Londons Falling

Recent Artifact

Rating: 3/5
Comments:
It's rather late to be commenting on this well-intentioned 2002 anthology. However, researchers into post-soviet, anti-capitalist thinking may find the publication helpful. On one hand, there's really little here in the way of lasting political or theoretical value. On the other, the 300 pages do provide the reader with a good idea of just how dispersed and inchoate most anti-capitalist thinking is in the wake of the soviet demise. The shadow of Marx still looms large over the rebellious landscape suggesting that some 21st century reckoning amounts to a major order of business. However, don't look for anything on Iraq or the brutal resurgence of Western imperialism. Were the book updated, I suspect the contents would be meatier. All in all, a minor book on a major subject.

Crucial Reading

Rating: 5/5
Comments:
I have to say that this book really took me by surprise. It's a first class introduction to its subject matter, in terms of how it maps the intellectual currents that inform post-Seattle anti-market politics today. Its accessible, moves quickly, and the interviews with Thomas Frank, Slavoj Zizek and Negri are a total hoot to see gathered together in the same bookspace.

What is especially interesting is how many of the contributors to the book invoke the continuing importance of first and second generation Frankfurt School theory to the analysis of contemporary capitalism. While I wouldn't necessarily have thought this to be true, there's clearly some merit to this argument. Worth considering further.

embarassing, dissapointing

Rating: 1/5
Comments:
Thought this would be fun, but it is quite uninformative and banal, or worse at points. SOme of the writing is okay and all is "accessible" but that is easy when one has nothing to say, or has no research or complicated arguements to offer. This is stuff that would NEVER pass a real, professional editing process, and it is significant that the press here is virtually unknown and more like a desktop publisher than a real, even alternative press.
the henwood piece is jejune. He betrays no knowledge of having ever read Lenin or any Russian history, and so does not have anything to say other than 1917 was a long time ago (Duh~!) and that imperialism has changed since Lenin's time. Thanks, Einstein, but its interesting that about a dozen other, real economists/leftists have said that maybe some aspects of Lenin's analysis still shine today.
The editors once refer to MOnthly Review magazine as being a sect paper affiliated with some 'Trotskyite" group. This would come as news to the academics and independent journalists and actvists who have run the JOURNAL for over fifty years. Speaking of journalists, thats what all these folks are, except they arent very good and have no facts or research to present, and moreover have nothing substantial to say about what capitalism is, or anti-capitalism.
Save your money. You can hear better chit-chat about capitalism and "the left" in campus coffee bars, etc, and that'd be free. Poor trees!