Socialism Betrayed by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny - It's very enjoyable if very frustrating. While I don't normally want to engage in Great-Man-ism Gorbachev did play an outsized role in destroying the Soviet Union. The fact that it was far from inevitable but everything had to go a specific way for Capitalism to be restored is both disheartening that it happened in the Soviet Union but also encouraging in that it seems pretty difficult to replicate.
Morning Star by Michael Löwy - A socialist examination of the Surrealist Movement that argues for the Romantic and magical character of Marxism. There's a lot of fine lines the book has to negotiate like re-enchantment vs mystification, the fascist idealization of the past with the socialist idealization of the future, the specific history of the Surrealist Movement in early 20th century France and the wider context and legacy, etc. I think Löwy does a good job with it. At times one of the most emotionally touching books I've read lately.
Old Gods, New Enigmas by Mike Davis - So I'm still on the first chapter, I'm sorry. It's very dense and reading it too long puts my head in a zone. I always feel in over my head when I see how thoroughly other people have thought about and considered Marx's works through history. That being said it's incredibly enlightening to see how ideas about class consciousness, revolution, and the constitution of the proletariat evolve and change over time, even within Marx's lifetime. It's a good reminder that Capital is not dogma and we need to be critical and flexible in adapting it to the modern day.
On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left by Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth - I wouldn't recommend it. There's a lot of horseshoe theory, they interpret Lenin's concept of the vanguard party as fundamentally cultish, and they view working in a political party to change the world as cult behavior. There's also a definite imbalance in how they look at left-wing and right wing cults (I think because they're ex-Trotskyists and they're more familiar with the left). In the left wing section they have specific examples like the Democratic Workers Party while in the right wing section they have white supremacy as a concept. It's lighter reading than the others and it can be fun when they provide ground-level views of the members of these microsects but I wouldn't consider it essential reading.
Help! I can't stop starting new books!
Socialism Betrayed by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny - It's very enjoyable if very frustrating. While I don't normally want to engage in Great-Man-ism Gorbachev did play an outsized role in destroying the Soviet Union. The fact that it was far from inevitable but everything had to go a specific way for Capitalism to be restored is both disheartening that it happened in the Soviet Union but also encouraging in that it seems pretty difficult to replicate.
Morning Star by Michael Löwy - A socialist examination of the Surrealist Movement that argues for the Romantic and magical character of Marxism. There's a lot of fine lines the book has to negotiate like re-enchantment vs mystification, the fascist idealization of the past with the socialist idealization of the future, the specific history of the Surrealist Movement in early 20th century France and the wider context and legacy, etc. I think Löwy does a good job with it. At times one of the most emotionally touching books I've read lately.
Old Gods, New Enigmas by Mike Davis - So I'm still on the first chapter, I'm sorry. It's very dense and reading it too long puts my head in a zone. I always feel in over my head when I see how thoroughly other people have thought about and considered Marx's works through history. That being said it's incredibly enlightening to see how ideas about class consciousness, revolution, and the constitution of the proletariat evolve and change over time, even within Marx's lifetime. It's a good reminder that Capital is not dogma and we need to be critical and flexible in adapting it to the modern day.
On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left by Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth - I wouldn't recommend it. There's a lot of horseshoe theory, they interpret Lenin's concept of the vanguard party as fundamentally cultish, and they view working in a political party to change the world as cult behavior. There's also a definite imbalance in how they look at left-wing and right wing cults (I think because they're ex-Trotskyists and they're more familiar with the left). In the left wing section they have specific examples like the Democratic Workers Party while in the right wing section they have white supremacy as a concept. It's lighter reading than the others and it can be fun when they provide ground-level views of the members of these microsects but I wouldn't consider it essential reading.