This feature page was launched in July 2017. It lists recommended books and essays and is regularly updated. Titles in red colour are books; titles in black colour are essays. Recommended essays authored by Roger Annis are listed in the ‘Feature essays‘ page on the home page of A Socialist In Canada.
Table of contents:
* Ecology and the global warming emergency
* World issues, imperialism and globalized capitalism
* Marxism and socialism
* The Russian Revolution of 1917
* The aftermath of the Russian Revolution
* The Chinese Revolution of 1949
* The Cuban Revolution of 1959
* Social rights and political economy in Canada
Ecology and the global warming emergency
Marx In The Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, By Kohei Saito (University of Tokyo), Cambridge U. Press, Jan 2023 ‘A masterpiece. This is the book we have been waiting for. Saito draws on Marx to deliver a thrilling synthesis of degrowth and ecosocialism. Herein lies the secret to post-capitalist transition. A must-read for every socialist and every environmentalist -it will change both forever.’ –Jason Hickel, author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
Half Earth Socialism, by Troy Vetesse and Drew Pendergrass, Verso Books, April 2022, 240 pages (Brief review here on Amazon; and review published here on Land And Climate Review, July 1, 2022.)
The Case For Degrowth, essays by Giorgos Kallis, Susan Paulson, Giacomo D’Alisa and Federico Demaria, published by Polity Press, 2020, 151 pp
Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, by Jason Hickel, published by William Heinemann (Penguin Random House), Dec 2020, 336 Pages, hardcover ISBN 97817851524982020 (book review here in the LA Review of Books.)
Global warming emergency: The cost of waiting, essay by Andrew Nikiforuk, columnist and contributing editor, The Tyee, Nov 25, 2021 (with related readings at weblink)
We’re hurtling toward global suicide, essay by Ben Ehrenreich, The New Republic, Mar 18, 2021
Degrowth: Socialism without growth, essay by Timothée Parrique and Giorgos Kallis, first published in Brave New Europe, Feb 9, 2021 (with an introduction by Roger Annis)
Degrowth: A theory of radical abundance, essay by Jason Hickel, published in Real World Economics Review, issue #87, March 2019 (Fifteen page essay, find it here. Find the full issue #87 of RWER here.)
Degrowth, by Giorgos Kallis, Agenda Publishing, January 2018, 176 pp, ISBN 9781911116806 (distributed in North America by Columbia University Press) Chapter six, titled ‘Controversies, debates and future research’, here in pdf format (41 pages): Chapter six of ‘In Defense of Degrowth’, 2018 book by Giorgis Kallis
Degrowth considered, essay and book review by Max Ajl, published in Brooklyn Rail (arts magazine), issue of Sept 2018 Reviewing: In Defense of Degrowth: Opinions and Manifestos, by Giorgos Kallis, edited by Aaron Vansintjan (Uneven Earth Press, 2018). Read the essay here in pdf format: Degrowth considered, by Max Ajl (Sept 2018)
Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic, by Saabira Chaudhuri, Blink Publishing, May 2025 (author interview Sept 2025 here, reviewed here)
Big Farms Make Big Flu, by Rob Wallace, Monthly Review Press, June 2016, 400 pages
The Ends Of The World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans And Our Quest To Understand Earth’s Past Extinctions, by Peter Brannen, Harper Collins, 2017, 322 pp, ISBN 9780062364807 (Related essay: Has the world entered a sixth, great extinction era? If not, could capitalism soon take us there?, by Roger Annis, Jan 24, 2018)
The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, And The Remaking of the Civilized World, by Jeff Goodell; Little, Brown, Oct 2017, 340 pages, . (Reviewed here in Science Magazine, here in London Review of Books and here in Weather Underground.)
Retreat From A Rising Sea, by Orrin Pilkey, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis and Keith Pilkey; Columbia University Press, 2016; 214 pp; ISBN 9780231168441
Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, Threatening Sperm Counts, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race, by Shanna H. Swan with Stacey Colino, publisher Simon & Schuster, 292 pp (book review in New York Times, Mar 5, 2021)
Burning Planet: The Story of Fire Through Time, by Andrew C. Scott, Oxford University Press, 2018, 231 pp, ISBN 9780198734840
Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future, by Edward Struzik, Island Press, 2017, 257 pp, ISBN 978-1-61091-818-3 (Read a review of the book here.)
Windfall: The Booming Business Of Global Warming, by McKenzie Funk, The Penguin Press, 2014, 319 pp, ISBN 978-1-59420-401-2 (REad a review of the book here.)
Losing Earth: A Recent History, by Nathaniel Rich, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019, 206 pp ISBN: 978-0-374-19133-7 (Book reviewed by John Lanchester, in New York Times, April 12, 2019.)
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, by Peter Hawken (editor), Penguin/Random House, April 2017, 256 pp, ISBN 9780143130444. (Read interview with author Paul Hawken, published on VOX.com, July 21, 2017.) [Author Paul Hawken defines ‘drawdown’ as “the point in time when greenhouse gas concentrations peak in the atmosphere and begin to go down on a year-to-year basis”. The book lists seven categories of potential greenhouse gas reduction measures: energy, food, rights for women and girls, buildings and cities, land use, transport, and materials. It may be seen as a radical, ‘green capitalist’ manifesto, but it nonetheless presents many vital, scientific insights into the global warming emergency and its potential mitigations. In his interview with VOX (weblink above), Hawken cites “war” as a large contributor to the global warming emergency. He also says “it is simply not true” that 100 per cent renewable energy is a solution to the global warming emergency. He calls that a “scientific howler”.]
‘The dialectic of growth’: Ernest Mandel on Marxism and ecology, originally published in 1972, re-published in International Institute for Research and Education (Belgium), June 16, 2020 (Ernest Mandel was a lifetime Marxist economist and author of many books on the subject, including Late Capitalism (1975). Ernest Mandel, Wikipedia.)
The Limits To Growth: The 30-Year Update, by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers and Dennis Meadows, Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 2004, 338 pp, ISBN 1931498512 (A synopsis of the book by its three authors is here. An assessment written in 2014 of the original, 1972 edition of the book is here.)
The uninhabitable Earth: What climate change could wreak, sooner than you think, essay by David Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine, July 10, 2017 (Text here, with an introduction by Roger Annis.)
The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, by John Bellamy Foster, published by Monthly Review Press, May 2020, 672 pp
Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy, by Kohei Saito, Monthly Review Press, October 2017, 308 pp, ISBN 9781583676400. (Publisher’s promotional summary here. Reviews published here in Marx and Philosophy Review of Books, here in Monthly Review, April 2018, here in Climate and Capitalism, Jan 8, 2018 (by Paul Burkett).
Marx’s Ecology, by John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review Press, 2000, 309 pp, ISBN 1583670122
Ecology Against Capitalism, by John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review Press, 2002, 202 pp, ISBN 9781583670569
Marxism and the dialectics of ecology, essay by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, published in Monthly Review, Oct 2016
Late Soviet ecology and the planetary crisis, by John Bellamy Foster, published in Monthly Review, issue of June 2015
The planetary emergency, essay by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, published in Monthly Review, December 2012
Marx and Nature, by Paul Burkett, Haymarket Books, 309 pp, ISBN 9781608463695. (Originally published in 1999; reviewed here in 2014 by John Bellamy Foster. Paul Burkett has also authored Marxism and Ecological Economics (2009), and, with John Bellamy Foster, Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique (2017).)
Science and Survival, by Barry Commoner, The Viking Press, 1966, 150 pp. (A seminal book of modern science that warns science has unleashed vast forces with dangerous, long-term social and biological consequences. ‘One aspect of modern technology is vastly more serious than any other issue in the history of mankind, and that is the danger of nuclear war.’)
This Civilization Is Finished: Conversations on the end of empire and what lies beyond, by Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander, published by the Simplicity Institute, Melbourne, 2019, 105 pages Read the book here in pdf format: This Civilisation Is Finished.
Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science, by Carey Gillam, Island Press, 2017, 304 pp, ISBN 13 978-1-61091-832-9 (On Monsanto Corporation and its ‘Roundup’ weed killer product. Review by Joan Baxter, October 2017, here. More on Monsanto by Carey Gillam and other writers is here on the website of U.S. Right To Know.)
Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, by Heather Rogers, The New Press, 2005, 288 pp, ISBN: 978-1-59558-120-4
Air pollution is much worse than we thought, feature essay by David Roberts, VOX.com, Aug 13, 2020 Ditching fossil fuels would pay for itself through clean air alone
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, by Jason Hickel; London: Penguin Random House, 2020 (website here, book review Aug 2020)
World issues, imperialism and globalized capitalism
How the West Brought War to Ukraine, by Benjamin Abelow, published in August 2022 by Siland Press, 88 pages. The book can be downloaded for free on the author website (English, German, and French editions. This book is deeply flawed. The book details the provocations by the Western powers against the Russian Federation during the 35 years following the demise of the USSR; this is the book’s strength. However, the book takes no account of the self-determination struggle of peoples in Ukraine during the leadup to the February 2014 coup in Kiev and its aftermath. (Read a brief review of the book here by The Multiplural World: Brief review of the 2022 book How the West Brought War to Ukraine.)
The Catastrophe of Ukrainian Capitalism: How privatisation dispossessed and impoverished the Ukrainian people, by Renfrey Clarke, published by Resistance Books, 2022, 176 pages $AUS 25 (review here)
Imperialism In The 21st Century, by John Smith, Monthly Review Press, 2016, 384 pp, ISBN 9781583675779. (You can read an abstract from the book here. You can read an essay and review on the significance of the book, by Rahul Varman, here.)
A critique of David Harvey’s analysis of imperialism, essay by John Smith (author of Imperialism In The 21st Century), published on MR Online, Aug 26, 2017
Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, by VI Lenin, 1916
Imperialism And The Development Myth. Is China An Imperialist Country?, by Sam King, Manchester University Press, August 2021, 295 pp (read the publisher’s promotional description here)
Lenin’s theory of imperialism: A defence of its relevance in the 21st century, essay by Sam King, first published in Marxist Left Review (Australia), issue dated winter 2014-15 Read the essay here in pdf format (43 pages): Sam King, Lenin’s theory of imperialism, 2014-15 ‘This essay is divided into three parts. The first outlines Lenin’s theory of imperialism and the key ideas necessary to apply it in today’s conditions. The second section focuses on misunderstandings within the ‘International Socialist’ tradition and of various writers at one time associated with it. The final section applies the Leninist theoretical framework to show that China is not a rising imperialist power, and that even its full development as a capitalist economy is blocked by imperialism.’
The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism, by Keyu Jin, published by Penguin Random House, Oct 2022, 320 pages (Watch a presentation by Keyu Jin on Feb 20, 2024 at the London School of Economics (where she teaches), 65 minutes, with transcript. Book review here in New York Journal of Books.)
Into The Hands of Soldiers (the military-fascist coup in Egypt in July 2013), by David Kirkpatrick, published by Viking, Aug 2018, 384 pages (review here)
Axis of Empire: A History of Iran-U.S. Relations, by Afshin Matin-Asgari, Verso Books, 2026, 298 pages (Born in Iran, Afshin Matin-Asgari studied in the U.S., where he was active in the anti-Shah movement. He is Professor of Middle East Studies at California State U.)
The Biggest Prison On Earth: A History Of The Occupied Territories of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe, One World, June 2017 (Reviewed here, beginning page 41. See also by Ilan Pappe: Ten Myths About Israel, Verso, May 2017; reviewed here, beginning page 59.)
Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out, book by Ilan Pappé and Ramzy Baroud, published by Clarity Press, May 2022, 462 pages. Reviewed here
World in Crisis: A Global Analysis of Marx’s Law of Profitability, by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts, editors; Haymarket Books, Oct 2018, 462pp, ISBN 9-781-60846-1813 (review here)
The Great Recession, by Michael Roberts, published by Lulu, 2009, 334 pp, ISBN 9781445244082 (publisher info here) (Two essays by the same author: Capitalism – where Marx was right and wrong, July 17, 2017, and Will reversing austerity end the depression?, July 13, 2017.)
The Financialization of Housing, by Manuel Aalbers (Belgium), published by Routledge, 2016, 158pp, ISBN 9781138092907. (Reviewed here. ‘This book is not about the mortgage crisis, the credit crunch or subprime loans; it is about redlining, the identification of an area where no financial services are provided…’)
The Right To Housing, by David Madden and Peter Marcuse, Verso, 2016, ISBN 9781784783549. (Reviewed here. This book advocates the de-financialization and de-commodification of housing. It does not examine how the automobile and urban sprawl are a driving force in the global warming emergency and related deterioration of the quality of life.)
The asset economy, by Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings (U. of Sydney); paperback edition by Polity Books (distributed by John Wiley and Sons Ltd), Dec 2020, 176 pages (book review here)
The myth of ‘Russian imperialism’: In defense of Lenin’s analyses, by Renfrey Clarke and Roger Annis, Feb 29, 2016
Late Capitalism, by Ernest Mandel, New Left Books, 1975, 599 pp, SBN 902308076
Related essay: Ernest Mandel and capitalist breakdown, by George Kerevan, published in Conter (Scotland), Aug 3, 2020
Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, by Ernest Mandel, 1964, 78 pp
Marxist Economic Theory, by Ernest Mandel, Merlin Press, 1962, 797 pp
New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives, by Alex de Waal, Polity Press, March 2021, 296 pp (read a review of the book in the London School of Economics Blog, May 2021 here
Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler’s Brownshirts, by Daniel Siemens, Yale University Press, Oct 2017, 459 pp, ISBN 978 0 300 19681 8 (Review here in London Review of Books, Feb 2018: Hitler’s stormtroopers)
The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb And The Architecture Of An American Myth, by Gar Alperovitz, Alfred A. Knoff, 1995, 843 pp, ISBN 0-679-44331-2 (And read: ‘Unjust cause: Interview with historian Gar Alperovitz on the U.S. decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945’ essay by Andrew Cockburn, Harpers Magazine, May 25, 2016 (here in pdf format: Unjust cause: Interview with historian Gar Alperovitz on the U.S. decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945)
The Making Of The Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes, Simon & Schuster, 1987 (25th anniversay edition in 2012), 886 pp, ISBN 0-671-44133-7
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions Of A Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, 432 pp, ISBN 9781608196708. (Publisher’s promotion here; review in Slate.com here; review in New York Review of Books here. Interview with Daniel Ellsberg on Feb 1, 2018, here.)
Legacy Of Violence: A History of the British Empire, by Caroline Elkins, published by Knopf (Random House), March 2022, 896 pages (book reviews here and here)
The Korean War: A History, by Bruce Cumings, Modern Library, 2010, 288 pp. ISBN 9780812978964. (This is a condensed and updated version of his two volume The Origins of the Korean War, Princeton University Press, vol 1 published in 1980, vol 2 in 1991. A review of the book is here.)
The Hidden History of the Korean War, by I.F. Stone, 1952, 2nd edition 1970, Monthly Review Press. (Review of I.F. Stone’s The Hidden History of the Korean War, attached pdf.)
Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Martin Hart-Landsberg, Monthly Review Press, 1998, 288 pp, ISBN 978085345927
‘Kill Anything That Moves’: The Real American War In Vietnam, by Nick Turse, Henry Holt and Co., 2013, 370 pp (review of the book, by Jonathan Schell, here)
The 10,00 Day War: Vietnam 1945-1975, by Michael Maclear, St.Martin’s Press, 1981, 367 pp, ISBN 13: 978-0312790943. (The book was made into a 26-part, 30 minutes per episode, television series on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, airing in 1984 and 1985.)
The New India: The Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy, by Rahul Bhatia, published by Abacus (Hachette Group), Aug 2024, 440 pages (Review in New York Times in Nov 2024, here in pdf format: How India came to be an authoritarian state)
Inglorious Empire: What The British Did To India, by Shashi Tharoor, Hurst and Company, 2017, 295 pp (brief review here)
The Case For India, by Will Durant, first published in 1930 by Simon & Shuster
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, Liveright (Norton), 2020, 640 pp ISBN: 978-1-63149-166-5 Book reviews in NPR and in Washington Post
The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., by Peniel E. Joseph, Basic Books, March 2020, 384 pp
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint L’Ouverturre, by Sudhir Hazareesingh; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 427 pp, 2020
Haiti’s humanitarian crisis: Rooted in history of military coups and occupations, essay by Roger Annis and Kim Ives, May 2011 (here as pdf, eight pages: Haiti’s Humanitarian Crisis, by Roger Annis and Kim Ives, May 2011)
Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment, by Peter Hallward, Verso, 2007. New edition with a post-earthquake postscript published in 2011.
Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Fraud, Food Aid and Drug Trafficking; by Tim Schwartz, self published, 2008, 332 pp, ISBN 1419698036
The Great Haiti Humanitarian Aid Swindle, by Tim Schwartz, self published, 2017, 508 pp, ISBN 1544054742 (Reviewed here, Sept 2017)
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein, Liveright, 2017, 345 pp., ISBN-13: 978-1631492853 (Reviewed here in NYRB, Feb 2018)
A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, by Linda Melvern, Zed Books, 2000, 272 pp, ISBN 9781856498319 (Reviewed here, June 2009.)
The German Ideology, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in two volumes. Completed in 1846 but not published until 1932 (by David Riazanov through the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow). The work is the first, large exposition of Marx’s and Engels’ materialist conception of history. (Some editions include the brief ‘Theses On Feuerbach’.) Available online at Marxist Internet Archive.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, published in 1848. Written by Marx, the Manifesto drew upon Engels’ 1847 pamphlet Principles of Communism. Available online at Marxist Internet Archive.
Capital, by Karl Marx, with editorial assistance by Frederick Engels, in three volumes. Volume one published in 1867; volumes two and three completed and published posthumously by Engels following Marx’s death in 1882. This is the classic study of capitalist political economy; one of the most widely published and read books in history.
A World To Win: The Life And Works Of Karl Marx, Sven-Eric Liedman, Verso Books, May 2018, 756pp, ISBN 978-1-78663-504-4 (paperback Feb 2019, 9781786635051), translated from the original Swedish published in 2015 (Publisher’s information is here. “An epic new biography of Karl Marx for the 200th anniversary of his birth. Building on the work of previous biographers, Liedman employs a commanding knowledge of the 19th century to create a definitive portrait of Marx and his vast contribution to the way the world understands itself…”)
Karl Marx: His Life and Thought, by David McLellan, published by MacMillan, 1974, 498 pp, ISBN-13: 9780060128296
Karl Marx and the place of Indigenous peoples in history, feature essay by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Hannah Holleman, Monthly Review, issue of February 2020
The roots of Karl Marx’s anti-colonialism, essay by Thierry Drapeau, published by Jacobin Magazine, Jan 4, 2019 Through his relationship with the Chartist radical and labor poet Ernest Jones, Karl Marx came to realize the necessity of opposing slavery and colonialism in ending capitalism. Read it here in pdf format: The roots of Karl Marx’s anti-colonialism, Jan 2019.
The Materialist Conception Of History, George Plekhanov, 1897. Full text available online here at Marxist Internet Archive. See also by G. Plekhanov: The Monist View of History and The Role of the Individual in History.
The Three Sources And Three Component Parts Of Marxism, by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, published in 1913, available here on Marxists Internet Archive
Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism, by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, published in 1914, available here on Marxists Internet Archive
Marx’s Capital, by Ben Fine, 1975, 76 pp, SBN 333178459
Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class, by Michael Lebowitz, Palgrave MacMillan, 2003 (2nd edition), 231 pp, ISBN 0-333-9640-6 (Michael Lebowitz passed away on April 19, 2023. A new, commemorative website lists all of his political writings is here. See also: ‘Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz, on Marx’s Capital, ‘existing socialism’, and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela’, published in Monthy Review, April 2014.)
Marx and Engels: Their Contribution To The Democratic Breakthrough, by August M. Nimtz Jr., State University of New York Press, 2000, 377 pp, ISBN 0-791-44490-2
Two essays on Marxism and political strategy prior to 1917: The curious case of the ‘democratic road to socialism’ that wasn’t there, by Gil Schaeffer, April 24, 2020 and: Marxism, the democratic republic and the undemocratic U.S. constitution, by Gil Schaeffer, July 30, 2019
Proposed Roads To Freedom, by Bertrand Russell, published in 1918. (This pdf attachment is chapter four of the book, titled ‘Work and Pay’, including the table of contents: Bertrand Russell, Work and Pay, 1918. The full text of the book is here.)
The legacy of the Second International, essay by Mike Taber, published on the website John Riddell: Marxist essays and commentary, August 8, 2020 (Mike Taber is the editor of the forthcoming book Under the Socialist Banner: Resolutions of the Second International, 1889-1912, to be published in spring 2021 by Haymarket Books.)
Marx 200: A Review Of Marx’s Economics 200 Years After His Birth, by Michael Roberts, published by Lulu, March 2018, 176 pp, ISBN 9780244076252 (publisher info here)
Class struggle and the potential of history, by Ernest Mandel. Text of a lecture delivered in Germany in October 1987, translated and published by the International Institute for Research and Education, Sep 14, 2020. Read it here in pdf format: E. Mandel on class struggle and the potential of history
The Russian Revolution of 1917
To the Rural Poor, by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, published in 1903. Available online at Marxist Internet Archive
The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, by V.I. Lenin, published in 1916 (nine pages, 4,500 words, consisting of nine theses; here in pdf format: Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination)
The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution (aka The April Theses), by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, published in April 1917. Available online at Marxist Internet Archive
The Ballot, the Streets, or Both: From Marx and Engels to Lenin and the October Revolution, by August Nimtz, Haymarket Books, November 2019
The Bolsheviks Come to Power, a New Interpretation, historical esssay by August Nimtz, originally published in Science & Society, Vol. 81, #4, October 2017, pages 478–500. Here in pdf format: The Bolsheviks Come to Power, a New Interpretation, historical essay by August Nimtz, Oct 2017
Lenin Rediscovered: ‘What Is To Be Done’ in Context, by Lars Ti Lih, Haymarket Books, 2005, 613 pp, ISBN 9-781-93185958-5 (includes text of author’s re-translation of What Is To Be Done, 1902, 180 pp)
Lenin, political biography by Lars Ti Lih, Reaktion Books, 2011, 240 pp, ISBN 9781861897930
The History of the Russian Revolution, by Leon Trotksy, first published in English by the University of Michigan Press, 1932, app. 1,200 pages, ISBN 0-913460-83-4. In three volumes: 1. The Overthrow of Tsarism, 2. The Attempted Counter-Revolution, 3. The Triumph of the Soviets. Available online at Marxist Internet Archive.
The Prophet Armed, volume one of a three-volume biography of Leon Trotsky, by Isaac Deutscher, Oxford University Press, 1963
The Petrograd Workers in the Russian Revolution: February 1917-June 1918, by David Mandel, paperpback edition revised and expanded by Haymarket Books, 2018, 522 pages (originally published in two volumes by MacMillan, 1983 and 1984)
Centenary of the Russian Revolution and the repudiation of debt, three-part essay by Eric Toussaint, coordinator of the Committee for the Elimination of Third World Debt (CADTM, Belgium)
Part one: Russia: Repudiation of debt was at the heart of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, July 5, 2017
Part two: From Tsarist Russia to the 1917 revolution and the repudiation of debt, July 7, 2017
Part three: The Russian Revolution, debt repudiation, war and peace, July 12, 2017
Black Bolsheviks and white lies: Reflections on the Black radical tradition, essay by Peta Lindsay, published by The Hampton Institute, Nov 2, 2017
Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent, by Dan Healey, University of Chicago Press, 2001, 392 pp, ISBN 9780226322346 (reviewed here by by Gennady Shkliarevsky)
War Communism in retrospect, by Paul Flewers, published in What Next?, no 5, 1997 (7,100 word essay, pdf here: War Communism in retrospect, by P. Flewers)
Reflections on the Russian Revolution of 1917, essay by Roger Annis, Sept 11, 2017, (4700 word essay, pdf here)
The aftermath of the Russian Revolution
The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917-1923, by Jeremy Smith, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, 304 pp, ISBN 9780333727591
To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920, First Congress of the Peoples of the East, edited by John Riddell, Pathfinder Press, 1993, ISBN 0-87348-769-9 (Related essay: How socialists of Lenin’s time responded to colonialism, by John Riddell, Dec 2014
Report on the New Economic Policy to the 7th Moscow Gubernia Conference of the Russian Communist Party, by V.I. Lenin, Oct 29, 1921 (here)
Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution, report by V.I. Lenin to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, November 13, 1922 (here)
The New Economic Policy of Soviet Russia and the Perspectives of the World Revolution, report by Leon Trotsky delivered to the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International, session of Nov 14, 1922. (Attached here as pdf: Report by Leon Trotsky on New Economic Policy to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922.docx)
The New Economics, by Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, published in Russian in 1924 under the original title The Fundamental Law of Socialist Accumulation; English translation and publication by Oxford University Press in 1965, 331 pp (online in pdf format here)
The Permanent Revolution (1929), by Leon Trotsky, available on the Marxist Internet Archive This is the book in which Leon Trotksy formally shifted from his stated view in 1917 that VI Lenin and the Bolshevik Party he led had a more accurate assessment of the class forces that could make possible a revolution in Russia that would, in turn, open a path to socialism. The Bolshevik view was in contrast to Trotsky’s theory of ‘permanent revolution’ as expressed in Trotsky’s 1905 essay ‘Results and Prospects’.
The Russian Revolution, from Lenin to Stalin, by E.H. Carr, The Free Press, 1979, 191 pages The book is a summation of the first four volumes (covering 1917-1929) of E.H. Carr‘s 14-volume History of Soviet Russia, published between 1950 and 1978.
Moscow Under Lenin, by Alfred Rosmer, Monthly Review Press, 1972, 253 pp, SBN 85345-257-1. Originally published in French as Moscou sous Lénine, 1953.
Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938, by Stephen Cohen; originally published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc, 1973; Vintage paperback, 1975, ISBN 0-394-71261-7
The Politics and Economics of the Transition Period, by Nikolai Bukharin, consisting of two essays: ‘The Theory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’, written in 1919, and ‘The Economics of the Transition Period’, written in 1920; published in English by Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979, 257 pp.
Selected Writings of Nikolai Bukharin on the State and the Transition to Socialism; translated, edited and introduced by Richard B. Day, with forewords by Stephen F Cohen and Ken Coates; published by ME Sharpe (Armonk, New York), 1982; ISBN 0-87332-190-1; 356 pages (digitized in 2022 by the Internet Archive, with funding from the Kahle/Austin Foundation) The book is here in pdf format: Nikolai Bukharin, Selected Writings on the State and the Transition to Socialism
This I Cannot Forget, The Memoirs of Nikolai Bukarin’s Widow, by Anna Larina. First published in Russian (in the Soviet Union) in 1988 and in English in 1993 (with an introduction by Stephen Cohen).
The October Revolution in Prospect and Retrospect, by John Marot, volume 37 in the Historical Materialism Book Series, Brill Publishers, 2012, 284pp
The Prophet Armed, and The Prophet Outcast, volumes two and three of the three-volume biography of Leon Trotsky, by Isaac Deutscher, Oxford University Press, 1963
Trotsky’s Challenge: Documents of the ‘Literary Discussion’ of 1924 and the Fight for the Bolshevik Revolution, translated, annotated, and introduced by Frederick C. Corney, published by Brill (Leiden, The Netherlands), 2015, 848 pages, ISBN 9789004217256 (in paperback by Haymarket Books, 2017, ISBN: 9781608467044)
Three books by Moshe Lewin: (Moshe Lewin (1910-2021) is the most important writer in English for understanding how authoritarian socialism came to rule in the Soviet Union.)
Lenin’s Last Struggle, University of Michigan Press, 2005 (This is a new edition of the 1968 original. It is an essential political biography for understanding the ideas of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the key founder in 1922 of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.)
The Making of the Soviet System: Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia, Pantheon Books, 1985, 354 pp, ISBN 0394543025
The Soviet Century, Verso Books, 2005, 416 pp (From the book cover: ‘Moshe Lein’s superb new book provides a master class in understanding the structures and intricate workings of the Soviet system’.)
Famine conditions in the Soviet Union in 1932-33 and the false claims of starvation directed against the peasants of Ukraine by the then-gov’t of the Soviet Union (the so-called ‘Holodomor’) A compilation by Roger Annis of documents and books, many authored by Professor Mark Tauger (West Virginia University), is here
From Lenin to Stalin, by Victor Serge, 1937, 160 pp. (pdf of original 1937 edition is on Marxist Internet Archive)
The Revolution Betrayed, by Leon Trotsky, 1937, 314 pp. Available online at Marxist Internet Archive.
Kronstadt 1921, by Paul Avrich, Princeton University Press, 1970, 288 pp, ISBN 9780691630502
Kronstadt, by V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Pathfinder Press, 1979, 208 pp, ISBN-13: 978-0-87348-883-9
Reconstructing Lenin, by Tamas Krausz, Monthly Review Press, 2015, 515 pp, ISBN 9781583674499. (A new appraisal of the ideas and legacy of VI Lenin.)
Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19, by Sebastian Haffner, 1969, Banner Press translation to English in 1973, 208 pp, ISBN 0916650235
Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid For Power in Germany, 1921-1923, by Werner T. Angress, Princeton University Press, 1963, 513 pp
Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East, by David Stahel, Cambridge Military Histories, 2009, 500 pp, ISBN-13: 9780521170154
Kiev 1941: Hitler’s Battle for Supremacy in the East, by David Stahel, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 486 pp, ISBN-13: 9781107610149
Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization, by Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford, David Stahel; publisher Boydell and Brewer, 2012, 370 pp, ISBN 9781580464079
The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad, by Harrison Salisbury, Harper & Row, 1969, 635 pp, (paperback edition by Da Capo Press (Hachette Books) in 2003) [And view: ‘The 900 Days’, documentary film produced and directed by Jessica Gorter, 77 minutes, released in 2019.]
June 22, 1941: Soviet Historians and the German Invasion, edited by Vladimir Petrov, published in 1968, contains the English translation of June 22, 1941, by Aleksandr Nekrich, published in the Soviet Union in 1965 (available here and here)
Stalingrad: The City That Defeated the Third Reich, by Jochen Hellbeck, Public Affairs, 2015, 500 pp, ISBN 9781610394970 (Review here in Boston Globe, 2015. The book consists of an excellent, 90-page introduction by the author followed by 410 pages of testimonial by combatants of all rank in the battle of Stalingrad, which lasted six months, ending in February 1943. The testimonials were gathered on the spot by a special commission of the wartime government of the Soviet Union. Few of those testimonials have been published until this book.)
A Russian Journal, by John Steinbeck, photographs by Robert Capa, originally published in 1948, Penguin Classics paperback edition in 2000. Reviewed here in 2013. ‘The Russiasn people we met had a hatred of war and wanted the same things all people want–good lives, increased comfort, security, and peace.’
The Cold War: A World History, by Odd Arne Westad, Allen Lane, Aug 2017, 710 pp, ISBN 9780241011317. Reviewed in London Review of Books, Jan 25, 2018; read the review here in pdf format: Book review, The Cold War
The Inconsistencies of State Capitalism, essay by Ernest Mandel, 1969, 36 pp. Available online at Marxist Internet Archive.
Revolution From Above: The Demise of The Soviet System, by David Kotz with Fred Weir, Routledge, 1997, 302 pp, ISBN 0415143179
The Conundrum of Russian Capitalism: The Post-Soviet Economy in the World System, by Ruslan Dzarasov; Pluto Press, Dec 2013, 320 pp, ISBN 9780745332789
On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians, essay by Vladimir Putin, published on the website of the President of Russia, May 12, 2021 read the essay here in pdf format: On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians
Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist Fascism, Genocide, and Cult, by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, ibidem Press (Germany), 2014, 670 pages (book summary is here at Columbia U. Press)
The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), The Ukrainian Partisan Army (UPA) and the Nazi Genocide in Ukraine, book chapter (26 pages) by Ivan Katchanovski (University of Ottawa), July 2019 (contained in Collaboration in Eastern Europe during World War II and the Holocaust, New Academic Press, July 2019)
The Crimea Question Identity, Transition, and Conflict, by Gwendolyn Sasse, Harvard U. Press, 2005 (paperback edition in 2014), 384 pp [Year 2022: Gwendolyn Sasse is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe (Brussels).]
Timothy Snyder’s lies, lengthy essay and review of Timothy Snyder’s 2010 book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Daniel Lazare, first published in Jacobin, Sept 9, 2014 here in pdf format: Timothy Snyder’s Lies, essay by Daniel Lazare, Sep 2014
The ‘double genocide’ theory equating the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany is the new and official form of genocide denial, by Dovid Katz, published in Jewish Currents, autumn 2017
The Chinese Revolution of 1949
Red Star Over China, by Edgar Snow, 1937 (An international bestseller, based on Snow’s harrowing reporting trip to the liberated zones of Pao-an region in western China in 1936, on the eve of the attack and occupation of eastern China by Japan in 1937. The book draws heavily on Snow’s interviews there with Mao Zedong.)
Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-century World: A Concise History, by Rebecca E. Karl, Duke University Press, 2010, 216 pp (review here)
Mao’s China And After, by Maurice Meisner, The Free Press, third edition 1986, 587 pp (brief review here)
The market’s shadow: China between capitalism and communism, essay and book review by Andrew B. Liu, in The Nation, Feb 21, 2022 (Andrew B. Liu is an assistant professor of history at Villanova University and the author of ‘Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India’.) Read the essay/review here in pdf format: China between capitalism and communism
Reviewing:
* Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China’s Capitalist Ascent, by Jason M. Kelly, Harvard U. Press, May 2021, 320 pages,
* How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate, by Isabella M. Weber, published by Routledge, May 2021, 358 pages
Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949-2020). Book published by Palgrave MacMillan, 2021, 511 pp. Open access, download the book here at Springer.com. Read the book summary (five pages) here in pdf format: Summary, Ten Crises.
Revolution and Counter-Revolution in China, by Lin Chun, Verso Books, 2021 352 pp [This book provides very insightful analysis of China’s worldshaking revolution in 1949. But it fails to convince in its central argument that a counter-revolutionary restoration of capitalism took place in China beginning in the 1980s. Its interpretation of the ideas and actions of Mao Zedong is very positive, notwithstanding claimed ‘errors’ and ‘excesses’ he commited during the periods of the Great Leap Forward (app. 1959 to 1961) and the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966-69).]
Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday’s ‘Mao: The Unknown Story’, edited by Gregor Benton and Lin Chun, Routledge 2010, 208 pp
China In One Village, by Liang Hong, first English translation by Verso Books, 2021, 307 pp ‘Chronicling the changes and continuities of rural society in China.’ (The book was a best-seller in China, published there in 2010.)
Imperialism And The Development Myth. Is China An Imperialist Country?, by Sam King, Manchester University Press, August 2021, 295 pp (read the publisher’s promotional description here)
Lenin’s theory of imperialism: A defence of its relevance in the 21st century, essay by Sam King, published in Marxist Left Review (Australia), issue dated winter 2015-16 ‘This essay is divided into three parts. The first outlines Lenin’s theory and the key ideas necessary to apply it in today’s conditions. The second section focuses on misunderstandings within the ‘International Socialist’ tradition and of various writers at one time associated with it. The final section applies the Leninist theoretical framework to show that China is not a rising imperialist power, and that even its full development as a capitalist economy is blocked by imperialism.’
Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century, approved on Nov 11, 2021, text published in Xinhua.net, Nov 16, 2021 The document is 52 pages and can be read here in pdf format: CPC resolution on party history, Nov 2021
The Boxer Rebellion, by Diana Preston, 2000 ‘The dramatic story of the uprising by the Chinese people in 1900 against foreign occupiers.’
Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (1925-27), by Harold Isaacs, 1938. (Available online at Marxist Internet Archive. This is a Trotskyist analysis of the defeated Chinese Revolution of 1925-27. It is highly critical of the leadership of the Soviet Union of the time, which rejected the prospect of a worker/peasant revolution in China and instead sought a long-term political alliance with the nationalist general Chiang Kai-shek. He became the dictator of the island redoubt of Taiwan following the defeat of his military forces, allied with imperialism, in 1949 by the People’s Liberation Army.)
We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World, by Helen Yaffe, Yale University Press, April 2020, 288 pp Reviewed here in Jacobin, Jan 30, 2021. By the same author: Day zero in Cuba: The end of the country’s dual currency system, essay published in ‘Sidecar’ (New Left Review blog), Feb 2, 2021
The Second Declaration of Havana, Fidel Castro, 1962, contained in The First and Second Declarations of Havana, Pathfinder Press, 100 pp, ISBN-13: 978-0-87348-869-3. pdf copy here.
Cuba: A New History, by Richard Gott, Yale University Press, 2004, 384 pp, ISBN 0-30011-114-2
Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism, Carlos Tablada, Pathfinder Press, 326 pp, 1986, ISBN-10: 0-87348-876-8
Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground, Julia E. Sweig, Harvard University Press, 2004, ISBN 9780674016125
Che Guevara: The Economics Of Revolution, Helen Yaffe, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009, 354 pp, ISBN 978-0-230-21821-5 (read Helen Yaffe’s account of how she came to write this book, here)
Health Care Without Borders: Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism, by John Kirk, University Press of Florida, 2015, 376 pp, ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-6105-4. (review here.)
Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution, by Don Fitz, Monthly Review Press, June 2020, 296pp (reviewed here and here)
Social rights and political economy in Canada
Escape From the Staples Trap: Canadian political economy after left nationalism, Paul Kellogg, University of Toronto Press, 2015, 275 pp, ISBN 0-8020-9654-8. Book summary and reviews here at publisher website.
Joining Empire: The Political Economy of the New Canadian Foreign Policy, by Jerome Klassen, University of Toronto Press, 2014, ISBN 9781442614604. Book summary and reviews here at publisher website.
Imperialist Canada, by Todd Gordon, ARP Books, 2010, 432 pp, ISBN-10 1-894037-45-6
Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, edited and with contributions by Jerome Klassen and Greg Albo, U of T Press, 2013, 432 pp, ISBN 9781442613041
Winning Choice On Abortion, How British Columbian and Canadian Feminists Won the Battles of the 1970s and 1980s, by Anne Thompson, Trafford Publishing, 2008, 340 pp, ISBN 9781412042475
Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life, by James Daschuk, University of Regina Press, second edition 2019, 386 pp, ISBN 9780889776227
Reviewed here.
The Northwest Is Our Motherland: The Story of Lous Riel’s People, The Métis, by Jean Teillet, Harper Collins Publishers, 2019, 566 pp, ISBN 978-1-4434-5012-6
The Dispossessed: Life and Death in Native Canada, by Geoffrey York, Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1989
Prison of Grass: Canada From a Native View, by Howard Adams, 1975, new edition in 1989, Fifth House Publishers, 208 pp, ISBN 0-920079-51-2. Brief review here.
Red Power In Canada, pamphlet by Richard Fidler, 1970, text here
Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada, by Douglas Victor Janoff, 2005, University of Toronto Press, 290 pp, eISBN: 978-1-4426-7849-1
