War of the Classes


Jack London - 1906
    He was a sailor and took part in the Klondike gold rush. The Call of the Wild, the classic story of sled-dog Buck brought him instant celebrity and established his readership to this day. Self-educated, London was heavily influenced by the works of Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche. This, along with his earlier experiences converted him to socialism as he explains in this volume.Contents:- The Class Struggle- The Tramp- The Scab- The Question of the Maximum- A Review- Wanted: A New Law of Development- How I Became a SocialistThis book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web.

The Theory of the Novel


György Lukács - 1916
    Like many of Lukacs's early essays, it is a radical critique of bourgeois culture and stems from a specific Central European philosophy of life and tradition of dialectical idealism whose originators include Kant, Hegel, Novalis, Marx, Kierkegaard, Simmel, Weber, and Husserl.The Theory of the Novel marks the transition of the Hungarian philosopher from Kant to Hegel and was Lukacs's last great work before he turned to Marxism-Leninism.

Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism


Vladimir Lenin - 1916
    VI Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism was one of the first attempts to account for the increasing importance of the world market in the twentieth century. Originally published in 1916, Imperialism explains how colonialism and the First World War were inherent features of the global development of the capitalist economy.In a new introduction, Norman Lewis and James Malone contrast Lenin's approach with that adopted by contemporary theories of globalisation. They argue that, while much has changed since Lenin wrote, his theoretical framework remains the best method for understanding recent global developments.

The Constitution of the United States of America


Founding Fathers - 1787
    This inexpesnive pamphlet edition is sure to be prized by Americans of all ages.

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses


Louis Althusser - 1970
    The text has influenced thinkers such as Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek.The piece is, in fact, an extract from a much longer book, On the Reproduction of Capitalism, until now unavailable in English. Its publication makes possible a reappraisal of seminal Althusserian texts already available in English, their place in Althusser’s oeuvre and the relevance of his ideas for contemporary theory. On the Reproduction of Capitalism develops Althusser’s conception of historical materialism, outlining the conditions of reproduction in capitalist society and the revolutionary struggle for its overthrow.Written in the afterglow of May 1968, the text addresses a question that continues to haunt us today: in a society that proclaims its attachment to the ideals of liberty and equality, why do we witness the ever-renewed reproduction of relations of domination? Both a conceptually innovative text and a key theoretical tool for activists, On the Reproduction of Capitalism is an essential addition to the corpus of the twentieth-century Left.

Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments


Theodor W. Adorno - 1944
    Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism."Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization.Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory.

Steal This Book


Abbie Hoffman - 1971
    Meant as a practical guide for the aspiring hippie, Steal This Book captures Hoffman's puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don't have to take it anymore. "All Power to the Imagination was his credo. Abbie was the best." —Studs Terkel

K-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher


Mark Fisher - 2018
    Covering the period 2004 - 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental health and popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on "Acid Communism"; and a number of important interviews from the last decade. Edited by Darren Ambrose and with a foreword by Simon Reynolds.

A Companion to Marx's Capital


David Harvey - 2008
    For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s most foremost Marx scholars.Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again.David Harvey’s video lecture course can be found here: davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

Complete Works


Plato
    He was an essential figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition, and he founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His lasting themes include Platonic love, the theory of forms, the five regimes, innate knowledge, among others. His theory of forms launched a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called Platonism. This collection contains the following works by Plato: Early Works • Apology • Charmides, or Temperance • Crito • Euthyphro • Gorgias • Hippias, Lesser • Hippias, Greater • Ion • Laches • Lysis • Protagoras Transitional Works • Cratylus • Euthydemus • Meno • Parmenides • Phaedo • Phaedrus • Symposium • The Republic Middle Works • Theaetetus Late Works • Critias • Laws • Philebus • Sophist • Statesman • Timaeus Works of Disputed Authorship • Alcibiades I & II • Eryxias • Menexenus • Theages

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman


Mary Wollstonecraft - 1792
    To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist?The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; inReason.

How to Change the World: Marx and Marxism 1840-2011


Eric J. Hobsbawm - 2011
    But as the free market reaches its extreme limits in the economic and environmental fallout, a reassessment of capitalism's most vigorous and eloquent enemy has never been more timely. Eric Hobsbawm provides a fascinating and insightful overview of Marxism. He investigates its influences and analyses the spectacular reversal of Marxism's fortunes over the past thirty years.

The Life of the Mind


Hannah Arendt - 1971
    The author’s final work, presented in a one-volume edition, is a rich, challenging analysis of man’s mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.

Civilization and Its Discontents


Sigmund Freud - 1930
    It is both witness and tribute to the late theory of mind—the so-called structural theory, with its stress on aggression, indeed the death drive, as the pitiless adversary of eros.Civilization and Its Discontents is one of the last of Freud's books, written in the decade before his death and first published in German in 1929. In it he states his views on the broad question of man's place in the world, a place Freud defines in terms of ceaseless conflict between the individual's quest for freedom and society's demand for conformity.Freud's theme is that what works for civilization doesn't necessarily work for man. Man, by nature aggressive and egotistical, seeks self-satisfaction. But culture inhibits his instinctual drives. The result is a pervasive and familiar guilt.Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey.Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.

Marxism and Literary Criticism


Terry Eagleton - 1976
    Sharp and concise, it is, without doubt, the most important work on literary criticism that has emerged out of the tradition of Marxist philosophy and social theory since the nineteenth century.