Book picks similar to
Socialism and religion by Vladimir Lenin


philosophy
theory
political-theory
western-philosophy

Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity


David Campbell - 1992
    In this new edition of a groundbreaking work -- one of the first to bring critical theory into dialogue with more traditional approaches to international relations -- David Campbell provides a fundamental reappraisal of American foreign policy, with a new epilogue to address current world affairs and the burgeoning focus on culture and identity in the study of international relations.Extending recent debates in international relations, Campbell shows how perceptions of danger and difference work to establish the identity of the United States. He demonstrates how foreign policy, far from being an expression of a given society, constitutes state identity through the interpretation of danger posed by others.

The Wretched of the Earth


Frantz Fanon - 1961
    Fanon's masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said's Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other.Fanon's analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.

Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation


Laboria Cuboniks - 2015
    “Xenofeminism is gender-abolitionist… Let a hundred sexes bloom! …[And, let’s] construct a society where traits currently assembled under the rubric of gender, no longer furnish a grid for the asymmetric operation of power… You’re not exploited or oppressed because you are a wage labourer or poor; you are a labourer or poor because you are exploited…”

Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance


Simon Critchley - 2007
    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.

The ABC of Communism


Nikolai Bukharin - 1919
    First published in 1919 and 1920 respectively, Programme of the Russian Communist Party and ABC of Communism were created as popular introductions, explanations, and commentary for the masses on the new party. Today they serve as historical documents and offer a non-Stalinist view of early Russian Communism. A new introduction and a glossary are included.

Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis


Chris Williams - 2010
    The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus on individual lifestyle changes, yet the scale of the crisis requires far deeper adjustments. Ecology and Socialism argues that time still remains to save humanity and the planet, but only by building social movements for environmental justice that can demand qualitative changes in our economy, workplaces, and infrastructure."Williams adds a new and vigorous voice to the growing awareness that, yes, it is our capitalist system that is ruining the natural foundation of our civilization and threatening the very idea of a future. I am particularly impressed by the way he develops a clear and powerful argument for an ecological socialism directly from the actual ground of struggle, whetheragainst climate change, systematic poisoning from pollution, or the choking stream of garbage. Ecology and Socialism is a notable addition to the growing movement to save our planet from death-dealing capitalism.”—Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature�Finally, a book that bridges the best of the scholarly and activist literatures in socialist ecology! Sophisticated and compelling, eschewing academic jargons �postmodern’ and otherwise, Ecology and Socialism more than competently champions a Marxist approach to environmental crisis and the kind of economic democracy needed to achieve an ecologically friendly system of production and human development.”—Paul Burkett, author of Marxism and Ecological Economics�This book is more than essential reading—it is a powerful weapon in the fight to save our planet.”—Ian Angus, editor of climateandcapitalism.comChris Williams is a longtime environmental activist, professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University, and chair of the science department at Packer Collegiate Institute. He lives in New York City.

Arguing Religion: A Bishop Speaks at Facebook and Google


Robert Barron - 2018
    Whether with friends, family, or on social media, we expend lots of energy, lots of sharp words, and lots of strong feelings. But very few know how to have a good religious argument a rational, respectful, and productive exchange of differing views.Bishop Robert Barron, one of the leading Catholic figures in the world and among the most active on social media, has enjoyed thousands of fruitful religious arguments. In this book based on talks delivered at Facebook and Google, he explains why religion at its best opens up the searching mind, and how we all believer and unbeliever alike can share better discussions about God.

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity


Marshall Berman - 1982
    In this unparalleled book, Marshall Berman takes account of the social changes that swept millions of people into the capitalist world and the impact of modernism on art, literature and architecture. This new edition contains an updated preface addressing the critical role the onset of modernism played in popular democratic upheavals in the late 1920s.

The Bible in a Nutshell


Casper Rigsby - 2014
    With an estimated word count of well over 700,000 words, the book is not an undertaking for the casual reader. The book can be a very tedious and boring read. This turns many people off from wanting to commit any time to understanding the foundational doctrine of Christianity. However, as atheists we really need to have at least a basic understanding of the Bible if we are going to make a judgment call about the religion. No matter which sect of Christianity someone subscribes to, the Bible is the foundation of Christian belief. This book is a mere 7,000 words to tell a slimmed down version of the basic story of the Bible. This book focused on the narrative rather than any underlying allegory or metaphor inherent in the narrative. The author attempts to challenge the notion of biblical literalism by showing that the story in its most basic form is simply too fantastic for any rational person to believe.

Automation and the Future of Work


Aaron Benanav - 2020
    But does the much-discussed 'rise of the robots' really explain the jobs crisis that awaits us on the other side of the coronavirus? In Automation and the Future of Work, Aaron Benanav uncovers the structural economic trends that will shape our working lives far into the future. What social movements, he asks, are required to propel us into post-scarcity, if technological innovation alone can’t deliver it? In response to calls for a universal basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he offers a counter-proposal.

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work


Nick Srnicek - 2015
    Austerity is forcing millions into poverty and many more into precarious work, while the left remains trapped in stagnant political practices that offer no respite. Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitaiist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms.

The People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism


Leigh Phillips - 2019
    Their remarkable success appears to vindicate the old idea that modern society is too complex to be subjected to a plan. And yet, as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski argue, much of the economy of the West is centrally planned at present. Not only is planning on vast scales possible, we already have it and it works. The real question is whether planning can be democratic. Can it be transformed to work for us?An engaging, polemical romp through economic theory, computational complexity, and the history of planning, The People’s Republic of Walmart revives the conversation about how society can extend democratic decision-making to all economic matters. With the advances in information technology in recent decades and the emergence of globe-straddling collective enterprises, democratic planning in the interest of all humanity is more important and closer to attainment than ever before.

Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone


Astra Taylor - 2019
    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.

The Communist Necessity: Prolegomena to Any Future Radical Theory


J. Moufawad-Paul - 2014
    We were more accurately a disorganized mob of enraged plebeians shaking our fists at a disciplined imperial army. Years ago we spoke of social movementism but now it only makes sense to drop the 'social' since this phase of confusion was incapable of understanding the social terrain. Disparate, unfocused, and divided movements lack a unified intentionality; they have proved themselves incapable of pursuing the necessity of communism." The Communist Necessity is a polemical interrogation of the practice of "social movementism" that has enjoyed a normative status at the centres of capitalism. Despite the fact that the name "communism" has been reclaimed by a variety of important intellectuals, J. Moufawad-Paul argues that, due to a failure to grapple with the concrete questions connected to historical moments of actually making revolution, movementist praxis remains hegemonic. More of a philosophical intervention than a historiography or political economy, The Communist Necessity engages in a quick and pointed manner with a variety of authors and tendencies including Alain Badiou, Jodi Dean, the Invisible Committee, Tikkun, Theorie Communiste, and others. Moufawad-Paul argues that a refusal to recognize contemporary revolutionary movements from the 1980s to the present, results in the reification of a capitalist "end of history" discourse within this movementist conceptualization of theory and practice.Originally written as a small essay on the left-wing blog MLM Mayhem, The Communist Necessity has been expanded into a pocket-sized treatise that sketches out the boundaries of the movementist terrain, as well as its contemporary ideologues, so as to raise questions that may be uncomfortable for those who are still devoted, particularly if they define themselves as marxist, to movementist praxis. Aware of his past affinity with social movementism, and some apprehension of the problem of communist orthodoxy, the author argues that the recognition of communism's necessity "requires a new return to the revolutionary communist theories and experiences won from history."

Marx's Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital


William Clare Roberts - 2016
    Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers' movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante's Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers' emancipation to the secret depths of the modern -social Hell.- In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism.Combining research on Marx's interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx's theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today's world.