E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making & recreates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status & freedom, who underwent degradation & who yet created a culture & political consciousness of great vitality. "Thompson's book has been called controversial, but perhaps only because so many have forgotten how explosive England was during the Regency & the early reign of Victoria. Without any reservation, The Making of the English Working Class is the most important study of those days since the classic work of the Hammonds."--Commentary "Mr Thompson's deeply human imagination & controlled passion help us to recapture the agonies, heroisms & illusions of the working class as it made itself. No one interested in the history of the English people should fail to read his book."--Times Literary Supplement

    In A People's History of the Russian Revolution, Neil Faulkner sets out to debunk the myths and pry fact from fiction, putting at the heart of the story the Russian people who are the true heroes of this tumultuous tale. In this fast-paced introduction, Faulkner tells the powerful narrative of how millions of people came together in a mass movement, organized democratic assemblies, mobilized for militant action, and overturned a vast regime of landlords, profiteers, and warmongers.   Faulkner rejects caricatures of Lenin and the Bolsheviks as authoritarian conspirators or the progenitors of Stalinist dictatorship, and forcefully argues that the Russian Revolution was an explosion of democracy and creativity—and that it was crushed by bloody counter-revolution and replaced with a form of bureaucratic state-capitalism.   Grounded by powerful first-hand testimony, this history marks the centenary of the Revolution by restoring the democratic essence of the revolution, offering a perfect primer for the modern reader.

    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.

    We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

    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

    She looks at the principles which underlie all revolutions, starting with the first great examples in America and France, and showing how both the theory and practice of revolution have since developed. Finally, she foresees the changing relationship between war and revolution and the crucial changes in international relations, with revolution becoming the key tactic.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    These 12 lectures invite you to go inside communism's journey from a collection of political and economic theories to a revolutionary movement that rocked the world. Rich with historical insights, they zero in on the "how" and "why" of the Bolsheviks' rise to power and how communist ideas worked in theory and practice - and how they didn't. First, you'll examine the utopian movements that influenced Marx and Engels, and how these leaders came to develop their revolutionary philosophies. From there, you'll discover how Lenin became the first person to put Marxist ideas into action by violently seizing power in Russia during the chaos of the First World War. Throughout, you'll meet thinkers and revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky, unpack the meaning of texts like Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, and experience the shock and awe of events including the Paris Commune and the October Revolution. An uncompromising look at one of the dominant political ideologies of the 20th century, this is a fascinating, and sobering, study of how theories rise to power in a bid to create a new civilization - whatever the human cost.

    A World to Win follows Marx through childhood and student days, a difficult and sometimes tragic family life, his far-sighted journalism, and his enduring friendship and intellectual partnership with Friedrich Engels.Building on the work of previous biographers, Liedman employs a commanding knowledge of the nineteenth century to create a definitive portrait of Marx and his vast contribution to the way the world understands itself. He shines a light on Marx’s influences, explains his political and intellectual interventions, and builds on the legacy of his thought. Liedman shows how Marx’s masterpiece, Capital, illuminates the essential logic of a system that drives dizzying wealth, grinding poverty, and awesome technological innovation to this day.Compulsively readable and meticulously researched, A World to Win demonstrates that, two centuries after Marx’s birth, his work remains the bedrock for any true understanding of our political and economic condition.

    This book is required reading for anyone concerned about a fundamental transformation of the ailing capitalist economy."—Cornel West“Richard Wolff’s constructive and innovative ideas suggest new and promising foundations for a much more authentic democracy and sustainable and equitable development, ideas that can be implemented directly and carried forward. A very valuable contribution in troubled times.”—Noam Chomsky"Probably America's most prominent Marxist economist."—The New York TimesCapitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve.One key cause for this intolerable state of affairs is the lack of genuine democracy in our economy as well as in our politics. The solution requires the institution of genuine economic democracy, starting with workers directing their own workplaces, as the basis for a genuine political democracy.Here Richard D. Wolff lays out a hopeful and concrete vision of how to make that possible, addressing the many people who have concluded economic inequality and politics as usual can no longer be tolerated and are looking for a concrete program of action.Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is currently a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research in New York. Wolff is the author of many books, including Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It. He hosts the weekly hour-long radio program Economic Update on WBAI (Pacifica Radio) and writes regularly for The Guardian, Truthout.org, and MRZine.

    It was also Engels's first book, written during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire combine to make this account of the life of the victims of early industrial change into a classic - a historical study that parallels and complements the fictional works of the time by such writers as Gaskell and Dickens. What Cobbett had done for agricultural poverty in his Rural Rides, Engels did - and more - in this work on the plight of the industrial workers in the England of the early 1840s. This edition includes the prefaces to the English and American editions, and a map of Manchester c.1845.

    Published in early 1968, it both kindled and colored the May 1968 upheavals in France, which captured the attention of the world. Naming and defining the alienating features of everyday life in consumer society: survival rather than living in full, the call to sacrifice, the cultivation of false needs, the dictatorship of the commodity, subjection to social roles, and the replacement of God by the economy, the book argues that the countervailing impulses that exist within deep alienation - creativity, spontaneity, poetry present an authentic alternative to nilhilistic consumerism. This carefully edited new translation marks the first North American publication of this important work and includes a new preface by the author.

    The Birth of the Russian IntelligentsiaII. German Romanticism in Petersburg and MoscowIII. Vissarion BelinskyIV. Alexander Herzen- Russian Populism- Tolstoy and Enlightenment- Fathers and ChildrenIndex

    Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

    Though they were men of very different backgrounds and experiences, Herman reveals how Wilson and Lenin were very much alike. Both rose to supreme power, one through a democratic election; the other through violent revolution. Both transformed their countries by the policies they implemented, and the crucial decisions they made. Woodrow Wilson, a champion of democracy, capitalism, and the international order, steered America's involvement in World War I. Lenin, a communist revolutionary and advocate for the proletariat, lead the Bolsheviks' overthrow of Russia's earlier democratic revolution that toppled the Czar, and the establishment of a totalitarian Soviet Union.Men of opposing ideals and actions, each was idolized by millions-and vilified and feared by millions more. Though they would never meet, these two world leaders came to see in the other the evils of the world each sought to eradicate. In so doing, both would unleash the forces that still dominate our world, and that continue to shape its future from nationalism and Communism to today's maps of the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe. In this incisive, fast-paced history, Herman brilliantly explores the birth of a potent rivalry between two men who rewrote the rules of geopolitics-and the moment, one hundred years ago, when our contemporary world began.

    a rich portrait of daily life under Stalin." --New York Times Book ReviewGeneral readers, students, and specialists alike will find much of relevance for understanding today's Soviet Union in this new edition of John Scott's vivid exploration of daily life in the formative days of Stalinism.