One man's odyssey through the world of books
Bill McGuire is a respected geologist and climate scientist. His new book presents climate science, viewed through the prism of historical geological processes, to a non-academic audience. Reading it in the middle of a summer of unprecedented heatwaves it is both prescient and terrifying. McGuire's argument is quite striking. He shows how the processes that have taken place in deep geological
Emmanuel Terray was a French political activist and Marxist anthropologist whose work was enormously important in the development of anthropological ideas. This short book is a collection of two seminal pieces, translated from French, wherein Terray grapples with the relevance of Marxism to anthropology. He does this by exploring the work of two other influential figures. The first of these is
In the early 1930s, as fascism in Germany grew from strength to strength, the great Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote a series of pamphlets and articles to explain the nature of fascism and to argue for a working class strategy that could defeat it. These articles, several of the most important of which are collected here, remain some of the best studies of German fascism and Hitler's rise
In 1938 George Clare, then aged 17 and an Austrian Jew, fled Vienna where he had grown up to escape the Nazi annexation of the country. Clare's parents would eventually die in the Holocaust, but in those pre-war years they initially ended up in Berlin where they expected to get passes to travel to France. Somewhat surprisingly, given the political situation, Clare fell in love with Berlin. Though
Well they always say you shouldn't be afraid to try new things. I was unsure I would like M. John Harrison's latest book The End of Everything after I read the Guardian review here. As quite a literal reader I am uncomfortable with stories that aren't particularly clear on what's happening, or layer meaning upon meaning. Nonetheless I decided to give it ago, not least because I very much like end
As Socialist Worker editor Tomáš Tengely-Evans has had to cover more than their share of imperialist conflict and the threat of such conflict. In the last few years we've seen war in the Middle East, genocide in Palestine, a bloody proxy-war between Nato and Russia over Ukraine and Trump's aggression against countries as varied as Greenland, Canada and Venezula. Understanding the tendency
From the end of World War One through to the 1950s Eastern Europe's peasant societies were engaged in a new continuous "Peasant War". It is a struggle that is rarely acknowledged, except perhaps by those looking to understand the dynamics between workers and peasants during the Russian Revolution. Those who do study these events tend to seem the separately, as struggles around particular events,
Despite my love of Iain M. Banks' science fiction novels I have never read Feersum Endjinn. When I first attempted it soon after it's first publication in the mid 1990s, I was put of by the "difficult" chapters. These are written phonetically, and I found them impenetrable. Today, after nearly three decades of text speak, I was less challenged by them. Perhaps younger audiences will find them
The third volume of Bryan D. Palmer's trilogy on the history of Canada brings the account right up to the present date. Indeed, so recent is some of the material that it covers 2025. It means that there's the slightly uncanny experience, for this reader at least, of reading a history book cover events that are part of your own experience.Palmer opens his book by making a general point about the
Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry is a delightfully cynical black comedy. It is also a book very much for our times. The eponymous Elmer Gantry is a happy go lucky young man, brought up in a stifling religious home, but now at college he's a partying, womanising and drinking law student. Realising that becoming a lawyer is hard work, and will likely keep him poor, he decides on a different course of
Volume two of Bryan D. Palmer's trilogy on the history of Canada begins where the previous book left off. But, as Palmer immediately notes, Canada on the cusp of the twentieth century "was remarkably different than the disparate collection of British North American colonies" that had come out of the 17th century. Canada was now a fully fledged capitalist nation, with economic crises to prove it,
Three great works of Marxism mark the transition from Marx and Engels' work on economics into the modern era. They are Lenin's Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Nikolai Bukharin's Imperialism and World Economy and Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital. Each of them was written to attempt to engage with a changing world - one where Great Powers had divided up the world and were
In January 1848, Francesco Bagnasco, a radical Scilian who believed in the "universal regeneration" of society in the face of inequality, unemployment and hunger, spoke:The time of useless prayers has passed. The protests, the pleas, the peaceful demonstrations were useless. Fedinand II viewed it all with contempt; and as for us, a free people reduced to chains and misery, will it take us yet
*** Spoilers ***Apparently R.F. Kuang explained the origins of her latest novel Katabasis on noting that "academia is hell" and extending this to what if academia was hell. In this sense it is a development of what has come to be known as "Dark Academia", a subset of fantasy novels that deal in horrors, violence and threat in universities. The dark side of academia.Katabasis begins like many a
Grey Ginther and Ezzy Desjarlais are two Métis cousins living in an old trailer near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Their days are a mix of drinking and endless card games; listless and dull. Grey is a disillusioned environmental and indigenous rights activist, fed up of the corporate NGO lobbyists, and the endless treadmill of well meaning white activists whose trajectory from college to NGO jobs or
I picked up Talk Treaty to Me at a left-wing bookshop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of my reading during a trip to Canada this month. Indigenous struggles over land, social and ecological issues have come to the forefront frequently in the last few decades as social movements by Indigenous people have fought to defend and extend their rights, and these have meshed with wider environmental and
A Column of Fire is the third book in the Kingsbridge series - Ken Follett's incredible popular novels set around the mythical Cathedral town of Kingsbridge. One of the reasons for their popularity in my opinion is that they focus on the ordinary people of the town, artisans, traders, workers and servants, and their relationships and working life. The first novel, which centred on the building of
The corvette convoy escort ships from World War II have gained a remarkable amount of fame for a small ship that was designed to fill a military gap. As the submarine war against Allied shipping escalated in the first years of the war, convoy protection became an urgent requirement. Yet no ships existed to fill this role, and navies had little experience, despite similar events in the First War.
The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, was perhaps the important event of the 'Arab Spring'. It was a seminal moment for me, and a generation of activists who saw Revolution on the TV and social media on a nightly basis. I, like many other activists, followed events closely. The fall of the dictator Hosni Mubarak was a joyous day.Hossam El-Hamalawy was an activist, socialist and journalist during those
The rise of global far-right and fascist parties and movements is something of great concern to working people. It is, perhaps, the most dangerous time that the left has faced since the 1930s. While fascists and right-wingers have evolved and changed, as this penetrating article by Richard Donnelly shows, their core purpose remains intact. They aim for the complete destruction of democratic
How would you react if suddenly, out of the blue, you discovered that everything you were certain about your parents was untrue? This is what happens to Julie Walker in Lis Angus' latest thriller. Julie lives a happy life as the mother of three teenage kids, happily maried to husband Matt, with a decent job at Ottawa's main public library. One day she meets Frances Boyle at work. Frances brings
Preparing for a trip to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton one is struck how the interconnected history of Indigenous people and immigrants remain central to the region, and indeed the formation of modern Canada as a whole. Alistair Macleod's No Great Mischief focuses on the immigrant experience, those who left Scotland to settle in Nova Scotia, to work its land and mines and build a better life. It is
Lenin's short book on Imperialism is perhaps the best known of his extensive writings. So well known, in fact, that the edition I've just read is number 96 of the Penguin "Great Ideas" series. Make of that what you will. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism remains a key reference point because of the continuation of imperialism itself. It is a succinct presentation and defence of the
First published in 1899 with a new edition in 1908, Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia is a systematic exploration of the Russian economy at the start of the century. It is based on an extremely detailed reading of official studies and statistics for the Russian economy, something that can prove daunting to the reader as Lenin repeatedly cites figures for machinery, land, farms,
I stumbled upon Willa Cather's O Pioneers!' due to my interest in the people and history of the North American praire. First published in 1913, but in part based on the authors' own experiences as a youngster in the late 1800s, it feels like a very modern novel. Alexandra Bergson is the capable and highly intelligent daughter of her and her brothers' beloved widowed father. On his death she