Sherry Wolf analyzes different theories about oppression—including those of Marxism, postmodernism, identity politics, and queer theory—and challenges myths about genes, gender, and sexuality.“Sexuality and Socialism is the most intelligent and enlightened discussion on sexuality to come from the Left in a long time. No other work that comes to my mind explains the history of sexuality and sexual repression in the United States as comprehensively and compellingly.”—Ron Jacobs, Dissident Voice“Sherry Wolf: Lesbian, Activist, Communist & Badass-ist... spoke to a pre-National Equality March rally. She. Blew. It. Up.”—Austin Chronicle“Sherry speaks with such eloquence and plain common sense that I can't help but want to know more about her ideas and convictions.”—Derek Washington, “In the LV” radio host, Director of LGBT Outreach, Clark County Democratic Black Caucus“The icons of the new generation of activists are people like Lady Gaga, Dustin Lance Black, Judy Shephard, Lt. Daniel Choi (ret.) and Sherry Wolf (author of Sexuality and Socialism).”—Don Gorton, Join the Impact Board Member“Surprisingly funny, very readable and a fitting tome for a new movement in these troubled times.”—Dave Zirin for Progressive's Best Books of 2009“‘What humans have constructed they can tear down.’ This is the powerful insight of this rare book that is at once politically important, theoretically and historically sophisticated, and clearly written. Sexuality and Socialism is enlivened in its engagement with a number of controversies, including those over the alleged biological determination of homosexuality, the myth of Black homophobia, and the consequences of postmodernist theories for the politics of gay liberation. Above all else, Wolf puts forward a cogent defense of the Marxist tradition—long and wrongly reviled as homophobic in itself—as a way to explain how LGBT oppression arose and what we can do to put it to bed.”—Dana Cloud, University of Texas at AustinSherry Wolf is the associate editor of the International Socialist Review. She was on the executive committee of the National Equality March Oct. 11, 2009 and has written for publications including the Nation, MRZine, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, and Socialist Worker and speaks frequently across the country on the struggle for LGBT liberation as well as a wide range of social and economic justice issue.

    But what exactly is populism? Should everyone who criticizes Wall Street or Washington be called a populist? What precisely is the difference between right-wing and left-wing populism? Does populism bring government closer to the people or is it a threat to democracy? Who are "the people" anyway and who can speak in their name? These questions have never been more pressing.In this groundbreaking volume, Jan-Werner MUller argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism. Populists will always claim that they and they alone represent the people and their true interests. MUller also shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, populists can govern on the basis of their claim to exclusive moral representation of the people: if populists have enough power, they will end up creating an authoritarian state that excludes all those not considered part of the proper "people." The book proposes a number of concrete strategies for how liberal democrats should best deal with populists and, in particular, how to counter their claims to speak exclusively for "the silent majority" or "the real people."Analytical, accessible, and provocative, What Is Populism? is grounded in history and draws on examples from Latin America, Europe, and the United States to define the characteristics of populism and the deeper causes of its electoral successes in our time.

    The effects have manifested in our news, entertainment, and Google searches, we’re finding that a lot of things we thought were objective aren’t automatically so.Reality is not a concept we want to flush down the toilet with yesterday's food, though. However, we must begin to understand how it works in a world where profit is the driving force.

    If you ever wanted to know what words like alienation and commodity fetishism and surplus value mean, this is the commodity for you.

    In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality.Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa.This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the develpment of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which, all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.

    Radicalism is as American as apple pie. One can scarcely imagine what American society would look like without the abolitionists, feminists, socialists, union organizers, civil-rights workers, gay and lesbian activists, and environmentalists who have fought stubbornly to breathe life into the promises of freedom and equality that lie at the heart of American democracy. The first anthology of its kind, The Radical Reader brings together more than 200 primary documents in a comprehensive collection of the writings of America's native radical tradition. Spanning the time from the colonial period to the twenty-first century, the documents have been drawn from a wealth of sources—speeches, manifestos, newspaper editorials, literature, pamphlets, and private letters. From Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" to Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics," these are the documents that sparked, guided, and distilled the most influential movements in American history. Brief introductory essays by the editors provide a rich biographical and historical context for each selection included. Includes: • Common Sense, Thomas Paine • Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln • Confession, Nat Turner • Last Speech to the Jury, John Brown • Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, Sarah Grimke • Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls Convention • Life in the Iron Mills, Rebecca Harding Davis • Speech to Striking Coal Miners, Mother Jones • Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. • The Ballot or the Bullet, Malcolm X • The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan • Silent Spring, Rachel Carson

    Part diagnosis of the times, part theoretical analysis of the impasses and possibilities of ethics and politics, part manifesto Infinitely Demandind identifies a massive political disappointment at the heart of liberal democracy and argues that what is called for is an ethics of commitment thatn can inform a radical politics. exploring the problem of ethics in Kant, Levinas, Badiou and Lacan that leads to a conception of subjectivity based on the infinite responsibility of an ethical demand, Critchley considers the possibility of political subjectivity and action after Marx and Marxism. Infinitely Demanding culminates in an argument for anarchism as an ethical practice and a renovating means of political organization.

    These queer thinkers, writers, and artists are committed to undermining a stunted conception of “equality.” In this powerful book, they challenge mainstream gay and lesbian struggles for inclusion in elitist and inhumane institutions. More than a critique, Against Equality seeks to reinvigorate the queer political imagination with fantastic possibility!

    A provocative new view of Marx stressing his humanist philosophy and challenging both Soviet distortion and Western ignorance of his basic thinking.

    From a cabal of thieving plutocrats in the White House to rising inequality and xenophobia worldwide, it is clear that democracy--specifically the principle of government by and for the people--is not living up to its promise.In Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Astra Taylor shows that real democracy--fully inclusive and completely egalitarian--has in fact never existed. In a tone that is both philosophical and anecdotal, weaving together history, theory, the stories of individuals, and conversations with such leading thinkers as Cornel West, Danielle Allen, and Wendy Brown, Taylor invites us to reexamine the term. Is democracy a means or an end, a process or a set of desired outcomes? What if the those outcomes, whatever they may be--peace, prosperity, equality, liberty, an engaged citizenry--can be achieved by non-democratic means? Or if an election leads to a terrible outcome? If democracy means rule by the people, what does it mean to rule and who counts as the people?The inherent paradoxes are too often unnamed and unrecognized. By teasing them out, Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone offers a better understanding of what is possible, what we want, and why democracy is so hard to realize.

    This work features chapters ranging from a study of industrial and brutalist aesthetics in Britain, the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich in film and design, and the alienation effects of Brecht and Hanns Eisler on record and on screen.

    This is a serious mistake. Unlike the neoliberal technocrats, who can point to social problems and tell people "trust us", the serious Left must learn how to argue and persuade. In Give Them an Argument, Ben Burgis arms his reader with the essential knowledge of formal logic and informal fallacies.

    The story follows Rosa from her family life in Jewish Poland—where she became the leader of a general strike at age fifteen and was exiled from her homeland at eighteen—to her immersion into the then largest radical party in the world, the German Social Democratic Party, to her founding of the German Communist Party and leadership of the German revolution of 1919.This beautifully drawn graphic life gives “Red Rosa” her due as an iconic radical, but also portrays a fascinating woman with a rich love life, struggles with physical disability and an abiding love of literature and theater. Rosa will contribute to the growing understanding of one of the twentieth century’s greatest revolutionaries.

    It presents a profound and challenging investigation into the nature of human reason, its knowledge and its illusions. Reason, Kant argues, is the seat of certain concepts that precede experience and make it possible, but we are not therefore entitled to draw conclusions about the natural world from these concepts. The Critique brings together the two opposing schools of philosophy: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. Kant's transcendental idealism indicates a third way that goes far beyond these alternatives.

    Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what's truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them?Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality.Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.