Resistance Books is the publishing arm of Socialist Resistance. We publish books independently, and also jointly with Merlin Press (London) and the International Institute for Research and Education (Amsterdam).
Out now!
FACING THE APOCALYPSE
ARGUMENT FOR ECOSOCIALISM
By Alan Thornett
£15 (RRP £17, €20, $24)
Pub. Resistance Books & IIRE
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We are facing a multifaceted threat to life the planet. From a defence of the remarkable ecological content of classical Marxism – lost during the 20th century to the rise of productivism – the book is an appeal to the socialist left to take the ecological crisis far more seriously. Thornett engages directly with major debates such as the rising human population and carbon pricing that remain unresolved on the socialist left. His approach is to promote a transitional approach, distinct from both those that think capitalism will find a solution and those who think revolutionary propaganda is enough. He argues that defending the planet against this crisis today requires broadest possible movement of those – the 99 per cent – who are victims of it.
DECOLONIAL COMMUNISM, DEMOCRACY & THE COMMONS
By Catherine Samary
Contributions from Samuel Farber, Silvia Federici, Franck Gaudichaud, Zagorska Golubović, Ernest Mandel, Goran Marković, Svetozar Stojanović and Raquel Varela.
RRP £15.99; Pub. Resistance Books and Merlin Press
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HUGO BLANCO – a revolutionary for life
by Derek Wall
Published by Resistance Books and Merlin Press
£12; 150 pages.
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This engaging biography tells the story of one of Latin America’s most important revolutionary leaders. Hugo Blanco led a successful uprising for land rights in Peru in the 1960s. Praised by Che Guevara, remarkably Hugo is still politically active and militant in 2018. A Marxist in the 1960s, Hugo’s life charts a whole history of the Latin American left. He escaped the Chile coup of 1973, promoted indigenous struggles across the continent and met up with Zapatistas in the 1990s. Today Hugo is one of the world’s most prominent ecosocialist leaders, who argues that the most important task on the left is to fight climate change by transcending capitalism.
This is book that draws practical political lessons about how we change the world so humanity and the rest of nature has a future. It is equally an account of a dramatic revolutionary life, exile, prison and numerous brushes with death are all described.
“Derek Wall has written an extraordinary book about an extraordinary life filled with political lessons for today. Hugo Blanco has been an active participant in the movements of workers, peasants and indigenous communities in Peru and throughout Latin America for over fifty years.” Warren Montag
WE THE INDIANS – The indigenous peoples of Peru and the struggle for land
By Hugo Blanco, with an introduction by Eduardo Galeano
Foreword by Norma Giarracca
Published by Resistance Books, Merlin Press and the IIRE
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The story of indigenous peoples in Peru, and struggles for land reform and change from the 1950s and 1960s.
Hugo Blanco is a historic leader of the Peruvian campesino struggle and a key figure in the huge insurrections of the rural dispossessed. He was a key protagonist in the stories he shares in vivid but direct language. At the same time he gives voice to those who fought alongside him, while always advocating a respectful relationship with Pachamama (Mother Earth).
A red thread runs through these beautiful, scattered reflections, polemical interventions, autobiographical vignettes, and letters – Hugo Blanco’s unwavering stand with the oppressed, and belief in their capacity for self-emancipation. Jailed, exiled, tortured, his spirit of sedition never seems to wane. From student militancy, to factory organizing, to mobilizing with the landless, Blanco’s first political decades in Peru and Argentina set on course a long life of resolute antagonism to the tyranny of capital across several continents. – Jeffery R. Webber, author of The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same: The Politics and Economics of the New Latin American Left Hugo Blanco is an inspiration.
CRITIQUE OF MODERN BARBARISM
Essays on fascism, anti-Semitism and the use of history
By Enzo Traverso
To be published Summer 2019
Enzo Traverso is an Italian historian who has written on issues relating to the Holocaust and totalitarianism. He worked at the IIRE from 1989 to 1991. His recent books include: Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory, Columbia University Press, 2017, The End of Jewish Modernity, Pluto Press, 2016; Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914–1945, Verso, 2016; The Origins of Nazi Violence, New Press, 2003.
In this book, Traverso argues that after Auschwitz, Hiroshima and the gulag, the choice we face is no longer between the progress of civilization and a fall into ancient savagery, but between socialism conceived as a new civilization and the destruction of humankind. For Traverso the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is an image of what should impel us to rebel: not a sense of inevitable victory, but an ethical imperative.
FUNDAMENTALISM IN SOUTH ASIA
By Farooq Tariq, Achin Vanaik, Farooq Suhleria, Pierre Rousset, Mohiuddin Ahmad et al.
To be published Summer 2019
The authors analyse nationalist and religious fundamentalisms in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The rise of religious fundamentalism is not confined to Islamic fundamentalism, as can be seen in India. The authors analyse and discuss these movements, and discuss strategies of resistance.
REDISCOVERING THE PAST
Early British radical texts by Thomas Spence, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Heyrick, Thomas Hodgskin, William Cobbett, William Benbow, Standish Motte, Sussana Inge, et al.
Many individuals, organisations, and events played a formative role in the development of a radical tradition in 19th century Britain, but their memory was largely extinguished in the latter half of the century following the decline of Chartism and the emergence of Labourism. This book republishes material that would have been originally published in the form of pamphlets, manifestos, or magazine/newspaper articles. The texts are presented with an introduction and biographical information about the author.
