling (Jan 2, 2006)

I've just finished two books on the Spanish Civil War and recommend them as excellent introductions which are more than that. 

1. The Spanish Labyrinth by Gerald Brenan: 

A three part account of the history and political origins of the Spanish Civil War, written by an Englishman who lived in Spain. The first part has a good historical background to the situation, especially the dividing lines in Spain before the Second Repulbic. The second part looks at speicif ideologies,; thier history and some of their ideas and leaders. The third part examines the second Republic which fell with the Civil War. The best parts concern the anarchist chapters and the agricultural sections altohugh each chapter informs you and the narrative is well written. 

2. The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau: 

Slightly overlaps the above with some history but this can be skimmed if you've read Brenan. The book has 2 major sections on Anachrist Spain in 1936 and the author's second visit later in the conflict after the atmosphere changed somewhat. Excellent eyewitness stuff and a good examination of the political changes inside Republican territory. 

I'm going to find more books on the conflict, these were excellent.


----------



## Grego Morales (Mar 24, 2006)

Violent London by Clive Bloom. 

Civil Disobedience is always portrayed as an aberation by conventional history. This book proves otherwise.


----------



## Idris2002 (Apr 12, 2006)

I'm reading that Violent London book at the moment. It's not the worst thing I've ever read, but it's all a bit shock/horror, and from a fairly small-c conservative perspective as well.


----------



## Mallard (Jun 16, 2006)

Fledgling said:
			
		

> I've just finished two books on the Spanish Civil War and recommend them as excellent introductions which are more than that.
> 
> 1. The Spanish Labyrinth by Gerald Brenan:



Great recommendation. Seconded


----------



## PatrickHarringt (Jul 1, 2006)

*Who is John Galt?*




			
				mears said:
			
		

> Ayn Rand
> Fiction: Atlas Shrugged
> Non-fiction: The Virtue of Selfishness



Atlas Shrugged is a great read but it is flawed. Inherited wealth is never addressed by Rand (all the heroes are either self-made or work their way up from the bottom of their dad's companies!). The basic theme that Capitalists are the motive force of the economy because they are the creators ignores how every invention or innovation is built on a previous idea (a cultural legacy). People on the 'left' should read it to spot errors and clarify why they are against Capitalism!


----------



## kropotkin (Jul 2, 2006)

And what should ex-leaders of the National Front read it for?


----------



## greenman (Jul 21, 2006)

Just finished Green Left activist Derek Wall's 'Babylon and Beyond - The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements' Pluto Press, 2005.  Excellent stuff.  Order it from your local library.  Wall is very keen on defending and extending 'commons', of which he sees libraries as a partial current example.


----------



## BettyButterfly (Aug 2, 2006)

George Galloway, I'm not the only one.


----------



## northernhord (Aug 2, 2006)

The Banks - sinn feinn research groups
Malatestas Anarchism
Manufacturing consent - Noam Chomsy
A quest for bread - Kropotkin


----------



## northernhord (Aug 2, 2006)

Capital - Karl Marx (in parts)


----------



## Plato1983 (Aug 2, 2006)

*The Han Feizi by Han Feizi*, a collection of 55 writings and articles by one of the principle founders of the school of thought known as Chinese Legalism.

*The Republic by Plato*, one of his works detailing how to attain a perfect state, free of the corruptions and general malaise of incompetence that we see in many of todays governments and states.

*Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes*, a classic defence of the state and of an oderly authority, detailing the horrors of a humanity without the state and of a higher order.

*The selected writings of Giovanni Gentile*, Italian philosopher and founder of 'Actual Idealism' along with his valuable contributions to the Fascist political and social experiment in Italy from 1922-1943.

A selection of his many writings are below:

Delle Commedie di Antonfranceso Grazzi, detto "Il Lasca" (1896) 
Una critica del materialismo storico (1897) 
Rosmini e Gioberti (1898) 
La filosofia di Marx (1899) 
Il concetto della storia (1899) 
L'insegnamento della filosofia nei licei (1900) 
Il concetto scientifico della pedagogia (1900) 
Della vita e degli scritti di B. Spaventa (1900) 
Polemica hegeliana (1902) 
L'unita della scuola secondaria e la libertà degli studi (1902) 
Filosofia ed empiricismo (1902) 
La rinascità dell'idealismo (1903) 
Dal Genovesi al Galluppi (1903) 
Studi sullo Stoicismo romano del I sec. d. C. (1904) 
Riforme liceali (1905) 
Il figlio di G. B. Vico (1905) 
La riforma della scuola media (1906) 
Le varie redazioni del De sensu rerum di T. Campanella (1906) 
Giordano Bruno nella storia della cultura (1907) 
Il primo processo d'eresia di T. Campanella (1907) 
Per la scuola primeria allo stato (1907) 
Vincenzo Gioberti nel primo centenario dell sua nascità (1907) 
Il concetto della storia della filosofia (1908) 
Vincenzo Cuoco pedagoista (1908) 
Scuola e filosofia (1908) 
Ilmodernismo e i rapporti fra religione e filosofia (1909) 
Un poeta del pensiero. Cultura (1911) 
Bernardino Telesio (1911) 
L'atto del pensare come atto puro (1912) 
Il programma della Biblioteca Filosofica di Palermo (1912) 
Intorno all'idealismo attuale: ricordi e confessioni (1913) 
I problemi della scolastica e il pensiero italiano (1913) 
La riforma della dialettica hegeliana (1913) 
Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica (1913) 
Il torto e il diritto del positivismo (1914) 
La filosofia della guerra (1914) 
Pascuale Galluppi giacobino? (1914) 
Documenti pisani della vita e delle idee di V. Gioberti (1915) 
Donato Jaja (1915) 
Biblografia delle lettere a stampa di V. Gioberti (1915) 
Studi vichiani (1915) 
L'esperienza pura e la realtà storica (1915) 
Per la riforma deglie insegamenti filosofici (1916) 
Il concetto dell'uomo nel rinascimento (1916) 
I fondamenti della filosofia del diritto (1916) 
Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro (1916) 
Le origini della filosofia contemporanea in Italia (1917) 
Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere (1917) 
Il carattere storico della filosofia italiana (1918) 
Esiste una scuola italiana? (1918) 
Il Marxismo di Benedetto Croce (1918) 
Il tramonto della cultura Siciliana (1919) 
Mazzini (1919) 
Il realismo politico di V. Gioberti (1919) 
Guerra e fede (1919) 
Dopo la vittoria (1920) 
Il problema scolastico del dopoguerra (1920) 
La riforma dell'educazione (1920) 
Discorsi di religione (1920) 
Giordano Bruno e il pensiero del rinascimento (1920) 
Arte e religione (1920) 
Bertrando Spaventa (1920) 
Difesa della filosofia (1920) 
Storia della cultura piedmontese della 2a meta del sec. XIX (1921) 
Frammenti di estetica e letteratura (1921) 
Albori della nuova Italia (1921) 
Educazione e scuola laica (1921) 
Saggi critici (1921) 
La filosofia di Dante (1921) 
Il concetto moderno della scienza e il problema universitario (1921) 
G. Capponi e la cultura toscana nel secolo decimonono (1922) 
Studi sul rinascimento (1923) 
Dante e Manzoni, con un saggio su Arte e religione (1923) 
I profeti del Risorgimento Italiano (1923) 
Intorno alla logica del concreto (1924) 
Preliminari allo studio del fanciullo (1924) 
La riforma della scuola (1924) 
Il fascismo e la Sicilia (1924) 
Il fascismo al governo della scuola (1924) 
Che cosa è fascismo (1925) 
La nuova scuola media (1925) 
Avvertimenti attualisti (1926) 
Frammenti di storia della filosofia (1926) 
Saggi critici (1926) 
L'eredità di Vittorio Alfieri (1926) 
Cultura fascista (1926) 
Il problema religioso in Italia (1927) 
Il pensiero italiano del secolo XIX (1928) 
Fascismo e cultura (1928) 
La filosofia del fascismo (1928) 
La legge del Gran Consiglio (1928) 
Manzoni e Leopardi (1929) 
Origini e dottrina del fascismo (1929) 
La filosofia dell'arte (1931) 
La riforma della scuola in Italia (1932) 
Introduzione alla filosofia (1933) 
La donna e il fanciullo (1934) 
Origini e dottrina del fascismo (1934) 
Economia ed etica (1934) 
Leonardo da Vinci (Gentile one of contributors, 1935)


----------



## Azrael23 (Aug 3, 2006)

Order Out of Chaos - Paul J Watson.


----------



## Hawkeye Pearce (Aug 18, 2006)

The United States: A People's History - Howard Zinn


----------



## esi (Aug 18, 2006)

So glad someone said "Brave New World"- personally I like Huxley's style of writing more than Orwells.
a good story can educate far more people about the political concepts of our society than some great tome that they'll never open!


----------



## tony.c (Sep 3, 2006)

*anthony.c*

Strumpet City by James Plunkett - novel set around the 1912 Dublin Lockout.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - novel about the exploitation of mainly immigrant labour in the Chicago slaughterhouses in the Thirties.

Out of the Night by Jan Valtin - the story of a  German Communist Party member's fight against the rise of the Nazis.

No Retreat by Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey - an account of militant antifascism in Britain between 1977 and 1997.


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## signor sinistra (Sep 5, 2006)

A few more books:

*The Pursuit of the Millennium* by *Norman Cohn* - A book about various heretical movements in medieval and Reformation Europe, that attempts to explain what effects (essentially economic and social dislocation) would cause people to believe in such millenarian ideas. He also compares the apocalyptic beliefs from centuries ago with Nazism and Stalinism in the twentieth century.


*Rabelais and His World* by *Mikhail Bakhtin* - A literary criticism of Rabelais' (another heretic) Gargantua and Pantagruel written by a Russian during Stalin's era that invoked the carnival spirit and earthiness and was a veiled criticism of Communism (another bloody heretic i suppose).  "The official feast asserted all that was stable, unchanging, perennial: the existing hierarchy, the existing religious, political, and moral values....That is why the tone of the official feast was monolithically serious and why the element of laughter was alien to it. The true nature of human festivity was betrayed and distorted. But this true festive character was indestructible; it had to be tolerated and even legalised outside the official sphere"  Bakhtin


*On Another Man's Wound* by *Ernie O'Malley* - An autobiographical account of the Irish War of Independence by a man that became a senior officer in the IRA Southern Command. The book is well written and quite matter of fact in tone. O'Malley was ambivalent around the time of the Easter Rising, but gradually became more involved. The book isn't political theory as such, more an account of what was done and why it had to be done.


*The Dispossessed* by *Ursula K Le Guin* - A science fiction novel. It's just been reprinted and i saw a mini review of it the other day. It's been 20 odd years since i read it so i am going to have to get hold of it again. Vague plot - two adjacent planets with very different resources and politics, a journey from one planet to another, but not everyting on the other planet is as first seems.


----------



## nino_savatte (Oct 4, 2006)

Jean Baudrillard- _The Consumer Society: Myths & Structures_

It's pre-_Simulation and Simulacra_ but it's an interesting read all the same. He doesn't think much of growth or GDP. Come to think of it, nor do I.


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## Irenick (Nov 25, 2006)

'If This is a Man' - Primo Levi
'The Grapes of Wrath' - John Steibeck
'Slaughterhouse Five' - Kurt Vonnegut
'Capital' - Karl Marx
'Hidden Persuaders' - Vance Packard


----------



## ska invita (Mar 24, 2007)

Just reading this and its amazing:

The End of Utopia - Politics and Culture in a Age of Apathy by Russell JAcoby





A right kick up the arse of academics and progressives, making clear how and why the left is loosing/lost its backbone - also has made me see more clearly where we are right now, politically speaking. he's got another book out, came out last year with more of the same. Cant recommend this enough.

http://www.amazon.com/End-Utopia-Politics-Culture-Apathy/dp/0465020011


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## imposs1904 (Apr 4, 2007)

Just finished reading 'Standing Fast' by Harvey Swados.

A really good novel about a group of young men and women in late thirties America who become members of a Trotskyists, and work together to set up a branch of their organisation in Buffalo over the next few years, and how their personal and political lives take divergent paths.

I only found out about it after I read an interesting article about the novel at the Workers Liberty website.

It was originally published in the early seventies, and is now sadly out of print but you can easily find a secondhand copy via bookfinder.com.

regards,
Darren
Inveresk Street Ingrate blog


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## Geoff kerr-morg (May 6, 2007)

Leon Uris Trinity and Mila 18
Louis de Berniere Birds Without Wings
Eamonn McCann War And An Irish Town
Gil Courtmanche A Sunday By The Pool In Kigali


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## riglet (Jun 11, 2007)

Krazy & Ignatz: Herriman


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## Grego Morales (Jul 26, 2007)

Society Must Be Defended - Michael Foucault


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## Grego Morales (Aug 15, 2007)

False Dawn - John Gray


----------



## moono (Aug 28, 2007)

Belushi;


> 'Age of Extremes' etc - Eric Hobsbawm



Somebody just bunged me that.  Thick, innit.


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Nov 13, 2007)

Reading Age of Extremes at the mo, very good read, takes ages to get through the one chapter mind. You just gotta make yourself really or it'll just collect dust or become a very expensive place mat.


----------



## michael1968x (Nov 16, 2007)

"Social Inequality & Class Radicalism in France and Britain" by Duncan Gallie. A very clear and empirically grounded analysis of why many more workers in France than Britain hold radical class views of inequality, politics and society.


----------



## articul8 (Nov 16, 2007)

The Year of the French - Thomas Flanagan. 

Great novel whic puntures naively romantic Irish nationalism without justifying colonial oppression.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 10, 2007)

Anyone read The New Spirit of Capitalism?


----------



## articul8 (Dec 10, 2007)

not yet - how is it?

I can't wait for this:
http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/jacquesvache


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 10, 2007)

Not very good - at least 200 pages in it isn't.


----------



## nino_savatte (Dec 11, 2007)

_The Consumer Society _- Jean Baudrillard. 

This is a book by a more youthful Baudrillard before he went all postmodern on us.


----------



## Robert Side (Dec 17, 2007)

Web of debt by Ellen H Brown. 
Relates absolutely to the present Credit Crunch
and possible solutions for money reform ; of enormous importance to ecology globalisation and the stupidity of exponential growth.


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## eyrie (Dec 28, 2007)

Am in the midst of 'Web of Debt', which I'm finding difficult, not because of the language or subject, but because she gets so carried away by her own enthusiasm she forgets to check some facts: ie, the whole discussion of 17th c. English history, which is pretty confused, to say the least. Unfortunately then it makes me question how much other stuff is elided over. But the subject, yes, is *the* key one - what is money, who creates it and how, how it affects the rest of the economy and politics, and how we can do it differently.

A few other good books on this subject of money:
'Money upside down' Haas (2003) - a German PhD thesis turned into a book, considered arguments once you get past the clunky English.

'What is Money?' (Routledge, 2000) - academic essays which taken together show that all standard economic theories, including Marxism, have misunderstood or misrepresented both the history and nature of money

"The Role of Money" Soddy (1935) - a physical scientist tackles the question of money - not always clearly written but some great bits of analysis

"The Nature of Money" John Kutyn (1996-2005) - slightly mad Canadian ex-banker, campaigner for local currencies in New Zealand

"Creating New Money" Huber & Robertson (2004?) From the New Economics Foundation (NGO Central). Good on the subject of how money is created now, but fantasically suggests that bankers are going to somehow be willing to give up their status as masters of the universe without a fight.

Dealing with anything else - the encroachment on civil rights, the environment, cuts to government benefits and services, privatisation, even the war - feels like an exercise in how many fingers can be found for how many holes in the dyke, when in fact the dyke needs to be entirely rebuilt on new foundations.

Happy New Year?


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## tbaldwin (Feb 5, 2008)

2 Good reads for Different reasons.

Diamond in the Dust   a biography of Ian Stuart the dead skrewdiver singer.
you can read it on the internet if you follow the links thru wikipedia. some of it is really funny.

Soledad Brother   George Jackson.


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## audiotech (Feb 13, 2008)

tbaldwin said:


> 2 Good reads for Different reasons.
> 
> Diamond in the Dust   a biography of Ian Stuart the dead skrewdiver singer.
> you can read it on the internet if you follow the links thru wikipedia. some of it is really funny.



That read was worse than watching:






As I recently acquired a DVD of it.


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## tbaldwin (Feb 14, 2008)

Another good book re Fascism is Morris Beckmans Jewish 43 Group.


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## audiotech (Feb 14, 2008)

Vidal Sassoon in March 1992 wrote a foreword to Morris Beckman's book and remembered proudly 43 Jewish ex-servicemen and women coming together '...who did not intend to allow the fascists ever again to rule the streets of London, who were joined by many gentile friends...'


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## audiotech (Jun 17, 2008)

*Reading Marx's Capital*

Free course online.


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## trevhagl (Jun 17, 2008)

That all seems very boring. "Bash The Rich" by Ian Bone is hilarious


----------



## The Black Hand (Jun 19, 2008)

trevhagl said:


> That all seems very boring. "Bash The Rich" by Ian Bone is hilarious



True. I like Martin Lux "Anti Fascist".


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 19, 2008)

mark curtis web of deciet


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 19, 2008)

misha glenny - mcmafia


----------



## Fledgling (Jun 22, 2008)

John Bolton- Surrender is not an option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad. A bit too arcane, spends a lot of time talking about high level discussions and strange not quite anecdotes, nowhere near enough in-depth criticism of the UN which is what I'd hoped for. He could have used this to take the organisation to pieces. Instead Bolton goes for a memoir which wastes time on irrelevant discussions of his general vision.


----------



## LikeMike (Jun 29, 2008)

N. M. Seedo : In the Beginning Was Fear
A novel following the life of a Jewish girl from Bessarabia who escapes from the Nazis to find refuge in England.


----------



## EddyBlack (Jul 6, 2008)

Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
by David Rothkopf

Former head of Kissinger Associates and Clinton administration official looks at what he describes as the 'Superclass', comprising of about 6000 people who are the world's most powerful and influential. They constitute a community amongst themselves and exist and operate above the level of nations and national laws. It also looks at the issues surrounding 'globalisation' which this class is largely the driver of.


----------



## lights.out.london (Jul 6, 2008)

_Fields, Factories and Workshops_ - Peter Kropotkin

_Anarchism: Arguments For and Against_ - Albert Metzer

_I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels_ - Albert Metzer

_Free To Choose_ - Milton and Rose D. Friedman


----------



## lights.out.london (Jul 6, 2008)

trevhagl said:


> That all seems very boring. "Bash The Rich" by Ian Bone is hilarious



lol

Bone spends most the book pissed!


----------



## trevhagl (Jul 7, 2008)

lights.out.london said:


> lol
> 
> Bone spends most the book pissed!



Aye but it's better than intellectual bollocks!!


----------



## josef1878 (Jul 14, 2008)

Keith Mann - From Dusk til Dawn

http://www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk/

Enough for 3 books in there


----------



## trevhagl (Jul 25, 2008)

josef1878 said:


> Keith Mann - From Dusk til Dawn
> 
> http://www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk/
> 
> Enough for 3 books in there



That is a FANTASTIC book and if anyone still believes in the law and democracy, when they see this they won't believe the goings on.

Busy reading RAYMOND McCORD-JUSTICE FOR RAYMOND at the mo, about how the powers that be employed murderers as informants in N Ireland and deliberately fucked up investigations into his sons death


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## josef1878 (Jul 25, 2008)

trevhagl said:


> That is a FANTASTIC book and if anyone still believes in the law and democracy, when they see this they won't believe the goings on.
> 
> Busy reading RAYMOND McCORD-JUSTICE FOR RAYMOND at the mo, about how the powers that be employed murderers as informants in N Ireland and deliberately fucked up investigations into his sons death



I've read a few books on that subject Trev. Very dark things happened in NI during the conflict. I thought Government sanctioned death squads only existed in piss poor dictatorships until i read em.


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## Gmart (Jul 30, 2008)

The Retreat of Reason: Political correctness and the corruption of public debate in modern Britain by Anthony Browne (see here)


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## fenriss (Jan 5, 2009)

the new reich : michael schmidt


----------



## nightbreed (May 26, 2009)

.


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## Immaterial (Jul 22, 2009)

Autonomia - Post-political politics. Semiotext(e) Editor: Sylvere Lotringer.

Fantastic collection of original articles, documents, photos and essays in response to the Italian State clampdown of '78 - '79.
Inspiring, illuminating and informative!


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## Prince Rhyus (Sep 13, 2009)

http://www.douglasmurray.co.uk/TheBNPandtheOnlineFascistNetwork.pdf 

The BNP and the Online Fascist Network:
An investigation into the online activities of British
National Party members and online activists


----------



## audiotech (Sep 15, 2009)

*Das Kapital Volume 3*

I may get around to reading this.

 might help.


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## love detective (Sep 17, 2009)

i wouldn't skip volume 2 if i were you


----------



## llion (Sep 20, 2009)

Colin Ward - Influences: Voices of Creative Dissent. Very interesting and illuminating chapters on Paul Goodman, Godwin and Kropotkin among others.


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## Prince Rhyus (Sep 24, 2009)

Less "reading" more "listening" - http://www.last.fm/music/Oysterband/_/Bells+of+Rhymney?autostart


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## A. Spies (Nov 9, 2009)

Fledgling said:


> I'm going to find more books on the conflict, these were excellent.



The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor is really good, though it's an overall thing.  Covers the conflict really well and I think  I especially if you're interested in the Anarchists because he doesn't sound like he's sneering at them as I seem to remember some of the other big writers doing. But as a military historian you don't worry as much about it being completely partisan as you do with Bookchin and that. Bookchins The Spanish Anarchists has good diagrams of the way the CNT was organised though.

heading off into history really but:
I recently finished Zapata and Villa by Frank McClyn which seemed pretty good though I've read nothing else about the mexican civil war/revolution. 
It paints zapata in a fairly positive light as being incorruptible through most of the revolution and sketces he and Villa really well. Can anyone recommend me any good histories of the Zapatistas that show how much democracy/land reform they managed to achieve while they were about? there's a bit mentioned in the booked but not loads.


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## Davo1 (Dec 3, 2009)

Just read 'Ground Control' by Anna Minton which looks at the effects of privatization on the UK, including the effects on 'our' cities:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ground-Control-Fear-Happiness-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0141033916

Really really good. Actually has a positive ending as well, in light of the economic down turn and ridiculous sounding nature of thatcher and blairite TINA (there is no alternative) policies in the future.


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## kavenism (Dec 24, 2009)

Four short books that have just been released simultaneously on the new Zero books imprint are well worth a look.
Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism
Nina Power – One Dimensional Woman
Owen Hatherley – Militant Modernism
Dominic Fox – The Aesthetics of dejection and the politics of militant dysphoria
This seems to be Zero books attempt to forge a new avenue in public critique; they have a mission statement that claims to be pursuing radical cultural/political/social criticism outside of academia but without sacrificing quality or relevance. All four authors are bloggers but I think only Fox’ book hints at that. It still has lots of very interesting material I especially liked the chapter on the early 90s Norwegian black metal scene. Mark Fisher’s book is the most impressive from my perspective. He analyses various trends in popular culture, work and politics over the last ten years or so from a broadly Zizekian, Deluzian perspective. The best parts are when he applies these ideas directly to his experience of working as an FE tutor. It’s rare to find someone using Zizek’s ideas and actually using them to unpick some very everyday experiences of work in 21st century Britain.


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## Prince Rhyus (Dec 25, 2009)

- another music one - Ich Bin Ein Auslander by Pop Will Eat Itself


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## tar1984 (Jan 22, 2010)

MC5 said:


> I may get around to reading this.
> 
> might help.



I like how that guy is growing a marx style beard.


----------



## trevhagl (Jan 22, 2010)

The Aesthetics of dejection and the politics of militant dysphoria


one reason why certain sections of leftist politics will never reach anyone but boring intellectual fuckers who'd send a glass eye to sleep


----------



## badong (Feb 7, 2010)

Jean Baudrillard - the spirit of terrorism 

I don't know if this has been posted before but the site has loads of articles and journals for free.


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## articul8 (Mar 23, 2010)

Jacques Ranciere's _Nights of Labour_ and _The Philosopher and his Poor_


----------



## chilango (May 21, 2010)

"Going Postal - Mark Ames"




> Ames takes a systematic look at the scores of rage killings in our public schools and workplaces that have taken place over the past 25 years. He claims that instead of being the work of psychopaths, they were carried out by ordinary people who had suffered repeated humiliation, bullying and inhumane conditions that find their origins in the "Reagan Revolution." Looking through a carefully researched historical lens, Ames recasts these rage killings as failed slave rebellions.



Actually a lot better than the blurb would have you think, the somewhat exploratory parallels between workplace/school shootings and slave rebellions is more of an excuse to document the changes to working conditions (and wider society) post-Reagan in the USA and posit the shootings as an angry and desperate backlash against the imapct of neoliberal economics.

Interview with the author

Easy read too.


----------



## MightyAphrodite (May 21, 2010)

America The Book: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart (daily show host)












worth a look i promise.


----------



## nino_savatte (Oct 17, 2010)

Lisa Duggan - _The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberlaism, cultural politics and the attack on democracy_


----------



## 74drew (Nov 16, 2010)

David Graeber is well worth a read. Here are a couple of articles available on the web,

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology- David Graeber :- http://abahlali.org/files/Graeber.pdf

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/David_Graeber__The_Twilight_of_Vanguardism.html


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## Prince Rhyus (Nov 19, 2010)

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/11/06/the-demand-for-tax-justice/

Also


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 11, 2011)

I'm not sure what you'd call it, but can anyone recommend any reading on the merging of state and capital, or the rise of the corporate oligarchy? I'm thinking in terms of publicly funded services provided by large corporations (Capita etc.) and the use of "industry experts" to draft policy. I'm sure someone told me that David Harvey had done some good work on this but can't remember the title.


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## flypanam (Apr 13, 2011)

Fascism and big business - Daniel Guerian read it years ago made it quite clear that the interests of the State and Corporatations merged and found expression in the fascist movement in order to wage brutal war on the WC.

Workers Councils - Anton Pannekoek. I found this dry but full of illuminating history and great ideas, a certain revolutionary party of whom i used to be a member could do with reading this.

Peter Marshall - Demanding the impossible: A history of anarchism. I know nothing of anarchism so thought it would be a good place to start. Very good so far.


----------



## Anudder Oik (Apr 27, 2011)

*Revolution and Counter revolution in Spain* by Felix Morrow.

Sharp eye witness account of the political infighting on the Republican side  in the civil war, with the build up to the Maydays and then the fully fledged  counter revolution led by the communist party under orders from Stalin that demolished morale and undermined the war effort against Franco.

Enough to put you off left wing politics for life....


----------



## feedmeastraycat (May 28, 2011)

What's this got to do with Doctor Who?

Oh wait, wrong thread.


----------



## frogwoman (May 31, 2011)

treasure islands by nick shaxton ftw. 

im also reading "reformation and revolution" by christopher hill atm


----------



## audiotech (Jun 2, 2011)

Out soon:

'Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class'


----------



## dynamicbaddog (Jun 8, 2011)

audiotech said:


> Out soon:
> 
> 'Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class'



That's next on my reading list, and  I've booked to see Owen give a talk on it next month at   the  London Literature Festival, Southbank

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/literature-spoken-word/tickets/owen-jones-59113


----------



## dynamicbaddog (Jun 8, 2011)

also out this week from Well Red Books 
Revolution Until Victory!
collection of articles about events in Tunisia and Egypt


----------



## Pinette (Aug 14, 2011)

I recommend Christopher Hitchens to you, poster. (Tried to get your name from the top of the original post, to be polite, then lost the message that I'd already written.)  You don't have to take all his views on board, but by god you learn a lot. I respect this man.  'Love Poverty And War';' 'God Is Not Great' etc., etc., Go for those books.  You will learn, though you might disagree.  That's o.k!  Part of the ongoing process of education.  I'm a bit sorry that I've only just discovered him, as it were, because I'm old now.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 14, 2011)

Hitchens may be a complete twat, but I thought this was pretty funny ...



> The late Huw Wheldon of the BBC once described to me a series, made in the early days of radio, about celebrated exiles who had lived in London. At one stage, this had involved tracking down an ancient retiree who had toiled in the British Museum’s reading room during the Victorian epoch. Asked if he could remember a certain Karl Marx, the wheezing old pensioner at first came up empty. But when primed with different prompts about the once-diligent attendee (monopolizing the same seat number, always there between opening and closing time, heavily bearded, suffering from carbuncles, tending to lunch in the Museum Tavern, very much interested in works on political economy), he let the fount of memory be unsealed. “Oh Mr. Marx, yes, to be sure. Gave us a lot of work ’e did, with all ’is calls for books and papers …” His interviewers craned forward eagerly, to hear the man say: “And then one day ’e just stopped coming. And you know what’s a funny fing, sir?” A pregnant pause. “_Nobody’s ever ’eard of ’im since!_”



http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-revenge-of-karl-marx/7317/


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 17, 2011)

Pinette said:


> I recommend Christopher Hitchens to you, poster. (Tried to get your name from the top of the original post, to be polite, then lost the message that I'd already written.) You don't have to take all his views on board, but by god you learn a lot. I respect this man. 'Love Poverty And War';' 'God Is Not Great' etc., etc., Go for those books. You will learn, though you might disagree. That's o.k! Part of the ongoing process of education. I'm a bit sorry that I've only just discovered him, as it were, because I'm old now.



He was once, in comparison to the far right crap he spouts now, relatively sound politically. _The Trial of Henry J Kissinger_ was written back then and it's definitely worth a read, as is _Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Parctice._ The latter is a real eye opener, she was not the angel she's made out to be - quite the reverse - she's responsible for untold suffering.


----------



## belboid (Aug 17, 2011)

The Kissinger book is ace, the Mother T ones not bad, some great facts, tho disappointingly written (he did have such a great style at various points in his life).  God Is Not Great is pretty rubbish tho, all very obvious, no depth, weak style, just a cynical cash in.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 17, 2011)

Hitchens is quite the know-it-all dilettante. Rather than carrying out real research or throughly engaging in substantive issues he combines mere background knowledge and rhetorical flourish to create the illusion of great wisdom. A common public school boy tactic imo.


----------



## maya (Aug 26, 2011)

Not explicitly 'political' perhaps, but to me it is a deeply engaging read and one of the books which made me get involved in politics and human rights work/activism at an early age, and my grandmothers favourite novel:

'The Forty Days of Musa Dagh' (1933), by Franz Werfel. Based on real historical events, it tells the story of the defense of a small community of Armenians in Musa Dagh [of the Ottoman Empire] in 1915, during the height of the Armenian genocide. It's a pageturner, and incredibly realistic, with description of the growing persecution of the Armenian community and how they end up entrenched in a fort, surrounded on all sides and have to defend themselves for forty days until rescue arrives.

It made a deep impact on me- the suffering and plight of these people come across as so very real, and the urgency of the whole situation (trapped under siege, no escape) really hits you.

Werfel himself was an Austrian jew, and the book became an inspiration of sorts for jewish resistance during the first years before and during the war (the N*zis censored and burned the book), the message of resistance and humanity is very strong.


----------



## Riklet (Aug 27, 2011)

Would highly recommend Paul Mason's book 'Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global'.

Interesting, well written, and lots of other good things.

I have the kindle edition, which is about 6 quid or something.  Good 'holiday reading' ha..


----------



## BlackArab (Sep 18, 2011)

If you're interested in gangs, youth crime & street conflict, I would recommend 'Fighting Chance' by Patrick Regan. Also track down the film 'The Interrupters'.


----------



## KeeperofDragons (Sep 27, 2011)

Riklet said:


> Would highly recommend Paul Mason's book 'Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global'.
> 
> Interesting, well written, and lots of other good things.
> 
> I have the kindle edition, which is about 6 quid or something. Good 'holiday reading' ha..



I'll look out for that one. I've read Meltdown - The End of the Age of Greed, a great read very clear

KoD


----------



## Pinette (Oct 17, 2011)

Has anyone yet read 'Infidel' by Ayaan Hirsi Ali?  I would recommend this book. It may not be strictly appropriate to the politics reading thread because it's not overtly political, but at the same time it is all about the politics of religion and bigotry and the terrifying consequences of both.


----------



## malatesta32 (Oct 24, 2011)

anyone read this? Dead Paki Walking: A Study of the Bnp  by andi ali?


----------



## trevhagl (Oct 25, 2011)

just read Chavs-the Demonisation of the Working Class which is pretty good, at least its written in English unlike yer boring intellectual show off piles o shite


----------



## trevhagl (Oct 25, 2011)

malatesta32 said:


> anyone read this? Dead Paki Walking: A Study of the Bnp by andi ali?


THAT'll be an awkward one to order at the library - anyone comment on it? What sorta book?


----------



## malatesta32 (Oct 25, 2011)

i just saw it on amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Paki-W...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319560929&sr=1-2
its in book form and kindle. no idea who he is or anything.


----------



## love detective (Oct 25, 2011)

think it was an academic research thing, was a PHD project or something and he started getting grief from the far right as a result of that work (the title is a reference to this)

He is/was a libdem also


----------



## manny-p (Oct 29, 2011)

just read- UVF by Jim Cusack and Henry Mc Donald. Very informative and has cleared up many misconceptions I had previously had about them.


----------



## trevhagl (Oct 31, 2011)

malatesta32 said:


> i just saw it on amazon
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Paki-W...=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319560929&sr=1-2
> its in book form and kindle. no idea who he is or anything.



that sounds really good , i hope the urban bookworms can keep me informed about what the type size is like on it.


----------



## october_lost (Nov 4, 2011)

In case this is on going _still_,
Fiction
_Alone in Berlin,_ Hans Fallada - Fictionalised account of resistance to the Nazis
_Iron Heel_, Jack London - Pre-empts the fascist response labour unrest
_Spartacus, _Howard Fast - Roman gladiator story which became the basis of the 50'smovie
_Germinal, _Emile Zola - Destitute french miners struggle in early labour unrest
_Kestrel for a Knave, _Barry Hines - Basis for the loach film

Non-Fiction
_Mutual Aid, _Peter Kropotkin - Pre-empted the self-gene theory with study on co-operation
_The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, _Friedrich Engels - Early look at anthropology
_Anarcho-syndicalism, _Rudolf Rocker - Theory of the early anarcho/syndicalist groups
_The 43 Group_, Morris Beckman - Memoir of resistance against blackshirts
_Anarchy, _Errico Malatesta - Short primer for anarchism
_Bakunin, _Mark Leier - Good balanced biography of the bog man
_Imagined Communities, _Benedict Anderson - Debunking of the nationalist myth
_A Peoples History of England, _Arthur Morton - Social history of England till about WW1
_Reasons to be cheerful,_ Mark Steel - Good leftist memoir of the last 30 years
_Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls, _Teresa Hayter - Well researched book giving an overview of affects of immigration controls.


----------



## cribgoch (Nov 4, 2011)

The NHS plc, The Privatisation of Our Health Care. Allyson M Pollack

I really had no idea how much privatisation had already taken place, depressing stuff


----------



## manny-p (Nov 5, 2011)

trevhagl said:


> that sounds really good , i hope the urban bookworms can keep me informed about what the type size is like on it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruZtsNWRVJM

Andi Ali in Walsall getting some grief. The video also says that  "in October 2003, I was kicked unconsciousness by right wing extremists outside Downing Street, while filmng a British Ulster Alliance (BUA) protest in Whitehall"


----------



## JimW (Dec 8, 2011)

Found that a university library in America has a PDF scan of Easy Outlines of Economics (1919) by Noah Ablett, who was one of the key authors of The Miners' Next Step.


----------



## taffboy gwyrdd (Jan 20, 2012)

Dunno if we've had this on the thread, but it's one of the most fascinating books I ever read : "The World That Never Was" by Alex Butterworth. Graun review from 2010 here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/11/world-that-never-was-alex-butterworth-book-review


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## brinjalpickle (Jan 23, 2012)

I can't remember ever reading a book on politics.


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 23, 2012)

15


----------



## Blagsta (Jan 24, 2012)

brinjalpickle said:


> I can't remember ever reading a book on politics.


it shows


----------



## audiotech (Jan 24, 2012)

Beating the Fascists?: The German Communists and Political Violence 1929-1933 by Eve Roenhaft.
Grim reading.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beating-Fascists-Communists-Political-1929-1933/dp/0521089387


----------



## brinjalpickle (Jan 24, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> it shows



Of course it shows. It shows just how much one's political knowledge and analysis is improved according to how many political books they've read. How they are better equipped to cast their vote wisely. So how come we still have shyte politicians?


----------



## stethoscope (Jan 24, 2012)

Have you got any constructive points or arguments to make? Because so far you've offered neither on here.


----------



## brinjalpickle (Jan 24, 2012)

stephj said:


> Have you got any constructive points or arguments to make? Because so far you've offered neither on here.



And you have??


----------



## stethoscope (Jan 24, 2012)

brinjalpickle said:


> And you have??



That'll be a no from you then.


----------



## brinjalpickle (Jan 24, 2012)

stephj said:


> That'll be a no from you then.


It'll be whatever you want it to be.


----------



## MellySingsDoom (Jan 25, 2012)

brinjalpickle said:


> It'll be whatever you want it to be.



It's posts like these that make me wish I was on "holiday" again....( ,  etc)

Anyway....for those interested in this sort of thing: I've just started (again....) to read "Bad News: The Wapping Dispute" by John Lang & Graham Dodkins (Spokesman Books) - a fascinating book on the Murdoch/Wapping dispute - full of first hand accounts from people who were there on the front line of the whole thing (some genuinely shocking accounts of "state" brutality too....), and an invaluable piece of social/East London w/class history...


----------



## brinjalpickle (Jan 25, 2012)

MellySingsDoom said:


> *It's posts like these that make me wish I was on "holiday" again....( ,  etc)*
> 
> Anyway....for those interested in this sort of thing: I've just started (again....) to read "Bad News: The Wapping Dispute" by John Lang & Graham Dodkins (Spokesman Books) - a fascinating book on the Murdoch/Wapping dispute - full of first hand accounts from people who were there on the front line of the whole thing (some genuinely shocking accounts of "state" brutality too....), and an invaluable piece of social/East London w/class history...



You should take a holiday and read your lopsided account of the Wapping dispute.


----------



## stethoscope (Jan 25, 2012)

brinjalpickle said:


> You should take a holiday and read your lopsided account of the Wapping dispute.



Why not start a thread then and you can tell us your account of the Wapping dispute. I suspect you're not here to enter into any proper discussion though and instead to act the dick.


----------



## MellySingsDoom (Jan 25, 2012)

brinjalpickle said:


> You should take a holiday and read your lopsided account of the Wapping dispute.



I'm NOT in the mood for snide asides, "mate" - I've leave it at that, and steph's sound and well-aimed response to you...


----------



## brinjalpickle (Jan 25, 2012)

MellySingsDoom said:


> I'm NOT in the mood for snide asides, "mate" - I've leave it at that,* and steph's sound and well-aimed response to you*...



She missed!


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Jan 25, 2012)




----------



## youngian (Apr 20, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> treasure islands by nick shaxton ftw.


 
This is the best political book I have read in the past few years. International tax accountancy might not sound like a sexy read but Shaxson makes it very accessible (about an industry that purposely talks in exclusive jargon). 
The technical ease to transfer capital is one of the biggest threats to our democracy and you no longer physically have to go there especially if you live London as we have our very own feudal Lichtenstein that is the city.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 13, 2012)

Help required - can anyone recommend me a Marxist critique of Import Substitution Industrialisation? Cheers.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 13, 2012)

Got a very cheap copy of Negri's "Time for Revolution". Worth reading?


----------



## butchersapron (May 13, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Got a very cheap copy of Negri's "Time for Revolution". Worth reading?


Time is now capitalist time, we measure and constitute our time in terms of work. Which means that capital is utterly reliant on us doing this (i.e it has largely displaced the role that physical labour used to play) and we need now not only fold our arms but turn time to our own use. It's Negri's old idea of working class self-valorisation. There, i've saved you a quid.


----------



## ViolentPanda (May 13, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Time is now capitalist time, we measure and constitute our time in terms of work. Which means that capital is utterly reliant on us doing this (i.e it has largely displaced the role that physical labour used to play) and we need now not only fold our arms but turn time to our own use. It's Negri's old idea of working class self-valorisaation. There, i've saved you a quid.


 
Already bought it. 
Thanks for the precis though (puts to bottom of reading pile)!!


----------



## butchersapron (May 13, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Help required - can anyone recommend me a Marxist critique of Import Substitution Industrialisation? Cheers.


Basic development theory -  esp stuff written after the IMF experience of the 90s should do you - Samir Amin or James Petras for a more journalisitic look.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 13, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Basic development theory - esp stuff written after the IMF experience of the 90s should do you - Samir Amin or James Petras for a more journalisitic look.


 
Cheers mate.


----------



## chilango (May 16, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Time is now capitalist time, we measure and constitute our time in terms of work. Which means that capital is utterly reliant on us doing this (i.e it has largely displaced the role that physical labour used to play) and we need now not only fold our arms but turn time to our own use. It's Negri's old idea of working class self-valorisation. There, i've saved you a quid.


 
That actually sounds interesting.

Is it?


----------



## butchersapron (May 16, 2012)

chilango said:


> That actually sounds interesting.
> 
> Is it?


Yes and no. He's always worth reading but this one doesn't really stand out from his usual stuff - in fact the 2nd half is yet another restatement of the ideas most well known through Empire. And it's possibly his worst written book despite the two sections being written 20 years apart and in very different contexts (the first in prison after the defeats of the late 70s and the second in the upswing in the late 90s). I think there may be something on the subject itself that brings out the worst in writers - remember E.P Thompson's long rambling essay on _Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism_? Similar problems. Despite this the first section is quite important as it's the only part of the Negri collection Machine Time that's yet been translated into English and which acted as a sort of pole around which much of the movement reconstituted itself (abroad and in itlay) in the 80s. SO yes to the first half and you probably don't need the second.


----------



## chilango (May 16, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Yes and no. He's always worth reading but this one doesn't really stand out from his usual stuff - in fact the 2nd half is yet another restatement of the ideas most well known through Empire. And it's possibly his worst written book despite the two sections being written 20 years apart and in very different contexts (the first in prison after the defeats of the late 70s and the second in the upswing in the late 90s). I think there may be something on the subject itself that brings out the worst in writers - remember E.P Thompson's long rambling essay on _Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism_? Similar problems. Despite this the first section is quite important as it's the only part of the Negri collection Machine Time that's yet been translated into English and which acted as a sort of pole around which much of the movement reconstituted itself (abroad and in itlay) in the 80s. SO yes to the first half and you probably don't need the second.


 
Cool. 

An "if I see it cheap somewhere" type buy then...


----------



## butchersapron (May 16, 2012)

Yep, i may have a pdf somewhere, i'll just check.

edit: nah, out of luck.


----------



## chilango (May 16, 2012)

Oh, that would be great...


----------



## Delroy Booth (Jun 7, 2012)

nino_savatte said:


> _The Consumer Society _- Jean Baudrillard.
> 
> This is a book by a more youthful Baudrillard before he went all postmodern on us.


 
That's really good. I'd also recommend _In the Shadow of Silent Majorities_ by Baudrillard too, really easy to read compared to his later stuff.

I've been reading _Andre Gorz - Critique of Economic Reason_ recently after reading his earlier book _Farewell to the Working Class_ whilst at uni doing my dissertation (a critique of liberal theories of post-industrialism, in particular Daniel Bell's version) and there's some really exceptional thought-provoking stuff in there. Well worth a read.

Another good one I started reading a while ago and never finished is _Walter Isaacson - The Wise Men_, once I'm through with Gorz I'm gonna finish it off. It's a biography of 6 very prominent American policymakers and statesmen who pretty much shaped the post-WW2 American hegemony in the world. 

I'm surprised _Tony Benn & Chris Mullin's - Arguments for Democracy and Arguments for Socialism_ haven't been here yet. My parents were both Bennites who had copies of them lying around, and when I was in my early teens these were hugely important to me in helping me understand the world. Re-reading them a decade later you can pick flaws in them left right and centre, but nontheless they really helped me understand the world from a young age from a left-wing perspective.

_John Golding - Hammer of the Left_ which is amazingly subtitled _"Defeating Tony Benn, Eric Heffer and Militant in the battle for the Labour Party"_ is an incredible read, just if you want to see just how bad the right-wing of Labour really is. Also interesting to see how some quite prominent members of the Labour party made their careers by attacking the left.

_Ralph Miliband's Parliamentary Socialism and The State in Capitalist Society_ are also excellent read's too, the first is the definitive critique of Labourism that everyone on the left should read, the second is an superb left-wing take on the role of the state. Also worth reading _Leo Panitch's The End of Parliamentary Socialism: from New Left to New Labour_ which is a good historical account of the battle for the Labour party in recent years that's a continuation and evaluation of what Miliband started. I'm also looking foward to the new one Panitch has got coming out called _The Making of Global Capitalism_ which I've just pre-ordered off Amazon.

_Robert Michels - Political Parties_ is an important sociological study into undemocratic tendencies within ostensibly left-wing democratic political parties, in this case the SPD in Germany, although I think it's a critque that is much more universal than just that. He was an anarcho-syndicalist who went on to be come a fascist. This is the book that introduces the concept of The Iron Law of Oligarchy that I reckon every left-winger who's concerned with undemocratic tendencies in left-wing groups should familiarise themselves with.

_Phillipe Bourgois - In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio_ is another really good sociological study that I've just started reading, after a friend recommended it to me, dealing with social marginalization in the inner cities.


----------



## articul8 (Jun 7, 2012)

Can anyone recommend analysis/critique of the German model of corporatist model of capitalism?


----------



## Delroy Booth (Jun 7, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Can anyone recommend analysis/critique of the German model of corporatist model of capitalism?


 
David Coates - Models of Capitalism from 2001 has a good chapter on it, dunno if it counts as a critique, there's a sub-chapter called "In Defense of Corporatism" and he seems to follow the same sort of line that Will Hutton and others on the liberal left were making at the time in pronouncing German corporatist, social-consensus based capitalism superior to the neo-liberal variety on offer in the UK and USA. It's 10 years old now there's probably newer and better books on the topic, but that's the only one on my bookshelf that I could think of straight away.


----------



## articul8 (Jun 7, 2012)

Ok cheers - might be worth looking at, but it's really something critical of that pro-corporatist social market model I'm after.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

What's wrong with your brain?


----------



## articul8 (Jun 7, 2012)

Nothing, I'm just keen to read what others have said on it too.
[edit - come on Butchers, you must have suggestions - on "industrial partnership", social market, worker reps on boards etc.?]


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Samson said:


> The Republic by Plato
> 
> Noticed a lot of books on this thread about Nazism, communism and the rest of recent history, but surely there is a lot more to politics than that.
> The Republic is tens of hundreds of years old and still the basis of modern society, what other excuse do you need to read it.


Politics, human nature and the vices of our oppressors haven't changed much in the ~2500 years since Plato wrote his masterpiece. His observation of 'money lenders _injecting poisonous loans_ into society' is particularly relevant today.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Nothing, I'm just keen to read what others have said on it too.
> [edit - come on Butchers, you must have suggestions - on "industrial partnership", social market, worker reps on boards etc.?]


 
Why bother with works councils when a workers' council is so much better?


----------



## Zabo (Jun 27, 2012)

The Russian Religious Renaissance Of The Twentieth Century - Nicolas Zernov


----------



## Stardark (Jun 28, 2012)

The ones mentioned so far that I've read... 

Small Is Beautiful
Guns, Germs and Steel
The Prince
The Art of War
Anarchism: Arguments For and Against (thanks to lights.out.london, because I misremembered it as The Pros & Cons of Anarchism)

Those not mentioned yet that I've read...


The Fates of Nations (so good I copied and pasted most of it) - Paul Colinvaux
Gaviotas; A Village To Reinvent The World - Alan Weisman
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (link to BBC Saturday Drama, 2 days left to listen, but it's not really the same) - Robert M. Pirsig.
Animal Farm (a good primer, they even made an animated version) - George Orwell


New Rulers of the World - Pilger (I bought this for 10p at my local library, they seemed so keen to be rid of it, but haven't read it yet)

Seems everyone needs to read The Ragged Trousered Philanthopist (what was that Jack Rosenthal film? P'tang Yang Kipperbang?). I may do, someday...


----------



## Thraex (Jul 23, 2012)

A little bit tongue in cheek, but currently reading "Selected Political Speeches - Cicero" translated by Michael Grant. As is recognised a brilliant orator who was incredibly influential at the end of the Roman Republic.

Wasn't too sure how I was going to find it, but it's very readable, and for me is filling in lots of my knowledge gaps .


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 25, 2012)

Ellen Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood - _Trumpet of Sedition_
Fantastic look at the development of political theory during the 16th and 17th centuries


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Jul 25, 2012)

I like her writing.  Easy to understand.


----------



## Delroy Booth (Jul 25, 2012)

Captain Hurrah said:


> I like her writing. Easy to understand.


 
Agreed, The Origins of Capitalism by her is a really good, concise, easy to read example of her best work.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 25, 2012)

Thats next on my list.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Jul 25, 2012)

Finished reading it a few days ago.  'Tis good.


----------



## Cartwright (Jul 26, 2012)

I just finished reading Theories of International Politics...and Zombies. By Daniel Drezner: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9388.html

It's great for all Politics and IR students struggling to get their heads around the theories of Realism, Liberalism and so forth!


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 26, 2012)

Nazism, fascism and the working class - Tim Mason
Just reading Ian Kershaw's "Hitler - Hubris (1889-1936) at the mo. Damn good


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 26, 2012)

Ellen Meiksins Wood - the retreat from class and the new "true" socialism


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 29, 2012)

Delroy Booth said:


> Agreed, The Origins of Capitalism by her is a really good, concise, easy to read example of her best work.


 
Just looked this up and it looks a fascinating book. Will definitely put this on my reading list.


----------



## mod (Sep 27, 2012)

into the abyss - jack london

the road to wigan pier - Orwell

The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class - michael collins

Homage to Catalonia - orwell

down and out in paris and london - orwell

stasiland - anna funder

peeling the onion - gunter grass


----------



## Cornetto (Sep 29, 2012)

*Worker in a Worker's State -**Miklos Haraszti*


----------



## Riklet (Oct 27, 2012)

Just about to buy "Liberty and Property: A Social History of Western Political Thought from the Renaissance to Enlightenment" by Ellen Meiksins Wood as a kindle book.  

Seemed a bit expensive so i got the sample first chapter thing off Amazon n finished that now, definitely want the rest of the book it's really interesting and not too hard to read.  Only criticism so far is she's not very good at sourcing comments like "some historians" which are chucked in vaguely regularly.


----------



## love detective (Oct 27, 2012)

If you like that you should also read _'Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Thought from Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages'_ which is pretty much a prequel to that one and does the same thing but for a different period


----------



## Delroy Booth (Oct 27, 2012)

Anything at all by Ellen Meiksens Wood quite frankly.

In a similar vein, I'd also recommend a few these:

Karl Polyani - The Great Transformation (The cultural and political origns of our times):
Dominic Losurdo - Liberalism: A Counter-History
Mark O'Brien - Perish the Priviliged Orders: A Socialist History of the Chartists
Paul Foot - The Vote (How it was won and how it was undermined)


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Oct 27, 2012)

Just finished the Purple Book an interesting insight to the thinking of people who will be influential in the next Labour government


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 27, 2012)

Delroy Booth said:


> Anything at all by Ellen Meiksens Wood quite frankly.
> 
> In a similar vein, I'd also recommend a few these:
> 
> ...


The last two are not in the same vein at all.


----------



## Delroy Booth (Oct 27, 2012)

Ok then...


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 30, 2012)

I'm after something that covers Chinese state spending on infrastructure and fixed capital since the world financial crisis - can anyone recommend anything for me?

Just read _Globalization and the Postcolonial World _by Ankie Hoogvelt - not a bad summary of the development of the world economy since the second world war but at times the arguments are hard to follow and I wasn't always satisfied that they really justified the conclusions. The stuff about the 'new information economy' (ie. that information and knowledge are more important to the creation of value than labour) wasn't convincing at all and the Chapter on the Islamic revolt is poor in hindsight too, massively underestimated it and seemed a bit sneering especially where he claims that the 'lumpen intellectuals' who lead it can't take it anywhere because they are outside academia.

_Capitalism and Freedom _by Milton Friedman - know your enemy. It's probably the worst book I've ever read. Full of logical inconsistencies and circular arguments. Can't believe that some people actually take it seriously.

_The Poverty of Development Economics _by Deepak Lal - again, know your enemy - he's better at pretending his propaganda is serious scholarship than Friedman but it's still shit. Claims import tariffs in India distorted the market and export incentives laid on top exacerbated it, yet when talking about essentially similar measures in South Korea he claimed the export incentives were 'market conforming' as they 'corrected' the distortions created by the import tariffs. He does this so that he can claim in SK the two canceled eachother out so it would have been exactly the same without state intervention, presumably because SK was considered an economic miracle and India, well, wasn't. He also claims not to advocate laissez faire but rather second best welfare economics - ie. that market imperfections are inevitable and in deciding whether to take state action you should do a cost-benefit analysis to weigh up whether interventions aimed at negating the imperfection will create new, bigger ones. But he always, every time, concludes that they will and so ends up advocating laissez faire anyway.

Oh, also recently read _Making English Morals _by MJD Roberts. Didn't like that much either  Basically makes a Habermas type argument that moral reform associations created civil society - a public space, free from the influence of state and market, in which rational critical debate could take place, but this was destroyed later when state and market began to encroach on it. Completely ignores the fact that it was never free of state or market interference and that the majority of the population never had access anyway. No comment on what the objects of moral reform thought about it either. Useful as a history of the groups themselves and of middle class intellectual opinion at the time but not a lot else.


----------



## articul8 (Dec 15, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Just finished the Purple Book an interesting insight to the thinking of people who will be influential in the next Labour government


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


>


 
No offence but I wasn't going to waste time reading the LRC manifesto


----------



## articul8 (Dec 17, 2012)

LRC is imperfect yes -  but the least worst place to be if you going be inside the party.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> LRC is imperfect yes - but the least worst place to be if you going be inside the party.


 
If you say so, however I don't see them being very influential on government policy anytime soon.


----------



## love detective (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> LRC is imperfect yes - but the least worst place to be if you going be inside the party.


 
like the best kind of cancer?


----------



## articul8 (Dec 17, 2012)

no i dare say - but I guess the Syriza leadership would have thought much the same before 2008


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## articul8 (Dec 17, 2012)

love detective said:


> like the best kind of cancer?


at least it's non fatal


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> LRC is imperfect yes - but the least worst place to be if you going be inside the party.


Don't be inside the party.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> no i dare say - but I guess the Syriza leadership would have thought much the same before 2008


Yes, on your rollercoaster to success .This is what will happen.


----------



## articul8 (Dec 17, 2012)

I'm not predicting it - I'm saying it's not beyond all possibility


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## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> no i dare say - but I guess the Syriza leadership would have thought much the same before 2008


 
lol lol lol


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I'm not predicting it - I'm saying it's not beyond all possibility


 
It really is.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 17, 2012)

The wiggums. Well done articul8


----------



## articul8 (Dec 17, 2012)

LRC *could* become one significant current in a wider left realignment into a force with some traction.   It might not happen, but it's not unthinkable.  I'm certainly not saying it is about to sweep aside the Labour leadership and govern FFS


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## butchersapron (Dec 17, 2012)

Of course it's unthinkable you tool.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 18, 2012)

articul8 said:


> LRC *could* become one significant current in a wider left realignment into a force with some traction. It might not happen, but it's not unthinkable. I'm certainly not saying it is about to sweep aside the Labour leadership and govern FFS


 
It's almost not unthinkable that there could be some sort of wider left realignment into a force with some traction or even that if that does happen some Labour types could play a role in it - what is unthinkable is that the LRC will play any sort of role.


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## articul8 (Dec 19, 2012)

LRC could be one component of such a formation. I don't see much evidence of an organised Labour left outside of the LRC now - the old CLPDers and old CND types like Walter Wolfgang, a few young people around Socialist Action, but Compass has pretty much died a death and its left credentials were always flakey at best. Locally the new LRC branch is shaking some signs of life out of the CLP and at the same time working in a non-sectarian way on anti-cuts campaigns with groups like the SP and Green Left. Only substantial question we really differ on is standing alternative candidates or trying to exert some influence inside. Mind you there's some nutters in there too - a Posadist (a live one), two ex-WRPs now set up as Socialist Fight. Also a an ex-Workers Power, an ex Socialist Organiser, an ex-IMG, an ex AWL, I am ex-SP, christ I'm putting myself off the thing now   I suppose at least there is some consolidation going on, and we have some young working class recruits who have never been in a Trot group


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 19, 2012)

And thus you destroy your own argument in one fell post.


----------



## Favelado (Jan 11, 2013)

What would be the best history of the Labour Party out there?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jan 13, 2013)

Can anyone recommend a good book on Gramsci's thought? Trying to get my head around it, I've got a selection from the Prison Notebooks that I'm reading but wouldn't mind some secondary reading. Preferably someone with a more - not sure what the right terms is, Marxist? materialist? - interpretation. (as opposed to the ones that focus mainly on the intersubjective side).


----------



## JWDread (Jan 14, 2013)

SpineyNorman said:


> Can anyone recommend a good book on Gramsci's thought? Trying to get my head around it, I've got a selection from the Prison Notebooks that I'm reading but wouldn't mind some secondary reading. Preferably someone with a more - not sure what the right terms is, Marxist? materialist? - interpretation. (as opposed to the ones that focus mainly on the intersubjective side).


I've just picked up a book this weekend actually, I haven't started it but it sounds what you are looking for I hope, the title, Gramsci's Politics (2nd edition), Anne Showstack Sassoon, "this comprehensive survey of Gramsci's political theory, which spans the whole range of his writings, provides an ideal introduction and lucid guide to his complex and often obscure texts".
Hope this helps, good luck.


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 15, 2013)

If you want a decent basic (and i mean basic) one that outlines the general structure Roger Simon's Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction will do fine, you'll be able to spot his (Simon's) euro-communist leanings a mile off - easily avoided. For something with a bit more depth and that ties in his thought with his life and political activity Antonio A. Santucci's Gramsci is worth the effort. Steve Jones did one on him in the Routledge critical thinkers series - short and to the point. In the wanky philosopher vein there is also Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process by Joseph Femia. To dispel a few well worn myths i would also read the article Antonio Gramsci and the Bolshevization of the PCI by Thomas Bates.


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## sunnysidedown (Jan 16, 2013)

I recently got hold of Gramsci, Culture & Anthropology. I may pick up that Steve Jones book Butchers mentions to read alongside it as I'm new to Gramsci myself.


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## articul8 (Jan 25, 2013)

By no means a begginers guide but Peter Thomas's "The Gramscian moment" is a good counterblast at eurocommunist readings.


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 25, 2013)

PDF here.


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## Red Storm (Jan 28, 2013)

I'm interested in the political relationship between Germany, Italy and Japan up to and during WWII. 

We learn and watch loads on the relationship between Britain, USA and USSR but I've never seen anything on the axis relationship. I'd have thought Hitler and Hirohito would have been a good title but no. 

Any recommendations?


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## brogdale (Feb 3, 2013)

Perhaps primarily one for the anarcho-types, but a really interesting read nonetheless:-

"Anarchist seeds beneath the snow"

Weary of reading about the Germans, Russians, Spanish and Italians? Want to know about some 'home-grown' left-libertarian thought? Then this is the book for you!

David Goodway examines the lives, thoughts and works of a number of British Socialists, Utopians, left-libertarians and fellow travellers including Morris, Wilde, Carpenter, Read, Huxley and Ward. Really well reasearched, passionate and surprisingly accessible for an amalgam of Goodway's life's research!

I thoroughly recommend the book, and perhaps best of all, this is a book about books that inspires you to go on and read widely from the 'tradition'. Thus far, as a result of Goodway's work, I've read Huxley's "Island", John Cowper Powys' extraordinary "Porious", (oh my word...what a book!!!), and Morris' delightful "News from Nowhere".


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## brogdale (Mar 8, 2013)

This thread seems a little slow atm, so I'll give it another go, shall I?

I'm presently working my way through Mark Bevir's "The Making of British Socialism" and a jolly fascinating read it is. Ian Bone was recently highlighting the 50th anniversiary of E P Thompson's "The making of..." and I'm sure that Bevir tips a wink of recogntion in his choice of title for his 2011 book. I'll also confess that i was rather taken with the cover,  , that includes a partly coloured, wonderful reproduction of Walter Crane's "Capitalist Vampire":-





In reading this book I suppose I wanted to explore in some depth the question in my own mind about where it all went wrong for British Socilaism? Why have we been left with a 'left' of a neo-liberal, ex social democracy party and an array of fragmented an ineffectual radical/revolutionary parties?

i suppose it's a bit premature to come to any conclusions about whether Bevir's book has helped me in this personal quest, but so far I've certainly learnt a good deal about the early Marxists, especially the SDF under Hyndman and the Fabians. Still much to read though.

The official blurb on the book:-


> _The Making of British Socialism provides a new interpretation of the emergence of British socialism in the late nineteenth century, demonstrating that it was not a working-class movement demanding state action, but a creative campaign of political hope promoting social justice, personal transformation, and radical democracy. Mark Bevir shows that British socialists responded to the dilemmas of economics and faith against a background of diverse traditions, melding new economic theories opposed to capitalism with new theologies which argued that people were bound in divine fellowship._
> _Bevir utilizes an impressive range of sources to illuminate a number of historical questions: Why did the British Marxists follow a Tory aristocrat who dressed in a frock coat and top hat? Did the Fabians develop a new economic theory? What was the role of Christian theology and idealist philosophy in shaping socialist ideas? He explores debates about capitalism, revolution, the simple life, sexual relations, and utopian communities. He gives detailed accounts of the Marxists, Fabians, and ethical socialists, including famous authors such as William Morris and George Bernard Shaw. And he locates these socialists among a wide cast of colorful characters, including Karl Marx, Henry Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and Oscar Wilde._
> _By showing how socialism combined established traditions and new ideas in order to respond to the changing world of the late nineteenth century, The Making of British Socialism turns aside long-held assumptions about the origins of a major movement._


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 17, 2013)

Cheers for the Gramsci recommendations - only just seen them. butchersapron - the pdf in post 441 is set to private now so I can't view it - don't suppose you know if it's online anywhere else? Cheers.

I'm reading Christopher Cramer's _Civil War is not a Stupid Thing_ at the moment - his thesis seems to be that civil war (though not necessarily only civil war) in developing countries is as much about the severing traditional ties of deference and mutual responsibility, primitive accumulation and class formation as anything else. So rather than it being, as liberal theorists claim, 'development in reverse' it in fact _is _capitalist development. He seems to be using a broadly historical materialist framework but I'm getting the impression that there are also some modernization theory influences there too - though I might be wrong on that one, not got far enough to judge.

It's a really interesting read though and it presents arguments I've not seen anywhere else - worth a look for anyone interested in Africa and especially Angola. He also talks about the influence of war on the Ethiopian famine, and since I was a kid in the 80s pretty much everything I knew about that had come from Bob Geldoff - I'd always thought it was all about droughts.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 17, 2013)

I read Part 1 of Grigori Maximov's "The Guillotine at work" recently (thanks chilango) . I haven't read Part 2 yet though, although I will.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 17, 2013)

SpineyNorman said:


> Cheers for the Gramsci recommendations - only just seen them. butchersapron - the pdf in post 441 is set to private now so I can't view it - don't suppose you know if it's online anywhere else? Cheers.


I'll re-upload it in a bit.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 17, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> I'll re-upload it in a bit.


 
Cheers mate.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 17, 2013)

Here you go.


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## SpineyNorman (Mar 17, 2013)

Cheers, much appreciated.


----------



## SikhWarrioR (Mar 21, 2013)

Animal Farm....George Orwell
1984....George Orwell
Mclibal
The clash of Fundimentalisms....Tariq Ali
Bloody Foreigners....Robert Winder
The 9/11 wars....Jason Burke


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## barney_pig (Apr 6, 2013)

brogdale said:


> The official blurb on the book:-
> .....Bevir utilizes an impressive range of sources to illuminate a number of historical questions: Why did the British Marxists follow a Tory aristocrat who dressed in a frock coat and top hat?


Or why they continue to do so.


----------



## barney_pig (Apr 6, 2013)

Just arrived from amazon "exemplary comparison from homer to Petrarch" by olive sayce.
Re reading burnham's managerial revolution


----------



## brogdale (Apr 6, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> Or why they continue to do so.


 
Hyndman ?


----------



## barney_pig (Apr 6, 2013)

brogdale said:


> Hyndman ?


Callinicos


----------



## brogdale (Apr 6, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> Callinicos


 
"Tory aristocrat who dressed in a frock coat and top hat?"

Really?


----------



## barney_pig (Apr 6, 2013)

Have you read Martin cricks history of the sdf? Made me reassess the reutation of the fed and of hyndman, the Marxist dogma has been dictated by Engels' hatred of hyndman and ignored the positives of that org.


----------



## barney_pig (Apr 6, 2013)

brogdale said:


> "Tory aristocrat who dressed in a frock coat and top hat?"
> 
> Really?


More "tenured aristocrat in a brown leather jacket" but the emphasis being on the 'aristocrat'


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 6, 2013)

The insurgent barricade


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## brogdale (Apr 6, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> Have you read Martin cricks history of the sdf? Made me reassess the reutation of the fed and of hyndman, the Marxist dogma has been dictated by Engels' hatred of hyndman and ignored the positives of that org.


 
No, but Hyndman certainly appears to have been a complex and interesting character. According to Bevir's analysis Hyndman's Tory radicalism infused much of his scientific/positivist interpretation of Marxist dialectics. He thus held to political/parliamentary reform as a means to socialism, and yearned for a return to 'the golden age' much like other tory radicals of the time. So a Marxist, reformist monarchist must have made an intriguing, if perhaps infuriating figure.

In his defence, in 1908 Hyndman wrote to the (ex) Fabian and christian socialist Holbrook Jackson saying:-

"_I have always been ready for nearly 28 years to co-operate with anyone who wished to bring about the formation of a thorough-going Socialist party in Great Britain."_ Yet he did not accept that such a party should dilute its Socialism to appease the trade unions, and went on to say.._"...now a Socialist Party, in the combined sense, is opposed by the I.L.P. in favour of the Parliamentary Labour Party."_

I find the notion of 'where it all went wrong for British Socialism' and interesting topic to read around atm.


----------



## barney_pig (Apr 6, 2013)

brogdale said:


> No, but Hyndman certainly appears to have been a complex and interesting character. According to Bevir's analysis Hyndman's Tory radicalism infused much of his scientific/positivist interpretation of Marxist dialectics. He thus held to political/parliamentary reform as a means to socialism, and yearned for a return to 'the golden age' much like other tory radicals of the time. So a Marxist, reformist monarchist must have made an intriguing, if perhaps infuriating figure.
> 
> In his defence, in 1908 Hyndman wrote to the (ex) Fabian and christian socialist Holbrook Jackson saying:-
> 
> ...


Carl levy socialism and the intelligentsia http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w64OAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false is worth a read. Not just for early history of British socialism but also for the problems today.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 6, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> Carl levy socialism and the intelligentsia http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w64OAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false is worth a read. Not just for early history of British socialism but also for the problems today.


 
Thanks for that.
Added to the 'pile'.


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## complience (Apr 14, 2013)

Still life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins

Great fun satirical book pointing out how one mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist
http://www.amazon.com/Still-Life-Woodpecker-Tom-Robbins/dp/0553348973


----------



## J Ed (Apr 17, 2013)

Any recommendations for a book on modern Irish history?


----------



## shifting gears (Apr 18, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Any recommendations for a book on modern Irish history?



Slightly vague question but an obvious author would be Tim Pat Coogan


----------



## Idris2002 (Apr 18, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Any recommendations for a book on modern Irish history?


 
Roy Foster's Modern Ireland 1600-1972 is good (but revisioinist). Also Diarmuid Ferriter's The Transformation of Ireland 1900 - 2000.

Tim Pat Coogan has his own book on Ireland in the Twentieth Century, which I think may be called Ireland in the Twentieth Century.

E2A: And Conor McCabe's _Sins of the Father: the Decisions that Shaped the Irish Economy._

E2AA: TP Coogan is a journalist, and it shows in the way he writes history. While Ferriter deals in overall patterns, Coogan's more about the evocative anecdote. I'd say the two books complement each other.


----------



## Limerick Red (Apr 19, 2013)

any recommendations for a good overview of the years of lead?


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 19, 2013)

Depends what angle you're coming at it from. Robert Ginsborg's A history of Contemporary Italy gives a good left-sympathetic overview, Robert Lumley's States of Emergency does the same with much narrower focus on the autonomous movements and Steve Wright's Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism has an even narrower focus on the evolution of the operaismo into autoinomism but with really valuable politico-historical outlines as well. And yet narrower still we have Italy 1977-78: Living With An Earthquake and Working class autonomy and the crisis : Italian Marxist texts of the theory and practice of a class movement 1964-79 - both from Red Notes. 

For a general overview of the terrorism aspect i found Richard Drake's The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy to be conservative but with some really useful stuff that didn't appear anywhere else. See also Stefano Delle Chiaie: Portrait of a 'black' terrorist by Stuart Christie, The Judge and the Historian - Carlo Ginzburg, great investigation into the fallout fo the bomb PInelli fell out of a window for, Strike One To Educate One Hundred: the rise of the Red Brigades. Loads and loads of i was a teenage terrorists pap out there too.


----------



## Limerick Red (Apr 19, 2013)

Thanks a million mate, the first one sounds good, just looking for an overview of that whole period, not specifically from an anotonomia perspective, but something sympathic is obviously a bit easier read.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 19, 2013)

That or the Lumley one's are pretty likely to be what you're after then - both excellent books i learnt a lot from. Ginsborg did a 2nd volume for the post-88 period that's rather different in tone and sympathies which i wouldn't recommend.


----------



## Dillinger4 (Apr 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Depends what angle you're coming at it from. Robert Ginsborg's A history of Contemporary Italy gives a good left-sympathetic overview, Robert Lumley's States of Emergency does the same with much narrower focus on the autonomous movements and Steve Wright's Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism has an even narrower focus on the evolution of the operaismo into autoinomism but with really valuable politico-historical outlines as well. And yet narrower still we have Italy 1977-78: Living With An Earthquake and Working class autonomy and the crisis : Italian Marxist texts of the theory and practice of a class movement 1964-79 - both from Red Notes.
> 
> For a general overview of the terrorism aspect i found Richard Drake's The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy to be conservative but with some really useful stuff that didn't appear anywhere else. See also Stefano Delle Chiaie: Portrait of a 'black' terrorist by Stuart Christie, The Judge and the Historian - Carlo Ginzburg, great investigation into the fallout fo the bomb PInelli fell out of a window for, Strike One To Educate One Hundred: the rise of the Red Brigades. Loads and loads of i was a teenage terrorists pap out there too.


 
All those books are great. The one about Stefano Della Chiaie in particular. 



There is a lot to be gained from reading about the years of lead


----------



## october_lost (Apr 19, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> I read Part 1 of Grigori Maximov's "The Guillotine at work" recently (thanks chilango) . I haven't read Part 2 yet though, although I will.


It doesn't exist, he never produced it.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 19, 2013)

october_lost said:
			
		

> It doesn't exist, he never produced it.



I wonder how come I have a copy of it then?


----------



## Idris2002 (Apr 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> I wonder how come I have a copy of it then?


 
You are posting from an alternate universe.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 19, 2013)

Idris2002 said:
			
		

> You are posting from an alternate universe.



A very dusty one, having just gone and dug the book out to make sure.


----------



## october_lost (Apr 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> I wonder how come I have a copy of it then?


Very strange. After reading it only last yer I asked about it. It's not on amazon, or on wiki, and I remember either asking charlesmowbrary or it being asked on libcom and I was told it didn't exist. Cant fully recall. The only place it's referenced is abebook as a two book set. 

Clearly overdue a reprint methinks.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 19, 2013)

This set going for 140 quid is what i have, which is a 1975 reprint of the 1940 two volume edition. The confusion mostly comes from the most easily available edition (the 1979 Cienfeugos press edition) omitting part 2 which is mainly a collection of documentary material rather than narrative or analysis.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Apr 19, 2013)

october_lost said:


> Very strange. After reading it only last yer I asked about it. It's not on amazon, or on wiki, and I remember either asking charlesmowbrary or it being asked on libcom and I was told it didn't exist. Cant fully recall. The only place it's referenced is abebook as a two book set.
> 
> Clearly overdue a reprint methinks.


 
http://www.unz.org/Pub/MaximoffGP-1940


----------



## Red Storm (Apr 20, 2013)

Didn't know where to post this but spotted a new review by the Socialist Party of _The Provisional IRA_ by Tommy McKearney.

What do people make of the review? I seems to me to be the same old tired analysis trotted out every time.


----------



## Harry Webb (Apr 21, 2013)

"The grip of death" - Michael Rowbotham.
A book that has changed the lives of it's readers. The first book ever written on the subject and arguably still the best.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 21, 2013)

Wow, i have to get it now after such an expansive overview of what it's about and what it it argues.


----------



## Harry Webb (Apr 21, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Wow, i have to get it now after such an expansive overview of what it's about and what it it argues.


It should fit in your handbag too.


----------



## Harry Webb (Apr 21, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Wow, i have to get it now after such an expansive overview of what it's about and what it it argues.


Considering you've spent the past decade typing well over 100,000 posts on this forum I suggest you browse the self-help section first.


----------



## Dr Jon (Apr 21, 2013)

Going South - why Britain will have a third world economy by 2014.
- Larry Elliot & Dan Atkinson.


----------



## Kate Sharpley (May 9, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> This set going for 140 quid is what i have, which is a 1975 reprint of the 1940 two volume edition. The confusion mostly comes from the most easily available edition (the 1979 Cienfeugos press edition) omitting part 2 which is mainly a collection of documentary material rather than narrative or analysis.


What butchersapron said, but you're probably more likely to find a copy of the original 1940 first edition (30-50 pounds on abe at the moment) than the reprint.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 3, 2013)

Can anyone offer any recommendations on the Paris Commune? I know next to nothing about it so introductory stuff would be good - but I'm going to be studying it as my specialist subject next year so more focused stuff will definitely come in useful too.

I've been lent _The Fall of Paris_ by Alistair Horne, which from a quick flick through looks like a fairly standard liberal account, and _History of the Paris Commune of 1871 _by Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, which appears to be an eyewitness account - anyone know if they're any good?

Thanks.

I don't think I'd get away with passing off other peoples views as my own due to plagiarism rules so the Laurie Penny 'ask twitter' strategy isn't really an option


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2013)

The Horne one is more military than anything but is a good book. The Lissagaray book is one of the best from below accounts of any radical uprising ever. Frank Jellinek did one for the Left Book Club in the 30s which is still good and you can easily enough avoid/spot his stalinist/pop front sympathies. Stewart Edwards wrote an account that is weird mix of liberalism/whiggism and romanticism. For interesting context Roger Magraw did a marxist-luddite account of the surrounding period. But the main thing is...read Lissagaray!!!!!


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## Idris2002 (Jun 3, 2013)

Dr Jon said:


> Going South - why Britain will have a third world economy by 2014.
> - Larry Elliot & Dan Atkinson.


 
Interesting review/critique of that book here:

http://lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster65/lob65-going-south.pdf

Lobster mag seems to be heading for outer realms of conspiraloonery, alas, but the review was pretty persuasive, I thought.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 3, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> The Horne one is more military than anything but is a good book. The Lissagaray book is one of the best from below accounts of any radical uprising ever. Frank Jellinek did one for the Left Book Club in the 30s which is still good and you can easily enough avoid/spot his stalinist/pop front sympathies. Stewart Edwards wrote an account that is weird mix of liberalism/whiggism and romanticism. For interesting context Roger Magraw did a marxist-luddite account of the surrounding period. But the main thing is...read Lissagaray!!!!!


 
Great stuff, cheers mate


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 3, 2013)

yeah, i;ve added that to the wishlist based on that review


----------



## cyprusclean (Jun 8, 2013)

How's the Pirate Party doing in the UK?

 Am I in the correct place, as there is a thread ordnung it seems to me?


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## butchersapron (Jun 8, 2013)

You're on the wrong thread, and the pirate party is not doing anything. Beyond Loz Kaye wearing an assange face mask.


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## cyprusclean (Jun 8, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> You're on the wrong thread, and the pirate party is not doing anything. Beyond Loz Kaye wearing an assange face mask.


 
If I'm on the wrong thread, why respond to me? And why not direct me to the right one; if there is a right one. This forum is about politics, is it not?


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## butchersapron (Jun 8, 2013)

cyprusclean said:


> If I'm on the wrong thread, why respond to me? And why not direct me to the right one; if there is a right one. This forum is about politics, is it not?


 
To tell you that you are on the wrong thread. That's why.

And there isn't a right one or i would have directed you to it.


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## cyprusclean (Jun 8, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> To tell you that you are on the wrong thread. That's why.
> 
> And there isn't a right one or i would have directed you to it.


 

  I'll give you a wide berth then.

 Friendly place isn't it?


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## belboid (Jun 10, 2013)

cyprusclean said:


> If I'm on the wrong thread, why respond to me? And why not direct me to the right one; if there is a right one. This forum is about politics, is it not?


Maybe you should learn the difference between 'forum' and 'thread'?  Just a thought.


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## cyprusclean (Jun 10, 2013)

belboid said:


> Maybe you should learn the difference between 'forum' and 'thread'? Just a thought.


 
That's helpful of you, if not a tad gratuitous.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 11, 2013)

cyprusclean said:


> That's helpful of you, if not a tad gratuitous.


 
Well, it's not exactly difficult to differentiate betwen a thread and a forum, and posting a question about the Pirate Party on a thread entitled "*The Great Urban Politics Reading List Thread*" does seem either a foolish or wilfully ignorant act.


----------



## cyprusclean (Jun 11, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> Well, it's not exactly difficult to differentiate betwen a thread and a forum, and posting a question about the Pirate Party on a thread entitled "*The Great Urban Politics Reading List Thread*" does seem either a foolish or wilfully ignorant act.


 

 Not that it matters.......


----------



## treelover (Jun 24, 2013)

> A Radical History Of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries - the men and women who fought for our freedoms
> 
> 
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-History-Britain-Visionaries-Revolutionaries/dp/0349120269


 

anyone read this, sounds good.


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## belboid (Jun 24, 2013)

treelover said:


> anyone read this, sounds good.


It's interesting because it's subject matter is interesting, but it's a fairly conservative take on those subjects denying any real radicalism, and saying everything happens in a nice, evolutionary way, which is why we have the bestest democracy in the world.


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## SpineyNorman (Jul 7, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> The Horne one is more military than anything but is a good book. The Lissagaray book is one of the best from below accounts of any radical uprising ever. Frank Jellinek did one for the Left Book Club in the 30s which is still good and you can easily enough avoid/spot his stalinist/pop front sympathies. Stewart Edwards wrote an account that is weird mix of liberalism/whiggism and romanticism. For interesting context Roger Magraw did a marxist-luddite account of the surrounding period. But the main thing is...read Lissagaray!!!!!


 
I'm reading the Edwards one now - I wasn't expecting to but I'm really enjoying it - well worth the £5 or so I paid for it on amazon.


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## J Ed (Aug 12, 2013)

Just finished reading this, really interesting insight into an aspect of the Civil Right Movement I was totally unaware of.


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## butchersapron (Aug 12, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Just finished reading this, really interesting insight into an aspect of the Civil Right Movement I was totally unaware of.


 
Have a look at Deacons for Defence too. I have copies of Williams pamphlets and stuff i need to upload asap as well. Whole battle with people like this that MLK engaged in and used every tactic they could to undermine. Now hidden in favour of a bullshit peaceful march to civil rights narrative.


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## SpineyNorman (Aug 15, 2013)

Anyone got anything to recommend on 'post-development'? I've got to do a 7000 word project, title of my choice, on development and I'm seriously considering doing a Marxist critique of post-development. So I'm interested in key texts from its adherents but also if any Marxists have critiqued or commented on it I'd be very interested in seeing what they have to say.


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## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2013)

Some stuff on around that theme from Harry Cleaver:

From Development to Autonomy
Close the IMF, Abolish Debt and End Development:A Class Analysis of the International Debt Crisis
Nature, Neoliberalism and Sustainable Development: Between Charybdis & Scylla?
I'd have a look at the essay Socialism too. 

Lots of other really useful stuff here.


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## benedict (Aug 16, 2013)

treelover said:


> anyone read this, sounds good.



I read it last year. It was actually quite a let-down. Mostly due to what I felt was a poor writing style and a tendency to throw loads of names at the reader at the expense of a clear exposition of events.


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## butchersapron (Aug 23, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Just finished reading this, really interesting insight into an aspect of the Civil Right Movement I was totally unaware of.


 
Something else you may be interested in. Akinyele Omowale Umoja has published We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement.




> In We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, Akinyele Omowale Umoja argues that armed resistance was critical to the efficacy of the southern freedom struggle and the dismantling of segregation and Black disenfranchisement. Intimidation and fear were central to the system of oppression in Mississippi and most of the Deep South. To overcome the system of segregation, Black people had to overcome fear to present a significant challenge to White domination. Armed self-defense was a major tool of survival in allowing some Black southern communities to maintain their integrity and existence in the face of White supremacist terror. By 1965, armed resistance, particularly self-defense, was a significant factor in the challenge of the descendants of enslaved Africans to overturning fear and intimidation and developing different political and social relationships between Black and White Mississippians.
> 
> This riveting historical narrative relies upon oral history, archival material, and scholarly literature to reconstruct the use of armed resistance by Black activists and supporters in Mississippi to challenge racist terrorism, segregation, and fight for human rights and political empowerment from the early 1950s through the late 1970s.


I have put a not very good but perfectly readable version of this here (warning it's around 170mb - better and smaller version on way though) and a academic article outlining the thesis here.


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## J Ed (Aug 23, 2013)

Brilliant, thanks butchersapron


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## butchersapron (Sep 6, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Brilliant, thanks butchersapron


See also


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 7, 2013)

Another request - Colombia. I'm interested in it from a political economy (development) perspective really but stuff on the history of the FARC and civil conflict would be good too. Especially keen to read Marxist analyses of the country. Are there any particular writers I should look out for?


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## butchersapron (Sep 7, 2013)

Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP


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## J Ed (Sep 7, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> See also


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 7, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP



Cheers mate - you've delivered again - looks like exactly what I was looking for


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## Dr Jon (Sep 17, 2013)

http://www.renegadeeconomist.com/news/recommended-reading.html


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## J Ed (Sep 27, 2013)

I came across these articles on Maoist dissidents in the USSR, very interesting!

http://afoniya.wordpress.com/2013/0...t-union-an-article-by-alexei-volynets-part-1/
http://afoniya.wordpress.com/2013/0...union-an-article-by-alexei-volynets-part-two/


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## Idris2002 (Oct 1, 2013)

J Ed said:


> I came across these articles on Maoist dissidents in the USSR, very interesting!
> 
> http://afoniya.wordpress.com/2013/0...t-union-an-article-by-alexei-volynets-part-1/
> http://afoniya.wordpress.com/2013/0...union-an-article-by-alexei-volynets-part-two/



Fascinating stuff. Thanks.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 3, 2013)

Just finished the brilliant _Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Age_ by Ellen Meisksins Wood. Extremely well written.

Has anyone read Hugh Purcell's autobiography of Tom Wintringham? (butchersapron, SpineyNorman, Random )? I've seen a load of reduced copies, is it worth picking one up?


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## maya (Oct 26, 2013)

Among the few but important books which genuinely influenced me and shaped my way of thinking and values later in life, were the '*Katitzi*' books by swedish roma author *Katarina Taikon*, which I discovered by chance at the local library one rainy day when I was about six. I read every book in the series I could get my hands on, and when I'd finished reading them, I read them again. And told everyone I knew about them.

These books were published in the 1960s and 70s, and although published as fiction are mainly an autobiographical ('Katitzi' means 'little Katarina') account of her childhood life and the tribulations and experiences travelling around Sweden with her gypsy family [in the 1930s-50s? i think?] and the difficulties and discrimination they face but also some of the fun things and good things they encounter- their band play at funfairs and markets and they have many happy moments in their life too, although things are hard for them.

The books are written in a very easy to read, simple language (Taikon herself only got 2 years of school as a child, first because nobody wanted them at their school, then when finally they found a friendly teacher who offered them a place at the local school, they had to quit after two years because the locals complained and didn't want them in class with their own children... Yet still she managed to write these books, handle the media fame that followed, and get a better life for herself and her kids, although she never stopped her campaigning to improve the living conditions for the rest of 'her people' she kind of felt that she left behind when she married a swede and got a comfortable life in the end).

Although the language is deceptively simple, it's still an engaging read. As a young girl it's easy to indentify with the cocky, fearless Katitzi and her curiosity and adventourousness and lust for life, but also (and crucially) you identify with the injustice and unfairness at times when she encounters discrimination or are treated wrongly in other ways (such as when the 'aunt' keeps punishing her and abusing her, making her work her arse off for the family while treating her 'own' children as royalty... or when she encounters racism and predudices in any way, that really gets to you)

And many of the things described still resonate with me:

How she finally got back to her family in the first book as a young child after years of being forced to live in an orphanage...

how her bitter swedish stepmum took out her anger over the discrimination and squalor she had to put up with on her stepkids and kept treating her like shit, beating her and whipping her with electric cables in anger until her dad found out and put an end to it...

how this 'aunt'(the kids' nickname for their stepmother)'s own baby froze to death one day in their tent because the winter was so cold and they couldn't heat the room properly...

how they were constantly forced to move from place to place because people didn't want them to camp on their land and stay there permanently although they often wanted to...

how her beloved big brother Paul was murdered by a racist...

And the thing is- These weren't made-up stories, these things really happened in her life... These stories were true.

And they learned me something... I swore never to treat anyone else differently just because the way they looked, seemed or because they were different from me in any way... That you should fight actively against discrimination and oppression until every people are treated equally in this society and nobody are seen as 'less' worth than anyone else just because the way they happened to be born... And that even tiny little girls can help change things, if they just work hard enough and make people listen.

... And how did it go? Katitzi herself grew up, became an author (despite only 2 years of school as a child), became famous in Sweden, married a swede and got a pretty comfortable life but never forgot her background and kept fighting all her life for the rights of the Roma people and to improve their conditions. Katarina's big sister Rosa, who learned the traditional craft of their family and became a silversmith, was the first Roma ever to be accepted into the Swedish Art Academy (Konstfack), and at the age of 90-something still works as a silversmith today.

My wish would be that these books could be translated into other european languages, as if you give these books to children at a young age and make them read Katitzi's story, they perhaps naturally will understand that racism and discrimination of any kind is a bad thing, and that Katitzi was not 'just' a roma girl, but a little girl like everyone else and that she were just like you and me... And once you understand that, you'll never treat all the other Katitzi's in this world any differently because you see that we are all humans in this world, and we are all the same and we deserve the same.

That's what Katitzi taught me...

Katarina Taikon-Langhammer, née Taikon (1932- 1995), rest in peace.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 1, 2013)

I've just finished Christopher Clark's "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914", which gives a decent "alternative" analysis (i.e. different from the usual "evil Germany and vindictive Austro-Hungarians" sophomoric bullshit peddled in schools), mostly centred on how and why politics failed/allowed war to happen.  Not as interesting or jaw-dropping as Annika Mombauer's "The Causes of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus", but interesting nonetheless.


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## Idris2002 (Nov 3, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> I've just finished Christopher Clark's "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914", which gives a decent "alternative" analysis (i.e. different from the usual "evil Germany and vindictive Austro-Hungarians" sophomoric bullshit peddled in schools), mostly centred on how and why politics failed/allowed war to happen.  Not as interesting or jaw-dropping as Annika Mombauer's "The Causes of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus", but interesting nonetheless.



A very good book. The stuff on how Serbia repressed ethnic minorities in the territories it was carving out of the Ottoman empire was especially interesting. I was surprised, though, that it didn't engage directly with the Fischer thesis, a home-grown "German imperialism" explanation of the war, written by the eponymous German historian.


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## J Ed (Nov 11, 2013)

Would people be interested in a similar thread dedicated to videos of lectures and talks on here? Might be useful..


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## shifting gears (Nov 11, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Would people be interested in a similar thread dedicated to videos of lectures and talks on here? Might be useful..



I certainly would, I'm always scratching round YouTube for that type of thing... Invariably end up with Chomsky and could do with some fresh ideas.


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## butchersapron (Nov 12, 2013)

Yes, go for it.


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## CNT36 (Nov 12, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Would people be interested in a similar thread dedicated to videos of lectures and talks on here? Might be useful..


I just ended up here using the search function to find such a thread. MP3'S are good as they can be listened to at work with out worries about signal and the like.


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## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Is that you nomoney?


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## not-bono-ever (Dec 9, 2013)

maybe not as much of a brownie point as summit obscure by Trotsky or vol. 5 of the collected specches of Ceaucescu ( and I do have this one but hardly read ), but am reading " a very british strike" by Anne Perkins,'s about the general strike.not full of quips or killer lines, but a fantastic scene setting read - fascinating see  how much everyone seemed to fear a revolution of the time of the Zinovoev letter.And that cunt Churchill doesnt come across too well either.


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## J Ed (Dec 22, 2013)

Does anyone have anything that might help in understanding why Mitterand's government failed?


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## SpineyNorman (Jan 9, 2014)

I've been reading some of the stuff by Harry Cleaver that butchersapron recommended and he makes reference in one of them to the theory of the 'social factory' as an (I assume autonomist) alternative to Gramscian theories of hegemony where class conflicts - rather than being overcome (however temporarily) - permiate everything. I like the sound of it as a way of integrating unwaged people and non-wage labour activities into an analysis of the circuit of capital so I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for further reading?


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## butchersapron (Jan 9, 2014)

SpineyNorman said:


> I've been reading some of the stuff by Harry Cleaver that butchersapron recommended and he makes reference in one of them to the theory of the 'social factory' as an (I assume autonomist) alternative to Gramscian theories of hegemony where class conflicts - rather than being overcome (however temporarily) - permiate everything. I like the sound of it as a way of integrating unwaged people and non-wage labour activities into an analysis of the circuit of capital so I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for further reading?


No really been any book length stuff on it, it just sort of forms the background to autonomist thought  - the key texts are the tronti stuff from the mid 60s - the strategy of refusal and  social capital. I put both these on line years ago (i have to go out for 15 minutes, will link to them if no one else does so when i'm out).


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## butchersapron (Jan 9, 2014)

The Strategy of Refusal

Social Capital

And for what this means politically, in terms of internal composition and all that, this text (another one i put online, at the urging of the desperately missed Dave Graham) is The power of women and the subversion of the community - i don't think there's any coming back from this analysis  for serious revolutionaries.


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## Limerick Red (Jan 19, 2014)

Shit! just read through this entire thread and theres some really excellent recomendations on here. I have written down about 20 books, Im definitely going to read in the next few months.

Recommendation wise: 
A book I would love to re-read but have lost me copy:

Republican Voices by Kevin Bean and Mark Hayes.

This is a fantastic book of discussion with 6 provisional volunteers about their personal struggle as well as "the struggle" over the last 30 years, 
written in 2001, around the time of the "peace process" and sums up what alot of Republican mates/comrades/acquaintances at the time were thinking.
Found a quote online from The Dark thats in the book.


> ‘What we hammered into each other time after time in gaol was that a central part of British counter-insurgency strategy was to mould leaderships that they could deal with. I look at South Africa and I look at the situation here and I see that the only real change has been in appearances. No real change has occurred. A few Republicans have slotted themselves into comfortable positions and left the rest of us behind. In many ways the nationalist middle class has been the beneficiary of the struggle. It has not been Republicans, apart from those Republicans eager to join that class.’



Used to be available via Forthwrite (republican socialist writer group) not sure if it still is. But a fantastic read.


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## revol68 (Feb 6, 2014)

Reading too many different things at once.

Racecraft which is an interesting take on how racism is naturalised, heard about it on here from Butcher's so cheers. Been cheating on it with Wood's Origin of Capitalism which was recommended by oisleep, really good and forced a rethink on many assumptions about modernity and the bourgeois state.
Also reading through the Endnotes 1 debate between Dauve and Endnotes/TheorieCommuniste whilst I wait on Endnotes 3 to finally arrive.
Oh and Pristine Culture of Capitalism is about to get stuck into once I finish off the last chapter of Origin of Capitalism, it's Wood again but this time focussing on the origin of the modern "rational" state and debates around whether Britain's early development of capitalism has created a undeveloped capitalist state or rather the rational centralised bourgeois states of say France and Germany are actually pre modern/capitalist formulations.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2014)

We (i,e posters not just me and you) had a good exchange about the idea of the bourgeois revolution a few years back - be interesting to revisit it when you're finished with the Woods.


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## revol68 (Feb 6, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> We (i,e posters not just me and you) had a good exchange about the idea of the bourgeois revolution a few years back - be interesting to revisit it when you're finished with the Woods.



Yeah, it's funny because reading it took be back to my French Revolution A level and trying to square the standard french Marxist take of the bourgeois revolution with the fact it appeared to hinder the development of capitalism until Napoleon. 

You any thoughts on Endnotes?


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2014)

revol68 said:


> Yeah, it's funny because reading it took be back to my French Revolution A level and trying to square the standard french Marxist take of the bourgeois revolution with the fact it appeared to hinder the development of capitalism until Napoleon.
> 
> You any thoughts on Endnotes?


Yeah. Interesting stuff/nice people but just utterly irrelevant to me. And it seems the whole point of their aufheben split was to close off non-phds. Phds in work are cool and writing about it. Work itself. Not so. It sort of reads like cult tracts.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2014)

Analysis has been replaced by free floating rhetoric and self-enclosed axioms.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2014)

Tronti on Negri:



> 'A discourse which grows upon itself carries the mortal danger of verifying itself always and only through the successive passages of its own formal logic'.


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## revol68 (Feb 6, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> Yeah. Interesting stuff/nice people but just utterly irrelevant to me. And it seems the whole point of their aufheben split was to close off non-phds. Phds in work are cool and writing about it. Work itself. Not so. It sort of reads like cult tracts.



I found the 1st one interesting, though endnotes/tc are a bit too determinist for my liking, whilst Dauve and co rightfully reject that but go too far, both however leave little space for historical factors and contingencies external to workers movements, Endnotes/TC fixated on the workers movement coming up against it's own limits (historical determined) whereas Dauve and co see the failings stemming from subjective shortcomings.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2014)

revol68 said:


> I found the 1st one interesting, though endnotes/tc are a bit too determinist for my liking, whilst Dauve and co rightfully reject that but go too far, both however leave little space for historical factors and contingencies external to workers movements, Endnotes/TC fixated on the workers movement coming up against it's own limits (historical determined) whereas Dauve and co see the failings stemming from subjective shortcomings.


End Communist notes will come up with a 196 page book overcoming both problems don't worry. It's what these people do.


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## revol68 (Feb 6, 2014)

Well I'm still waiting on my copy of #3 ordered in November, interested in the reproductive labour and value stuff but some of the looking for the new fully subsumed revolutionary subject of pure negation is crap, basically yeah of course it failed then, but now in this new period it's on...


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## J Ed (Feb 17, 2014)

I thought that this article was really interesting. I'm trying to get my head around the was the USSR state capitalist debate a bit and it's the first time that I've come across the term state feudalism re: the PRC and it seems like a pretty convincing argument.


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## butchersapron (Feb 17, 2014)

J Ed said:


> I thought that this article was really interesting. I'm trying to get my head around the was the USSR state capitalist debate a bit and it's the first time that I've come across the term state feudalism re: the PRC and it seems like a pretty convincing argument.


Well have a read here and think again.

State feudalism is a pretty worthless term. I know you like your wollf and that but...


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## J Ed (Feb 18, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> Well have a read here and think again.
> 
> State feudalism is a pretty worthless term. I know you like your wollf and that but...



Thanks, will have a read


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## J Ed (Feb 21, 2014)

Eduardo Galeano - Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent - http://www.scribd.com/doc/149406851/Eduardo-Galeano-Open-Veins-of-Latin-America#page=6

This is a great book. SpineyNorman in particular may be interested as there is some focus on Colombia.

edit this is a better link http://www.e-reading.co.uk/bookreader.php/149187/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America.pdf


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 21, 2014)

J Ed said:


> Eduardo Galeano - Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent - http://www.scribd.com/doc/149406851/Eduardo-Galeano-Open-Veins-of-Latin-America#page=6
> 
> This is a great book. SpineyNorman in particular may be interested as there is some focus on Colombia.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 21, 2014)

Related:

The Human Grease Murders: A mysterious crime in Peru revives a vampire legend that's more than 400 years old.



> As a metaphor, the Andean legend is easy enough to decipher. Whether the villains are conquistadors, Catholic priests, mining engineers, or gun-toting drug dealers in the jungle, they stand in for five centuries of exploitation and extraction—a narrative of foreign powers feeding from the soft belly and open veins of Latin America.


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## Idris2002 (Mar 17, 2014)

I suspect butchersapron and others may have this already, but here's a link to a PDF file of John MacGuffin's famous 'The Guineapigs', about the torture of people interned in the North of Ireland in the early 1970s.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/210365599/The-Guineapigs-by-John-Mcguffin


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## Shadrach (Mar 18, 2014)

Give War a Chance - P.J O'Rourke.

PJ O'Rourke in general is great stuff, but that's my favourite recently.


----------



## mansonroad (Mar 31, 2014)

What is an author - Michel Foucault. On the surface predominantly concerned with literature, yet Foucault makes a very convincing link between the emphasis on authorship and the rise of capitalism and individualist politics. The Death of The Author by Roland Barthes, though in my opinion a bit less interesting as a whole than Foucault, is essential companion reading.


----------



## Jogsd (Apr 3, 2014)

"Three Days in June" By James O'Connell

3 Para, Mount Longdon - A unique insight into the last three days of the Falklands War.


----------



## moono (Apr 7, 2014)

*Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel*
Max  Blumenthal

"In Goliath, New York Times bestselling author Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads of Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens."


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## J Ed (Apr 13, 2014)

Anyone read Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century yet?

The pdf is available here http://libgen.org/get?md5=845494f4a59210b22292c737c0d59f1d&open=0


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## Doctor Carrot (Apr 23, 2014)

J Ed said:


> Would people be interested in a similar thread dedicated to videos of lectures and talks on here? Might be useful..



In light of this does anyone have any recommendations for books about British society and politics specifically? I mean in the same vain as Chomsky, Zinn and Hedges? I listen to a lot of lectures on youtube, particularly by Chomsky and Hedges, and they of course focus on American society but I want to get off the internet and read print more rather than staring at a screen all the time. I also wanna learn more about my own country instead of just focussing on America because I feel I understand the UK less and America more due to the amount of time I've spent with Chomsky and Hedges.


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## Idris2002 (Apr 26, 2014)

Doctor Carrot said:


> In light of this does anyone have any recommendations for books about British society and politics specifically? I mean in the same vain as Chomsky, Zinn and Hedges? I listen to a lot of lectures on youtube, particularly by Chomsky and Hedges, and they of course focus on American society but I want to get off the internet and read print more rather than staring at a screen all the time. I also wanna learn more about my own country instead of just focussing on America because I feel I understand the UK less and America more due to the amount of time I've spent with Chomsky and Hedges.



Mark Curtis is pretty much 'the British Chomsky', I think.


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## GeorgeBushJrJr (Apr 29, 2014)

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand, maybe some of you out there will learn a thing or two.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2014)

GeorgeBushJrJr said:


> Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand, maybe some of you out there will learn a thing or two.


how shit ayn rand is, for example.


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## Shadrach (Apr 29, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> how shit ayn rand is, for example.


Read The Fountainhead you great socialist buffoon


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## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2014)

Shadrach said:


> Read The Fountainhead you great socialist buffoon


i'm not a socialist you shitferbrains cunt.


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## Shadrach (Apr 29, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> i'm not a socialist you shitferbrains cunt.


You are an illiterate. All socialists are illiterate. Therefore you are socialist. Game set and match.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2014)

Shadrach said:


> You are an illiterate. All socialists are illiterate. Therefore you are socialist. Game set and match.


You are thick as pigshit therefore you're on the right politically.


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## belboid (Apr 30, 2014)

ohh, why did you ban it, it could have been fun. It's rare to see a logical non-sequitur as neatly stated.


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## J Ed (Jun 27, 2014)

Hi all

This interview really piqued my interest in the book The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. I just wondered whether anyone had or read it or has access to a pdf of the book?


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## butchersapron (Jul 1, 2014)

Nor read, is a brilliant idea - Horne is published by people i can get a pdf of pretty soon. Long interview on atg here. Well worth the time. Interesting point about the birth of identity politics as well.


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## SpineyNorman (Jul 3, 2014)

Degree out of the way so now I can get back to reading stuff because I want to rather than need to 

First one is David Harvey 17 contradictions and the end of capitalism - I'm about 1/3 of the way through and it's very well put together - if you wanted to get someone a book to show the ways in which Marx is still relevant this would be a good choice. And the chapter titles for the rest of the book suggest he's going to introduce some stuff I've not seen him talk about before. Really good book, if the bit I've read is anything to go by it's the best thing he's written since a brief history.


----------



## celinajonesi (Jul 4, 2014)

Hi
This is Celina, this is my first post, wish me and i need your support dear friends.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 16, 2014)

J Ed said:


> Just finished reading this, really interesting insight into an aspect of the Civil Right Movement I was totally unaware of.


Here's another one for you:

This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 16, 2014)

SpineyNorman said:


> Degree out of the way so now I can get back to reading stuff because I want to rather than need to
> 
> First one is David Harvey 17 contradictions and the end of capitalism - I'm about 1/3 of the way through and it's very well put together - if you wanted to get someone a book to show the ways in which Marx is still relevant this would be a good choice. And the chapter titles for the rest of the book suggest he's going to introduce some stuff I've not seen him talk about before. Really good book, if the bit I've read is anything to go by it's the best thing he's written since a brief history.


I found this to be an odd book - the lack of politics and the weakness of politics (his ill-informed swipes at anarchism and what he calls autonomism for example - and his rabbit out the hat_ maybe we could have a debate about capital_! bits that end each chapter) undermine the analysis.I know he says that he's trying to separate analysis from prescription - itself an odd weakening thing for a marxist to do - but he then does it anyway, just with some really insipid politics.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 16, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> I found this to be an odd book - the lack of politics and the weakness of politics (his ill-informed swipes at anarchism and what he calls autonomism for example - and his rabbit out the hat_ maybe we could have a debate about capital_! bits that end each chapter) undermine the analysis.I know he says that he's trying to separate analysis from prescription - itself an odd weakening thing for a marxist to do - but he then does it anyway, just with some really insipid politics.



I'm still at the end of the first section to be honest - got through that then some bastard went and gave me a job so I've not had time to get any further so my guess is I've not got to the politics yet. The bit I've read so far looks like a decent intro to Marx IMO - kind of like a more economistic version of Eagleton's why Marx was right. I'll look out for the shit politics when I get around to finishing it though 

Also, I finally got around to scanning Mason's Social Policy in the third reich - it's a pretty good scan too, it's searchable anyway. Only minor issue is I didn't have time to do it all in one go so it's 2 PDFs and didn't scan the (really fucking long) bibliography cos by then I'd really had enough of scanning! As far as I know there's no electronic copy available online or anywhere else so if you (or anyone else) wants me to send you a copy to distribute around your networks or whatever send us a PM with an email address.


----------



## taffboy gwyrdd (Jul 31, 2014)

These aint books (though he is a top writer), please don't kick me off.

Some excellent Tariq Ali talks:

On the Scotland referendum



"Islam and it's discontents" (broadly, an analysis of the effect of 100 years of western imperialist meddling in North Africa and The Middle East)



There's plenty more of him which you'll see down the sidebar of each. His digestible clarity in relating complex history and politics is really quite a thing to behold.


----------



## J Ed (Sep 4, 2014)

Finally got around to finishing Revolt on the Right by Ford and Goodwin. Great book, I do not think that there is much I can say regarding it that hasn't already been done to death here other than the fact that I'm a bit confused that it never seems to use the Tea Party in the USA as a point of reference, a comparison which is a lot more apt than any comparisons between UKIP and the FN or the Austrian Freedom Party.


----------



## murphy1970 (Oct 10, 2014)

People's history of the United States - Howard Zinn


----------



## J Ed (Oct 10, 2014)

On the suggestion of peeps on this thread I read Murray Bookchin's Social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgeable chasm - a great read. Despite being written in the mid-90s it is a depressingly apt critique of the behaviour and beliefs of so many in 2014.


----------



## murphy1970 (Oct 10, 2014)

What's the matter with Kansas? - Thomas Frank.
Good account of the resistible rise of the Christian right.


----------



## J Ed (Oct 10, 2014)

murphy1970 said:


> What's the matter with Kansas? - Thomas Frank.
> Good account of the resistible rise of the Christian right.



Does anyone have a pdf of this?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 7, 2014)

Lineages of revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East - Adam Hanieh.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 7, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> Well have a read here and think again.
> 
> State feudalism is a pretty worthless term. I know you like your wollf and that but...



I read that a few years ago, didn't find their criticism of Ticktin very persuasive. I should really re-read it and see if I've changed my mind.

But Cliff/Shachtmanite state capitalism/bureaucratic collectivism deserves to be confined to the dustbin.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 7, 2014)

Oh god.


----------



## Limerick Red (Nov 28, 2014)

Best book on the German revolution??



New petras essay is great
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2013


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## murphy1970 (Jan 2, 2015)

The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge. Very bleak, but given the subject matter it could be little else.
Have looked for Memoirs of a revolutionary as e-book but with no luck so will have to look for print copy.


----------



## belboid (Jan 2, 2015)

murphy1970 said:


> Have looked for Memoirs of a revolutionary as e-book but with no luck so will have to look for print copy.


it is freely avialable on marxists.org, so quite easy to make your own if you wanna. A tempting idea


----------



## murphy1970 (Jan 2, 2015)

Thanks for that


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 2, 2015)

Or here.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jan 4, 2015)

cheeky request for help: Been talking with afriend about the relationship between technology, class struggle and historical development.  he's been reading some althusserian and critical realist stuff I think, stuff that's kind of technologically determinist - changes in forces if production shape history to put it crudely and I was saying that I thought it was the other way around - that class struggles shape the development and application of technology. 

He asked me for reading recommendations on this perspective but I can't think of any - I think my views on it are influenced mainly by discussions on here and maybe a bit from reading capital also. So I was wondering if anyone has anything to recommend - pretty sure this is the perspective the autonomists and people like that have taken so maybe butchersapron  might know of something I could point him in the direction of? Thanks.


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 4, 2015)

This is the key text for that operaist/autonomist understanding:

The capitalist use of machinery: Marx versus the objectivists - Raniero Panzieri, which really needs to be read alongside Surplus value and planning and Tronti-s Workers and Capital-post-script (these were among the first texts i ever put on line because i felt together they were so crucial). CSE Pamphlet #1 The Labour Process and Class Strategies is worth a dig around for - includes some of the above. Similar vein is Outlines of a Critique of Technology and Science, Technology, and the Labour Process. A modern application of the approach can be found in Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Tech Capitalism - first half of this book is fantastic on this and would suggest a reading of the panzieri then onto this.

edit: and of course another key one is Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century - he does take a sort of deterministic position, but it's simple to read against this and ask just why capital goes to such lengths to deskill and to enclose specialist or technical knowledge.

Oh yeah, part two of Caffentzis' recent collection In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 10, 2015)

SpineyNorman 

Another possibly useful one - second section talks about how workers resistance to work and the forms of top-down discipline bosses tried to impose drove technological developments to bypass them and fed into planned deskilling/enclosure of technical knowledge - i.e as result of political struggle rather than some objective unfolding process: 
Progress Without People: New Technology, Unemployment, and the Message of Resistance



> Many academic studies today purport to describe and explain the advance of industrial automation, but few ever even mention a major impulse behind that advance: management's obsession with and struggle for control over workers. Any scholar who so much as suggests that such a motivation exists is typically derided as a simple minded conspiracy theorist, and his or her work is dismissed without a hearing. The rest, wanting to appear sophisticated, construct elaborate theories in their effort to avoid the obvious, which is much liketrying to describe the action in a boxing match while pretending there is only one fighter in the ring.



He also has this, _could _be used by your mate at a push, but not when read with the understanding from my other post of the bosses being driven to innovate due to class conflict - i.e being driven there by workers:

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation



> Focusing on the design and implementation of computer-based automatic machine tools, David F. Noble challenges the idea that technology has a life of its own. Technology has been both a convenient scapegoat and a universal solution, serving to disarm critics, divert attention, depoliticize debate, and dismiss discussion of the fundamental antagonisms and inequalities that continue to beset America. This provocative study of the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry-the heart of a modern industrial economy-explains how dominant institutions like the great corporations, the universities, and the military, along with the ideology of modern engineering shape, the development of technology. Noble shows how the system of "numerical control," perfected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and put into general industrial use, was chosen over competing systems for reasons other than the technical and economic superiority typically advanced by its promoters...Competing methods, equally promising, were rejected because they left control of production in the hands of skilled workers, rather than in those of management or programmers.


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## butchersapron (Jan 15, 2015)

SpineyNorman - Outlines of a Critique of Technology mentioned above now here


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jan 15, 2015)

Cheers mate really appreciate it


----------



## maya (Jan 18, 2015)

butchersapron said:


> Some stuff on around that theme from Harry Cleaver:
> 
> From Development to Autonomy
> Close the IMF, Abolish Debt and End Development:A Class Analysis of the International Debt Crisis
> ...


the 'Close the IMF, Abolish Debt...' piece seems to be removed- links to all other articles working fine but that one seems to be gone... (It's actually linked to twice on the index page, but both links are dead   )


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 18, 2015)

maya said:


> the 'Close the IMF, Abolish Debt...' piece seems to be removed- links to all other articles working fine but that one seems to be gone... (It's actually linked to twice on the index page, but both links are dead   )


Can get it here.


----------



## LeMoose (Jan 30, 2015)

What is the best source to learn from in regards to the history of socialism?

Start at Karl Marx and then read about the Russian revolution?


----------



## butchersapron (Feb 14, 2015)

LeMoose said:


> What is the best source to learn from in regards to the history of socialism?
> 
> Start at Karl Marx and then read about the Russian revolution?


Sorry for missing this earlier - there are many many introductions from the most basic to the most detailed, i'd suggest going with this one _for starters_ then working around its limits - geographical/theoretical/historical perspective etc - but it will get you in the game at least: Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 - Geoff Eley


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 21, 2015)

I'm looking for a book on the history of Russia - something fairly general and not too much of a doorstopper. Any recommendations?


----------



## seventh bullet (Apr 24, 2015)

Apologies for sounding like a twat, but at what 'level' are you at/wanting to begin from?

Also, what kind of history?  The historiography has been heavily politicised, particularly covering the twentieth century for obvious reasons (the crossing of Russian, or Slavic, or Soviet studies with 'Sovietology'), and also the perhaps narrow preoccupations with Russia and the 'West,' questions of belonging or being cut off, of being advanced versus backward, etc.  Basically, it can be a minefield which I won't pretend to have navigated well myself, aside from entertaining Xmas stocking fillers written by Tories.  You could pick up Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts by David C. Engerman (got it as a pdf), which isn't exactly what you're after.  It would be useful for some context in which diverse western (or specifically US) historians went about their work, though.


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## Brainaddict (Apr 24, 2015)

Yeah, I guessed it was a minefield. I don't really want strong pro/anti standpoints on the USSR*, and I don't want re-interpretations of the revolutions according to True Marxism or any bollocks like that. I'd also like it to go back at least to the beginning of the 'modern' period (flexibly interpreted) and possibly further. No Tories 

*I mean, I realise I can't get an objective take on it, but maybe a writer with enough restraint to bracket their own views a little while they discuss it.

Edit: on the issue of level, pretty introductory - I would expect any book covering hundreds of years to be fairly basic.


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## butchersapron (Apr 24, 2015)

I've got no idea what you want after that.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 24, 2015)

Not marxist interpretation, not Tory, not wanting to grind their axe too much over the USSR? Does that really leave so little?

I was thinking something like this (a Labour adviser, alas): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Russia-000-Year-Chronicle-Wild-East/dp/1849900736
But I thought there might be better offerings out there.


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## seventh bullet (Apr 25, 2015)

You could do better than that, then.  And it's going to be difficult re the revolution and USSR to get what you want (see, for example, Orlando Figes' 1000-page posh liberal whinge about civic-minded aristos and the Stolypin reforms being frustrated by an intransigent Tsarism, thus creating the conditions for a horrid revolution).

You could try A History of Russia: Medieval, Modern, Contemporary, C. 882-1996 by Paul Dukes, and Russia: A History, edited by George L. Freeze.  It's a different country but with an important shared past so you could also get Orest Subetlny's Ukraine: A History.

With keeping in mind my previous post, then for a taste of how Russian development is seen from a certain western viewpoint, Richard Pipes' Russia under the Old Regime is a primer from the perspective of the authoritarian or 'statist' school.  Similarly, Tibor Szamuely's The Russian Tradition.

Here's the US historian book I mentioned earlier.


----------



## hot air baboon (Aug 6, 2015)

......this looks interesting....esp. as Nick Toczek's promised full scale follow-up to The Bigger Tory Vote is apparenrtly never going to see the light....


----------



## Geoffrey Kerr (Sep 24, 2015)

A Peoples History Of The USA by Howard Zinn
War And An Irish Town Eammon McCann


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 10, 2015)

strategies of the muslim brotherhood 1928-2007

butchersapron frogwoman


----------



## hot air baboon (Dec 13, 2015)

hot air baboon said:


> .....as Nick Toczek's promised full scale follow-up to The Bigger Tory Vote is apparenrtly never going to see the light.



...this just published...wish he'd stuck with the previous work though...


..



_For fifty-five years, from 1919 until 1975, The Britons published Jew-hating literature. For the forty years until his death in 1948, the founder and president of The Britons, Henry Hamilton Beamish, devoted his life to touring the world as an obsessive preacher of this hatred. Using material he has collected over the past thirty years, Nick Toczek tells their story. This is the first complete history of The Britons, which was the most prolific and influential advocate of extreme prejudice against all things Jewish – not least as the publishers of that notorious forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Likewise, his is the first biography of Beamish.

Putting both The Britons and Beamish into context, this book also examines and explains their precursors, their contemporaries and their legacy. Here, then are detailed accounts of hundreds of anti-Jewish organisations and individuals. These include the late-Victorian anti-Semitism of Arnold White and the British Brothers League; the curious life of Rotha Lintorn Orman who was the unlikely founder of British Fascisti, Britain’s first fascist party; Anglo-American supporters of Hitler; the lives and roles of extreme haters such as Arnold Leese and Colin Jordan; and the whole history of The Protocols, including the key role played by American motor magnate, Henry Ford. This shocking history of hatred takes us from South Africa to Nazi Germany, America to Rhodesia._


----------



## bimble (Dec 17, 2015)

Can I put Submission by Houellebecq here please (without being accused of being an Islamaphobe for reading it)?



Idris2002 said:


> But let's be careful about fiction - unless we're talking about a novel/book of short stories/epic poem that gives real insight into a political problem or movement (rather than being just a good read), save it for the books forum.



Does it do the above? I think maybe it does but not in a historical sense in a chillingly current way (Paris, 2017, in the midst of a civil war between the National Front & the Muslim Brotherhood).
Haven't even finished it yet but think maybe I'm posting this here because I want support or something, from someone who has read it.


----------



## Geoffrey Kerr (Dec 19, 2015)

Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason. A man is murdered in Reykavik Iceland a fairly routine murder investigation is launched but it is far from routine. The author cleverly weaves into the story ,up until then , the little known existence of the Icelandic governments genetic research programme. They stored all of the populations medical and family history without peoples consent. This formed the basis of an intriguing investigation.
I first heard about this Genetic Research Programme around 2000 when I heard a talk by Hilary Rose


----------



## DrRingDing (Mar 6, 2016)

I have previously suggested reading about who we are as beings before entering into beard stroking.

http://yoelinbar.net/papers/ds_voting.pdf

The above paper should be read. It proposes the evolutionary root of reactionaries. They show that political affiliation can be predicted from reaction to exposure to images that may be considered disgusting. This disgust sensitivity may be rooted in our evolution in an attempt to avoid infection.


----------



## Diogenes2 (Mar 6, 2016)

If you want a good easily accessible starting place The Politics book by Paul Kelly is great 

Chomsky is extremely readable I find so manufacturing consent from him & people over Profit


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Apr 14, 2016)




----------



## Geoffrey Kerr (Apr 18, 2016)

belboid said:


> a few key ones for the moment I think:
> 
> Out of the Ghetto - Joe Jacobs
> 
> ...


The Ghetto Fights by Marek Edelman


----------



## Draygo (Jun 11, 2016)

I'm half way through Yanis Varoufakis' 'And the Weak Suffer What They Must'. So far its absolutely superb, a brilliant primer on the economic history of Europe in the past half century and the evolution of the EU. I confess I was ignorant about things like precisely how the EU was formed (an opportunistic amalgamation of German industry and French bureaucracy) and the whole business of Nixon's killing off the Breton Woods System. Varoufakis brings it all to life brilliantly. A fantastic intellectual demolition of how the EU operates from someone who has been on the receiving end of their financial thuggery first hand (and yet even he can still see how Brexit would not help.)


----------



## Biscuitician (Jun 21, 2016)

Anyone else read Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloss? What did you think? Anything similar worth reading?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jul 20, 2016)




----------



## seventh bullet (Jul 20, 2016)

I like Worley's work on Communism (Stalin, Comintern etc).


----------



## Ole (Jul 29, 2016)

I thought this was a thought provoking piece in Jacobin, tries to shed light on the American landscape by going back to old Labourism, Thatcherism and Stuart Hall v Ralph Miliband.

The Art of Politics | Jacobin


----------



## RedSkin (Sep 4, 2016)

'Society of the Spectacle' Whaut the fucks all that about then? Dustiest book on my shelf. Just about understand chapter 4. If it wasn't for those clever little Spectacular Times books I wouldn't have a clue.

'The Revolution of Everyday Life' Ah now were getting somewhere. Can understand quite a bit of this, not averse to some bloody revolution.

'The Eclipse & Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement' Gilles Dauve & Francois Martin. Now this I like. Probably Debord's ideas made more accessable. Don't agree with every word of it but VERY influential.

'The Friends of Durruti Group: 1937-1939' Augustin Guillamon. Practical suggestions by people that were there & inspired a thread started by me in the philosphy section.

Beating The Fascists but I bet everybody says that. Not just militant anti:fascism but a brilliant expose of the machinations of the official anti-racist movement & middle class left.

'Ballymurphy and the Irish War' Ciaran De Baroid

'Spirit of Freedom' Attack International

And now 2 books i would personally like to thank: ' Unfinished Business: The Politics of Class War for explaining capitalism, the state & class struggle to a simpleton like me in the most open, accessable & understandable way possible. Absolute genius. Better than Das Kapital (not that id bother trying to read that fucker)

And now the book that has had the most practical influence in my life 'All Power to the Imagination' Dave Douglass. Turned me from a moany oh whats the use of unions ultra left stance to making me realise that if u weren't in a union u were basically a scab (helped along by repeated listening to Dropkick Murphys version of 'Which Side are you on?)
Lead me to one of my proudest political achievements: unionising a traditionally scab part of private industry & winning some serious concessions from management (if anyone is that intetested let me know & i'll post the details) Also if anyone on here personally knows Dave  & someone must can they pass on my personal thanks for his inspiration.

Nice one Dave!


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 17, 2016)

RedSkin said:


> 'Society of the Spectacle' Whaut the fucks all that about then? Dustiest book on my shelf. Just about understand chapter 4. If it wasn't for those clever little Spectacular Times books I wouldn't have a clue.
> 
> 'The Revolution of Everyday Life' Ah now were getting somewhere. Can understand quite a bit of this, not averse to some bloody revolution.
> 
> ...


Have you read de baroid's 'down north'?


----------



## infide1castr0 (Sep 17, 2016)

I haven't seen this one mentioned yet (although similar) in this thread:

Hunter Thompson's _Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - _remarkable how similar tactics are criticized in the book from 1972 are still employed to a greater extent today, on both sides of the Atlantic.  The book is rather dense, and Thompson is sometimes hard to read through.  

For a read that is a bit more enjoyable (filled with different faxes, photographs, and various mediums of writing throughout) Thompson's _Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie_ is just as interesting of a read given the current political atmosphere.

EDIT: format


----------



## J.C.Decaux (Jun 13, 2017)

Ameilia smith - the arab spring five year's on


When considering the length of the book, it is understandable that it's impossible to cover everyhting about the Arab Spring, which has several aspects to it. However, it would have improved the book a wee tad more to include three more articles about the roles of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran which as everyone know's - are the main regional actors and have been directly involved in conflicts in the region


----------



## TomoT (Jul 6, 2017)

The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria is a great read. Anyone read anything similar?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Oct 20, 2017)

90% off ebooks from Pluto at the moment:
https://www.plutobooks.com/


----------



## chilango (Nov 27, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> 90% off ebooks from Pluto at the moment:
> https://www.plutobooks.com/



Not seeing it. I want that social reproduction ebook but it’s showing as £18.99!

Where’s the sale bit?


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 27, 2017)

**


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Nov 27, 2017)

chilango said:


> Not seeing it. I want that social reproduction ebook but it’s showing as £18.99!
> 
> Where’s the sale bit?



Looks like you missed it


----------



## chilango (Nov 27, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Looks like you missed it



Oh well. So did they then.

Back to choosing from the Verso selection instead...


----------



## belboid (Nov 27, 2017)

chilango said:


> Not seeing it. I want that social reproduction ebook but it’s showing as £18.99!
> 
> Where’s the sale bit?


It’s a bit cheaper here - 
Social Reproduction Theory by Tithi Bhattacharya (Paperback)


----------



## chilango (Nov 27, 2017)

belboid said:


> It’s a bit cheaper here -
> Social Reproduction Theory by Tithi Bhattacharya (Paperback)



Thanks.

Still pricy. I wanted an ebook (I find them easier to get through) really for now. I can probably borrow a hardcopy from the Uni library at a later date when needed.

Even better would be a hardcopy plus ebook bundle. At, say, a tenner max? I'd buy that.

I know, I know...


----------



## belboid (Nov 27, 2017)

chilango said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Still pricy. I wanted an ebook (I find them easier to get through) really for now. I can probably borrow a hardcopy from the Uni library at a later date when needed.
> 
> ...


They'll probably have another sale before christmas, they usually do, and ebooks come free with any physical copy, i think


----------



## chilango (Nov 27, 2017)

belboid said:


> They'll probably have another sale before christmas, they usually do, and ebooks come free with any physical copy, i think


I'll keep an eye out. There's no rush.


----------



## belboid (Dec 6, 2017)

chilango said:


> Not seeing it. I want that social reproduction ebook but it’s showing as £18.99!
> 
> Where’s the sale bit?


It’s half price again at the moment (just ordered it for our book group)


----------



## chilango (Dec 6, 2017)

Ta


----------



## Dragnet (Dec 22, 2017)

Has anyone got any tips for reading, and more crucially, fully understanding, some of the more impenetrable political books? I'd imagine note-taking is a must, but I don't know where to begin. 

I'd like to be able to read more situationist and council communist stuff, but I end up finding myself lost within a maze of words. I spend ten minutes getting to grips with one sentence, only to read the next and discover that I've completely forgotten everything that's gone before it.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 4, 2018)

I recommend Mike Cooley`s book Architect or Bee  . Where to start ? errr ok its about worker controll ... thats it , and technology


----------



## Idris2002 (Jan 11, 2018)

Dragnet said:


> Has anyone got any tips for reading, and more crucially, fully understanding, some of the more impenetrable political books? I'd imagine note-taking is a must, but I don't know where to begin.
> 
> I'd like to be able to read more situationist and council communist stuff, but I end up finding myself lost within a maze of words. I spend ten minutes getting to grips with one sentence, only to read the next and discover that I've completely forgotten everything that's gone before it.


This looks like your best bet:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...owtoread.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0JMFuU7nEZLA7sumndaVAQ

I'm not sure if that link will work, though - let me know if it doesn't, and I'll see what else I can do.


----------



## Idris2002 (Jan 11, 2018)

Oh, and Dragnet - this is a pretty good summary of the above:

“How to Read a Book”: Paul Edward’s guidebook to reading techniques for students


----------



## Dragnet (Jan 11, 2018)

Idris2002 said:


> This looks like your best bet:
> 
> https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjvxNTNj9DYAhVNLFAKHZVqCd0QFggrMAA&url=https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0JMFuU7nEZLA7sumndaVAQ
> 
> I'm not sure if that link will work, though - let me know if it doesn't, and I'll see what else I can do.



That's perfect - cheers!


----------



## krtek a houby (Feb 2, 2018)

Dug out a couple of books from the pile today; can anyone recommend which is worth reading more?

Nell - Nell McCafferty's autobiography
Small Earthquake in Chile - Alistair Horne

Ta!


----------



## Idris2002 (Feb 9, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> Dug out a couple of books from the pile today; can anyone recommend which is worth reading more?
> 
> Nell - Nell McCafferty's autobiography
> Small Earthquake in Chile - Alistair Horne
> ...


I'd go with Nell.


----------



## krtek a houby (Feb 10, 2018)

Idris2002 said:


> I'd go with Nell.



I did in the end! Nearly finished it and it's a real eye opener.

Especially hearing about stuff like the plight of the Armagh Women - the hunger strikers. I had never heard of them before. Makes me want to see the film Silent Grace but that's never on the telly and the DVD costs an arm and a leg.

Nell's great. Flawed, as any of us are, but great. I'd seen her around years back and I might have even spoken to her (memory hazy on this one) but I wish I had known her story and the wider story, back then.

I'd seen it and I'd heard it. It was all around me but I didn't open my eyes and I didn't listen. 

Anyway, best autobiography I've read in all my years. Anyone who hasn't read it - go for it.


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## BusLanes (Feb 25, 2018)

Found a copy of Bob Darke's the Communist Method in Great Britain recently - written after he publicly quit the Hackney Communist Party in 1951. It's a nice, quick read


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## Dragnet (Feb 25, 2018)

BusLanes said:


> Found a copy of Bob Darke's the Communist Method in Great Britain recently - written after he publicly quit the Hackney Communist Party in 1951. It's a nice, quick read



I've only read extracts from this (published as the pamphlet 'Poor Lenin'). I'd be interested in reading the whole thing; I remember it being quite funny in parts.


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## BusLanes (Feb 25, 2018)

It does have its moments yes - you should be able to find a copy for a pound or two 

There are some moments where the tone is a bit off as he had a few of the prejudices of his time, but still worth reading


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## Cheesepig3 (Oct 27, 2018)

"Utopia" hasn't had a mention?



Either my search skills are shit (very possible) or this thread is missing something.


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## Dragnet (Nov 2, 2018)

Right, hope this isn't too off-topic, but didn't feel it warranted starting a new thread - can anyone recommend a basic introduction to economics? I've started reading Wolfgang Streeck's Buying Time, but I think I'd get a lot more out of it if I had a better understanding of some of the terms he uses - fiscal consolidation, debt-financing, market deregulation, the Bretton Woods system.


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## yield (Nov 2, 2018)

Economics: The User's Guide by Ha-Joon Chang is a good introduction.

Chapter 3 - One Fucking Thing after Another: What Use Is History? discusses Bretton Woods


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## belboid (Nov 2, 2018)

A Michael Kidron Reader is released in the next day or two over here. ebooks are available now with 90% off, well worth picking up

Capitalism and Theory: Selected Writings of Michael Kidron


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## Dragnet (Nov 3, 2018)

yield said:


> Economics: The User's Guide by Ha-Joon Chang is a good introduction.
> 
> Chapter 3 - One Fucking Thing after Another: What Use Is History? discusses Bretton Woods



Cheers, I'll give that a read.


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## belboid (Nov 20, 2018)

Anyone know if there is an e-version of Dunayeskaya's Marxism & Freedom available? Can't seem to find one


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## Tubz (Oct 13, 2019)

This website is fo faggots


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## AmateurAgitator (Dec 27, 2019)

I'm currently reading this: Anarchy Works

It's a great read


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## krink (Jun 2, 2020)

Free ebook of "who do you serve who do you protect" about policing and responses in murica Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?


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## Shechemite (Jul 28, 2020)

Dunno if this will get me thrown off here but am enjoying Fukuyama’s ‘Origins of political order’


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## yield (Aug 1, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Dunno if this will get me thrown off here but am enjoying Fukuyama’s ‘Origins of political order’


He's reactionary and delusional. But I'd only mock you for reading it.

The end of history. Hegel done wrong.


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## Hyperdark (Aug 12, 2020)

Fidel Castro my Life.
Basicly a collection of interviews and I'm sure much is lost in Translation but probably the broadest look into what made Fidel the leader he was.


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## AndrewNumLock (Dec 18, 2020)

Clive James - Cultural Amnesia

Basically a defence of Liberal Democracy and turned me away from being a Marxist.


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## nino_savatte (Dec 24, 2020)

Ralph Miliband - Parliamentary Socialism.


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## 19force8 (Jan 13, 2022)

Seriously enjoying A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling | Waterstones available as an e-book too. 

Not so much political theory as an account of applied politics with hilarious consequences.

It tells the story of how a small community in New Hampshire was successfully colonised by 21st century libertarians who progressively reduced the local tax burden by stripping away services such as planning regulations and garbage collection, leading to an increase in the bear population. The town already had form with this aversion to taxation, having tried to secede from the USA during the American Revolution because it didn't like paying taxes to support the Continental Army. Also, during the first half of the 20th century it consistently voted against having a fire department because it would increase property taxes.


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## belboid (Oct 27, 2022)

Mike Davis’ masterwork, City of Quartz, is available as a free download at the moment, to mark his passing.  

Get it.  Read it.  It’s wonderful. 






						Verso
					

Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world.




					www.versobooks.com


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## redsquirrel (Oct 28, 2022)

Thanks for the heads-up.


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## AmateurAgitator (Oct 28, 2022)

I've recently got a load of political books that I now need to read. Maybe its been recommended already but Granny Made Me An Anarchist by Stuart Christie is a bloody great read.

I also found Chums by Simin Kuper to be an informative book recently. And Anarchy's Cossack by Alexander Skirde is a very informative book about the Makhnovists. I have also started I Couldn't Paint Golden Angles by Albert Meltzer, good so far. And apparently the Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes is good.


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## AmateurAgitator (Dec 12, 2022)

I'm currently reading The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes. Its brilliant - very informative and interesting and well written and with beautiful illustrations aswell. I highly recommend it.


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## chilango (Dec 12, 2022)

AmateurAgitator said:


> I'm currently reading The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes. Its brilliant - very informative and interesting and well written and with beautiful illustrations aswell. I highly recommend it.


It is very good. I'm reading it too. 

...but I wonder if/when he'll talk about how his own privilege enables him to "get away" with trespassing in a way a black kid from, say, London wouldn't?


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## AmateurAgitator (Dec 12, 2022)

chilango said:


> It is very good. I'm reading it too.
> 
> ...but I wonder if/when he'll talk about how his own privilege enables him to "get away" with trespassing in a way a black kid from, say, London wouldn't?


Yes thats a fair point.


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