Neville Spencer reviews John Bellamy Foster's The Return of Nature, which examines the ecological thought of those who came after Karl Marx and were influenced by his philosophy, politics and ecology.
-
-
Comics, graphic novels, narrative drawing, illustrated fiction are a growing arena for serious social and political commentary. Andrew Chuter reviews five that are a must read for activists today.
-
Chris Gaffney passed away on August 14 after a lengthy battle with cancer. An eloquent speaker, walking encyclopaedia of Marxism, talented actor, aficionado of opera and lover of nature and the animals with which we share the planet, he is survived by his long-time partner Jenny Campbell, their son Danny and granddaughter Elsa.
-
-
-
-
Adam Mayer’s book on Marxist currents in Nigeria is what it says on the cover — a rich history of Marxist and revolutionary thought and struggles that are little known outside the West African nation.
-
Cyril Lionel Robert James, best known as CLR James, was a Trinidadian-born, Black socialist whose work spanned many of the great struggles of the 20th century and across many continents.
-
Ian Parker has a track record as an ecosocialist political activist in Britain. He is a committed but non-dogmatic Marxist and a psychoanalyst so, unsurprisingly, anything he writes is likely to be serious and challenging.
Despite a strong theoretical and academic background, however, Parker writes in a very engaging and interesting fashion.
-
“The general idea of this little book is to understand and explain why Marx will still be read in the twenty-first century, not only as a monument of the past, but as a contemporary author — contemporary both because of the questions he poses for philosophy and because of the concepts he offers it,” French philosopher Etienne Balibar writes in The Philosophy of Marx.
With some reservations, I feel he achieves this goal. It is a thought-provoking book, but it may disappoint readers who seek either an introduction to Marx’s philosophy or a straightforward account of how Marx’s ideas can inspire focused political action in the 21st century.
-
John Bellamy Foster is the editor of US-based Marxist journal Monthly Review. His most recent book, written with Paul Burkett, is Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique (Brill, 2016). The French magazine La Revue du Projet asked him to reply to three questions on ecology and Marxism.
-
Marx & Nature: A Red & Green Perspective By Paul Burkett Haymarket Books, 2014 Marx and Nature is a challenging, but very important book for all those concerned with developing and acting on the ecological insights in Marxist theory.
