Book Reviews - Counterfire

The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself - book review

Richard D. Wolff in The Sickness is the System exposes the flaws and failures in the capitalist economic system, and argues for workplace democracy, finds Phil Armstrong

The Adventures of the Communist Manifesto - book review

Hal Draper’s edition of the Communist Manifesto with commentary strips away layers of falsifications and misconceptions to reveal afresh Marx’s meaning, finds Dominic Alexander

Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age - book review

Monopsony Capitalism brings competition into the centre of industrial organisation theory and shows how labour is an agent in the power struggle, finds Orlando Hill

The University and Social Justice: Struggles Across the Globe - book review

Student movements all over the world, covered in The University and Social Justice, show the potential student protest has to challenge the current order, finds Graham Kirkwood

The Spark That Lit the Revolution: Lenin in London and the Politics that Changed the World - book review

Robert Henderson’s book on Lenin’s time in London allows for a detailed focus on Lenin in the context of his political debates, organisation and research, finds Alex Snowdon

Cuban Healthcare: The Ongoing Revolution - book review

Cuban Healthcare provides a stimulating overview of the possibilities of a healthcare system free of the profit motive, but lacks some critical distance, argues Caitlin Southern

Dead Epidemiologists. On the origins of COVID-19 - book review

Rob Wallace in Dead Epidemiologists shows that the Covid pandemic is not random, but a product of recent change in industrialised agribusiness, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century - book review

Horne’s history of early colonialism in the Americas reveals how structures of racism were constructed to support the development of capitalism, finds Jamal Elaheebocus

Engels 200 – His Contribution to Political Economy - book review

The central importance of the revolutionary Friedrich Engels to Marxism, as an individual thinker as well as collaborator, is forcefully argued in Roberts’ Engels 200, finds John Clarke

Counterfire's books of 2020

It's been a turbulent year, but there hasn't been a shortage of books to read, so we asked some leading activists what they've been reading in 2020

How To Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic - book review

The first-UK specific edition of the classic deconstruction of the imperialism and racism that underpinned Disney’s comics remains eye-opening, finds Dominic Alexander

Too Hot to Handle? The Democratic Challenge of Climate Change - book review

Willis in Too Hot to Handle? rightly says that more democracy is needed to deal with climate change, but this needs to go beyond neoliberal limits, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself - book review

Richard D. Wolff in The Sickness is the System exposes the flaws and failures in the capitalist economic system, and argues for workplace democracy, finds Phil Armstrong

The Adventures of the Communist Manifesto - book review

Hal Draper’s edition of the Communist Manifesto with commentary strips away layers of falsifications and misconceptions to reveal afresh Marx’s meaning, finds Dominic Alexander

Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age - book review

Monopsony Capitalism brings competition into the centre of industrial organisation theory and shows how labour is an agent in the power struggle, finds Orlando Hill

The University and Social Justice: Struggles Across the Globe - book review

Student movements all over the world, covered in The University and Social Justice, show the potential student protest has to challenge the current order, finds Graham Kirkwood

The Spark That Lit the Revolution: Lenin in London and the Politics that Changed the World - book review

Robert Henderson’s book on Lenin’s time in London allows for a detailed focus on Lenin in the context of his political debates, organisation and research, finds Alex Snowdon

Cuban Healthcare: The Ongoing Revolution - book review

Cuban Healthcare provides a stimulating overview of the possibilities of a healthcare system free of the profit motive, but lacks some critical distance, argues Caitlin Southern

Dead Epidemiologists. On the origins of COVID-19 - book review

Rob Wallace in Dead Epidemiologists shows that the Covid pandemic is not random, but a product of recent change in industrialised agribusiness, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century - book review

Horne’s history of early colonialism in the Americas reveals how structures of racism were constructed to support the development of capitalism, finds Jamal Elaheebocus

Engels 200 – His Contribution to Political Economy - book review

The central importance of the revolutionary Friedrich Engels to Marxism, as an individual thinker as well as collaborator, is forcefully argued in Roberts’ Engels 200, finds John Clarke

Counterfire's books of 2020

It's been a turbulent year, but there hasn't been a shortage of books to read, so we asked some leading activists what they've been reading in 2020

How To Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic - book review

The first-UK specific edition of the classic deconstruction of the imperialism and racism that underpinned Disney’s comics remains eye-opening, finds Dominic Alexander

Too Hot to Handle? The Democratic Challenge of Climate Change - book review

Willis in Too Hot to Handle? rightly says that more democracy is needed to deal with climate change, but this needs to go beyond neoliberal limits, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

Help boost radical media and socialist organisation