Showing titles in Communism & Socialism

From revolutionary to Cold War adversary, Fidel Castro was one of the world's most controversial leaders and perhaps its most enduring. As Cuba's president for nearly 50 years, Castro's influential leadership captivated allies and enemies alike. By virtue of passionate oration and committed sense of purpose - good or bad - Castro kept the Cuban people devoted and the world enthralled.

Among modern philosophers, few have had a greater impact on history than Karl Marx. Now this easy-to-use introduction to the 19th-century theorist breaks down his work into definitions of his terms and concepts, including Bourgeois State, Classless Society, and Freedom of the Press. Accompanied by an insightful introductory essay that puts the included excerpts from his works in context, The Wisdom of Marx is essential listening for an understanding of the man whose work incited far-reaching social and economic change.

Tony Saich tells the authoritative, comprehensive story of the Chinese Communist Party—its rise to power against incredible odds, its struggle to consolidate rule and overcome self-inflicted disasters, and its thriving amid other Communist parties' collapse. Saich argues that the brutal Japanese invasion in the 1930s actually helped the party. Once in power, however, the Communists faced the difficult task of learning how to rule. From Rebel to Ruler shows that the party owes its endurance to its flexibility. 

These early philosophical writings underpinned the Chinese revolutions and their clarion calls to insurrection remain some of the most stirring of all time. Drawing on a dizzying array of references from contemporary culture and politics, Zizek's firecracker commentary reaches unsettling conclusions about the place of Mao's thought in the revolutionary canon.

Focusing mostly on Italy and Germany but also considering Spain, Romania, Japan, and movements in other countries, Payne describes fascism as revolutionary ultranationalism based on national rebirth, extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the promotion of violence and military virtues. He also suggests that the early Russian communists borrowed many techniques from fascism, and that though we are fairly well-inoculated against fascism itself, the values it represents could still emerge in new forms.

Mafia Spies is the definitive account of America’s most remarkable espionage plots ever - with CIA agents, mob hitmen, “kompromat” sex, presidential indiscretion, and James Bond-like killing devices together in a top-secret mystery full of surprise twists and deadly intrigue. In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, were hired by the CIA to kill Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, only to wind up murdered themselves amidst Congressional hearings and a national debate about the JFK assassination.

Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life, many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means.

"The Law" by Frédéric Bastiat is a seminal work in political philosophy and economics, offering a robust defense of individual liberty and property rights against the encroachments of government.

Why, in our affluent society, do so many people live in poverty, without access to health care, working multiple jobs, and are nevertheless unable to make ends meet, with no future prospects, while the planet is burning? In his international bestseller, Kohei Saito argues that while unfettered...

Written in 1916 against the backdrop of the First World War, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism explains the flaws and power of capitalism, which inevitably lead to monopolies, imperialism and colonialism. Lenin develops Marx’s theories of political economy, which had been put forward 50 years earlier in Das Kapital. He goes on to argue that imperialism is the most advanced state of capitalism, characterised by the domination of monopolies on an international scale, with the export of capital leading to the big imperialist powers carving up the world.

The appearance of a hastily constructed barbed wire entanglement through the heart of Berlin during the night of 12-13 August 1961 was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. A city of almost four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world for the first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse.

What would a truly free society look like—and how might we build it? In Proposed Roads to Freedom, Bertrand Russell examines socialism, anarchism, and syndicalism, exploring their competing answers to the problems of inequality, exploitation, and concentrated power. Beginning with the ideas of...

This essay collection from renowned journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic, which quickly became a modern (and feminist) classic, draws back the Iron Curtain for a glimpse at the lives of Eastern European women under Communist regimes. Provocative, often witty, and always intensely personal, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed cracks open a paradoxical world that through its rejection of capitalism and commoditization ends up fetishizing both. 

The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin was published in 1917. Lenin's definition of the State is “a special organisation of force: it is an organisation of violence for the suppression of a class." Quoting Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Lenin investigates theoretical questions about the role and functions of the State in society after the proletarian revolution. He addresses the arguments of anarchists, reformists and social democrats, claiming that a social democratic system cannot establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Brought to you by Penguin. The definitive new history of East Germany by an acclaimed historian In 1990, a country disappeared. For the previous forty-one years, East Germany had existed in Western minds as more of a metaphor than a place, more of a grey communist blur than a land of real people...

The Russian Revolution may well be the most misunderstood event in modern history. In this fast-paced introduction, Neil Faulkner debunks the myths that continue to shroud it, showing how a mass movement of millions, organised in democratic assemblies, mobilised for militant action and destroyed a regime of landlords, profiteers and warmongers.

Are we living through the end of the democratic moment? While democracy once seemed the bedrock of Western societies, the past few decades have revealed a fragile reality. Once liberal countries are turning to authoritarianism, wealthy individuals and corporations are interfering with elections evermore flagrantly, and faith in democracy has plummeted among every demographic. What happened? From gerrymandering and partisanship to corporate interference and tainted donations, A. C. Grayling reveals the forces undermining our democratic ideals and offers bold solutions.

From longtime labor organizer Jane McAlevey, a vital call-to-arms in favor of unions, a key force capable of defending our democracy. For decades, racism, corporate greed, and a skewed political system have been eating away at the social and political fabric of the United States. Yet as McAlevey...

Rigorously empirical and rich in historical insight, The Sentinel State is a singular contribution to our knowledge about Chinese state coercion and, more generally, the survival strategies of authoritarian regimes.

Nicholas Potter dokumentiert und analysiert ein erschreckendes Phänomen: die neue autoritäre Linke. Sie gibt sich progressiv, tritt aber seit dem Angriff der Hamas auf Israel zunehmend demokratiefeindlich auf. Der Nahostkonflikt wird dabei zum Vietnam der Gen Z – ein Moment politischen Erwachens. Mit dogmatischem Eifer deutet sie radikalislamistische terroristische Gewalt zum dekolonialen Widerstand um.